Practice Precedes Theory: Halvar Flake's Decade-Long Realization Resonates
TheKanter · x · 2026-10-19
Halvar Flake reflects that he absorbed the idea that theoretical progress precedes practical progress, but it took a decade to understand the reverse: we often figure out how to do something before understanding how it works. Kanter adds that around 2000 a math graduate student at Chicago said much of the most interesting math research was formalizing things that happened to work in physics — broadly consistent with the same view.
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