思考与写作genius.cat-v.org编辑精选
要解决什么问题
What Problems to Solve
2014 — 2025，它一次次回到首页
黑点是上首页（≥ 50 分）的那次投稿，空心点是没冲上去的投稿，点越大分数越高。
导读
这是费曼写给一位学生（信长先生）的回信，讨论“什么问题值得解决”。费曼指出，真正有价值的问题不是别人眼中宏大的问题，而是你确实能着手解决、能真正做出贡献的问题；他还反思了自己当年没有要求学生自主选题是一个错误。
为什么经久不衰：费曼关于“选择自己能攻克的问题”的忠告跨越学科和时代，对科研者、工程师和创业者都同样适用，因此十多年间两度登上 HN 首页。
HN 评论精选
呼应哈明的观点：重要问题=有可行切入点的问题，且要考虑时机是否成熟
这和哈明在《你与你的研究》里说的相呼应。他问同行“你领域里最重要的问题是什么”，再问“那你为什么没在做它”，因此没交到几个朋友。我原以为“重要”意味着“宏大”，其实哈明后来把重要问题定义为“你有合理切入点去解决的问题”。有些问题只是时机未成熟，所以思考什么问题重要时，“为什么是现在？”是个很好的问题。
iamwil查看英文原文
This seems to echo what Richard Hamming says in "You and your research". He recounts how his fellow scientists were working on unimportant problems in their field. The judgement of unimportant came not from Hamming, but from the fellow scientists when he asked them "What's the most important problem in your field right now?" His subsequent question was, "How come you're not working on it?" He says that didn't earn him many friends. By "important", I had also mistakenly thought that he meant "grandiose". But in fact, he later defines "important problems" as "problems that you have a reasonable angle of attack to solve". Some problems just aren't yet ripe, until all the pieces to solve it come together. Which makes the question, "Why now?" a very good question to answer when contemplating what problem is important. When someone writes about how Silicon Valley is working on worthless problems, like photo sharing app, or the Yo app, or twitter--or when Groupon was on the up, and it seems like there were lots of daily deal sites, it makes me think of this. I wonder if they take into account that some problems that are considered worthwhile in their eyes simply aren't ripe to be solved yet.
核心是主动选择自己的问题，而非被动等待分配
这封信强调的是找到自己的问题的重要性——选择自己的道路，而不是等着被分配问题然后变得不快乐。费曼称之为自己的‘错误’：没有要求学生自己选题。本质上是把参照系从‘人类知识的总和’换成‘我今天、立刻能解决什么问题’，先问自己这个问题并给出答案。这是我在工作方面听过的最明智的建议之一。
zeeed查看英文原文
What this stresses is the importance of finding your own problem, that is, choosing your own path instead of having an attitude of waiting to be assigned with a problem and then subsequently becoming unhappy, which is what Feynman calls out as a 'mistake' on his part: not letting or even, not DEMANDING from his student to choose his own problem. Ultimately, it's the advice to change your frame of reference from the 'sum of human knowledge' to 'what problem can i solve today, immediately'. And to ask yourself that question first and find an answer. That's not only smart but about the wisest thing I ever heard someone say regarding work.
直接引用费曼的核心观点，并指出其对普通职场人同样适用
“你的老师给了你关于什么是有价值问题的错误观念。有价值的问题是那些你真正能解决或帮助解决、能真正做出贡献的问题。一个问题若摆在我们面前未获解决、而我们能看到某种推进它的途径，它在科学上就是宏大的。”这是很好的建议——把“老师”换成公司经理、“科学”换成社会，就适用于所有在公司或创业公司工作的人。
ratpik查看英文原文
"It seems that the influence of your teacher has been to give you a false idea of what are worthwhile problems. The worthwhile problems are the ones you can really solve or help solve, the ones you can really contribute something to. A problem is grand in science if it lies before us unsolved and we see some way for us to make some headway into it." That is very good advice. You could replace teacher with your corporate manager and science with society and it becomes relevant to everyone working on a normal corporate job or a start-up.
提供收信人背景和书信集出处等延伸资料
看看收信人（信长先生）现在的个人主页很有意思。这封信出自费曼书信集《别闹了，费曼先生之外的通信》（Perfectly Reasonable Deviations from the Beaten Track），弗里曼·戴森曾为整部书信集写过一篇很有思想的评论。
michael_nielsen查看英文原文
It's interesting to look at what may be a homepage for the recipient of the letter: http://johnen.shinshu-u.ac.jp/~mano/profile_e.html The letter is from an excellent collection of Feynman letters, "Perfectly Reasonable Deviations from the Beaten Track". There's a thoughtful review of the entire collection (by Freeman Dyson) here: http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2005/oct/20/wise-man/
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