Thursday 10 May 2012

How research works


I was going to write a totally different post today but I wanted to share this instead. Today, I had my absolute very last lecture at this university ever and it so happened to be a revision lecture for General Relativity. Toby, the lecturer, gave us some advice that has really strung a chord with me.

Over the last few months, I have really been struggling with my self confidence when it comes to doing science. I get good results but I work very hard for them and I often feel like there will come a point when I just cannot compensate with working harder anymore. I feel like I'm too stupid to do "real" physics. This might have something to do with the fact that scientific papers and books are full of phrases like "obviously", "a brief calculation shows" or "it can be demonstrated". When I actually try to follow what is going on, the "brief calculation" can be several pages and weeks of pain. "Obviously" is often anything but obvious to me. This might have something to do with people forgetting very quickly all the things they didn't know. To be fair, I'd struggle to write a list of mathematical theorems I knew at high school. They might also be trying to make themselves look smarter. I don't know why but it happens all the time. On top of that, there is this odd mechanism that students who do little to no work but still somehow pass are seen as super intelligent. People like me though, who get very good results but work hard for them, are seen as merely hard-working and that's not a character trait mentioned often in the same sentence as "theoretical physicist". I somehow have this feeling that to be a successful physicist, one has to be super smart and always immediately understand everything, at least everything we are taught at this level.

Even though my project was a success, as far as the time limit allowed, I felt like I had somehow failed because I would often stare at my equations for hours and hours, write pages and pages only to throw it all away in the end. I eventually got where I wanted to be but the process was laborious, even though it said "obviously" in the paper (and to be fair, in hindsight, it was quite trivial).  I somehow felt like I wasn't up to the job.

So much for me and my self confidence issues. This is what Toby said today:
"When I say "trivial", what I really mean is "really obvious in hindsight, after having spent hours, weeks or even months shut in my room with lots of paper, trying and trying and trying until I wanted to bash my head against a wall" Because that's what we really do when we do research in theoretical physics. We bash our head against things a lot, stare at equations and throw bits of paper out of the window. And then we finally get to the end, look at the results and go "Well that was really quite obvious when you think about it this way. Let's go and do it again, except with something harder." It's always like that, it is really just a question of where you are in this process. I have already filed many things under trivial, that you still find incredibly hard, but I still feel like this most days. The only difference is that your problems right now look nasty but generally turn out to be okay. In real research, you will find that things look nasty and turn out to be even worse."

I could have kissed him. This was exactly what I needed to hear. If he, as a senior lecturer well on his way to becoming a professor, can work this way then so can I. Maybe I haven't been doing it wrong all along. Maybe I can become a "real" physicist after all.

14 comments:

  1. Zelde,I've got a huge smile on my face for you right now. What an amazing thing to here! Comparing our insides to someone else's outside always does get us in trouble, doesn't it? What a great reminder for all of us. Thanks for sharing it.

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    1. It really does and I've got such a bad habit of doing so. Of course I then don't just compare myself to anybody but pick the very best in their field. It's such a demoralising habit. It really is a great reminder. I wrote it in my trusted notebook so I always have it with me, just in case.

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  2. Toby is a wise man indeed :)

    And I'm totally stupid with science/math, but I'm this exact same way with those things I'm interested in. Good luck to you!

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    1. It does indeed apply to many things. Most things look so much easier from the outside than they actually are and I constantly forget this.

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  3. Love it. You can and will become a "real" physicist and when ever you doubt yourself read this post you wrote. Good luck, you are doing great.

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    1. I put the quote in my trused notebook which doubles as a diary so I can keep it with me and read it again when I need to. I'm sure this time will come but that's okay.

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  4. If you never doubt your abilities to solve a problem, you'll never be a real scientist! Doubt and hairpulling make up about 70% of science. Experiments and paperwriting the rest...

    I'll leave you with my favourite PhD comic:http://www.phdcomics.com/comics.php?f=1488

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    1. The comic is brilliant. I'd seen it but actually forgotten about it so thanks for reminding me. And you are right, if I could solve all the problems I'm attempting I clearly wouldn't be working on very interesting stuff at all.

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  5. "with the fact that scientific papers and books are full of phrases like "obviously", "a brief calculation shows" or "it can be demonstrated". When I actually try to follow what is going on, the "brief calculation" can be several pages and weeks of pain. "Obviously" is often anything but obvious to me."

    These phrases should be forbidden, if the calculation takes longer than a page. In "Guckenheimer/Holmes: Nonlinear oscillations" is such a phrase about center manifold theory. Professor Vanderbouwhede wrote two bright and clear 100 pages papers about the "few steps" left out. What a shame to Guckenheimer/Holmes *gnihi*. Obviously they did not know, what they were saying.

    I really select the papers/books very carefully, which I recalculate in detail, because science is full of pretenders, who were unable to do the calculations themselves. Therfore they skip 100 pages of deduction and write just a stupid sentence of the type mentioned above.

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    1. Vanderbouwhede:

      http://cage.ugent.be/~avdb/english/index.html

      Moreover I judge a paper/book, which doesn't clearly present the deductions, as poorly written and I am not wasting my time on this any more.

      On the other hand however, there is a mathematical skillbox necessary to follow the papers. But authors should briefly cite a standard monograph/review paper presenting the technique. New techniques should be presented in great detail, because thats what the autor claims to deliver. If he doesnt deliver, he is a pretender and his papers should not be cited by serious scientists.

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    2. Thomas Alva Edison said: "Ingenuity is 99% perspiration and 1% inspiration"

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    3. I'm totally with you here, it should be forbidden. I think part of the problem is that every area of physics has a set of skills frequently used but since I'm not a specialist in anything yet, I often don't know the techniques involved. This will come once I work on a single topic long enough.I think I might write that Edison quote in big letters on my wall, just in case I forget.

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  6. I just found your blog (through Loulou) and I think I like you a lot. My sister is in school for chemistry and while I know physics and chem are different, you seem to go through much of the same head-bashing, paper-tossing process. She's in a research position now and what you wrote reminded me of her. She also has to work hard for good outcomes.
    Your probably much brighter, quicker, intelligent than you realize though. :D

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    1. Good luck to your sister! I'm not quite as far yet but with a bit of luck, I will get there one day. :)

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