Hacker News Reader

Comment by larrys | Hacker News Reader

I think of Nobel Prize winners as what I will call "single function machines". That is, and this is purely speculative, they are focused on only typically one goal or area of interest maniacally.

The typical HN reader, by contrast, finds many things and almost everything and anything (as PG might say) interesting. [1]

"If you had to reduce it to a sentence, the answer might be: anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity. "

This is not to say that Nobel Prize winners aren't curious of course they are. But somehow I doubt they are all over the place. I find so many things interesting it's hard for me to stay focused some times with the distractions of what is available at your fingertips.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

View on HN

I have met a number of Nobel Prize winners in physics, and while it's dangerous to generalize, as a whole they seemed to me to actually be more interested in broader issues of physics and society. I can't say whether this changed after the prize thrust them into the limelight, but from my experience with Physics winners, your single-function hypothesis does not hold true. In fact, the Nobel laureate on my PhD reading committee is involved with a number of start ups and technologies and books all far afield of his Nobel research.

I've clarified my "single function hypothesis" to say that they would tend to not find "everything and anything" of interest which is what I thought I was saying in my original comment.

My point isn't that a Nobel Prize winner would be interested in "physics and society" or baseball or gardening or all three but they would not have a version of ADD (let's call it that for lack of a better diagnosis [1]) which caused them to continually fork on all sorts of things that just satisfied someone's curiosity so to speak. (I also noted in another comment that I found this as well in Physicians who I have known.)

[1] I don't have ADD but sometimes I wonder if there is a version of intellectual ADD.

> sometimes I wonder if there is a version of intellectual ADD

The xkcd comic describes it as nerd sniping. http://xkcd.com/356/

Not sure if I agree with this (Linus Pauling comes to mind), but speaking anecdotally, I once had breakfast with a recent winner of a MacArthur grant (the so-called Genius Grant) expecting to be the recipient of untold wisdom. Instead he gave me a blow by blow explanation of the delayed burial of William the Conqueror, his pet topic. Seemingly unconcerned that describing a dead king's corpse exploding wasn't great breakfast conversation.

Perhaps he grew up on a farm. :-D

That kind of discussion (and much worse) often occurs at the breakfast table on many farms without anyone ever batting an eye.

Typing this while scarfing down a burrito....

For example "hey, do you know what kind of animal that foot on the front steps is from? There's a blood trail behind it but the cats aren't very interested."

I've read a few counter comments here which indicate I may be off in my thinking.

That said I don't think your one example proves my theory wrong simply because I didn't say that someone couldn't have other interests what I believe I was trying to say is that they aren't "all over the place". The question really is "how many pet topics" do they have I guess. I would just think that that type of brain has to be more focused.

I've also noticed this with Physicians as well (anecdote of course). I've told them different things and they tend to react as if "wow who would know that or think of that" type of stuff. Because my brain (and I'm not even saying this is an advantage) tends to be all over the place in what I find interesting. So maybe it's a matter of degree not an absolute that can be measured.

I think Richard Feynman is a good counter-example to the "single function machines" hypothesis.

He is a very rare exception to the pack, I believe. How many biographies have you read that read like "Surely you're Joking, Mr.Feynman"?

Frank Zappa's book, maybe.

Feynman did his Nobel work a long time ago and early in his long career. I suspect that achieving a science-Nobel-level breakthrough these days usually happens many years later in a career, because getting to the outer edge takes many more years of study than it used to. Breakthroughs requiring less study are more likely already to have been made, and each generation has to reach higher for the remaining fruit.

I also suspect that reaching a science-Nobel-worthy breakthrough requires not just more years but more-focused work. Feynman may simply have been an exception, but he might also represent something that was possible then but has become less possible with each passing year.

I don't know about Nobel Prize winners, but I remember an interview with Ian Thorpe at the height of his swimming career, and in response to the question "So, have you read any good books lately?" he said "I'm a swimmer, mate". Single function machine indeed.

> The typical HN reader, by contrast, finds many things and almost everything and anything (that PG might say) interesting.

FYP.

Seriously though, I expect you're true that most Nobel winners are highly focused. But I expect so are many (not most) regular readers of HN.

There are probably on the order of a thousand living Nobel Prize winners in the world, or one in seven million or so. In developed countries, where most of HN's readership would come from, the concentration should be higher. My understanding is that HN's regular usership is in the 6 figures, so most likely no Nobel Prize winners there. Not sure how many users have ever registered to HN though. Perhaps there is an HN account belonging to a Prize winner...

heard of Feynman? No one can accuse him of being a "single function machine".

John Nash?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com