Paul Graham, Richard Hamming, and the Good and Bad of Science

Paul Graham has a good essay on procrastination (his advice on starting a startup is great too) [via Marginal Revolution]. Presented somewhat without context, Paul says:

The most dangerous form of procrastination is unacknowledged type-B procrastination, because it doesn't feel like procrastination. You're "getting things done." Just the wrong things.

I've been working on better orgainizing my work and time, and along these lines I've found David Allen's book Getting Things Done to be helpful (which I found on Cool Tools). Besides creating lists and calenders, he empahsizes the role of priority evaluation, along with regular planning and reviewing sessions. Anyway, included in Paul's essay is a link to Richard Hamming's advice on doing Important Science. One of the money quotes =

Now Alan Chynoweth mentioned that I used to eat at the physics table. I had been eating with the mathematicians and I found out that I already knew a fair amount of mathematics; in fact, I wasn't learning much. The physics table was, as he said, an exciting place, but I think he exaggerated on how much I contributed. It was very interesting to listen to Shockley, Brattain, Bardeen, J. B. Johnson, Ken McKay and other people, and I was learning a lot. But unfortunately a Nobel Prize came, and a promotion came, and what was left was the dregs. Nobody wanted what was left. Well, there was no use eating with them!

Over on the other side of the dining hall was a chemistry table. I had worked with one of the fellows, Dave McCall; furthermore he was courting our secretary at the time. I went over and said, ``Do you mind if I join you?'' They can't say no, so I started eating with them for a while. And I started asking, ``What are the important problems of your field?'' And after a week or so, ``What important problems are you working on?'' And after some more time I came in one day and said, ``If what you are doing is not important, and if you don't think it is going to lead to something important, why are you at Bell Labs working on it?'' I wasn't welcomed after that; I had to find somebody else to eat with! That was in the spring.

In the fall, Dave McCall stopped me in the hall and said, ``Hamming, that remark of yours got underneath my skin. I thought about it all summer, i.e. what were the important problems in my field. I haven't changed my research,'' he says, ``but I think it was well worthwhile.'' And I said, ``Thank you Dave,'' and went on. I noticed a couple of months later he was made the head of the department. I noticed the other day he was a Member of the National Academy of Engineering. I noticed he has succeeded. I have never heard the names of any of the other fellows at that table mentioned in science and scientific circles. They were unable to ask themselves, ``What are the important problems in my field?''

If you do not work on an important problem, it's unlikely you'll do important work. It's perfectly obvious.

I think this is all quite true when evaulating the big picture aspect of your career. But at the same time, I think it shows the egotism that undergirds so much of science. I guess I want it both ways, because people who float by aimlessly bother me, but people driven by the need to be great also do so too. Hamming points out that greatness requires a relentless drive and workaholicism. I think he misses how socially deformed this is. I think he was joking about not eating lunch with the dregs, but he still left them and moved on, and once the oppurtunities were drained there, he moved on again. He seems to be quite an unpleasent person. Frankly, his social interactions seem to be broken.

More fundamentally, working on problems seems to be less about the problems and more about advancing yourself. I guess it's important to recognize this, but if you did, do you think science is the most productive way to make yourself famous? What's so great about being more efficient while taking such a difficult route? It seems to lack a global awareness.

Yet more fundamentally, what's so great about being famous? That need for affirmation will likely alway be unfilled.