How Did Einstein Think? - <AUTHOR> http://www.pitt.edu/~jdnorton/Goodies/Einstein_think/ <comment><USER2> Einstein's genius wasn't genesis nor synthesis. His genius was hard work.

<http://quantumrelativity.calsci.com/Relativity/Chapter1.html>

 _Georg Riemann lived in Germany from 1826 until 1866. He was Gauss' last and most famous student. To finish his doctoral degree, in 1854 Riemann was required to give a lecture. Gauss asked him to lecture on geometry. In this single lecture, Riemann laid almost all of the mathematical foundation for Einstein's General Relativity. Riemann went on to become an important mathematician, but did little work on curved spaces after this one lecture._

Einstein took _8 years_ in a boring patent office to understand what Riemann did in a lazy afternoon.

<comment><USER3> "Staircase wit": <http://mathpages.com/rr/s1-07/1-07.htm>

Taking a close look at Einstein's work (which that book as a whole does a great job of) shows that certainly, Einstein was surrounded by the tools necessary to do the job (Lorentz, Reimann, Minkowski), some dating back decades... and yet, he _is_ the one who actually used them correctly. It obviously was not an "obvious" synthesis, and in the end I do not think we can come to any other conclusion than that Einstein still did something genuinely important and interesting. It simply wasn't in the vacuum that the popular understanding has it to be, but that's hardly surprising.

<comment><USER4> What about all the others, namely Planck? Mach? Doppler? The geologists doing seismology int the era (namely, same university)?

It was the spirit of the times (zeitgeist), for which he successfully claimed credit for through tedious propaganda (the old guard deceased with time, which also helped "new physics" to emerge)

<comment><USER3> I am at a loss as to how you seem to have read my _first sentence_ , which named names of people who created various tools, as another claim that Einstein invented this all on his own.

It was _not_ the spirit of the times. The spirit of the times was still grappling with some sort of absolute reference frame. If it was the "spirit of the times" it would have been discovered about 20 years earlier. It wasn't.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> It's odd to me that we don't study creative thinking more. When it comes to technical details, we've got it covered; you can find hundreds of textbooks on any given field, from the arts to the sciences. But the mysterious step that actually lets you recombine that knowledge into new ideas is usually shrugged off as "hard work" or "inspiration".

On the other hand, I suppose it's a pretty difficult question to answer. If you were to ask a musician how they compose their music, they would probably talk about scales and chord progressions and improvisation. But the true answer involves a whole lifetime of experiences and memories, filtered in a specific way through the musician's brain to create certain musical effects, themselves based on years of training. To even talk about that would require a lot of introspection.

What if we could train ourselves to think like Einstein? What would this do for science? What about Mozart and music?

<comment><USER6> This is true. I got interested in music, wanted to compose electronic music of my own. I went on to read several books about music theory and composition. I then realized that composing good music is extremely difficult, and has very little to do with the study of music theory. I believe most musicians sort of have a recipe book of tricks and patterns they discovered, which they combine with some improvisation. These "known recipes" take a long time, lots of practice and experimentation to acquire, and they are what makes an artist's musical style, or flavor, so to speak. No amount of reading about music theory will give you this. Interestingly, programming might be similar in many ways.

People complain when an artist releases an album, and there's only 2 good tunes, the rest are just "filler". People might assume the artist was just lazy or something, couldn't be bothered to put enough work into the album. I think the reason that's so common is that well, it's just _that hard_ to create good music: 2 songs is all the really good music they managed to create in that time. Also makes you appreciate artists who can produce an album full of good tunes, these people are exceptionally gifted.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I seems like interesting material, but why is it typeset this way?

<comment><USER8> yep. it's hard to get over the whole typography of this essay. huge Serif fonts, pink background on highlighted terms? multiple narrow columns.. it's like staring at the sun

<comment><USER9> It seems like if you copy-paste the text into notepad, it pastes correctly.

The layout of the text is peculiar, but I can't say it made me not want to read it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I just finished listening to Walter Isaacson's biography "Einstein" (on CD). What was distinctive about Einstein was not how he thought but what he thought about.

His special theory of relativity is a solution to the contradiction between Newtonian dynamics and the new (at the time) Maxwell's equations of electrodynamics. It was a creative solution to a difficult problem.

Today we have a similar theoretical contradiction between Einstein's General Relativity (large, galactic scale) and Quantum Mechanics (small, sub-atomic scale) but no one is able to reconcile these two theories and it has been shown that, as formulated, they are mathematically incompatible.

For years physicists ignored this problem because satisfying, productive careers in physics could be based on pursuing all the implications of Einstein's ideas and the parallel developments in Quantum Mechanics. This period is now ending and I believe that somewhere in the world is the modern equivalent of a "patent clerk" who is working on a new _conceptual_ approach to physics that will allow the reconciliation of GR and QM.

<comment><USER3> "For years physicists ignored this problem..."

Physicits have not been ignoring the problem. String theory is but one attempt to solve the problem. Physicists have _failed_ to solve the problem, but that is not the same thing. Look at all the older dates discussed here: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/String_theory#History>

(Note I'm not advocating String Theory, just using it to prove my local point here that the problem has not been ignored.)

<comment><USER10> The context I was referring to was the era soon after the Einstein-Bohr debates culminating in the Copenhagen interpretation of QM. This was an uneasy truce and the attitude at the time was "shut up and calculate" -- meaning shut up about the philosophic meaning and contradictions of the fundamental theories of physics and just apply them or flesh out the implications. This was fine until the late sixties when cosmology and black holes forced the issue of reconciling GR and QM, of which String Theory is one avenue taken.

Personally, I think String Theory is a dead-end. However in my original comment when I wrote that the current theories are incompatible "as formulated", I leave open the possibility that a mathematical reformulation, such as String Theory, may resolve the issues.

Personally, I think the problem will be solved by a new conceptual approach, on the order of Einstein redefining the meaning of space and time. I also think that it will come from someone outside of or on the fringes of mainstream physics, such as Julian Barbour or someone, like Einstein, just starting their career with nothing to lose on taking on such a grand challenge with no guarantee of success.

<comment><USER3> "Personally, I think the problem will be solved by a new conceptual approach,"

As a computer scientist, I have to admit to being partial to more discrete theories like loop quantum gravity. But whereas I'm willing to stick my nose into some science's business and declare they're all Doing It Wrong, this is not one of them. String theory is often criticized for having a lot of predictions and not much evidence, but I think that to be fair, that's true of all the competition, too. There just isn't enough evidence right now.

<comment><USER11> I think it's likely that relativity and quantum mechanics will be reconciled by an information-centric theory--which could easily come out of computer science.

We call some patterns of energy "information" (like an algorithm) and other patterns of energy "matter" (like a proton). It seems to me that the recent mathematical study of information could be extended to cover matter as well.

Information theory is also a much younger branch of study than physics, which would seem to indicate a longer runway for fundamental discoveries and applications.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> B-Con This professor also has a book called "Einstein for Everyone", available for free online here:

<http://www.pitt.edu/~jdnorton/teaching/HPS_0410/chapters/>

<comment><USER4> perhaps not.

"I treat my wife as an employee whom I cannot fire."- A.E.

<comment><USER12> What is your quarrel with Einstein? You're not adding much to the conversation in this way.

<comment><USER4> I don't think we should idolize him for everyone to follow. The quote comes from him, not me -- which makes your downvote revealing.

But please, do not believe a word from me. Read the full story and perhaps reconsider your stance on Einstein.

<comment><USER12> I can't downvote and, in this case, wouldn't do so even if I could. I respect your opinion and I fully agree with you that in the relation with his wife Einstein was no saint.

However, I do not think it is relevant and the quote is also not very obscure. Furthermore, claiming he used tedious propaganda to claim credit is taking it to far without citing sources. I think I would downvote that if I could. From what I've read his insights and work in physics were respected by his peers and revolutionary. So for me how Einstein thought and attacked problems is quite interesting. How he thought about _that_ is something I do want to mimic.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Amazingly this article doesn't mention Immanuel Kant. If you read the autobiographical notes, Kant is the first name that appears. And from there it is quite a different step to the theory of relativity.

</comment><comment><USER14> This is more important than anything about Yahoo and Tumblr. I read Isaacson's biography in the hopes of extracting the answer to exactly this question. Upon reading it, I found myself enormously relieved that my approach to Project Euler problems, and math and physics problems in general, follows the same form.

This does not seem to be how I approach medical problems. These seem to be quite a bit more like a flow chart, maybe in the best cases it's a Bodie plot.

Research, however, does generally seem to follow this mold a bit better.

</comment><comment><USER15> That's kind of like asking "how did Bruce Lee fight?" innit?

<comment><USER2> While most fighters stick with the preset moves they learned in their dojo, Bruce Lee would mix those moves with new moves he created himself. He was so able to understand and control his physical self that he could generate new martial arts moves spontaneously during fights.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeet_Kune_Do>

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> <http://www.giagia.co.uk/2010/03/23/ada-lovelace-day-2010/>

</comment><comment><USER16> I've been working through the following book:

[http://www.amazon.com/How-Create-Mind-Thought- Revealed/dp/06...](http://www.amazon.com/How-Create-Mind-Thought- Revealed/dp/0670025291)

And it has a chapter (2 and 3) on stepping through exactly what algorithms and data structures Einstein used to figure out that time itself slows down for you to explain why traveling at fractions of the speed of light does not change how fast light passes you by. More important than guessing time as the variable property, he was expert at creating experiments to disprove his hypothesis. "If this is the case, we should be able to do this exact experiment to expose the exact value for time dilation as you approach speed of light."

The book is about creating a program which exposes the operating principles of Einstein's neo cortex that can do what Einstein did. To create simplistic models that explain the underlying principles of physics, and has the ability to say: "If we model the phenomenon like such, than we should be able to observe the following phenomenon". Then to go out and perform a test gathering evidence or disproving it. Then brute forcing this process and selecting for the most simple model that explains all available data.

Show all hypothesis that explain all available data, that have not been disproved, sorted by complexity of the model with most evidence collected for it, and least evidence levied against it.

If each of these processes could be automated, we could use the world's supercomputers to crunch out 500 years of physics scientific discovery in a few years.

</comment><comment><USER17> We can see how Einstein thought through this modern day Einstein: meet Jacob Barnett (aka Einstein), a 14-Year-Old Master's degree student on his way to earning a PhD in quantum physics. Truly a genius.

[http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/05/11/jacob-barnett- autis...](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/05/11/jacob-barnett- autistic-14-year-old-nobel-prize_n_3254920.html)

<comment> mr-ron Did you read OP article even? One of the main ideas is that his 'genius' took years of meticulous work.

<comment><USER18> besides, obtaining a PhD, even at an early age, doesn't make you a genius... well, at least not an Einstein-like genius.

<comment><USER17> I look at it through the way they both think, how they both process information. He's a pretty interesting kid.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Goodbye, Ivory Tower. Hello, Candy Store - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/04/technology/goodbye-ivory-tower-hello-silicon-valley-candy-store.html <comment><AUTHOR> > The same could be true for household goods, Mr. Weyl said. One possible > situation: After you use your espresso machine for breakfast, a drone comes > to pick it up, and you rent it out for the day.

A most ridiculous example of 'anything is possible with technology'.

<comment><USER2> This is all so ridiculous. Easy to throw out fat salaries to do meaningless stuff all day when you're playing with funny money (everyone has to look busy to keep selling the story to investors).

We haven't even figured out a way to get people from home to work quickly and efficiently in Silicon Valley but people are working on maximizing the earning potential of your coffee machine.

<comment><USER3>
        We haven't even figured out a way to get people from
        home to work quickly and efficiently in Silicon Valley

I'd say there is a rational reason for this. If the cost of living was lower in the SFBA, salaries would likely be lower. By creating remote working technology or attitudes, an engineer would almost be working towards lowering their own salary (effectively allowing their jobs to be intra-country- outsourced to lower cost of living areas).

<comment><USER4> There are lots of engineers who would be willing to work towards decreasing cost of living, even if it decreases their salary.

I certainly would. I don't really care if my salary goes down by 10 percent if I massively help make the world a better place.

<comment><USER5> And there are lots of engineers for whom working remotely would _increase_ their salary, however it decreased the cost for their employees. If anything, I'd say that (on a global scale) economic incentives are firmly on the side of solving the remote working problem rather then perpetuating it.

<comment><USER3> I don't disagree with the grandparent: there are people who would do it, but I think for engineers right now the incentives are aligned against it.

And I agree with you, for _employers_ it's definitely in their interests, they just need to get over the inertia of "bums in seats means work is getting done".

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> >One study focuses on procrastination — a subject of great interest to behavioral economists — by looking at bookings. Are they last-minute? Made weeks or months in advance? Do booking habits change by age, gender or country of origin?

Airbnb is already making tangible changes based on this kind of data. One example is using it to make predictions of demand, and then tell Airbnb hosts the optimal price that they should charge to maximize revenue and chances of being booked.

</comment><comment><USER7> There was a man I knew who actually did quit Palantir to work at a literal candy store, actually (Rocket Fizz, which mainly sells soda but also candy). Interesting guy.

<comment><USER8> I have always wondered how that store on University can draw enough sales to have such prime real estate, figured it was a front for something else.

<comment><USER9> Pretty tough to not make money when you are selling pretty much sugar and water, highly marked up. Soda is incredibly profitable once you have a brand that sells.

<comment><USER10> I remember once reading that investing in Monster Energy Drink stock 10 years ago produced a greater return than any of the FANG stocks.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Reminds me of physicists leaving academia to join financial companies.

<comment><USER12> aren't they becoming "Data Scientists" now?

<comment><USER13> That's also true, but you still see a ton of ex-academic physicists on Wall Street.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Aww, my product (Preemptible VMs) got ignored from this section:

> A current market-design challenge for Amazon and Microsoft is their big > cloud computing services. These digital services, for example, face a peak- > load problem, much as electric utilities do.

> How do you sell service at times when there is a risk some customers may be > bumped off? Run an auction for what customers are willing to pay for > interruptible service? Or offer set discounts for different levels of risk? > Both Amazon and Microsoft are working on that now.

Maybe we're boring because I fought (and won) for flat pricing instead of making this auction-based like Spot. We didn't ignore the economics though, auctions are a great thing for a fixed, exchangeable pie; much less clear for price elasticity, and an effectively infinitely scalable business.

</comment><comment><USER15> Very clickbaity headline. I thought a professor has quit academia to open a real candy store

<comment><USER16> Yup. The title of this post isn't even the same as the article headline. If I had read the "Silicon Valley" in the title, I probably wouldn't have clicked it.</comment></comment>


LazerCatz - 8-Bit Multiplayer Shooter - NodeKO Entry - <AUTHOR> http://lazercatz.no.de/

<comment><USER2> Hey, this is pretty cool! But could you perhaps put an indicator around your character so that you can instantly see which character is yours ? Other than that, nice job xD

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! We've got lots of plans for the future, but right now we can't change anything until the voting ends on Friday.

In the mean time, if you select the first character (with the headband) you will be the only one on your screen with his look. It's just how it works right now :-)

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> I should note it's only been tested with Chrome, Firefox and (I think) Safari.

</comment><comment><USER2> Uhm.. What exactly am I supposed to do there ? It's just an image :/

<comment><USER3> Use the keyboard. It's Canvas, not an image.</comment></comment>


Posterous is Not in beta - <AUTHOR> http://sachin.posterous.com/posterouscom-is-not-in-beta

<comment><USER2> > _Fuck no. "Beta" is just an excuse to release buggy software and not have to > take responsibility for it._

Fuck no. Under conventional ("software engineering") definition, _beta_ is a stage when a product may be missing few features (e.g. complete help system), but when you can already show it to the public. Unstable versions or those missing major features are labeled as _alphas_ if they are released outside of the development or QA. These are typically released in a restricted fashion and are not available to a general public.

</comment><comment><USER3> I think it is stand-up that Posterous doesn't hide behind "Beta" when something goes wrong. At the same time, the service is not as mature or robust as, say, WordPress. This makes a lot of sense since Posterous is a very recent startup.

Maybe they're in gamma? Maybe, like Hadoop, they're version 0.X? I'm sure rantfoil can enlighten us.

<comment><USER4> Haha, well, we make no excuses. Robustness and maturity are things that come with time and a whole lot of elbow grease. (Which we are applying liberally to the area.) ;-)

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Beta is a good marketing device. It makes people think they are getting something "Hot off the press".

I don't use it myself, but I can see why some others might.

It's just another meaningless buzzword at the end of the day.

</comment><comment><USER6> TicketStumbler was in private beta for a month or so, but we never did get around to putting the fancy tag on our logo...

I don't think Posterous is in Beta or Gamma or Epsilon or any other nonsense. It's just... Posterous!

</comment><comment><USER7> That seems a bit silly. What is wrong with testing an application that is not yet 100% finished?

<comment><USER4> What's wrong is being in a perpetual state of beta. If you release software into the world, take full responsibility for it. Saying you're in beta is like blaming your parents for bad parenting when you're 30 and living at home.

<comment><USER5> People like being first to get something. They like having an invite. They like getting a backstage pass. They like being specially selected to try some Beta software.

It's not all about being able to blame bugs, it's also a good marketing strategy to make users feel privileged or important.

<comment><USER4> This I agree with -- beta has a time and place, and as a marketing strategy it can work. It just _feels_ as though beta is used as a "Oh, my place is such a mess..." kind of excuse.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> i once felt the same way. it's important to note that "beta" isn't just limited to code, especially if you're building something technically solid yet "experimental" in design (i.e. involving complex algorithms or even game mechanics).

</comment><comment><USER9> I'm in Lambda.

</comment><comment><USER10> I think "beta" gets a bad rap nowadays because everyone uses it. I mean, GMail has been in "beta" since it launched!

Beta doesn't mean your code is bad, it just means you're not at "version 1.0". There is nothing wrong with launching your app in beta for a few months.

</comment><comment><USER11> Being in beta can mean so many things. One good way to use it is define a stage where you're looking for testers prior to launch. Some set ups need to be tested by a number of testers larger than "a handful of friends". They will suggest usability improvements, suggest features, spot typos, break things you didn't think could be broken, etc.

Not to mention that if you impress your beta testers, you'll have them acting like your marketing force at launch.

In the end, a well-run beta can do wonders to the quality of the launched software. So please don't go poo-pooing beta testing. Yes it's an abused term but it's still a good thing for those that know how to do it.

</comment><comment><USER12> See this passage on BETA stages by 37signals:

<http://gettingreal.37signals.com/ch15_Better_Not_Beta.php>

</comment><comment><USER13> I agree. I think beta should mean "Not all functionality is complete" as opposed to "Not all functionality is working". There is no excuse to release buggy software. None.

</comment><comment><USER14> Yeah, it's weird, how people even use the terms pre-alpha, alpha, beta, or beta invite-only. It just seems that if people can get to it, then it's public.</comment>


Show HN: Replayable webhook hub - <AUTHOR> https://www.hookdoo.com/ <comment><USER2> I am interested! Sign up verification email never arrived.

<comment><AUTHOR> Oh, did you check the spam folder?

We are using sendmail to dispatch mails from digital ocean servers where the app is hosted, so it's quite possible it's getting picked up as a spam based solely on the IP :(</comment></comment>


Windows 10 automatic updates: Get over it - <AUTHOR> http://www.zdnet.com/article/windows-10-automatic-updates-get-over-it/

<comment><USER2> The average windows user will benefit greatly in security from the automatic updates, even if one in a million of them will experience their PC's going into infinite reboot cycle due to incompatible update :)

</comment><comment><USER3> If anything Microsoft doesn't want another XP where people just refuse to update beyond it. Companies (NHS being a prime example) are willing to pay a lot of money just to be supported still on XP

</comment><comment><USER4> I don't think anyone has a problem with this being the default, because novices need it, but I think people should have the option to turn it off.

</comment><comment><USER5> If you use Pro you can turn it off in group policy. Same with Cortana, all the sync crap, Windows Defender, and the Store.</comment>


Tell HN: Merry Christmas and get away from your computer - <AUTHOR>

That's all, Merry Christmas to all of you. I hope it's a time for you to get away from your computer and stop thinking about hacking and developing stuff.
The best ideas come when I'm not looking for them.  Inspiration does not come through HN or Techmeme or Pandowhatevercrunch.com .
So enjoy your holiday and I wish you all the best. <comment><USER2> But...But...

Okay, you really are right. Thank you. I will go drink christmas ales and listen to my family's bad jokes. Hope you all do the same :)

<comment><USER3> Yeah, same here ^^ i will try too ;)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I'll be spending the entire X'Mas hacking on my startup :) Thanks for the advice though.

<comment><USER5> Your startup?

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Never!</comment>