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From the article: > And, to be honest, it didn’t really matter how much his colleagues protested. As director of the Space Telescope Science Institute, he had

by hawski 6y ago

From the article: > And, to be honest, it didn’t really matter how much his colleagues protested. As director of the Space Telescope Science Institute, he had a certain amount of Hubble’s time at his personal disposal. “The telescope allocation committee would never have approved such a long, risky project,” he explains. “But as director, I had 10 percent of the telescope time, and I could do what I wanted.” Also: > “Scientific discovery requires risk,” Williams says. “And I was at a point in my career where I said, “If it’s that bad, I’ll resign. I‘ll fall on my sword.’”

supernova87a 6y ago
Well, my opinion (now) is that it wasn't so huge a gamble and completely unknown. The galaxy luminosity function (# galaxies per brightness, basically for those unfamiliar) is a curve they knew the beginnings of through images to date, and it wasn't unreasonable to suppose it would keep going beyond what had been done. It's not like you would expect galaxies to suddenly stop being found if you took exposures a little deeper. It was a good (and not outrageous) bet. I would liken it to -- if we built a better microscope and looked deeper into a cell, is it likely we'd find nothing new? Probably not.
- Complexicate 6y ago
  I'm glad you prefaced this with "(now)" ie: hindsight. There's always a considerable chance that tests of the untested / unproven will remain inconclusive, even if there's some evidence we should find something. It's extremely risky to allocate a huge amount of finite resources to these unknowns, when there are so many areas we KNOW we can help advance with those finite resources. The fact that he was ready to retire, if the picture came back with barely anything in it, gives a sense of how bad that waste of resources would have been. Future us might not think it is such a gamble to send a probe to look for life in the oceans of Saturn's moon Enceladus. There's evidence of abiogenesis from deep sea vents on Earth, and Enceladus has very similar conditions. But present us knows there are so many unknowns and possibilities of failure even if something is there. And there are so many other useful ways to use the finite resources of our space program. It took a lot of courage on Bob Williams' part to explore this.
- simonh 6y ago
  Except the models they had at the time indicated there should be a lot fewer galaxies than they actually found. Five times fewer. I that’s what the deep field had shown, it would merely have confirmed what people already thought they knew anyway. The reason the actual deep field is so interesting is because it dramatically expanded the scale of the observable universe. If it hadn’t done that, we wouldn’t be talking about it.
qwertox 6y ago
10% is a remarkable amount of time. I was astonished when I read that number. I would have expected it to be around 1% at max.
- evanb 6y ago
  Discretionary time is usually given to projects which otherwise didn't get any time, it's not usually hoarded for the director himself.
  - nitrogen 6y ago
    I hadn't heard of this concept before, but I find it appealing. It's kind of like an insurance policy against groupthink, or a diversified long bet. More projects should have a small percentage of time dedicated to a drastically different allocation process, with iron-clad protection (like "director's discretion") to prevent manipulation, to help prevent getting stuck.
    - amenghra 6y ago
      At tech companies, it’s often in the form of hackathons, hackweeks, or 20% time.
      - wolco 6y ago
        Is 20% a real thing anywhere, aside from select google employees?
        marcyb5st 6y ago
        Googler here. Yes, in my team we have a colleague that is spending one day a week trying to solve a particular problem we have with a completely novel approach. He had an idea after we presented what we are up to in one of our Org summit. Furthermore, it is really a streamlined process, ie you only need your manager approval.

by hawski 6y ago

supernova87a 6y ago

Well, my opinion (now) is that it wasn't so huge a gamble and completely unknown. The galaxy luminosity function (# galaxies per brightness, basically for those unfamiliar) is a curve they knew the beginnings of through images to date, and it wasn't unreasonable to suppose it would keep going beyond what had been done. It's not like you would expect galaxies to suddenly stop being found if you took exposures a little deeper. It was a good (and not outrageous) bet. I would liken it to -- if we built a better microscope and looked deeper into a cell, is it likely we'd find nothing new? Probably not.

Complexicate 6y ago
I'm glad you prefaced this with "(now)" ie: hindsight. There's always a considerable chance that tests of the untested / unproven will remain inconclusive, even if there's some evidence we should find something. It's extremely risky to allocate a huge amount of finite resources to these unknowns, when there are so many areas we KNOW we can help advance with those finite resources. The fact that he was ready to retire, if the picture came back with barely anything in it, gives a sense of how bad that waste of resources would have been. Future us might not think it is such a gamble to send a probe to look for life in the oceans of Saturn's moon Enceladus. There's evidence of abiogenesis from deep sea vents on Earth, and Enceladus has very similar conditions. But present us knows there are so many unknowns and possibilities of failure even if something is there. And there are so many other useful ways to use the finite resources of our space program. It took a lot of courage on Bob Williams' part to explore this.
simonh 6y ago
Except the models they had at the time indicated there should be a lot fewer galaxies than they actually found. Five times fewer. I that’s what the deep field had shown, it would merely have confirmed what people already thought they knew anyway. The reason the actual deep field is so interesting is because it dramatically expanded the scale of the observable universe. If it hadn’t done that, we wouldn’t be talking about it.

qwertox 6y ago

10% is a remarkable amount of time. I was astonished when I read that number. I would have expected it to be around 1% at max.

evanb 6y ago
Discretionary time is usually given to projects which otherwise didn't get any time, it's not usually hoarded for the director himself.
- nitrogen 6y ago
  I hadn't heard of this concept before, but I find it appealing. It's kind of like an insurance policy against groupthink, or a diversified long bet. More projects should have a small percentage of time dedicated to a drastically different allocation process, with iron-clad protection (like "director's discretion") to prevent manipulation, to help prevent getting stuck.
  - amenghra 6y ago
    At tech companies, it’s often in the form of hackathons, hackweeks, or 20% time.
    - wolco 6y ago
      Is 20% a real thing anywhere, aside from select google employees?
      - marcyb5st 6y ago
        Googler here. Yes, in my team we have a colleague that is spending one day a week trying to solve a particular problem we have with a completely novel approach. He had an idea after we presented what we are up to in one of our Org summit. Furthermore, it is really a streamlined process, ie you only need your manager approval.