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I am not sure about this... are you talking about experimental research? I am a theoretician. I go through several idiotic ideas before hitting on the right one

by sn41 8y ago

I am not sure about this... are you talking about experimental research? I am a theoretician. I go through several idiotic ideas before hitting on the right one. I'd be embarrassed to admit my silly, initial attempts before my colleagues. The advantage of theoretical papers is that the reasoning is a proof/argument developed in the paper itself. With theory, there's less chance for a fraudulent paper, even though the results may have gaps.

naasking 8y ago
> I go through several idiotic ideas before hitting on the right one. I'd be embarrassed to admit my silly, initial attempts before my colleagues. I think this stigma against making mistakes is a big problem, as is the ego-investment. We're all stumbling around in the dark, and we shouldn't be afraid to admit that.
ordu 8y ago
> I go through several idiotic ideas before hitting on the right one. I'd be embarrassed to admit my silly, initial attempts before my colleagues. Thats the point. If you published your preliminary silly idea and your colleagues didn't find immediately that it is silly, then your not sillier than they are. :) > the reasoning is a proof/argument developed in the paper itself Even when I studied math I found sometimes that just to have proof is not enough to understand. The only way to understand sometimes is to learn how the proof was devised. What the hell author thought to get an idea of some trick in the proof? Some tricks looks as a magic, you see they are true from a logical standpoint, but they make no sense. You cannot understand how they lead to a QED. You can verify proof by logic -- not a problem, but you unable to understand. And if you are unable to understand, then at least you are unable to reproduce this proof at the exam, the only way is to learn it by heart. By I never trained my memory to learn by heart, it is really hard for me and annoying, and moreover I do not believe in learning by heart: to master a subject you need to understand it, not to learn it by heart. My math experience taught me that if I cannot follow the thoughts of other mathematician by just reading his proof, it means that he is smarter than me, so it doesn't matter then how stupid he behaved while searching for his proof, he outsmarted me already. But yes, I was talking about experimental research.

by sn41 8y ago

naasking 8y ago

> I go through several idiotic ideas before hitting on the right one. I'd be embarrassed to admit my silly, initial attempts before my colleagues. I think this stigma against making mistakes is a big problem, as is the ego-investment. We're all stumbling around in the dark, and we shouldn't be afraid to admit that.

ordu 8y ago

> I go through several idiotic ideas before hitting on the right one. I'd be embarrassed to admit my silly, initial attempts before my colleagues. Thats the point. If you published your preliminary silly idea and your colleagues didn't find immediately that it is silly, then your not sillier than they are. :) > the reasoning is a proof/argument developed in the paper itself Even when I studied math I found sometimes that just to have proof is not enough to understand. The only way to understand sometimes is to learn how the proof was devised. What the hell author thought to get an idea of some trick in the proof? Some tricks looks as a magic, you see they are true from a logical standpoint, but they make no sense. You cannot understand how they lead to a QED. You can verify proof by logic -- not a problem, but you unable to understand. And if you are unable to understand, then at least you are unable to reproduce this proof at the exam, the only way is to learn it by heart. By I never trained my memory to learn by heart, it is really hard for me and annoying, and moreover I do not believe in learning by heart: to master a subject you need to understand it, not to learn it by heart. My math experience taught me that if I cannot follow the thoughts of other mathematician by just reading his proof, it means that he is smarter than me, so it doesn't matter then how stupid he behaved while searching for his proof, he outsmarted me already. But yes, I was talking about experimental research.