Author: Michael Nielsen

[…] we can see the nature of the flaw which made his life ultimately tragic. His flaw was restlestness, an inborn inability to be idle. Intervals of idleness are probably essential to creative work on the highest level. Shakespeare, we are told, was habitually idle between plays. Oppenheimer was hardly ever idle.

– in the essay “Oppenheimer”, reprinted in “From Eros to Gaia”.

Why is it that music can help us concentrate and avoid distraction?

I’d forgotten this until recently. I now understand again why so many people wear headphones while they work. What I don’t get is why music has this effect.

A hypothesis is that when we lose our focus, our brain searches for something to fill the attention gap. Often, it does this by changing the focus of attention to some other distracting activity. If music is playing, perhaps we distract ourselves with that, as the nearest attention filler. After a few moments, our original focus begins to return, and we can pull ourselves away from the music, especially if it is relatively undemanding of attention. I don’t know of a good way to test this hypothesis.

Walter Isaacson’s “Benjamin Franklin: An American Life”. One of the best biographies I’ve ever read; the only biography I can think of that I enjoyed as much or more was James Gleick’s “Genius”, a biography of Richard Feynman. (I count myself an afficianado of biographies, too.)

Probably the most striking characteristic of Franklin evident in Isaacson’s biography is how consciously and skillfully Franklin created social roles that encouraged self-development.

It’s a common enough observation that one of the most effective ways of changing your own behaviour is to change your social role. Franklin took this one step further, consciously creating social roles for himself that reinforced behaviours he wanted to encourage in himself.

Perhaps most famously, at the age of 21 Franklin created the “Junto”, a small group of men who formed a society dedicated to their own self-improvement. At each meeting the Junto members were asked questions like “Have you lately heard of any citizen’s thriving well, and by what means?” or “Have you lately observed any encroachments on the just liberties of the people?” The questions were chosen by Franklin specifically with the goal of promoting his own self-development, and the development of others.

Of course, Franklin could have addressed these questions himself each week, in his own time. Or he could have discussed it among friends on a regular basis. But how much more powerful it must have been to create an institution dedicated to addressing these questions on a regular basis!

Later in life, while living in England and France, Franklin was a constant participant in various intellectual salons that seem to have filled a similar role for him.

If Franklin were alive today, I wonder whether he would have a blog? (Maybe he’d be writing blogging software.) If so, what the heck would he be doing with it?

Revised version of an earlier entry, in response to comments by Dave Bacon.

Undergraduate education in physics is usually concentrated on learning certain basic facts about physics, and technical skills that enable one to solve problems in physics. While both these are essential facets of doing research, many other equally essential skills are neglected, or ignored completely.

Why is this the case? In part it may be because not all people taking physics degrees necessarily hope to do research one day. However, to an extent far greater than in almost any other subject, an undergraduate degree in physics is, at least nominally, focused on the task of preparing people for research.

At the PhD level, while there is a strong focus on actually doing research, relatively few supervisors engage in much active discussion of how research is done. If a student is lucky they may see a particular research style modeled, through interactions with their supervisor and other more senior scientists.

Such modeling is potentially quite valuable, especially if a student is exposed to a wide range of research styles. However, what works for one person may not work for others. This is especially true when one person is inexperienced and lacks confidence, while another is very experienced and has considerable confidence. Furthermore, each individual needs to develop their own style, suited to their own combination of talents.

Many students fail even to see such modeling. A remarkably common attitude is that students either “have it”, or “don’t”, when it comes to research skills, and that this justifies neglect of students who “don’t have it”.

This sells students lumped into either category short. It is true that some beginning PhD students are exceptionally well equipped to do the tasks required of a PhD student. Such students may complete their PhD much more rapidly than usual, with apparently astounding success. However, such students may also plateau – they may never move beyond this level, stagnating instead of growing into a new set of skills beyond that required of a PhD student.

Similarly, other beginning students may be very well equipped in some ways, but lacking in certain essential skills that result in them being placed into the “don’t” category. Might such students benefit from learning some basic research skills?

I believe that there are many ways in which the learning of research skills can be integrated into both the undergraduate and postgraduate curricula.

At the postgraduate level, such learning can be done in parallel with actual research. For example, a discussion group may be formed, in which students and faculty members discuss the difficulties involved in doing research, and potential solutions to each of those difficulties. These solutions can then be tried out by members of the group, evaluated individually, and improved upon with the assistance of the entire group.

Learning research skills at the undergraduate level poses more difficulties. At present most undergraduates do not actively engage in research. Instead, at most institutions undergraduate education is focused primarily on learning the basic knowledge and problem-solving skills that are seen as necessary (but not sufficient) preconditions to being able to do research.

Unfortunately, there isn’t any good general theory of how to do research. Different things work for different people, and there is no one test you can take to find out how you should operate. Instead, you need to try different things out, see how they go, and improve from there.

So it seems that a theoretical treatment of how to do research, divorced from actual practice, will likely be of limited value in most present undergraduate programs. Thus, to benefit from a “research skills” or “research literacy”-type course at the undergraduate level, the actual process of doing research would need to be incorporated more fully into the curriculum.

The amazing stationary rotating snakes.

Via Uncertain Principles.