You and Your Research- Hamming
Do you want to do exceptional work? If so, this talk is valuable. Hamming directly describes key differentiators between average and great scientists.
My Takeways *in no specific order, although I like 1, 4, 7*
1. Create Your Own Luck.
“Luck favors the prepared mind.” Many great scientists and successful individuals repeatedly do good things. Can it be all luck?
Newton said, “If others would think as hard I did, then they would get similar results.”
2. Have Courage.
“That is the characteristic of great scientists; they have courage. They will go forward under incredible circumstances; they think and continue to think.”
3. Age Makes a Difference.
“When you are famous it is hard to work on small problems.”
4. Knowledge Follows Compound Interest.
“Knowledge and productivity are like compound interest. Given two people of approximately the same ability and one person who works ten percent more than the other, the latter will more than twice outproduce the former.”
“The more you know, the more you learn; the more you learn, the more you can do; the more you can do, the more the opportunity - it is very much like compound interest.”
“Given two people with exactly the same ability, the one person who manages day in and day out to get in one more hour of thinking will be tremendously more productive over a lifetime.”
5. What You Work On Matters.
“The steady application of effort with a little bit more work, intelligently applied is what does it. That’s the trouble; drive, misapplied, doesn’t get you anywhere.”
6. Balance Ambiguity.
“If you believe too much you’ll never notice the flaws; if you doubt too much you won’t get started. It requires a lovely balance.”
7. Unlock Your Subconscious.
"If you are deeply immersed and committed to a topic, day after day after day, your subconscious has nothing to do but work on your problem. For those who don't get committed to their current problem, the subconscious goofs off on other things and doesn't produce the big result. So the way to manage yourself is that when you have a real important problem you don't let anything else get the center of your attention - you keep your thoughts on the problem. Keep your subconscious starved so it has to work on your problem."
8. Attack Opportunities.
“The great scientists, when an opportunity opens up, get after it and they pursue it. They drop all other things. They get rid of other things and they get after an idea.”
9. Learn to Sell.
“You have to learn to write clearly and well so that people will read it, you must learn to give reasonably formal talks, and you also must learn to give informal talks.”
10. Use your Ego.
“I used my ego to make myself behave the way I wanted to. I bragged about something so I'd have to perform.”