FW: See Mars This August 2009

From: anju
Date: Thu, Jun 18, 2009 at 4:33 PM
Subject: FW: See Mars This August 2009
To:

mark ypu calender

GOOD ARTICLE

From: anju
Date: Sat, Jun 6, 2009 at 2:06 PM
Subject: GOOD ARTICLE
To:
Cc:

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10 Essential Career Lessons From Terence Tao

If you want to be successful, learning from great people is one of the best things you can do. It saves you a lot of time because you don’t need to learn things yourself the hard way. You can just find what works for them and apply it in your life.

It will be even better if you learn from people with different backgrounds. Different backgrounds give you different perspectives. They can give you lessons you’ve never thought about before.

In this article, I’d like to share with you some career advice from the perspective of a mathematician. The mathematician is Terence Tao who received the Fields Medal (the mathematics equivalent of the Nobel Prize) in 2006 when he was 31. He is also the youngest ever gold medalist of the International Mathematical Olympiad (IMO). IMO is a high-school-level competition but he won his gold medal when he was only 13.

While Tao’s blog discusses many mathematical topics, it also has a Career Advice section. The advice targets aspiring mathematician but it’s applicable to other fields as well. I especially love the fact that the advice comes from the perspective of a great mathematician - a perspective I’ve never considered before.

You can read the Career Advice section yourself to get everything Terence Tao says about career, but here I want to give you the interesting lessons I’ve found. Here they are:

1. Build solid foundation first

Anything glamorous is likely to be highly competitive, and only those with the most solid of backgrounds (in particular, lots of experience with less glamorous aspects of the field) are likely to get anywhere. (source)

Many people want to gain recognition quickly and that’s why they want to do the glamorous things. But there’s a reason why those things are glamorous: they aren’t easy to achieve. So the best way to build your reputation is not by going after them but by building a solid foundation first. You need to patiently do the less glamorous things until you gain the proficiency required for something higher.

2. Focus on contribution

One should never make prizes or recognition a primary reason for pursuing mathematics; it is a better strategy in the long-term to just produce good mathematics and contribute to your field, and the prizes and recognition will take care of themselves (source)

This is an important principle to remember because it’s easy to get distracted with prizes and recognition. If your focus is prizes and recognition, it’s easy to be disappointed when things don’t go as expected. You put yourself in an emotional roller-coaster that drains your mental energy. On the other hand, by focusing on contribution you keep your mental energy while increasing your value at the same time.

3. “Boring” things are important

… enjoy these competitions, but don’t neglect the more “boring” aspects of your mathematical education, as those turn out to be ultimately more useful. (source)

Some people just want to do the things they like. When they need to do something “boring”, they try to avoid it or just do it half-heartedly. But the fact is, there is always “boring” stuff you need to do in order to succeed. You can’t do only the fun part. Joel Spolsky said it well:

Oh, so, you’re saying I should hire you because you don’t work very hard when the work is boring? Well, there’s boring stuff in programming, too. Every job has its boring moments. And I don’t want to hire people that only want to do the fun stuff.

4. Diversify your experience

Even the best mathematics departments do not have strengths in every field, so being at several mathematics departments will broaden your education and expose you to a variety of mathematical cultures. (source)

No matter how good your current experience is, you still need to get new experiences. You need to diversify your experience to broaden your perspective. That helps you see things from different points of view.

5. Easy success hurts

If one is accustomed to easy success, one may not develop the patience necessary to deal with truly difficult problems. (source)

Many people want to achieve easy success. But that can hurt your career in the long term because you don’t expand your capacity. When the problems get tough, you won’t have the persistence to go through it. So don’t look for the easy way. Let your hard-earned successes prepare you to be even more successful.

6. Breakthroughs come from hard work

One needs to do a serious amount of reading and writing, and not just thinking, in order to get anywhere serious in mathematics; contrary to public opinion, mathematical breakthroughs are not powered solely (or even primarily) by “Eureka” moments of genius, but are in fact largely a product of hard work, directed of course by experience and intuition. (source)

Again, don’t expect easy success. “Luck” comes from hard work. As Thomas Jefferson said:

I’m a great believer in luck, and I find the harder I work the more I have of it.

7. Follow the passion, not the people

Ultimately, it is better to follow the mathematics than to follow a mathematician. (source)

If you follow someone, you may get disappointed when he or she doesn’t meet your expectation. So a better idea is to follow the passion. Do something because it matters to you.

8. Ask “stupid” questions

So one should be unafraid to ask “stupid” questions, challenging conventional wisdom on a subject; the answers to these questions will occasionally lead to a surprising conclusion, but more often will simply tell you why the conventional wisdom is there in the first place, which is well worth knowing. (source)

The questions you ask guide your thinking process. Asking “stupid” questions gives you deeper understanding of a subject which allows you to see opportunities.

9. Focus on building, not defending

It is better to spend your energies on creating new mathematics than trying to fight over your old mathematics. (source)

Many people spend a lot of time and energy trying to prove themselves to others. That’s not a good way to spend your resources. A better thing to do is to keep contributing and providing value. Let the quality of your work speaks for itself.

10. Remember why

It is really easy to get bogged down in the details of some work and not recall the purpose of what one is actually doing; thus it is good to pause every now and then and recall why one is pursuing a particular goal. (source)

Don’t be too busy with the details that you forget the big picture. If you find yourself in such a situation, stop and look at what you do. What’s the purpose of it? Is it aligned with your value? Will it take you closer to your dreams?

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BRAIN RULES

From: anju
Date: Thu, Jun 4, 2009 at 10:24 AM
Subject: BRAIN RULES
To:
Cc:

GOOD ARTICLE

brain Rules

http://www.brainrules.net/

Explore each rule through illustrations, charts and video. These tutorials are designed
to reinforce the concepts in the book; we recommend reading the corresponding
chapter first.

EXERCISE | Rule #1: Exercise boosts brain power.

The human brain evolved under conditions of almost constant motion. From this, one might predict that the optimal environment for processing information would include motion. That is exactly what one finds. Indeed, the best business meeting would have everyone walking at about 1.8 miles per hour.

Researchers studied two elderly populations that had led different lifestyles, one sedentary and one active. Cognitive scores were profoundly influenced. Exercise positively affected executive function, spatial tasks, reaction times and quantitative skills.

So researchers asked: If the sedentary populations become active, will their cognitive scores go up? Yes, it turns out, if the exercise is aerobic. In four months, executive functions vastly improve; longer, and memory scores improve as well.

Exercise improves cognition for two reasons:

• Exercise increases oxygen flow into the brain, which reduces brain-bound free radicals. One of the most interesting findings of the past few decades is that an increase in oxygen is always accompanied by an uptick in mental sharpness.
• Exercise acts directly on the molecular machinery of the brain itself. It increases neurons’ creation, survival, and resistance to damage and stress.

SURVIVAL | Rule #2: The human brain evolved, too.

• The brain is a survival organ. It is designed to solve problems related to surviving in an unstable outdoor environment and to do so in nearly constant motion (to keep you alive long enough to pass your genes on). We were not the strongest on the planet but we developed the strongest brains, the key to our survival.
• The strongest brains survive, not the strongest bodies. Our ability to solve problems, learn from mistakes, and create alliances with other people helps us survive. We took over the world by learning to cooperate and forming teams with our neighbors.
• Our ability to understand each other is our chief survival tool. Relationships helped us survive in the jungle and are critical to surviving at work and school today.
• If someone does not feel safe with a teacher or boss, he or she may not perform as well. If a student feels misunderstood because the teacher cannot connect with the way the student learns, the student may become isolated.
• There is no greater anti-brain environment than the classroom and cubicle.

WIRING | Rule #3: Every brain is wired differently.

• What YOU do and learn in life physically changes what your brain looks like – it literally rewires it. We used to think there were just 7 categories of intelligence. But categories of intelligence may number more than 7 billion—roughly the population of the world.
• No two people have the same brain, not even twins. Every student’s brain, every employee’s brain, every customer’s brain is wired differently.
• You can either accede to it or ignore it. The current system of education ignores it by having grade structures based on age. Businesses such as Amazon are catching on to mass customization (the Amazon homepage and the products you see are tailored to your recent purchases).
• Regions of the brain develop at different rates in different people. The brains of school children are just as unevenly developed as their bodies. Our school system ignores the fact that every brain is wired differently. We wrongly assume every brain is the same.
• Most of us have a “Jennifer Aniston” neuron (a neuron lurking in your head that is stimulated only when Jennifer Aniston is in the room).

ATTENTION | Rule #4: We don't pay attention to boring things.

• What we pay attention to is profoundly influenced by memory. Our previous experience predicts where we should pay attention. Culture matters too. Whether in school or in business, these differences can greatly effect how an audience perceives a given presentation.
• We pay attention to things like emotions, threats and sex. Regardless of who you are, the brain pays a great deal of attention to these questions: Can I eat it? Will it eat me? Can I mate with it? Will it mate with me? Have I seen it before?
• The brain is not capable of multi-tasking. We can talk and breathe, but when it comes to higher level tasks, we just can’t do it.
• Driving while talking on a cell phone is like driving drunk. The brain is a sequential processor and large fractions of a second are consumed every time the brain switches tasks. This is why cell-phone talkers are a half-second slower to hit the brakes and get in more wrecks.
• Workplaces and schools actually encourage this type of multi-tasking. Walk into any office and you’ll see people sending e-mail, answering their phones, Instant Messaging, and on MySpace—all at the same time. Research shows your error rate goes up 50% and it takes you twice as long to do things.
• When you’re always online you’re always distracted. So the always online organization is the always unproductive organization.

SHORT-TERM MEMORY | Rule #5: Repeat to remember.

• The human brain can only hold about seven pieces of information for less than 30 seconds! Which means, your brain can only handle a 7-digit phone number. If you want to extend the 30 seconds to a few minutes or even an hour or two, you will need to consistently re-expose yourself to the information. Memories are so volatile that you have to repeat to remember.
• Improve your memory by elaborately encoding it during its initial moments. Many of us have trouble remembering names. If at a party you need help remembering Mary, it helps to repeat internally more information about her. “Mary is wearing a blue dress and my favorite color is blue.” It may seem counterintuitive at first but study after study shows it improves your memory.
• Brain Rules in the classroom. In partnership with the University of Washington and Seattle Pacific University, Medina tested this Brain Rule in real classrooms of 3rd graders. They were asked to repeat their multiplication tables in the afternoons. The classrooms in the study did significantly better than the classrooms that did not have the repetition. If brain scientists get together with teachers and do research, we may be able to eliminate need for homework since learning would take place at school, instead of the home.

LONG-TERM MEMORY | Rule #6: Remember to repeat.

• It takes years to consolidate a memory. Not minutes, hours, or days but years. What you learn in first grade is not completely formed until your sophomore year in high school.
• Medina’s dream school is one that repeats what was learned, not at home, but during the school day, 90-120 minutes after the initial learning occurred. Our schools are currently designed so that most real learning has to occur at home.
• How do you remember better? Repeated exposure to information / in specifically timed intervals / provides the most powerful way to fix memory into the brain.
• Forgetting allows us to prioritize events. But if you want to remember, remember to repeat.

SLEEP | Rule #7: Sleep well, think well.

• When we’re asleep, the brain is not resting at all. It is almost unbelievably active! It’s possible that the reason we need to sleep is so that we can learn.
• Sleep must be important because we spend 1/3 of our lives doing it! Loss of sleep hurts attention, executive function, working memory, mood, quantitative skills, logical reasoning, and even motor dexterity.
• We still don’t know how much we need! It changes with age, gender, pregnancy, puberty, and so much more.
• Napping is normal. Ever feel tired in the afternoon? That’s because your brain really wants to take a nap. There's a battle raging in your head between two armies. Each army is made of legions of brain cells and biochemicals –- one desperately trying to keep you awake, the other desperately trying to force you to sleep. Around 3 p.m., 12 hours after the midpoint of your sleep, all your brain wants to do is nap.
• Taking a nap might make you more productive. In one study, a 26-minute nap improved NASA pilots’ performance by 34 percent.
• Don’t schedule important meetings at 3 p.m. It just doesn’t make sense

STRESS | Rule #8: Stressed brains don't learn the same way.

• You brain is built to deal with stress that lasts about 30 seconds. The brain is not designed for long term stress when you feel like you have no control. The saber-toothed tiger ate you or you ran away but it was all over in less than a minute. If you have a bad boss, the saber-toothed tiger can be at your door for years, and you begin to deregulate. If you are in a bad marriage, the saber-toothed tiger can be in your bed for years, and the same thing occurs. You can actually watch the brain shrink.
• Stress damages virtually every kind of cognition that exists. It damages memory and executive function. It can hurt your motor skills. When you are stressed out over a long period of time it disrupts your immune response. You get sicker more often. It disrupts your ability to sleep. You get depressed.
• The emotional stability of the home is the single greatest predictor of academic success. If you want your kid to get into Harvard, go home and love your spouse.
• You have one brain. The same brain you have at home is the same brain you have at work or school. The stress you are experiencing at home will affect your performance at work, and vice versa.

SENSORY INTEGRATION | Rule #9: Stimulate more of the senses.

• Our senses work together so it is important to stimulate them! Your head crackles with the perceptions of the whole world, sight, sound, taste, smell, touch, energetic as a frat party.
• Smell is unusually effective at evoking memory. If you're tested on the details of a movie while the smell of popcorn is wafted into the air, you'll remember 10-50% more.
• Smell is really important to business. When you walk into Starbucks, the first thing you smell is coffee. They have done a number of things over the years to make sure that’s the case.
• The learning link. Those in multisensory environments always do better than those in unisensory environments. They have more recall with better resolution that lasts longer, evident even 20 years later.

VISION | Rule #10: Vision trumps all other senses.

• We are incredible at remembering pictures. Hear a piece of information, and three days later you'll remember 10% of it. Add a picture and you'll remember 65%.
• Pictures beat text as well, in part because reading is so inefficient for us. Our brain sees words as lots of tiny pictures, and we have to identify certain features in the letters to be able to read them. That takes time.
• Why is vision such a big deal to us? Perhaps because it's how we've always apprehended major threats, food supplies and reproductive opportunity.
• Toss your PowerPoint presentations. It’s text-based (nearly 40 words per slide), with six hierarchical levels of chapters and subheads—all words. Professionals everywhere need to know about the incredible inefficiency of text-based information and the incredible effects of images. Burn your current PowerPoint presentations and make new ones.

GENDER | Rule #11: Male and female brains are different.

• What’s different? Mental health professionals have known for years about sex-based differences in the type and severity of psychiatric disorders. Males are more severely afflicted by schizophrenia than females. By more than 2 to 1, women are more likely to get depressed than men, a figure that shows up just after puberty and remains stable for the next 50 years. Males exhibit more antisocial behavior. Females have more anxiety. Most alcoholics and drug addicts are male. Most anorexics are female.
• Men and women handle acute stress differently. When researcher Larry Cahill showed them slasher films, men fired up the amygdale in their brain’s right hemisphere, which is responsible for the gist of an event. Their left was comparatively silent. Women lit up their left amygdale, the one responsible for details. Having a team that simultaneously understood the gist and details of a given stressful situation helped us conquer the world.
• Men and women process certain emotions differently. Emotions are useful. They make the brain pay attention. These differences are a product of complex interactions between nature and nurture.

EXPLORATION | Rule #12: We are powerful and natural explorers.

• The desire to explore never leaves us despite the classrooms and cubicles we are stuffed into. Babies are the model of how we learn—not by passive reaction to the environment but by active testing through observation, hypothesis, experiment, and conclusion. Babies methodically do experiments on objects, for example, to see what they will do.
• Google takes to heart the power of exploration. For 20 percent of their time, employees may go where their mind asks them to go. The proof is in the bottom line: fully 50 percent of new products, including Gmail and Google News, came from “20 percent time.”