The Art of Doing Science and Engineering: Learning to Learn A Book by Richard Hamming www.amazon.com The Art of Doing Science and Engineering is the full expression of what "You and Your Research" outlined. It's a book about thinking; more specifically, a style of thinking by which great ideas are conceived. Gifts of knowledge to humanityHamming-greatnessIt cannot be taught in wordsPreparing for problemsStudent's future, not teacher's past+33 More You and Your ResearchChance favors the prepared mindSerendipity learningscienceengineeringdiscovery
You and Your Research A Speech by Richard Hamming www.cs.virginia.edu This talk centered on Hamming's observations and research on the question "Why do so few scientists make significant contributions and so many are forgotten in the long run?" Important problemsOpen doors, open mindsInverting the problemIntellectual investment is like compound interestGreat people can tolerate ambiguity+2 More The Art of Doing Science and Engineering: Learning to Learn researchdiscoverycreativitylearning
95%-ile isn't that good An Article by Dan Luu danluu.com Reaching 95Mistakes at the top Waste as little effort as possible on low competence talent
Reaching 95 Reaching 95%-ile isn't very impressive because it's not that hard to do. I think this is one of my most ridiculable ideas. It doesn't help that, when stated nakedly, that sounds elitist. But I think it's just the opposite: most people can become (relatively) good at most things. Note that when I say 95%-ile, I mean 95%-ile among people who participate, not all people (for many activities, just doing it at all makes you 99%-ile or above across all people). I'm also not referring to 95%-ile among people who practice regularly. The "one weird trick" is that, for a lot of activities, being something like 10%-ile among people who practice can make you something like 90%-ile or 99%-ile among people who participate. skillpractice
Mistakes at the top Personally, in every activity I've participated in where it's possible to get a rough percentile ranking, people who are 95%-ile constantly make mistakes that seem like they should be easy to observe and correct. "Real world" activities typically can't be reduced to a percentile rating, but achieving what appears to be a similar level of proficiency seems similarly easy. skillmistakes