Another favorite pastime was digging a tunnel under his home; he attributed the secret of his success to “visits by elves” while he worked in the tunnel: “While I’m digging in the tunnel, the elves will often come to me with solutions to my problem.”
Wikipedia cited a rather entertaining Time article as a citation for this.
I’m pretty sure he was kidding about the elves. In the article he says:
“I work for three hours, and then I get stumped, and I’m not making progress. So I quit, and I go and work in the tunnel. It takes me an hour or so to dig four inches and put in the 4-by-4s. … Then I go back up and work some more.”
It’s a common technique when dealing with a difficult research/creative problem.
- gain a good understanding of the problem (even if you’re stuck on how to solve it)
- go do something unrelated work (preferrably physical, like gardening or housework or… working on your basement apparently.)
I think it gives your subconscious a chance to work on the problem without your conscious mind interfering.
We found Colin Furze’s dad!
He Cray.
Cray!
so is he then the father of tunnelling protocols?