I know very little, but there’s a fun fact here: “During their lifetimes, Darwin sent at least 7,591 letters and received 6,530; Einstein sent more than 14,500 and received more than 16,200.” (Not sure what fraction was technical vs personal.)
Also, this is a brief summary of Einstein’s mathematician friend Marcel Grossmann’s role in general relativity.
In the piece you linked, it sounds like Einstein had the correct geometry for general relativity one day after he asked for help finding one. Of course, that’s one notable success amongst perhaps a lot of collaboration. The number of letters he sent and received implies that he actually did a lot of written collaboration.
I wonder about the value of real-time conversation vs. written exchanges. And the value of being fully engaged; truly curious about your interlocutor’s ideas.
My own experience watching progress happen (and not-happen) in theoretical neuroscience is that fully engaged conversations with other true experts with different viewpoints was rare and often critical for real progress.
My perception is that those conversations are tricky to produce. Experts are often splitting their attention between impressing people and coolheaded, openminded discussion. And they weren’t really seeking out these conversations, just having them when it was convenient, and being really fully engaged only when the interpersonal vibe happened to be right. Even so, the bit of real conversation I saw seemed quite important.
It would be helpful to understand collaboration on difficult theory better, but it would be a whole research topic.
I think the qualitive difference is not as large as you think it is. But I also don’t think this is very crux-y for anything, so I will not try to figure out how to translate my reasoning to words, sorry.
I think this is false. As I remember hearing the story, he where corresponding with several people via letters.
I know very little, but there’s a fun fact here: “During their lifetimes, Darwin sent at least 7,591 letters and received 6,530; Einstein sent more than 14,500 and received more than 16,200.” (Not sure what fraction was technical vs personal.)
Also, this is a brief summary of Einstein’s mathematician friend Marcel Grossmann’s role in general relativity.
In the piece you linked, it sounds like Einstein had the correct geometry for general relativity one day after he asked for help finding one. Of course, that’s one notable success amongst perhaps a lot of collaboration. The number of letters he sent and received implies that he actually did a lot of written collaboration.
I wonder about the value of real-time conversation vs. written exchanges. And the value of being fully engaged; truly curious about your interlocutor’s ideas.
My own experience watching progress happen (and not-happen) in theoretical neuroscience is that fully engaged conversations with other true experts with different viewpoints was rare and often critical for real progress.
My perception is that those conversations are tricky to produce. Experts are often splitting their attention between impressing people and coolheaded, openminded discussion. And they weren’t really seeking out these conversations, just having them when it was convenient, and being really fully engaged only when the interpersonal vibe happened to be right. Even so, the bit of real conversation I saw seemed quite important.
It would be helpful to understand collaboration on difficult theory better, but it would be a whole research topic.
By largely alone I meant without the rich collaboration of having an office in the same campus or phone calls or LessWrong.
I think the qualitive difference is not as large as you think it is. But I also don’t think this is very crux-y for anything, so I will not try to figure out how to translate my reasoning to words, sorry.