I want to continue my discussion on Richard Hamming’s “You and Your Research” and, to do so, it will be helpful to know a little bit about what Richard Hamming did at Bell Labs (once part of AT&T). Hamming was a mathematician by training, but worked in the computing center in Bell Labs. In his speech, he made the following statement:
I finally adopted what I called “Great Thoughts Time.” When I went to lunch Friday noon, I would only discuss great thoughts after that. By great thoughts I mean ones like: “What will be the role of computers in all of AT&T?”, “How will computers change science?” For example, I came up with the observation at that time that nine out of ten experiments were done in the lab and one in ten on the computer. I made a remark to the vice presidents one time that it would be reversed, i.e. nine out of ten experiments would be done on the computer and one in ten in the lab. They knew I was a crazy mathematician and had no sense of reality. I knew they were wrong and they’ve been proved wrong while I have been proved right. They built laboratories when they didn’t need them. I saw that computers were transforming science because I spent a lot of time asking “What will be the impact of computers on science and how can I change it?” I asked myself, “How is it going to change Bell Labs?”
What is this significance of this quote? It isn’t that Richard Hamming happened to be right about the change in proportion of lab-based experiments versus computer-based simulation. No, the quote is significant because it shows the power of thinking about the Big Picture. Richard Hamming took 10% of his time at work to think about the broader scope of computing, specifically at AT&T, but also how computers would change the face of science in general.
Google is one of the companies that has become famous in the technology community for setting aside, not 10%, but 20% of its engineering time for working on problems that are not specific to the engineers’ job functions. Several of Google’s strategic projects such as Google Mail, Google News, and Google Reader, initially came out of some engineer’s 20% time. The founders at Google have realized that taking a bit of time to let your mind explore options that are not necessarily relevant to the job at hand can lead to great ideas down the road.
What can you do if your company either does not, or cannot, allow you even 10% of your time to think Great Thoughts? Well, in that case, I recommend spending some amount of time outside of work thinking your Great Thoughts and setting aside some time to do so. If you want to set aside a scant 10% of your “working time” to thinking Great Thoughts, you only need to set aside another 4.5 hours outside of work to bring your Great Thoughts time to 10% of your typical work week. Now, I know everybody is super busy, but given that you have the Other 8 Hours for five days a week, plus two days of 16 hours each on the weekend, I am talking about spending only around 6% of your otherwise free time in a week trying to think of Great Thoughts. While it would be better to dedicate most of that time in a large block, splitting it up into 1–2 hour increments should work just as well. Is that too big a commitment to make?
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Hamming is one of the very impactful thinkers and engineers that most people have never heard of. It’s a shame he is not better known.
As for great thoughts…. this is where I fear the American universities are failing. The focus on generating revenue to the administration’s liking consumes the faculty 125%. Couple this with decreasing funds from the state, and you get a faculty that are literally never afforded any time to think great thoughts. The university and the big industrial research labs are where most great thoughts have come from historically. Alas, both appear to be endangered species.
I was always amazed at how much of a professor’s time was spent having to chase grants and how little time was spent actually getting to work on research. It is a shame that everyone has to be obsessed with the bottom line these days.