The IP Papers

"Reading makes a man ready"- You might have heard variations of this notion many times when you were in primary school.  Well, at that time, I understood it as reading the text books prescribed by the school :-)

 

I have come across many people who read extensively and are erudite enough. Famous people like Bill Gates post a subset of books they have read every year.

 

But there are professions like Medicine, Law, Design where the professionals are still awesome readers, but simply never have the time to catch up in other distant domains. Their main vocation is demanding enough. 

Surprisingly, when I interact with them, they are excellently informed and exhibit a good grasp of concepts that are quite outside their area. It turns out that, while they might not have read any tomes, they got hold of a few seminal papers in those areas. One may not become an expert but know enough to understand the experts. 

This insight made me wonder about seminal papers. Such a trigger, usually ends up like a list provided in a travel agency's advertisement:  "Top 50 destinations you should visit before you die". Yet, I thought, reading good "papers" is at least a clever way towards gaining a decent understanding of a new terrain. 

Thought of sharing some such papers with a following caveats. 

1. People whose main job is in that domain may find it elementary. They are likely to ask, "Can a sunrise sneak past the rooster?". Well, it is for the others then :-). Please excuse. 

2. While such "seminal/great" papers may be in the range of 100s, if not more, I have applied one simple criteria. I ought to have read  and benefited from it in some way.  

3. Paper should be reasonably simple. It should not require an apprenticeship to understand. Maximum effort required could be  "phone-a-friend" to get quick clarifications! 

4. Finally, it should impel the reader to study a few more papers in that area since one may be hardly enough.

 Now you may be wondering what IP paper means?. I meant "Interesting" and "Personal" papers. Each one of us will have different IP papers in their mental wardrobe.

The second and third caveat ensured that the number is in single digit. So here is my Table. Feel free to share "your papers" list in the comments. 

#	Paper	Comments/Remarks
1	Science and Statistics   By George E.P Box	"All models are wrong, but some are useful" is attributed to him. Neat examples and anecdotes. It lead me to an equally interesting work of Darrell Huff, MJ Moroney
2	Managing Oneself   By Peter F Drucker	Management guru outlines, among various critical stuff, how to figure out if bosses are readers or listeners and advises us to adapt for effectiveness accordingly. Since one cannot customize the boss this paper  should be part of campus induction training material. I learnt much later!
3	Text of Moon Speech by JFK	Heavily influenced by one of my teachers who used to often quote this speech for bold vision, nuanced sense of humour and leadership articulation.
4	More is different   By Phil Anderson	My friend who shared this explained it before  handing over the printout. Else he knew I would have lost the import of this. It argues that reductionism may not be good enough to address all scientific approaches. The ending conversation is as cinematic  as "Gone with the wind"  - hence I use the last portion alone :-)
5	Why future doesn't need us?  By Bill Joy	When a proven techie is uneasy about a set of technologies, you get a little apprehensive and try to take notice of it. It is a long read and full of de-tours. But, overall keeps you aware of the flip side of the coin.
6	Can a biologist fix the radio?   By Y.lisebnik	How to validate an approach or methodology? This paper answers that pesky question well. Some of the observations he raises transcends many domains. It is great reference article.
7	Content is not the king By Andrew Odlyzko	When, the then prevailing Wisdom was "Content is THE king", I really liked this devil's advocate paper. In my view, it had great data points set as well as strong views on the other way around.
8	The feeling of power By Isaac Asimov	Took AI as electives long back just for novelty and chanced upon this story. Frankly, it was too weird for me at that time. Just by reading it again now, many strands are relatively clear from at least on Philosophical angle. Futuristic, Poignant and evocative whenever you check back this counter intuitive tragic story.
Note: Links to the papers are not provided. I assume you will be inspired enough to find out.

Thanks for reading this far.

Regards,

madhu