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One advise I'll never forget (from an interview with late mathematician Maryam Mirzakhani) is that you don't have to race faster than everyone else (although if
by gnramires 4y ago
One advise I'll never forget (from an interview with late mathematician Maryam Mirzakhani) is that you don't have to race faster than everyone else (although if you can, that's great!). You can just run in a direction no one is running toward (and hopefully be persistent). Then you're only racing yourself and speed is largely irrelevant.
I myself know I'm very slow, specially developing projects. So I don't try to race anyone, except contribute to things I know are neglected. There are so many neglected problems, you don't need to work on the most coveted fields.
- satvikpendem 4y agoProblem is that's not how academic funding works. Grants are generally not given to possible dead ends.
- ModernMech 4y agoResearch grants are typically given with the expectation the project may possibly be a dead end. Otherwise it wouldn’t be research.
- satvikpendem 4y agoIn theory, yes; in practice, no. Many grants these days are given based on the trend du jour.
- ModernMech 4y agoSure, but funding trends is different from funding things expected to work.
- quickthrower2 4y agoFunding things you wont be fired for funding. IBMs!
- matwood 4y agoI’ve seen a lot of grants end with “we learned something”. Is that a dead end? IDK.
- AndrewUnmuted 4y ago[dead]
- kanyethegreat 4y ago“Run in the other direction” is so generic that it isn’t helpful. No one else going in that direction is, at best, unrelated to the quality of the idea and, at worst, a heuristic that the idea is bad.
- atq2119 4y agoIt's not the other direction, it's an other direction. The distinction is important. If there are only two directions and everybody runs in one of them, there's probably a good reason. If there are virtually infinite directions, trusting your gut about an unexplored direction that you find interesting is a much better bet. See also: startup advice.