Research
The newspaper proudly spelt out the names of two american scientists who were awarded this year's nobel for their study of RNA interference. The pride, the humility, the humanity, the dilligence and brilliance, the dedication and the endurance of two human lives that spanned over half a century was all eloquently voiced out in one word: Nobel.
For PhD students starting out as pawns in the chessboard of science, how many moves does it require to checkmate and reach the other end of the board. And that many moves are possible out of how many trillion moves... According to complexity theory its a NP hard problem, the hardest of all; in plain english its equivalent to finding a needle in stack of needles.
Or do people like me who come up with a chessboard analogy have an inherent hole in our thinking cap? A chink that sprouts out of a rational brain, which finds happiness and joy in "other" things in life. Is starting out research to find the solution to a problem the right approach.
A few months down the dusty, sullen lanes, I have realised, its the journey that is the essence of research, not the goal. The failures, the fiascos are far more important than the inventions themselves. Success is just one path that countless failures pointed out, its a road that will never be built without digging up the rubbles of failure.
One of the pure joys of human kind is adulation. But is that more joyous than the pristine joy of doing something without expecting the joy of adulation. I am standing at crossraods of the most important question in the quest of knowledge; one that leads somewhere or maybe nowhere but has the scenic serenity of contentment carpetting it. And the other that has signs and milestones impeccably laid out to success, but misses out on the joy of the journey... As much as I am tempted to take the path often trodden, I choose to take a path of contentment.
Some people say research is formalised curiousity, its poking and prying with purpose. I would add- its poking and prying with purpose, because that is what I like to do...
For PhD students starting out as pawns in the chessboard of science, how many moves does it require to checkmate and reach the other end of the board. And that many moves are possible out of how many trillion moves... According to complexity theory its a NP hard problem, the hardest of all; in plain english its equivalent to finding a needle in stack of needles.
Or do people like me who come up with a chessboard analogy have an inherent hole in our thinking cap? A chink that sprouts out of a rational brain, which finds happiness and joy in "other" things in life. Is starting out research to find the solution to a problem the right approach.
A few months down the dusty, sullen lanes, I have realised, its the journey that is the essence of research, not the goal. The failures, the fiascos are far more important than the inventions themselves. Success is just one path that countless failures pointed out, its a road that will never be built without digging up the rubbles of failure.
One of the pure joys of human kind is adulation. But is that more joyous than the pristine joy of doing something without expecting the joy of adulation. I am standing at crossraods of the most important question in the quest of knowledge; one that leads somewhere or maybe nowhere but has the scenic serenity of contentment carpetting it. And the other that has signs and milestones impeccably laid out to success, but misses out on the joy of the journey... As much as I am tempted to take the path often trodden, I choose to take a path of contentment.
Some people say research is formalised curiousity, its poking and prying with purpose. I would add- its poking and prying with purpose, because that is what I like to do...
posted by Badri at 5:45 AM
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