People quote Feynman's problem solving algorithm--"1. Write down the problem; 2. Think real hard; 3. Write down the solution."--as if it were a joke about how smart Feynman was. That's one reading, but I prefer a different one: there is no one weird trick.
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The Feynman thing bugs me a bit. IIRC it was just a flippant remark Gell-Mann made to Ken Wilson (another extraordinary theorist). In practice, theorists have all kinds of detailed tricks, and think about them a lot. I suspect Murray was just feeling tired of all that that day.
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Sure, it's a +100 compared to most other pieces of advice you can give people. I don't mean to say the basics aren't useful! Just that no single piece of explicit advice is going to get anyone much of the way from 0 to Gell-Mann.
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