A physicist once told me that Einstein put forth four theories worthy of the Nobel Prize in one year alone (1905, his Annus Mirabilis).
But you should consider that Einstein spend that year with his wife Mileva Marić who was also a physicist at a time where woman where woman had trouble finding acceptance in the scientific community. The two agreed that the Mileva should get the money from the Nobel Prize.
I don’t think it’s useful to explain what Einstein published in 1905 as the work of a single person.
It also useful to note the environment in which Einstein did his work. He was not employed in academia. Einstein was not earning five times as much money as an “unproductive professor”. If anything he was earning less money in 1905 where he was most productive than later when he had a well paid professorship.
If you want to have more people like Einstein it would make much more sense to push guaranteed basic income to avoid top talent from having to take a formal job and let those people focus on their research while their basic living expenses are payed.
It is widely noted that the present incentive structure (“publish or perish”) in the academia has led to a flood of uninteresting but publishable articles.
A lot of influential papers are considered uninteresting at the point of which they are published.
To some extent, this is an unescapable problem, but possibly it could be alleviated somewhat by more sophisticated techniques for identifying good texts. Such simple techniques as explicitly counting the number and significance of ideas per page, could go some way towards making it more transparent who is actually an original thinker, and who is not
Being original isn’t hard. The difficult thing is being original in a productive fashion.
If you reward people for being original you encourage reinvention of ideas under new names instead of citing existing work.
push guaranteed basic income to avoid top talent from having to take a formal job and let those people focus on their research while their basic living expenses are payed.
If you could make a good estimate of young Einsteins, it would be enough to pay the basic income to the selected talented people. And it does not even have to be forever. You could just offer to pay them basic income for 10 years; and when it is 5 years till the end, evaluate them again, and if they still pass your filter, extend the time for another 5 years; possibly repeatedly. (And they can still try academia when your scholarship expires.)
“I can only speak for myself. Unlike most people, I don’t “work” at all, in the sense of doing anything with the conscious goal of making money. All I do is think about what interests me, and discuss the results of that thinking with other people. As long as governments (and philanthropists like Mike Lazaridis) are willing to pay me for my non-work, I’m happy to take their money. If they ever stop paying me, I guess I’ll have to find some other source of income.”—Scott Aaronson
This is exactly what academia is supposed to be, and it doesn’t work. (Notably, it didn’t work for Einstein, who didn’t get let in until 1908.)
This isn’t true. Until 1905, Einstein was a graduate student (a very junior “insider”). He was still under 30 in 1908 when he was given a lectureship, which is a pretty plausible age to be given a teaching appointment. So that’s three years spent outside the academy; not so very long.
But you should consider that Einstein spend that year with his wife Mileva Marić who was also a physicist at a time where woman where woman had trouble finding acceptance in the scientific community. The two agreed that the Mileva should get the money from the Nobel Prize.
That’s an argument either in favour of or against feminism, but I’m not sure which one.
I think it’s mainly an argument for scientists getting other scientists that understand their own work as significant others so that the can do science together.
I imagine the two having deep conversations about physics while lying together in bed.
As far as policy goes, better acknowledgement of husband/wife teams that publish together papers would probably go in the right direction. I think that’s fits into the feminist agenda.
I think it’s mainly an argument for scientists getting other scientists that understand their own work as significant others so that the can do science together.
The problem with that is that certain fields have heavily lopsided gender ratios.
The problem with that is that certain fields have heavily lopsided gender ratios.
It would only be a problem when woman in those areas would be in really high demand on the dating market. I don’t think that a woman who studies physics has much better chances on the dating market than a woman that studies English literature because of the subject of study.
There nothing wrong with having highly specific expectations for a significant others when those expectations aren’t what everyone else also wants.
If you are a theoretic physicist and write in your OkCupid profile: “I’m looking for a woman with whom I can discuss theoretical physics while laying in bed”, you are heavily filtering. On the other hand if you are a woman who studies theoretical physics and you read the line, that might get you to send the first message.
Let’s say you filter down your criteria in a way that only a hundred people in the 4 million city in which you are living make viable candidates. Those criteria aren’t just about physical beauty and what other guys want. You are very public about those criteria through facebook and other means.
What happens when one of your friends meet one of those women? He might tell her about you. Given that she fits your highly selective criteria, she will be interested to get to know you if she’s single.
That’s basically Ramit Sethi’s job hunting strategy and he also posted on his website some article about how one of his reader used it to find a significant other. Unfortunately I don’t find the article at the moment.
I don’t understand the relevance of this reply. What I meant is that there’s no way each straight male theoretical physicist can get a straight female theoretical physicist (assuming no polyandry) if there are more of the former, because of the pigeonhole principle.
But you should consider that Einstein spend that year with his wife Mileva Marić who was also a physicist at a time where woman where woman had trouble finding acceptance in the scientific community. The two agreed that the Mileva should get the money from the Nobel Prize.
I don’t think it’s useful to explain what Einstein published in 1905 as the work of a single person.
It also useful to note the environment in which Einstein did his work. He was not employed in academia. Einstein was not earning five times as much money as an “unproductive professor”. If anything he was earning less money in 1905 where he was most productive than later when he had a well paid professorship.
If you want to have more people like Einstein it would make much more sense to push guaranteed basic income to avoid top talent from having to take a formal job and let those people focus on their research while their basic living expenses are payed.
A lot of influential papers are considered uninteresting at the point of which they are published.
Being original isn’t hard. The difficult thing is being original in a productive fashion.
If you reward people for being original you encourage reinvention of ideas under new names instead of citing existing work.
If you could make a good estimate of young Einsteins, it would be enough to pay the basic income to the selected talented people. And it does not even have to be forever. You could just offer to pay them basic income for 10 years; and when it is 5 years till the end, evaluate them again, and if they still pass your filter, extend the time for another 5 years; possibly repeatedly. (And they can still try academia when your scholarship expires.)
In some sense Yudkowsky has such a deal with Peter Thiel. And Yudkowsky is not the only person that Thiel supports in such a way.
But I think that estimating young Einsteins is a very hard problem.
“I can only speak for myself. Unlike most people, I don’t “work” at all, in the sense of doing anything with the conscious goal of making money. All I do is think about what interests me, and discuss the results of that thinking with other people. As long as governments (and philanthropists like Mike Lazaridis) are willing to pay me for my non-work, I’m happy to take their money. If they ever stop paying me, I guess I’ll have to find some other source of income.”—Scott Aaronson
This is exactly what academia is supposed to be, and it doesn’t work. (Notably, it didn’t work for Einstein, who didn’t get let in until 1908.)
People are very, very bad at recognizing genius.
This isn’t true. Until 1905, Einstein was a graduate student (a very junior “insider”). He was still under 30 in 1908 when he was given a lectureship, which is a pretty plausible age to be given a teaching appointment. So that’s three years spent outside the academy; not so very long.
That’s an argument either in favour of or against feminism, but I’m not sure which one.
Imagine how much Einstein could discover if he had four wives...
You jest, but from what I understand that’s not far off. He wasn’t exactly a polygamist, but at the very least a serial philanderer.
I think it’s mainly an argument for scientists getting other scientists that understand their own work as significant others so that the can do science together.
I imagine the two having deep conversations about physics while lying together in bed.
As far as policy goes, better acknowledgement of husband/wife teams that publish together papers would probably go in the right direction. I think that’s fits into the feminist agenda.
The problem with that is that certain fields have heavily lopsided gender ratios.
It would only be a problem when woman in those areas would be in really high demand on the dating market. I don’t think that a woman who studies physics has much better chances on the dating market than a woman that studies English literature because of the subject of study.
There nothing wrong with having highly specific expectations for a significant others when those expectations aren’t what everyone else also wants.
If you are a theoretic physicist and write in your OkCupid profile: “I’m looking for a woman with whom I can discuss theoretical physics while laying in bed”, you are heavily filtering. On the other hand if you are a woman who studies theoretical physics and you read the line, that might get you to send the first message.
Let’s say you filter down your criteria in a way that only a hundred people in the 4 million city in which you are living make viable candidates. Those criteria aren’t just about physical beauty and what other guys want. You are very public about those criteria through facebook and other means.
What happens when one of your friends meet one of those women? He might tell her about you. Given that she fits your highly selective criteria, she will be interested to get to know you if she’s single.
That’s basically Ramit Sethi’s job hunting strategy and he also posted on his website some article about how one of his reader used it to find a significant other. Unfortunately I don’t find the article at the moment.
I don’t understand the relevance of this reply. What I meant is that there’s no way each straight male theoretical physicist can get a straight female theoretical physicist (assuming no polyandry) if there are more of the former, because of the pigeonhole principle.
This.