An Interactive Synthesis
How to Get Systematically Smarter
Research methodology for people who aren’t researchers — from the MIT AI Lab, Richard Hamming, and Richard Feynman
Sources: Chapman et al. (1988) · Hamming (1986, 1996) · Feynman Technique
Contents
00
The Research Mindset
Why this matters outside academia
01
Reading as a System
Not consumption — extraction
02
The Secret Paper Passing Network
How knowledge actually moves
03
The Verification Layer
Feynman’s method for catching self-deception
04
Writing as Thinking
The notebook, the draft, and the debug loop
05
Choosing What to Work On
Hamming’s hierarchy of importance
06
The Emotional Landscape
Why most people quit (and how not to)
07
Your Personal Research System
Putting it all together