Category: General

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.

This is an experimental weblog.

At least initially, it’ll run in tandem with a weekly discussion group on how to do effective research in physics. I’ll post notes, essays, quotes, and so on, to stimulate further discussion of the ideas arising out of our meetings, and to maintain a record. Hopefully this will also enable people not directly involved in the discussion group to become electronically involved.

The first real post to this blog. The “earlier” posts were accumulated prior to installing the blogging software, and were ported over by hand.

Ever find yourself staring dumbly at your computer screen, realizing that your “hard work” of the previous two hours has consisted mostly of web-surfing, writing and deleting poorly thought-out emails, and half-starting a couple of projects that, upon reflection, you don’t actually need to do?

Being very clever, you decide that what is needed is to work harder. You may work late, or at least try to work intensely, fueling yourself with caffeine and sugar. You leave work several hours later, having done virtually nothing effective, and absolutely exhausted. You’re irritable at home, don’t eat well, and have difficulty sleeping, in part because of the caffeine.

The next day is, presumably, unlikely to be a rousing success.

Sadly, the above paragraphs aren’t exactly based on hearsay.

The question of how to do research is the central question to be addressed by the discussion group which motivated the setting up of this weblog. It’s not yet clear to me how we as a group should go about addressing the question. We’ll just have to try several different ways, and try to identify ways that work. I can, at least, identify a few important goals from the outset.

• Exploration: Identify important issues and problems involved in doing research.
• Analysis: With the issues identified, try to break them up into smaller pieces, susceptible to individual analysis.
• Synthesis: Try various ways of putting things together into coherent (and preferably enlightening) narratives.

Good methods for doing these things might include:

• Brainstorming lists of issues and questions, which are then to be described, and used as fodder for further analysis, finally to be put back together again.
• Identifying good source materials for discussion. Once again, the material can be analyzed, and then synthesized with other materials.

Do outstanding minds differ from ordinary minds in any special way? I don’t believe that there is anything basically different in a genius, except for having an unusual combination of abilities, none very special by itself.

– From “Why people think computers can’t’”, an essay by Marvin Minsky

Certain kinds of talent are extremely evident in mathematically-oriented pursuits, such as theoretical physics. Solving simple mathematical problems (“Prove that any set of 51 numbers in the range 1 to 100 must contain two numbers with no common factor” [*]) is an important part of doing research in the mathematical sciences.

Some people will solve the problem just posed effortlessly and instantaneously. A smaller group of people can do the same even with much more complex problems. Other people will struggle with the problem, requiring several minutes or more of laborious thought to convince themselves of the truth of the statement.

It can be rather depressing to meet someone who is clearly much faster than you at this type of problem-solving. Some promising students give up and change fields for something less mathematically demanding, or leave science altogether.

In my opinion, this is a pity. Such mathematical quickness is, unfortunately, both easy to spot, and idolized within the culture of the mathematical sciences. People frequently comment on how “bright” another person is, and mathematical quickness seems to play a major role in forming such assessments.

Yet, such quickness does not seem especially important to make a creative contribution. As Minsky’s comment indicates, a whole plethora of skills and attributes are involved in making such creative contributions. It is more important to be reasonably competent across that entire range of skills and attributes than it is to be extremely talented in just one or a few ways.

[*] I believe I first heard this problem in a biography of the mathematician Paul Erdos.

Undergraduate education in physics is mostly 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 some small 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, it is interesting that while there is certainly a focus on doing research and getting research results, relatively few supervisors seem to engage in much active discussion of how research ought to be pursued. 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 may be especially true when one 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 unique 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. 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. It is interesting to wonder how such students might 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. Rather than drafting such a list to be placed here, I’ll leave the construction of such a list as a topic for discussion, and for future posts.

Topics for further thought:

• Why are research skills so seldom taught, or even discussed, at either the undergraduate or graduate levels?
• How significant a factor in research success is the process of thinking about how one does research, discussing it with others, and looking for lessons from history?
• How can the learning of research skills be integrated into the undergraduate and graduate curricula?