The Renaissance man: how to become a scientist over and over again
interesting read on an academic taking the The Renaissance Man approach
The Renaissance man: how to become a scientist over and over again
@akratic
Thanks for the excellent read. This is science as I appreciated it before Uni forced me to acknowldedge my mathematical limitations.
My favorite take away: "Rather than specialising in any one area, Aiden takes the opposite tack. He naturally gravitates to problems that he knows little about. 'The reason is that most projects fail,' he says. 'If the project you know a lot about fails, you haven’t gained anything. If a project you know relatively little about fails, you potentially have a bunch of new and better ideas.' And Aiden has a habit of using his failures as springboards for success."
That last bit about resiliance is how I want to tackle the world.
Thanks for the excellent read. This is science as I appreciated it before Uni forced me to acknowldedge my mathematical limitations.
My favorite take away: "Rather than specialising in any one area, Aiden takes the opposite tack. He naturally gravitates to problems that he knows little about. 'The reason is that most projects fail,' he says. 'If the project you know a lot about fails, you haven’t gained anything. If a project you know relatively little about fails, you potentially have a bunch of new and better ideas.' And Aiden has a habit of using his failures as springboards for success."
That last bit about resiliance is how I want to tackle the world.
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jacob
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I wish this sort of behavior was encouraged [in action, not just in nice-sounding words like 'multidisciplinary'.]
As it is getting research funding for a new project is very much like finding a job out of college (2-3 years experience needed, yeah, but I need a job to get that experience, catch-22). Many funding agencies (this is field dependent) are conservative and will only fund you if your chance of success is 90% (likely meaning you already did the work).
The consequence is that in practically all cases, branching out is something you have to do in your spare time. But that means you're committing to strategic risk because your spare time should really be spent on your work lest you be outcompeted by someone who works around the clock. (At his age, I had 20+ published papers compared to Aiden's 7.)
(In my case, I branched out to peak oil and later to ERE. Neither are recognized as science as such but it's definitely a possibility to work on a different project. I have astro-friends who did semiconductor and traffic flows stuff. The key is whether you're the 1% who makes an actual breakthrough (they didn't). That leads to being notified and success breeds success. Many scientists are riding high due to an award they won long ago. Even if it was a close race, that award will get them noticed and make it easier to get the next step. It's kinda how I can coast on ERE even though new bloggers are working much harder and putting out great stuff.)
As it is getting research funding for a new project is very much like finding a job out of college (2-3 years experience needed, yeah, but I need a job to get that experience, catch-22). Many funding agencies (this is field dependent) are conservative and will only fund you if your chance of success is 90% (likely meaning you already did the work).
The consequence is that in practically all cases, branching out is something you have to do in your spare time. But that means you're committing to strategic risk because your spare time should really be spent on your work lest you be outcompeted by someone who works around the clock. (At his age, I had 20+ published papers compared to Aiden's 7.)
(In my case, I branched out to peak oil and later to ERE. Neither are recognized as science as such but it's definitely a possibility to work on a different project. I have astro-friends who did semiconductor and traffic flows stuff. The key is whether you're the 1% who makes an actual breakthrough (they didn't). That leads to being notified and success breeds success. Many scientists are riding high due to an award they won long ago. Even if it was a close race, that award will get them noticed and make it easier to get the next step. It's kinda how I can coast on ERE even though new bloggers are working much harder and putting out great stuff.)