nikhil.io

So you might think, why bother solving this problem? Why not work on some big problem that we know is important?

But I think that misses the point. What if the Goldbach Conjecture, turns out it is opening up a whole new part of the multiverse of mathematical ideas. We don’t really know 'cause we don’t have the bird’s eye view, or the God’s eye view, of math. […] So, I tend to dislike this picture of certain things are central and other things are peripheral.

People should do what fires them up. Because if you do that, you’ll be passionate, you’ll think about it all the time. You’ll do it when you’re in the shower. You’ll think about it when you’re driving. And you might do something remarkable because of that passion. And if you’re just doing something 'cause you think it’s important, I think you’ll tend to be second rate, honestly.

I like the modest view that we don’t know what’s necessarily important, but we do know what we love. So work on that.