You & Your Research 2011- @haroonmeer (haroon@thinkst.com) - - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

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You & Your Research 2011- @haroonmeer (haroon@thinkst.com) - - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

Oct 04, 2022 32 likes •1.27k views

You & Your Research 2011- @haroonmeer (haroon@thinkst.com) About: Me @haroonmeer haroon@thinkst.com http://cc.thinkst.com/speaker/Meer/Haroon/timeline/ http://cc.thinkst.com/speaker/Meer/Haroon/timeline/ http://cc.thinkst.com/

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You & Your Research

2011- @haroonmeer (haroon@thinkst.com)

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About: Me

http://cc.thinkst.com/speaker/Meer/Haroon/timeline/

@haroonmeer haroon@thinkst.com

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http://cc.thinkst.com/

(jameel@thinkst.com) / (@RC110)

http://cc.thinkst.com/speaker/Meer/Haroon/timeline/

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About: Dan

http://cc.thinkst.com/speaker/Kaminsky/Dan/

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About: Dan

http://cc.thinkst.com/speaker/Kaminsky/Dan/timeline/

...

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About: Dan

http://cc.thinkst.com/speaker/Kaminsky/Dan/links

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About: Me

http://cc.thinkst.com/speaker/Meer/Haroon/timeline/

@haroonmeer http://blog.thinkst.com

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About: You!

& Your Research

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For || Against ?

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For || Against ? YES!

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For Good Research

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What’s that?

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Stuff we did the past year.. <past year>

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http://blog.thinkst.com/2011/08/blackhat-according-to-twitter.html

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http://thinkst.com/stuff/ocv/osk-thinkst.pdf

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http://cc.thinkst.com/

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http://cc.thinkst.com/folklore/

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</past year>

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i’m obviously poorly qualified

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http://www.cs.virginia.edu/~robins/YouAndYourResearch.html

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“I'm not talking about ordinary run-of- the-mill research; I'm talking about great research” ... “I mean those kinds of things which we perceive are significant things.”

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Now, how did I come to do this study? ... I saw I was a stooge.

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I saw Feynman up close. I saw Fermi and Teller. I saw Oppenheimer. I saw Hans Bethe..

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I became very interested in the difference between those who do and those who might have done.

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2 Paragraphs in...

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ὁ δὲ ἀνεξέταστος βίος οὐ βιωτὸς ἀνθρώπῳ

  • Socrates
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I became very interested in the difference between those who do and those who might have done.

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I continued examining the questions, “Why?” and “What is the difference?”

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Wait. Wasn’t he a mathematician?

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I will talk mainly about science because that is what I have

  • studied. But .. much of what I say

applies to many fields. Outstanding work is characterized very much the same way in most fields,

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I have to get you to drop modesty and say to yourself, “Yes, I would like to do first-class work.”

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I find that the major

  • bjection is that people

think great science is done by luck.

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Well, consider Einstein. Note how many different things he did that were good. Was it all luck? Wasn't it a little too repetitive?

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You see again and again, that it is more than one thing from a good person.

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http://cc.thinkst.com/speaker/Zovi/Dino/timeline/

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“Luck favors the prepared mind” The prepared mind sooner or later finds something important and does it. So yes, it is luck. The particular thing you do is luck, but that you do something is not.

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So what’s a key characteristic ?

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independent thoughts + the courage to pursue them

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Lot’s of Brains? Great work is something else more than brains..

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Bill Pfann & Clogston!

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Once you get your courage up and believe that you can do important problems, then you can

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Once you get your courage up and believe that you can do important problems, then you can

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Once you get your courage up and believe that you can do important problems, then you can

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Once you get your courage up and believe that you can do important problems, then you can

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Once you get your courage up and believe that you can do important problems, then you can

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Once you get your courage up and believe that you can do important problems, then you can

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Once you get your courage up and believe that you can do important problems, then you can

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Age

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Einstein did things very early, and all the quantum mechanic fellows were disgustingly young when they did their best work..

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Wait? Are we too old?

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On the other hand, in music, politics and literature, often what we consider their best work was done late. I don't know how whatever field you are in fits this scale, but age has some effect.

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When you are famous it is hard to work on small problems. This is what did Shannon in. After information theory, what do you do for an encore?

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http://www.blackhat.com/presentations/bh-dc-09/Marlinspike/BlackHat-DC-09- Marlinspike-Defeating-SSL.pdf

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So you need lot’s of free time!

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This brings up the subject ..

  • f working conditions.

What most people think are the best working conditions, are not.

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So what you need is..

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Now for the matter of drive. You observe that most great scientists have tremendous drive.

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Newton said: “If others would think as hard as I did, then they would get similar results.”

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How can anybody my age know as much as John Tukey does?

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“You would be surprised Hamming, how much you would know if you worked as hard as he did that many years”

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Knowledge and productivity are like compound interest.

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Knowledge and productivity are like compound interest. 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

  • pportunity
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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.

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http://www.crackmes.de/users/crp/trace_q/solution/taviso

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http://www.crackmes.de/users/crp/trace_q/solution/taviso

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So it’s a little bit hard?

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Genius is 99% perspiration and 1% inspiration

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Karate Kid Ruined Us!

http://www.cracked.com/article_18544_how-the-karate-kid-ruined-modern-world.html

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It’s a lot hard!

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It comes down to an emotional

  • commitment. Most great scientists are

completely committed to their

  • problem. Those who don't become

committed seldom produce

  • utstanding, first-class work.
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Everybody who has studied creativity is driven finally to saying: “creativity comes out of your subconscious.”

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Everybody who has studied creativity is driven finally to saying: “creativity comes out of your subconscious.”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zGt3-fxOvug

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Everybody who has studied creativity is driven finally to saying: “creativity comes out of your subconscious.”

http://www.paulgraham.com/top.html

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Didn’t he ever rest?

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Lunch with the Chemists..

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What are the important problems of your field?

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What important problems are you working on?

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The average scientist, so far as I can make out, spends almost all his time working on problems which he believes will not be important and he also doesn't believe that they will lead to important problems.

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http://www.paulgraham.com/procrastination.html

Good & Bad Procrastination

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Great Thoughts Time.

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When we win it's with small things, and the triumph itself makes us small. What is extraordinary and eternal does not want to be bent by us.

http://www.poetry-chaikhana.com/R/RilkeRainerM/ManWatching.htm

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Be Prepared..

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Most great scientists know many important problems. They have something between 10 and 20 important problems for which they are looking for an attack. And when they see a new idea come up, one hears them say “Well that bears on this problem.” They drop all the other things and get after it.

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“a horror story” “they came in second!”

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What if I have to work on little problems?

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I want to talk on another topic. It is based on the song which I think many

  • f you know:

“It ain't what you do, it's the way that you do it.”

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You should do your job in such a fashion that others can build on top of it, so they will indeed say, “Yes, I've stood on so and so's shoulders and I saw further.”

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It's very ugly; you shouldn't have to do it

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it is not sufficient to do a job, you have to sell it.

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Summary

  • Work on important problems;
  • Deny that it is all luck (pasteur)
  • Great Thoughts
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Is the effort .. worth it?

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Absolutely.. The result is worth the struggle

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.. because the truth is, the value is in the struggle more than it is in the

  • result. The struggle to

make something of yourself seems to be worthwhile in

  • itself. The success and

fame are sort of dividends, in my opinion.

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so why do so many people, with all their talents, fail?

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Well, one of the reasons is drive and commitment.

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The people who do great work with less ability but who are committed to it, get more done that those who have great skill and dabble in it, who work during the day and go home and do other things and come back and work the next day.

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You can lead a nice life; .. or you can be a great scientist. If you want to lead a nice happy life with a lot of recreation and everything else, you'll lead a nice life.

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The second thing is, I think, the problem of personality defects.

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a .. personality defect is ego assertion..

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and then most presciently..

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Many a second-rate fellow gets caught up in some little twitting of the system, and carries it through to warfare.

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self delusion..

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There are so many alibis. Why weren't you first? Why didn't you do it right? Don't try an alibi. Don't try and kid yourself. You can tell

  • ther people all the alibis

you want. I don't mind. But to yourself try to be honest.

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you need to know yourself, your weaknesses, your strengths, and your bad faults, like my egotism.

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Summary

(People don’t win because)

  • Don’t work on important problems;
  • Don’t become emotionally involved;
  • Keep giving themselves alibis
  • Keep saying “it’s luck”
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I've told you how easy it is; furthermore I've told you how to reform. Therefore, go forth and become great

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Vragen ?

http://blog.thinkst.com @haroonmeer

www.cs.virginia.edu/~robins/YouAndYourResearch.html