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Zettelkasten/Permanent Notes/Literature Notes/LIT-202509012125-how-to-choose-a-good-scientific-problem.md

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+---
+id: LIT-20250819112550
+title: How To Choose a Good Scientific Problem
+type: literature
+created: 2025-08-19T15:25:50Z
+modified: 2025-09-02T01:41:17Z
+citekey: 
+---
+
+# How to Choose a Good Scientific Problem
+
+## Authors
+[[Uri Alon]]
+
+## Notes
+Uri is all about the 'nuturing lab', which means a lab's
+goal is not just to advance knowledge, but to nurture future
+scientists. 
+
+He describes problems on two axes: interest and difficulty.
+Interest here means how much knowledge we gain from solving
+the problem. He says grad students should choose easy
+problems, with ideally low interest, then postdocs move to
+high interest and easy (to save time), and finally new
+professors move towards the hard problems with high impact,
+as they have time to do so. 
+
+Uri also argues that taking time to find a good topic is
+time well spent. It can save a lot of time down the line.
+
+The inner and outer voices can lead to different ideas.
+Outer voices are those of peers, the department, or speakers
+at a conference-- but the inner voice is the more valuable
+voice. That is your own voice. Uri descirbes the inner voice
+is often something that needs nurtured, but can lead to
+less laborious science, and more self expression.
+
+Finally Uri talks about the schema that should be considered
+during research. It is not useful to think students will go
+from A->B taking the shortest path. There must be room to
+wander, as that is where new problems can be best found.
+This is what really lets students grow.