Dane Sabo
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A "Zettelkasten/Permanent Notes/Literature Notes/LIT-202509012125-how-to-choose-a-good-scientific-problem.md"
43 lines
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43 lines
1.5 KiB
Markdown
---
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id: LIT-20250819112550
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title: How To Choose a Good Scientific Problem
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type: literature
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created: 2025-08-19T15:25:50Z
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modified: 2025-09-02T01:41:17Z
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citekey:
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---
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# How to Choose a Good Scientific Problem
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## Authors
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[[Uri Alon]]
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## Notes
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Uri is all about the 'nuturing lab', which means a lab's
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goal is not just to advance knowledge, but to nurture future
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scientists.
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He describes problems on two axes: interest and difficulty.
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Interest here means how much knowledge we gain from solving
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the problem. He says grad students should choose easy
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problems, with ideally low interest, then postdocs move to
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high interest and easy (to save time), and finally new
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professors move towards the hard problems with high impact,
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as they have time to do so.
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Uri also argues that taking time to find a good topic is
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time well spent. It can save a lot of time down the line.
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The inner and outer voices can lead to different ideas.
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Outer voices are those of peers, the department, or speakers
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at a conference-- but the inner voice is the more valuable
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voice. That is your own voice. Uri descirbes the inner voice
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is often something that needs nurtured, but can lead to
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less laborious science, and more self expression.
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Finally Uri talks about the schema that should be considered
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during research. It is not useful to think students will go
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from A->B taking the shortest path. There must be room to
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wander, as that is where new problems can be best found.
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This is what really lets students grow.
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