The mystery of the miracle year
An interesting pattern seems to recur across the career of great scientists - an annus mirabilis (miracle year) in which they make multiple seemingly independent breakthroughs in the span of a single…
«If great discoveries are randomly distributed across the career of a scientist, then with some non-negligible probability, they will fall within a year of each other. Which means that out of hundreds of great scientists, by dint of coincidence, a few will have a miracle year.»
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Adding is favoured over subtracting in problem solving
People tend to solve problems by adding features.
«Moreover, people could assume that existing features are there for a reason, and so looking for additions would be more effective.»
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