I've heard many people quote Hamming about "work only on important problems," but fewer seem to notice the caveat he has in the talk:
"We didn't work on (1) time travel, (2) teleportation, and (3) antigravity. They are not important problems because we do not have an attack. It's not the consequence that makes a problem important, it is that you have a reasonable attack."
This makes the notion of "important problem" specific to you. In other words, dependent on your particular skills and interests, not on some external measure of worth. So even if you are working on something more "modest," say, what scat tells us about migration patterns of bobcats, that still counts as an "important problem" since you have an attack and can solve it.
Under this reading, Hamming's advice is close to the other famous nugget, "do only what only you can do" (Dijkstra). That is never the way I see it being used in conversation, however. Usually I see it in the context of encouraging people to work on some Big Problem that may not be a good fit for their skills and interest -- which is one of the quickest ways to encourage failure.
I like Hamming's challenge, but I read this quote yesterday, and I think it might be more insightful:
“Don’t ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.” -- Howard Thurman
This reminds me of the first pg essay I ever read, "Good and Bad Procrastination," which also references Richard Hamming. This essay directed me to his site, and eventually here.
I like pg's treatment a little more. He distills it down to one sentence, "What's the best thing you could be working on, and why aren't you?"
This single sentence has pretty much directed much of my work since then. It's so simple it's almost counter-intuitive. I have designed systems to sort "problems" by descending value and taught my users to just work on #1 until it's fixed. But it wasn't until reading pg's corollary to Hamming's work that I did it myself.
It isn't counter intuitive. It's just poor education that tells people the goal is to complete the standard education process, not to use your education toward some end.
I get the impression lots of people don't do self examination much for the most important questions about satisfying work and things that make you happy.
I get annoyed reading fluff like this. I used to work as a researcher and noticed a lemming like tendency for scientists to flock to the same stuff. It usually isn't until someone discovers something potentially disruptive (or the people who have money latch onto new buzz words) that the flocking changes. I can agree that each field has problems of interest. I'm a computer scientist but I have no interest in trying to solve P=NP. Sure the prominent problems of interest would have useful results to society if solved. However, who is to say that new problems of interest or mental shifts aren't out there. Beckoning to be found. Stretching the field (or individual researcher) is valuable.
I don't get annoyed reading responses like yours, nor am I nettled my the thought that my post was fluff. Of course it is fluff. Possibly even chaff or lint.
That being said, I am not clear on what you are saying about trying to solve P=NP. While this is important, there are a lot of important things to solve and nowhere in my post or in Hamming's original discussion is there the suggestion that importance is judged by popularity.
I think it is entirely possible for a lone researcher to work on something that does not interest anyone else, and should you ask why she has chosen that work, she answers that it is an important open problem in the field.
So I am suggesting that a dedication to working on important open problems is not necessarily equivalent to following everyone else. People who lie to follow, follow. People who like solitude and adventure strike out in new directions.
Either way, the questions retain their importance, IMO.
I read the post as "what are the important problems? Go solve them!" for some value of important problems. I further read this as the value of important problems is defined by others. I filled in my own blanks there (most likely). Although I think I saw something about "problems of my field" that helped me reach this conclusion. I'm just making sure those who strike out in new directions are represented.
* I'm just making sure those who strike out in new directions are represented.*
Strongly agree. Miles Davis revolutionalized Jazz five times. Four of those times, he walked away from what he himself had popularized to strike out in a new direction.
He talks about Nobel Prize-level research, and justifies what he says with a lot of examples of researchers he worked with, who won Nobel Prizes or similar awards.
"We didn't work on (1) time travel, (2) teleportation, and (3) antigravity. They are not important problems because we do not have an attack. It's not the consequence that makes a problem important, it is that you have a reasonable attack."
This makes the notion of "important problem" specific to you. In other words, dependent on your particular skills and interests, not on some external measure of worth. So even if you are working on something more "modest," say, what scat tells us about migration patterns of bobcats, that still counts as an "important problem" since you have an attack and can solve it.
Under this reading, Hamming's advice is close to the other famous nugget, "do only what only you can do" (Dijkstra). That is never the way I see it being used in conversation, however. Usually I see it in the context of encouraging people to work on some Big Problem that may not be a good fit for their skills and interest -- which is one of the quickest ways to encourage failure.