2 ms·

I don't think it would have helped, but I suspect it's less a distracting background offering serendipity/weak contacts and more basic expectations of finishing

by gwern 9y ago

I don't think it would have helped, but I suspect it's less a distracting background offering serendipity/weak contacts and more basic expectations of finishing and communicating things. The IAS has something of a bad reputation for fostering rest rather than revolution (I think both Hamming and Feynman criticized it in rather strong terms). You should also remember that Shannon was given carte blanch at MIT because he was so famous and respected, and that's exactly when his public output went to zero. Not that he didn't keep himself busy (he did a ton of stock trading and other things which is where Shannon's volatility harvesting comes from etc) but without any kind of external constraint or direction... I was shocked to learn that Claude Shannon died in 2001, because from how he drops out of all histories in the '50s-60s, I always sort of assumed he had died around then, relatively young. (Probably a fair number of HNers could learn from Shannon's bad example: shipping matters!)

chubot 9y ago
Huh? He did more than a lifetime of work, and happened to do it early in life. It sounds like he worked on whatever was interesting to him. If those things weren't interesting to others, so be it. I find it very odd that you would call this a bad example and relate it to the relatively prosaic idea of "shipping". Shipping is good when you need feedback, but that's not the kind work he was doing.
- gwern 9y ago
  He did less than a lifetime of work because he did almost all of his work early in his lifetime. Then he selfishly betrayed his agreement with society and MIT by spending decades of tenure fiddling with his toys, and underachieved his potential. He probably could have done so much more with his talent if he had just some more structure to his life. That is why he is a cautionary example - he was a victim of his own success. You can have all the talent in the world and casually revolutionize fields as different as genetics and electronics when you bother to finish something, but if you don't put in the work, nothing will happen and you will squander it all. > Shipping is good when you need feedback, but that's not the kind work he was doing. No, Shannon was a genius and didn't need much in the way of feedback. Shipping is good because it requires you to complete the project and take it from 99% finished & only 1% useful to 100% finished & 100% useful, and it makes it available to the rest of the world, instead of buried in your estate's papers for a journalist like William Poundstone to uncover decades later after it would have been useful if it had been completed & published in a timely fashion.
  - chubot 9y ago
    This is one of the odder things I've read on the Internet... I think you're misunderstanding the nature of fundamental research. Nobody knows in advance which ideas will be groundbreaking and what won't. Most people who have made big discoveries spend huge amounts of time on things that will go nowhere, or "toys". I'm pretty sure there's at least an entire chapter of one of Feynman's books devoted to this. People who make big breakthroughs tend not to be the kind of people who are self-consciously trying to make big breakthroughs. They just do what they want, guided by their own curiosity. The whole point of tenure is to insulate you from pressure on what to work on. Maybe some people at MIT were critical of Shannon; I have no idea. But that's the nature of creativity. You can't manage it. If MIT wanted they could get rid of the tenure system, but that would be a horrible idea. If he didn't want to work on things he was "supposed to", so be it. The entire theory of information wasn't something he was "supposed to" work on either. Your idea of 'shipping' also seems to indicate a misunderstanding of the research process.
    - gwern 9y ago
      I understand fundamental research just fine. I suggest you reread my comments and perhaps also read the bio and earlier materials on Shannon like _Fortune's Formula_. Finishing papers does not blight precious snowflakes like Shannon, nor would it shatter his delicate psyche. Not finishing drafts of papers was not critical to his genius and creativity. Shannon is far from the first person to procrastinate and be passive-aggressive, and the remedies would have been the same for him as for anyone else if his environment had been less in awe of him and following Romantic ideas of geniuses like those you espouse where their sacred solitude cannot be disturbed. > Your idea of 'shipping' also seems to indicate a misunderstanding of the research process. Publishing is pretty darn critical to the research process...

by gwern 9y ago

chubot 9y ago

Huh? He did more than a lifetime of work, and happened to do it early in life. It sounds like he worked on whatever was interesting to him. If those things weren't interesting to others, so be it. I find it very odd that you would call this a bad example and relate it to the relatively prosaic idea of "shipping". Shipping is good when you need feedback, but that's not the kind work he was doing.

gwern 9y ago
He did less than a lifetime of work because he did almost all of his work early in his lifetime. Then he selfishly betrayed his agreement with society and MIT by spending decades of tenure fiddling with his toys, and underachieved his potential. He probably could have done so much more with his talent if he had just some more structure to his life. That is why he is a cautionary example - he was a victim of his own success. You can have all the talent in the world and casually revolutionize fields as different as genetics and electronics when you bother to finish something, but if you don't put in the work, nothing will happen and you will squander it all. > Shipping is good when you need feedback, but that's not the kind work he was doing. No, Shannon was a genius and didn't need much in the way of feedback. Shipping is good because it requires you to complete the project and take it from 99% finished & only 1% useful to 100% finished & 100% useful, and it makes it available to the rest of the world, instead of buried in your estate's papers for a journalist like William Poundstone to uncover decades later after it would have been useful if it had been completed & published in a timely fashion.
- chubot 9y ago
  This is one of the odder things I've read on the Internet... I think you're misunderstanding the nature of fundamental research. Nobody knows in advance which ideas will be groundbreaking and what won't. Most people who have made big discoveries spend huge amounts of time on things that will go nowhere, or "toys". I'm pretty sure there's at least an entire chapter of one of Feynman's books devoted to this. People who make big breakthroughs tend not to be the kind of people who are self-consciously trying to make big breakthroughs. They just do what they want, guided by their own curiosity. The whole point of tenure is to insulate you from pressure on what to work on. Maybe some people at MIT were critical of Shannon; I have no idea. But that's the nature of creativity. You can't manage it. If MIT wanted they could get rid of the tenure system, but that would be a horrible idea. If he didn't want to work on things he was "supposed to", so be it. The entire theory of information wasn't something he was "supposed to" work on either. Your idea of 'shipping' also seems to indicate a misunderstanding of the research process.
  - gwern 9y ago
    I understand fundamental research just fine. I suggest you reread my comments and perhaps also read the bio and earlier materials on Shannon like _Fortune's Formula_. Finishing papers does not blight precious snowflakes like Shannon, nor would it shatter his delicate psyche. Not finishing drafts of papers was not critical to his genius and creativity. Shannon is far from the first person to procrastinate and be passive-aggressive, and the remedies would have been the same for him as for anyone else if his environment had been less in awe of him and following Romantic ideas of geniuses like those you espouse where their sacred solitude cannot be disturbed. > Your idea of 'shipping' also seems to indicate a misunderstanding of the research process. Publishing is pretty darn critical to the research process...