tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19305198.post1583690219146767697..comments2024-03-27T03:19:11.216-04:00Comments on Assistant Village Idiot: Thinking Outside the BoxAssistant Village Idiothttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01978011985085795099noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19305198.post-38045302092615071682022-04-11T07:01:56.600-04:002022-04-11T07:01:56.600-04:00The value of original thinking is not in its newne...The value of original thinking is not in its newness, but in its capacity to correct a bad idea that has become entrenched to the point of being unchallengeable. Not novelty as a goal in itself, but rather contrariness in the service of truth. I suppose there is some evolutionary value in complacency and conformity for the sake of social cohesiveness, but it needs to be balanced from time to time by someone willing to say "Wait a minute. Let's take another look at what we're doing here."G. Poulinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18293368745484671254noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19305198.post-91365334268031577812022-04-08T14:07:23.134-04:002022-04-08T14:07:23.134-04:00"Rocky Rocco at your cervix". ;)"Rocky Rocco at your cervix". ;)Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19305198.post-6859434178752723472022-04-08T11:32:49.892-04:002022-04-08T11:32:49.892-04:00I recall a professor I took a course from (very in...I recall a professor I took a course from (very intelligent woman, possibly the smartest person I've met) saying that she had European researchers note a strain of creativity in American researchers they didn't see anywhere else. Pretty small data point, but I've been keeping that in the back of my mind ever since. I haven't had much occasion to work with foreign researchers yet, so maybe I'll get a better idea in the future.<br /><br />Oddly enough, another anecdote from this professor comes to mind reading the article. She came onto a project as a graduate student, taking things over from a graduating PhD. The project required a large spring with a very specific response. Basically, they needed the spring to have the proper uniform geometry you'd expect from a spring in its uncompressed state. The spring was massive enough that gravity would compress and deform the spring, though, so it couldn't just have a constant cross section. <br /><br />The previous student had spent weeks working with differential equations, etc. trying to get it to the right shape when at rest. When she took over, she modeled a uniform spring and applied a gravitational force to it. This deformed the spring in a specific way, so she took the deformed geometry and just flipped it around. Now, the spring would have the desired geometry when at rest under standard gravity. It was a really simple, elegant solution that makes the hearts of physicists and engineers get all aflutter.<br /><br />Anyway, I bring that up because I think arguments could be made about which of the two students was thinking outside of the box there.Deevshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03929505847502292412noreply@blogger.com