

How to Find Research Problems - plinkplonk
http://www.cs.jhu.edu/~jason/advice/how-to-find-research-problems.html

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timr
Interesting choice of analogy (research as "bone finding", which is research
itself).

The thing is, researchers rarely set out to find a T.Rex -- at least, not in a
way that their career success is predicated upon finding one. Good scientists
make a career of the "small bones", because they know that they'll stumble
upon the "big bones" only once in a while. Truly _great_ researchers will
assemble a whole skeleton over the course of a long career.

A few, exceptionally lucky people will discover a whole mammoth on the first
day of their expedition; counting on this is like counting on winning the
lottery. Bad researchers set out to find something big, and refuse to "waste
time" with the "little bones" along the way.

~~~
plinkplonk
"Interesting choice of analogy (research as "bone finding", which is research
itself)"

I think the "bone finding" is less important (for the purposes of the analogy)
than the distinction between actively looking for small vs big results.

I know there are many PhDs on this board so I'll ask something I have always
been curious about.

Is it possible for a hacker to teach himself to do research?Is "research"
fundamentally different from hacking? ( in terms of learning how to do it;
most good hackers are self taught)

Or is going though a structured process or some kind of apprenticeship to a
good researcher a necessity?

~~~
timr
I don't think that "hacking" is fundamentally different than research, in the
sense that they're both forms of problem solving. The difference is one of
purpose and mind-set: a good researcher is more interested in proof-of-new-
concept than in implementation and polish.

 _"Is going though a structured process or some kind of apprenticeship to a
good researcher a necessity?"_

Theoretically? No. Ideas are ideas. Anyone can have good ones.

Practically speaking? Yes. If nothing else, you need the time and training to
become familiar with your field, the terminology and protocols in common use,
and the boundaries that define interesting problems. Furthermore, most
cutting-edge research is expensive; you need the apprenticeship before anyone
will take you seriously enough to give you the money needed to do interesting
work.

~~~
apathy
_Furthermore, most cutting-edge research is expensive; you need the
apprenticeship before anyone will take you seriously enough to give you the
money needed to do interesting work._

This is a key observation. One of my advisors put it thus:

 _A PhD is just a union card. What you do with it is up to you._

You can use it to establish credibility in certain lines of work; you can use
it to command a higher salary in industry; you can simply apply the things
you've learned in some totally unrelated field. A surprising number of people
choose the latter.

~~~
timr
Yeah, the union-card line is a sad bit of truth -- I can't imagine a union
card that is harder to receive, which carries fewer benefits.

~~~
rms
I would be applying for government grants right now if I had said union-card.

~~~
timr
Don't sweat it...with funding rates in the single digits, you're not missing
much. ;-)

~~~
rms
I heard a presentation once from a consultant who people hired to help get
government grants. Does the funding rate go up a whole lot if you hire someone
to rewrite your proposal?

~~~
apathy
_Does the funding rate go up a whole lot if you hire someone to rewrite your
proposal?_

Depends on their name, the journals and review boards they sit on, and their
current interests vice yours. The clever thing to do if you have good juice is
simply to get their name on it.

I work with some people who rarely get turned down, and others (in the past)
who often have. It's more fun to work with the former, if you have the choice,
but sometimes the topics end up being a little less interesting.

Grant writing is such an insane time sink...

------
yummyfajitas
I don't like the bone finding analogy much, actually. Heres why: in most
sciences, big bones are made from small bones.

(I'm sure there is some flavor of this in paleontology as well. But I don't
like the analogy because to people like me who know very little about bone
hunting, it sounds very wrong.)

Let me give an example. I'm hunting a big bone right now: clearer MRI images
from low resolution data.

To do that, I need the following small bones:

1\. Understanding why low resolution data sucks, and finding unused
information. (This is something along the lines of literature review.)

2\. Small bone: How to optimally extract that data?

3\. Small bone: Result of step 2 gives me an unordered list of points. All I
know is they are samples from some set of smooth closed curves, and I also
know the tangents to the curve at each point. How do I get the curves?

3a. Smaller bone: some points are wrong. Can I figure out which, and ignore
them?

3b. How much of this can I prove?

4\. Small bone: If I knew these curves, how do I use them to get a picture
that a radiologist will like?

(Step 3 gets extra emphasis, since that's what I'm doing right now. ).

Every scientist is a small bone hunter. The only question is whether they are
looking for small bones to build one particular big bone (like me), or whether
they are search for small bones in some region where they like the scenery.

