I hope I will never, ever forget the following:
"It will not do you any harm whatever to think in original fashion. . . The odds that your theory will be right, and that the general thing that everybody's working on will be wrong, is low. But the odds that you, Little Boy Schmidt, will be the guy who figures a thing out, is not smaller. . . It is very important that we do not all follow the same fashion. Because although it is ninety percent sure that the answer lies over there . . . what happens if it doesn't?"
Also:
"It doesn't do any good if it just increases the number of guys following the comet head. So it's necessary to increase the amount of variety . . . and the only way to do it is to implore a few of you guys to take a risk with your lives that you will never be heard of again, and go off in the wild blue yonder and see if you can figure it out."
- Richard P. Feynman (excerpted from "Genius" by James Gleick).
What an excellent book, and an excellent lesson. I am off to bed for now.
1 comment:
Heh. You liked Genius waaaay too much. When we get back, I've got another book I bet you'll like.
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