Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Many famous scientists have something in common: they didn’t work long hours

nautil.us

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

91–100 of 304 posts

Re: Many famous scientists have something in common: they didn’t work long hours

#91

Post by cgriswald »

Afton wrote: post #84
cgriswald wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree about school. I see people constantly trying to use pattern matching and memorization to pass tests; always doing extra credit; putting too much effort into minor things; and exacerbating all of these problems by taking too many units in an effort to get out early. I don't know how they're not already burnt out. Meanwhile I never specifically study for a test. I've just studied regularly every day, thought ab…

You're point about the wrong impact is spot on. I have a gift of getting good grades. I know what things will be on the test, I know how to answer questions so that I leave enough wiggle room to avoid exposing ignorance on a topic, and I know how to structure an answer to get partial credit if I really don't know how to answer a question. My GPA in my first undergraduate class was essentially all A+s (curse you intro…

Right on. I strongly believe that if we do not admit something about ourselves, we cannot change that thing about ourselves. The most important skill I think I've ever learned in my life is to say "I don't know" often and unabashedly.

For me, saying "I don't know" was more of a social fear than an academic one. I thought people only liked me for my performance. But, like you, I learned that saying it didn't really affect the outcomes I thought it would, but it did result in learning a ton more. And I think, socially, it actually helped, because it humanized me to people who just saw me as "that super smart guy who gets good grades". I was no longer a machine they could not compete with, but a companion in the same struggle.

It's also much less exhausting just being true all the time, rather than trying to achieve some arbitrary educational or social metric.

Re: Many famous scientists have something in common: they didn’t work long hours

#92

Post by tyoverby »

smokeyj wrote: post #46
YCode wrote: post #7

> Scientists who spent 25 hours in the workplace were no more productive than those who spent five. Anecdotally this is a concept I've run into in many areas of life, the most overt one being school, I suppose because it's so easily quantified. You can do a moderately acceptable amount of work on any given assignment and get a C+, work hard for a B/A or work your hands to the bone for an A+, but at the end of the day…

> I suppose because it's so easily quantified. I wonder what's being quantified.. intelligence or obedience. This would be like rating a strong-man competition by how much time was spent in the gym and how much unnecessary pain was self-inflicted. It's like there's a culture of "pain enthusiasts". They do things like talk about running until it hurts, they tend to get injured often, and of course they have nothing to…

"time in the gym" is way easier to measure than tangible improvement. It's not surprising that people try to optimize things that are the easiest to graph in Excel :P

Re: Many famous scientists have something in common: they didn’t work long hours

#93

Post by rhodysurf »

YCode wrote: post #7

> Scientists who spent 25 hours in the workplace were no more productive than those who spent five. Anecdotally this is a concept I've run into in many areas of life, the most overt one being school, I suppose because it's so easily quantified. You can do a moderately acceptable amount of work on any given assignment and get a C+, work hard for a B/A or work your hands to the bone for an A+, but at the end of the day…

I subscribed to this school of thought in college. I worked WAYYYYY less than my roommates and got the same engineering degree with a slightly worse GPA (I had a 2.93 at graduation and they had all above 3.2). It didnt hurt my job prospects because I had side projects I thought were fun and was involved in a few extracurriculars.

Edit: I also realize that this isn't for everyone

Re: Many famous scientists have something in common: they didn’t work long hours

#94

Post by maloney »

tyoverby wrote: post #92
smokeyj wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I suppose because it's so easily quantified. I wonder what's being quantified.. intelligence or obedience. This would be like rating a strong-man competition by how much time was spent in the gym and how much unnecessary pain was self-inflicted. It's like there's a culture of "pain enthusiasts". They do things like talk about running until it hurts, they tend to get injured often, and of course they have nothing to…

"time in the gym" is way easier to measure than tangible improvement. It's not surprising that people try to optimize things that are the easiest to graph in Excel :P

Really? Lifting more weight, running a faster mile or losing weight are just as easy to measure.

Re: Many famous scientists have something in common: they didn’t work long hours

#95

Post by Trundle »

linkregister wrote: post #90
cgriswald wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree about school. I see people constantly trying to use pattern matching and memorization to pass tests; always doing extra credit; putting too much effort into minor things; and exacerbating all of these problems by taking too many units in an effort to get out early. I don't know how they're not already burnt out. Meanwhile I never specifically study for a test. I've just studied regularly every day, thought ab…

I congratulate you on your innate talent that allows you to excel that way. In various subjects, particularly abstract mathematics, I had to grind heavily in order to keep up with the class. I attended every office hours and pattern matched heavily, studying into the wee hours. (I had tried your method and failed in previous semesters). Other subjects I had no problem. Low-level operating systems, writing, literary d…

He may not be forgetting them but rather taking them in to account and picking his pursuits based on it. That's what I do and I think it very much fits in to the same dynamic of valuing efficient use of time or being determined to achieve X. I stick to things I have a natural aptitude for.

Re: Many famous scientists have something in common: they didn’t work long hours

#96

Post by jfv »

Maybe I missed it in this story, but this anecdote about Poincare himself is apropos:

"The famous French mathematician Henri Poincaré was very interested in mathematical creativity. He describes a period of hard and seemingly fruitless effort to solve a problem, from which he took a break to join a geological expedition. As he was stepping on a bus, he made one of the most important breakthroughs of his life. The solution came to him out of nowhere, and was accompanied by a perfect certainty as to its correctness"

(from this blog: https://kjosic.wordpress.com/2012/06/19/creativity-and-waste...)

Re: Many famous scientists have something in common: they didn’t work long hours

#97

Post by [deleted] »

differentView wrote: post #82
YCode wrote: post #7

> Scientists who spent 25 hours in the workplace were no more productive than those who spent five. Anecdotally this is a concept I've run into in many areas of life, the most overt one being school, I suppose because it's so easily quantified. You can do a moderately acceptable amount of work on any given assignment and get a C+, work hard for a B/A or work your hands to the bone for an A+, but at the end of the day…

Ah, the old "What do they call the person who graduates last in medical school?"

[deleted]

Re: Many famous scientists have something in common: they didn’t work long hours

#98

Post by JoeAltmaier »

jfv wrote: post #96

Maybe I missed it in this story, but this anecdote about Poincare himself is apropos: "The famous French mathematician Henri Poincaré was very interested in mathematical creativity. He describes a period of hard and seemingly fruitless effort to solve a problem, from which he took a break to join a geological expedition. As he was stepping on a bus, he made one of the most important breakthroughs of his life. The sol…

Similar to what Gelman said about what he called the Feynman method: "Step one: write down the problem statement. Step 2: think real hard. Step 3: write down the problem solution."

His point was, I think, that not every scientist can work that way. Some are real treasures, come along one in a generation.

Re: Many famous scientists have something in common: they didn’t work long hours

#99

Post by elbear »

xiaoma wrote: post #54
amelius wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those people are not scientists. Lookup Musk on Wikipedia and you'll find that he has a BSc. only, and he started a PhD only to quit after a few weeks to pursue his business endeavors. Jobs dropped out of University. And Gates is probably closest to a scientist, although I'm not aware of any research by him.

> "Lookup Musk on Wikipedia and you'll find that he has a BSc. only, and he started a PhD only to quit after a few weeks to pursue his business endeavors." Three of the most important scientific papers in modern history—uncovering the photoelectric effect, Brownian motion and the special theory of relativity—were written about a hundred years ago by a man who could only sign them "Mr." when first writing them. About…

At the same time, how many of the 3 are (were) doing scientific work?

Re: Many famous scientists have something in common: they didn’t work long hours

#100

Post by xiaoma »

wl wrote: post #87
xiaoma wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "Lookup Musk on Wikipedia and you'll find that he has a BSc. only, and he started a PhD only to quit after a few weeks to pursue his business endeavors." Three of the most important scientific papers in modern history—uncovering the photoelectric effect, Brownian motion and the special theory of relativity—were written about a hundred years ago by a man who could only sign them "Mr." when first writing them. About…

Einstein finished his doctorate in 1905. He certainly was entitled to be prefixed "Dr." in 1906.

All three papers mentioned were published in 1905, also known as his Annus Mirabilis. The one that won him the Nobel Prize was received in March, before he'd even finished his thesis (on a different topic). The work itself was done prior to submission, of course.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annus_Mirabilis_papers

Post reply on HN