[blablablerg]

It is, because you are wasting time reinventing the wheel. Also if something is already well researched, you might miss intricacies, traps, optimizations etc. previous researchers have stumbled upon.

[dwaltrip]

It isn’t necessarily “wasted” time. There are more ways to look at it, as well as 2nd order and 3rd order effects (and so on).

It’s a powerful skill to be able to try to solve things from first principles. And it’s a muscle you can strengthen.

It would be a bit silly to never look anything up, but it isn’t so black and white.

[Shorel]

You need to be able to do both.

Only reading the existing literature is not good enough.

The capacity to create ideas is also something that needs to be practiced.

[Brian_K_White]

This is a good example of how the most obvious intuition can be wrong, or at best incomplete.