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jsteinhardt comments on Reaching young math/compsci talent - Less Wrong Discussion

6 Post author: lukeprog 02 June 2012 09:07PM

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Comment author: jsteinhardt 03 June 2012 07:30:51PM 4 points [-]

Actually, one of the first things that new researchers have to learn is that just thinking about a problem and coming up with ideas will get you nowhere -- you have to actually get your hands dirty and try things out to make progress.

Comment author: Vaniver 03 June 2012 08:49:18PM 0 points [-]

Oh, definitely. I don't mean to imply that, say, Warhol never got his hands dirty- but that Rembrandt's skill was in the realm of dirty hands and that Warhol's skill was in the realm of insight.

(I know in my research the act of sitting down and writing out an idea or sitting down and coding an algorithm or sitting down and going through the math has been indispensable, and strongly recommend it to anyone else.)