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"2013-2018: I revisited this conjecture every time when I learn a new tool, without any success though. But at least thinking about it helps me quickly fall asl
by j7ake 7y ago
"2013-2018: I revisited this conjecture every time when I learn a new tool, without any success though. But at least thinking about it helps me quickly fall asleep many nights."
I believe Feynmann said the best people always had the top unsolved problems in the top of their minds and whenever a new technique or result arrived, they would drop everything and try out the new attack on the old problem.
- vanderZwan 7y agoI'm kind of surprised it helped him fall asleep. Whenever my brain starts to think about technical problems in the middle of the night I know I have a few hours of wakeful puzzling ahead of me
- j7ake 7y agoI find reading technical work makes my brain fall asleep very quickly. I am sure if I read Knuth's books at night I would be asleep within fifteen minutes. I am not sure thinking about technical work would help sleep, because thinking could be orthogonal to reading.
- vanderZwan 7y agoOh, I'm with you regarding technical reading being a good way to fall asleep! But reading someone else's train of thought is a different way to engage the brain than trying to figure out a mathematical proof on your own - that's a lot more like what pondering over programming problems would be like for us I think
- H8crilA 7y agoI had a friend at university who studied mathematics with me (I studied both maths and computer science, but he was a genuine mathematician, and a pretty good one, much better than me), and he told me that he often takes problems "to bed". After that he would often wake up with at least a half solution in his head. Sometimes a full solution. Ramanujan was like that too. He believed that a goddess sends him solutions in his sleep. Not sure if the goddess is real, but the formulas certainly were real. http://www.oceanvivasilver.com/5-namakkals-infinity-dream-srinivasa-ramanuja http://www.oceanvivasilver.com/5-namakkals-infinity-dream-sr...
- vardhanw 7y agoThe goddess he refers to: https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Namagiri_Thayar https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Namagiri_Thayar
- deehouie 7y agoThis speaks to very interesting difference in biological constitution. Like the two comments below, I find my mind working harder asleep than awake. More than once I went to bed with a problem and wake up either with a solution, or with a much better perspective on the problem.