Think Like an Amateur, Do As an Expert

作者：金出武雄，譯者：鄭舜瓏，像外行一樣思考，像專家一樣實踐：成功解決問題的高階技術，遠流

Jitendra S. Mudhol, Think Like an Amateur, Do As an Expert: Lessons from a Career in Computer Vision, CollaMeta, May 17, 2019. (video)

What is “good research”? Even experienced researchers find it difficult to answer this question clearly.  He quoted the late Prof. Allen Newell:

• Good science responds to real phenomena or real problems
• Good science is in the details
• Good science makes a difference

Value of Research:

• Research does not have to be new
• “Newness itself is not a virtue, usefulness is.”
• It's hard to predict research: Dr. Kanade shared the story of Lucas-Kanade Optical Flow [Lucas, Kanade ‘81].  Around '80, they were working the problem of tracking.  His student Bruce Lucas came up with an idea: the solution as a combination of the Taylor series expansion (well known for 300 years) and the graphical solution for a quadratic equation.  Lucas insisted they should write a paper and Dr. Kanade insisted they should not publish as it seemed trivial … the student insisted and finally, the Professor gave in … allowing the student to publish in an obscure journal.  Lo, behold!  Of the 400+ papers Dr. Kanade has published, this has become the most-referenced paper of all.  Every algorithm that has video processing uses this concept.

Kyoto Prize at Oxford Lecture: Dr Takeo Kanade: Fun research in computer vision and robotics (Video)