Time for crazy experiments

Oliver Smithies received the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 2007 for his genetics work. I'd never heard of him until a reader (HT Jacob!) mentioned him to me via email. It was a treat to learn more about him. I especially enjoyed the NYT's description of him in this retrospective:

"For Dr. Smithies, a love of science flowed naturally out of his drive to tinker... As a child, Dr. Smithies spent much of his time building things. He made a loudspeaker from a pig's bladder stretched over a frame, going to a slaughterhouse to get the bladder. He also built telescopes and radios...

"Dr. Smithies was famously messy, with piles of paper stacked precariously on his desk. But he was meticulous about his work, keeping every notebook he had ever possessed, even recording the lot numbers of reagents he used.

"The only exceptions were what he called his Saturday morning experiments. Dr. Smithies explained, 'On Saturday mornings, you can do whatever you want.' He felt free to doodle, like a child with finger paints, to have fun and to free his imagination."

I loved that: an incredibly disciplined tinkerer and experimenter specifically carving out time to "let go," to "do whatever you want." As seriously as he took his work, he also recognized the need to allow his imagination to wander and to pursue nonsense. This very short video from the Nobel Prize Inspiration Initiative captures him describing why he loves his weekly time for crazy experiments:

"Maybe this is not very sensible, but it's Saturday morning... I can just do it because it's crazy, and because I'd like to try it."

It made me wonder what my own space for crazy experiments is. Would love to hear how you think about blocking off time & space to entertain the things you'd like to explore, just because.

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