On Really Trying: The Hidden Power of Believing a Problem Is Solvable
On Really Trying (2009)
Gwern explores the psychology of motivation, arguing that the key to solving hard problems isn't raw intelligence but the conviction that a solution exists. Drawing on examples from Yudkowsky's fictional 'Eld Science' to real-world cases like Merkle's public-key cryptography and the UW lab that recreated DeepMind's protein AI, he shows how certainty of solvability can unlock extraordinary effort and creativity. The essay suggests that many scientific breakthroughs are delayed not by lack of talent but by a lack of urgency and belief.
But people can think important thoughts in far less than 30 years, if they expect speed of themselves.
- zshn
Strangely reading about high achievers having had a difficult childhood and how it might have actually "enabled" them to achieve what they did, is soothing in a way. It's nice to think of your own scars as a thing that helps you sometimes instead of only a burden.
- alexpotato
Two quotes I love about this:
"I was in the top 100 in tennis. Then I asked myself: 'what if I started training like Andy (Roddick). So I did and next thing I know I'm in the top 8 in the world"
- Mardy Fish [0]
"Kobe told me if I made a 1,000 shots every practice then I would be an All Star. So I started doing that and then became an All Star"
- Dwight Howard [1]
0 - https://www.netflix.com/title/81026434
1 - https://www.reddit.com/r/nba/comments/j1hjb5/charania_dwight...
- z3t4
When I was a child I trained Athletics. In a training session the older kids pranked us or whatever, they measured our long jump and everyone jumped crazy lenghts. We could not believe it! I jumped one meter over my personal best. But they assured us, it was correct. As a naive and autistic kid I didn't question it, it's now as an adult I think back and analyze (i have good memory) it must have been the case... Anyway two days later there was a meet and I first jumped my ordinary length, but I now believed I could jump longer, I just needed to use more force, so I did, a bit longer, added even more force and speed, until I got the same result as the training session two days prior.
- Kotlopou
I do remember when hearing about Simón Bolívar's crossing of the Andes (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ju7nJjprbQg) "I wish I had this guy's energy and drive". Some people just seem to be on another level. It kind of would make sense if this was bipolar disorder?
- v9v
Interesting article to share on the eve of yesterday's debacle about the Navier-Stokes problem.
Maybe another quote to add to the list is about Bob Widlar (from https://www.allaboutcircuits.com/news/bob-widlar-silicon-val...):
> In 1965, Widlar left Fairchild to work at National Semiconductor. While there, he released his design for the industry’s first high-power voltage regulator, the LM109. This finding came at a time when engineers hotly debated whether it was possible to develop a high-power regulator on a single chip.
> Widlar, established as an engineering genius in 1969, wrote a paper settling the debate, claiming temperature swings and packaging limitations made the device impossible. The industry took his word for it and stopped all efforts to build such a device. However, in 1970, Widlar shocked his contemporaries with the 20-W LM109, the industry’s first high-power voltage regulator. The device included all of the features Widlar had claimed were impossible just one year prior.