petantik's corner

Ever seen those wacky moves with scientists/engineers/geeks that seem to produce instant result?

The Myth:

24 is my favourite example where encryption is childsplay, and takes less than an hour to break, to the right person and everything works and is so seamless and batteries last an entire day with all their fancy phones that can do GPS take Hi Res images and are instantly compatible with all data formats. It makes me laugh, but I still watch it

The Reality:

Sitting in an office doing research is like sitting in an office it’s not much different than the usual. We read scientific papers full of language and ideas that have been compressed into four sheets of paper trying to figure out what all the extra greek letters are referring to and giving yourself a pat on the back when we finally understand the gist after reading it about 3 times. Fully understanding it can take a week (well for me it can) .

Of course that is only ever one part of it, then trying to figure out if there is anything directly applicable to our research and that we think is worthwhile in pursuing needs careful consideration. In fact sometimes we just sit there hoping for a little inspiration in what we read and that inspiration is what it takes to progress forward to the next … whatever. This can be a very slow process at times, i.e, will take longer than an hour, and that’s why a good supply of coffee is beneficial and some food to keep the brain ticking. Research is a waiting game 10% inspiration and 90% perspiration, and after 3 years or so we hopefully vomit out something that looks remarkably looks good and of course full of greek letters and maths for the next generation of researchers to mull over

P.S. The title doesn’t even make sense now and therefore I dedicate this another rambling post

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