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10,000 Hours with Claude Shannon (2017)
- j7ake 6y ago“His name may not ring a bell. Don’t worry, we didn’t know who he was either when we started.“ This really sounds like a weird quote that doesn’t help promote their book at all. Why would I want to read a biography written by people who didn’t know the person until five years ago? I guess that sentence tells all about who the target audience is for the book.
- Veen 6y ago> Why would I want to read a biography written by people who didn’t know the person until five years ago? Professional biographers are generalists who turn existing primary and secondary sources into a narrative of someone's life, perhaps with input from the subject, friends and family, etc. They need a fair bit of background knowledge, but they don't need to be experts in the field. It's a biography, not a technical survey or intellectual history, although it probably includes some elements of that. If you're interested in Shannon's life and want to understand something about his work in that context, this could be a useful to you. If you're primarily interested in his work, read a textbook or his publications. (although this post's vapidity isn't encouraging)
- cambalache 6y ago> Professional biographers are generalists who turn existing primary and secondary sources into a narrative of someone's life And that's why most "professional" biographies suck. I am not saying the biographer should dedicate their life to their subject , although it certainly does not hurt, but a certain level of competence beyond "just" reading the primary and secondaries sources is expected for a great biography. Sometimes you get that because of long experience, sometimes you get that because you knew the subject or because you have worked in the same field. If you want vapid books like this one or ,a little less charitably, Walter Isaacson's Einstein go for it. But if you want fantastic tour de forces like Westfall's "Never at Rest", Joseph Frank's series on Dostoevsky, Pais' "Subtle is the lord",Stach's books on Kafka you need an experienced world-class expert in the subject in a multi-year (sometimes, multi-decade) effort.
- spaetzleesser 6y agoIsaacson is definitely guilty of writing very readable but shallow biographies. Can you recommend any deep biographies about scientists or engineers?
- keiferski 6y agoAll of Ray Monk's biographies are supposedly excellent. I have only read the Wittgenstein one, but he also wrote some books on Bertrand Russell (philosopher/mathematician) and Oppenheimer (scientist.)
- cambalache 6y agoYeah, Isaacson revered as a great biographer, is like Jobs being lauded a great engineer. Anyway, here are some recommendations, hopefully you can pick one or two you still dont have: Einstein -> Subtle is the lord, Abraham Pais (Already mentioned) Newton -> Never at rest, Richard Westfall (Already mentioned) Galileo -> Galileo, John Heilbron Oppenheimer -> Inside the centre (Ray Monk), more technical: "Robert Oppenheimer, a life" A. Pais Euler -> Euler: The Master of Us All, William Dunham (This is less a biography more like a compedium, still recommended) Archimedes -> Archimedes, E.J Dijksterhuis(As many on this list, this is considered the seminal biography) Dirac -> The strangest man ,Graham Farmelo (This is a popular account by a good writer). Dirac: A Scientific Biography, Helge Kragh. More technical.
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- Bakary 6y agoRealistically, how would you know these biographies are actually that good? Suppose we took the most well-researched biography imaginable: a person who pores over a single life over decades and manages to find all or most of the material still available. In this hypothetical case, you are still sold a narrative that is based on the author's own impressions and reading of the material, and the material itself lacks important details about the person that could not be recorded due to their very nature. We can with some reasonable degree of certainty conclude that some bios are better than others and some bios are not worth reading at all, but in all cases you are left with an illusory understanding of the person.
- chrisseaton 6y ago> Why would I want to read a biography written by people who didn’t know the person until five years ago? Because they're a professional and competent biographer? I don't know if these people are that or not, but biography is a skill you can apply to people even if you don't know them well.
- spaetzleesser 6y agoOne problem I see is that a lot of biographies are pretty good at describing the person's life as far as social relations go but they usually don’t have only very shallow information about the actual topics that made the person famous. When I read the Steve Jobs biography I would have like to hear more about how he thought about technology and how product decisions were made vs his relationship to his daughter and so on. Same for scientists. Not sure how to do better but I think there is a risk that professional biographers describe only certain easily accessible facets of the person and not go into the depth of their work.
- patrec 6y agoIf you don't know who Claude Shannon is long before starting to write a biography about him, you are not competent to be his biographer. Unsurprisingly the article reads like run of the mill click-bait cant like Sun Tsu's 31 best pieces of leadership advice.
- Dangeranger 6y agoYes, this article has less to do with Claude Shannon and more to do with garden variety motto's like "Chaos is okay", and "Big picture first, details later". This is a theme I've found in shallow marketing copy that's optimized to raise to the top of a social feed instead of actually inform the reader of something substantial. It's quite sad, as Claude Shannon is a truly fascinating individual, but I will not read three-hundred pages of a book by this post's authors to hear more about him.
- chrisseaton 6y ago> If you don't know who Claude Shannon is long before starting to write a biography about him, you are not competent to be his biographer. It's not necessarily the job of the biographer to know the subject - they talk to people who know the subject.
- wombatmobile 6y agoSounds like a bio from a sausage factory. That would be better than nothing, and not as good as something written by a great writer who understood Claude Shannon's work. At this point, we can only take what we can get.
- nicholast 6y agoIt's true that this biography was not a great vehicle for understanding Shannon's technical contributions as they are in many cases glossed over, is much more focused on his professional arc, hobbies, family, kind of more about getting to know him outside of his papers. But Shannon was a very interesting character, lot's of oddball moments and projects. It's a fun read.
- danbruc 6y agoWhen I join a new software project I usually know nothing about the problem domain either. And sometimes not even about the tools or languages used. But that is not a problem because the skills actually required are the ability to become familiar with unknown problem domains and the ability to use your general knowledge about software development to make use of whatever language, framework, or tool the project asks for.
- spaetzleesser 6y ago“But that is not a problem because the skills actually required are the ability to become familiar with unknown problem domains and the ability to use your general knowledge about software development to make use of whatever language, framework, or tool the project asks for.” I think a lot of projects suffer from the fact that the people working on it don’t have deep domain knowledge. A lot of attempts to “disrupt” an industry fail because they don’t understand the status quo.
- danbruc 6y agoI mean I am developing custom business applications, the customer and also the in-house developers have the knowledge. But sure, if you are trying to build a product you want to sell, then you or at least your team or company should certainly have deep domain knowledge. But this seems also really self-evident, how would you even build a product for something you do not understand? And whoever had ever to become familiar with a new domain will probably know this - from the outside and with no or limited knowledge things look often not very complicated, but once you dig into it, even the simplest looking domain has very deep rabbit holes everywhere.
- justin66 6y ago> Why would I want to read a biography written by people who didn’t know the person until five years ago? Because you're the kind of thoughtful person who would evaluate the question of whether you should read a book based on more than the most superficial criteria. (or because you want to read about Claude Shannon and there aren't a lot of options)
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- hderms 6y agoIt might be an excuse to put in a Bell labs pun
- motohagiography 6y agoI love stories about Shannon, Feynman, Weiner, Grothendeick, Turing, and others, but I've become suspicious of the idea of genius. While these and others are undoubtedly examples, and telling their stories inspires us to follow their paths at least for a while, the underlying idea is that these people, whose minds necessarily took liberty first to make their discoveries, are somehow unreachable Others. This is where I diverge, as I think if we were to cultivate the core values of benevolence, humility, with iconoclasm in kids we could produce more minds like these. What makes genius so exceptional is less a magical quality of the person, but that they manage to achieve in spite of the rest of us in as we occupy our classrooms and offices. I suspect it's these values that are the necessary condition. Such a pleasant article about such an amazing mind.
- AcademicHamster 6y agoI like the sentiment, but I have to disagree. I believe there is something genetically different about Grothendieck that makes him possess superior intelligence. I don’t think you can cultivate a bunch of Grothendiecks in mass by teaching a bunch of children advanced mathematics at a younger age.
- musha68k 6y agoIt’s likely due to the factors both you and the parent are mentioning – and others – not known or in worst case unknowable.
- fenderbluesjr 6y agoI think László Polgár would disagree with you wholeheartedly: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L%C3%A1szl%C3%B3_Polg%C3%A1r https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L%C3%A1szl%C3%B3_Polg%C3%A1r Interesting read if you aren't already familiar
- citrablue 6y agoBut they were genetically related to him. I don't think this is a good example.
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- Bakary 6y ago>Reflecting on the arc of his career, Shannon confessed, “I don’t think I was ever motivated by the notion of winning prizes, although I have a couple of dozen of them in the other room. I was more motivated by curiosity. Never by the desire for financial gain. I just wondered how things were put together. Or what laws or rules govern a situation, or if there are theorems about what one can’t or can do. Mainly because I wanted to know myself.” This is one insight about actual geniuses that shun the "classic" trappings of life that has always intrigued me. They are essentially coerced by their own neurology to aim for academic pursuits, because anything else cannot scratch that itch. Money and power are nice (and Johnny von Neumann loved his parties and loud music) but in the end it's just not that stimulating in comparison to hard abstract problems. Social relationships still have their draw as well, but you have to hit the knowledge-pipe regularly or face withdrawal. For people of that caliber, living in pre-modern societies must have been equivalent to torture. For the rest of us, it would have been like watching paint dry for our entire lives. Sounds like sour grapes, but in a way I am grateful not to have to deal with all of this. Looking at von Neumann's example again, the fear of death still caused him to lash out irrationally and in the end even he could not escape the human condition.
- yrimaxi 6y ago> > I don’t think I was ever motivated by the notion of winning prizes, although I have a couple of dozen of them in the other room. Being a genius is a good thing, and also not having “ego” motivations is looked upon favorably. So this is like an egoless brag. Also: look at what I managed to do indirectly/without even trying.
- olau 6y agoDon't know if he was bragging or not, but if you have achieved something, I think it's hard to talk about yourself without someone thinking you're bragging. I once got a top grade after passing an exam where I had read one page beyond what was required (can't remember if it was by accident, or because I was curious about something - but we're talking one page). After my presentation, the examiner asked a final question. This was covered in that page, so I just had to connect two dots and could give him a little proof immediately. Very little brain activity needed. Pretty sure I couldn't have come up with a proof on the spot otherwise. I sometimes bring up that story as an example of why grading is stupid, but even though the point is how arbitrary the situation was, I can't shake off the feeling that people might think I'm bragging. I think we should cut people some slack, if we don't know their intentions.
- avs733 6y agoI read the book last year and found it really interesting. That being said, it is still a biography about a person by people not in his field of expertise. It's a narrative about the person not the technology. In concert with 'the idea factory' it is an interesting T shaped perspective on innovation and creativity. That being said I've noticed two big concerns with how the book has been presented and advertised... 1) I find the implicit connection in the post title to Malcolm Gladwells 10k hours theory of expertise to be incredibly antithetical to everything in the book itself about how Shannon worked and thought and created. If they wanted to be pithy and make a connection to Shannon and expertise, mentioning Range: Why generalists triumph in a specialized world seems much more appropriate. 2) All of it seems to be a little to 'we discovered this interesting person' which frankly is a weird way to position a biography. It is a PATH to people learning about someone, but usually the greatest interest in a biography is going to come from people who know abotu a person but want to know more. It is part of a broader, fairly egocentric approach to advertising the work that seems to really make it about the authors not Shannon, which just strikes me as odd for a biography of someone else.
- sandwall 6y agoI agree with your comments 100%, I too read and enjoyed the book and found it very complementary to The Idea Factory
- augustk 6y agoI see it as common courtesy to mention everyone in a picture of a small group of people. The woman is not mentioned.