On LinkedIn, Arizona State U. dean Jeffrey Cohen recently explained his dislike of how the phrases “It’s complicated” and “It’s a slippery slope” are often used to justify inaction. He then asked readers to chime in with their own least-favorite rationalizations. My nomination: “Let’s not reinvent the wheel.”
In my experience, the wheels being referenced are often misshapen and heavy and prone to breaking. In addition, my personal strengths skew toward improving existing items (editing and re-editing text, for example) rather than creating new ones. On the whole, I’m a fan of wheel reinventions.
As with the related issue of fast versus slow thinking, I’ve found some solidarity in Jordana Cepelewicz’s profile of June Huh:
“June likes to do things in the right way,” said Graham Denham, a mathematician at Western University in Ontario and one of Huh’s collaborators.
For instance, Denham, Ardila and Huh had just completed a 50-page proof of a problem closely related to Rota’s conjecture when Huh said they should take some more time to find a cleaner, more appealing approach. He thought there was a nicer explanation out there, and that it was best not to rush things. “Federico and I were like, oh, OK, so we’ll just chuck that, then, shall we?” Denham said.
It took two years to craft the better argument. “It’s good we’re all tenured,” Ardila said. Ultimately, though, Ardila and Denham agreed that the extra work was worth it. Their end result “was totally different, and deeper, and [got to] the heart of things,” Ardila said.
My Track Record 
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