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Pafnuty Chebyshev, a Russian mathematician who discovered a bunch of important things, deliberately limited his intake of other mathematicians' works, in order to force himself think in original ways, not ways suggested by others' works.

This medicine needs to be taken in moderation though, else one can end up reinventing some key wheels instead of speeding forward on these wheels, like https://fliptomato.wordpress.com/2007/03/19/medical-research...



I read somewhere that the explanation for the integration article was citation restrictions on some other paper, where the easiest solution was to get the method published in an existing relevant journal to create the citation needed.


That is quite interesting, but it is a personal choice of his.

If just a bunch of math wizards and weirdos do it, they'll be seen as isolated and it won't take effect in the dynamics of the web.

I'm talking about everyone doing it.




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