Asking the right question is more important than getting the right answer
    提出正確的問題比得到正確的答案更重要。[原文地址](https://lemire.me/blog/2018/12/06/asking-the-right-question-is-more-important-than-getting-the-right-answer/)
    Schools train us to provide the right answers to predefined questions.
 Yet anyone with experience from the real world knows that, more often than not, the difficult part is 
to find the right question.
    學(xué)校訓(xùn)練我們?yōu)轭A(yù)先設(shè)定的問題提供正確的答案。
然而，任何有現(xiàn)實世界經(jīng)驗的人都知道，困難的部分往往是找到正確的問題。

    To make a remarkable contribution, you need to start by asking the right question.
 I will go further than this: the questions you are asking might define who you are.
    要做出卓越的貢獻(xiàn)，你需要先提出正確的問題。
    我會更進(jìn)一步：你問的問題可能會定義你是誰。

    What is a good question?
    The great questions are tractable and fruitful. They lead you on a path of discovery. 
It is easy to ask how to cure cancer, but that’s not a good question because it does 
not help anyone do medical research.
    偉大的問題是易于處理和富有成效的。他們帶領(lǐng)你走上發(fā)現(xiàn)的道路。
很容易提出如何才能治愈癌癥這個問題，但這不是一個好問題，因為它無助于任何人進(jìn)行醫(yī)學(xué)研究。

    Secret questions are the best: if you are the only one with this question in mind, 
then you may be holding a gold mine. Questions that everyone is having are proportionally worthless.
 (E.g., see [Zero to One](http://a-fwd.com/asin-com=0804139296&com=daniellemires-20&ca=danilemisblog-20&uk=danilemisblog-21&de=danilemisbl05-21&fr=danilemisbl0e-21&it=danilemisbl02-21&jp=danilemisblog-22&cn=danilemisblog-23&fb=com&sc=w) )
    秘密問題是最好的：如果你是唯一一個有這個問題的人，那么你可能會持有一個金礦。
每個人都有的問題在比例上毫無價值。（例如，參見Peter Thiel的[Zero to One](http://a-fwd.com/asin-com=0804139296&com=daniellemires-20&ca=danilemisblog-20&uk=danilemisblog-21&de=danilemisbl05-21&fr=danilemisbl0e-21&it=danilemisbl02-21&jp=danilemisblog-22&cn=danilemisblog-23&fb=com&sc=w)）

     You may think that by studying hard, by learning all the answers, 
you will get better at asking great questions. I am not sure it works.
     你可能認(rèn)為我只要努力學(xué)習(xí)，知道所有的答案，你就會在問更好的問題上做的更好。
我無法確定如此。
     In fact, knowing too much can harm you. I would take a B student 
who has fresh questions as a Ph.D. student over a typical overeager A+ student 
who frets about getting everything right. It is a poorly held secret 
that some of the very best researchers and innovators were average students.
     事實上，知道的太多反而可能影響你。我可能會帶一個B學(xué)生，
他作為博士生能夠提出新問題。在一個典型的過度訓(xùn)練得到A+成績學(xué)生可能覺得一切正常。
一些最優(yōu)秀的研究人員和創(chuàng)新者都是普通學(xué)生，這是一個拙劣的秘密。
     Do the following experiment. Pick a scholarly field, any field,
 then spend two weeks reading everything about it that you can. 
Next, write down 5 questions. I can almost guarantee you that these 5 questions will be
already covered by sources you read. They will be “known” questions.
     做以下實驗。選擇一個學(xué)術(shù)領(lǐng)域，任何領(lǐng)域，然后你花兩個星期閱讀有關(guān)它的一切資料。
接下來，寫下5個問題。我?guī)缀蹩梢韵蚰ＷC，你閱讀的資料已經(jīng)涵蓋了這五個問題。他們將是“已知”的問題。

     So to find good questions, you have to maintain some distance from the material. 
This should be uncontroversial if you consider that I define “good questions” to be “secret” or “highly original”.
      因此，要找到好的問題，您必須與材料保持一定距離。如果你認(rèn)為我將“好問題”定義為“秘密”
或“高度原創(chuàng)”，那么這應(yīng)該是沒有爭議的。
     Our minds tend to frame everything in terms of the patterns we have learned. 
Spend two years studying Marxism and every single problem will feel like a Marxist problem to you.
It becomes difficult for you to come up with new questions outside of the frame.    
     我們的思維方式傾向于根據(jù)我們學(xué)到的模式來構(gòu)建一切。花兩年時間學(xué)習(xí)馬克思主義，
每一個問題對你來說都是一個馬克思主義問題。你很難在框架之外提出新的問題。

     Don’t get me wrong: smart people who know more tend to be more creative, 
everything else being equal… but there is a difference between being knowledgeable
and having been locked into a frame of mind.
     不要誤會我的意思：聰明的人往往更有創(chuàng)造力，其他一切都是平等的......
但是，在知識淵博和被鎖定在心境之間還是存在差異的。
     Yet here is how many researchers work. They survey the best papers from the last major
conference or journal issue in their field. Importantly, they make sure to read 
what everyone is reading and to make sure to make theirs the frame of minds of the best people. 
They make sure that they can repeat the most popular questions and answers. 
They look at the papers, look for holes or possibilities for improvement and work from there. 
What this ensures that there are a few leaders (people writing about genuine novel ideas) 
followed by a long and nearly endless stream of “me too” papers that offer minor
 and inconsequential variations.
     然而，這里有多少研究人員在工作。他們調(diào)查了他們所在領(lǐng)域上一次重大會議或期刊的最佳論文。
重要的是，他們確保閱讀每個人正在閱讀的內(nèi)容，并確保讓他們成為最優(yōu)秀人才的思維框架。
他們確保他們可以重復(fù)最流行的問題和答案。他們看文件，尋找漏洞或改進(jìn)的可能性，并從那里開始工作。
這兒確實有少數(shù)杰出者（人們寫下真正的新穎創(chuàng)意），接下來是一長串且?guī)缀鯚o窮無盡的“我也是”的論文，
這些論文提供了微小而無關(guān)緊要的變化。

     It is easier to judge these things in retrospect. In computer science, we had the XML
craze at the turn of the century. Dozens of XML papers appeared each year 
at each of the top database conferences.
 [I wrote about the untold story of the death of this idea](https://lemire.me/blog/2013/01/14/xml-for-databases-a-dead-idea/). How could so many people get so excited at the same time by what was a dead-end?
     回想起來，這些事情更容易判斷。在計算機(jī)科學(xué)中，我們在世紀(jì)之交就擁有了XML熱潮。
每年在每個頂級數(shù)據(jù)庫會議上都會出現(xiàn)數(shù)十篇XML論文。[我寫了關(guān)于這個想法死亡的不為人知的故事](https://lemire.me/blog/2013/01/14/xml-for-databases-a-dead-idea/)。怎么會有這么多人同時因為一個死胡同而變得如此興奮？           

     I believe that people are happy to be handed out questions and will often rush out 
to provide highly sophisticated thorough answers… whether or not the question is the right one.
     我相信人們很樂意提出問題，并且經(jīng)常會急于提供高度復(fù)雜的徹底答案......
無論問題是否正確。
     My claim is that the people leading are not unnaturally smart, knowledgeable or creative. 
The people who answer other people’s questions are not dumb or unimaginative. 
The main difference is one of focus. You either focus on asking good questions or you focus on providing good answers.
     我的主張是杰出的人才不是天生的的聰明，知識淵博或創(chuàng)造性。
回答別人問題的人并不愚蠢或缺乏想象力。主要區(qū)別在于他們的關(guān)注點在哪里。
你要么專注于提出好的問題，要么專注于提供好的答案。

     The world would be better if we had more people asking better questions.
     如果我們有更多的人提出更好的問題，世界會更好。
     How might we ask better questions?
     Pay attention to what is around you and violates your worldview.
How did Fleming discover penicillin? He noticed that some mold 
that had invaded his dirty lab appeared to kill bacteria. He asked the right question at that time.
     我們怎么能問更好的問題？
     注意周圍的事物可能會違背你的世界觀。弗萊明是如何發(fā)現(xiàn)青霉素的？他注意到一些侵入他臟實驗室的霉菌似乎會殺死細(xì)菌。他當(dāng)時就問了正確的問題。

     Be patient. Reportedly, Einstein once stated, “It’s Not That I’m so Smart, 
It’s Just That I Stay with Problems Longer.” The longer you work on a problem, 
the more likely you are to find interesting questions. (See [Forthmann et al. 2018](https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/jocb.350)) 
The easiest way to miss the great questions is to dismiss the problems as uninteresting and move on too quickly.
     耐心點。據(jù)報道，愛因斯坦曾經(jīng)說過，“我不是多么的聰明，只是因為我的問題時間更長。
”你解決問題的時間越長，就越有可能找到有趣的問題。（參見[Forthmann等人，2018年](https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/jocb.350)）
錯過這些重大問題的最簡單方法是將這些問題視為不感興趣并過快地進(jìn)行。
     Be physically active, go for a walk. Chaining yourself to a desk is likely counterproductive. 
I used to think that being an all-out intellectual was the best route, but I now believe that I was grossly mistaken.
 I personally take a walk outside almost every morning on weekdays. (See [Oppezzo and Schwartz, 2014](http://psycnet.apa.org/buy/2014-14435-001)).
     通過身體活動，去散步。將自己束縛在桌子上可能會適得其反。
我曾經(jīng)認(rèn)為，成為一個全面的知識分子是最好的路線，但我現(xiàn)在相信我是錯誤的。
我平日幾乎每天早上都在外面散步。
（見[Oppezzo和Schwartz，2014年](http://psycnet.apa.org/buy/2014-14435-001)）。

     Don’t be too social. Social pressure toward conformity trigger intense instinctive reactions. 
It is simply hard to go against the herd. Thus you are better off not know too much 
about where the herd is. In concrete terms, spend entirely days by yourself.
     不要太實際。順從的社會壓力會引發(fā)強(qiáng)烈的本能反應(yīng)。反對群體真的很難。
因此，你最好不要過多地了解群體的位置。具體而言，完全花幾天時間。
     Ask a lot of questions. If you want to become good at providing the right answers, 
train yourself to answer lots of questions. If you want to become good at asking questions, 
ask a lot of them.
     問了很多問題。如果你想善于提供正確的答案，訓(xùn)練自己回答很多問題。如果你想善于提問，可以問很多問題。
     Always question your own thoughts and work.
     總是質(zhì)疑自己的想法和工作。
     The scientific mind does not so much provide the right answers 
as ask the right questions. (attributed to Levi-Strauss)
     在提出正確的問題時，科學(xué)思想并沒有提供正確的答案。