Four Golden Lessons (2003)

nature.com

26 points·kkoncevicius··6 comments

This is a short article (~5 min) by a theoretical physicist, on the lessons learned during his career.

As a way of taking notes, and inviting to read the enjoyable and thought-provoking piece, the summary of the lessons are:

- No one knows everything, and you don't have to.

- While you are swimming and not sinking, you should aim for rough water. Go for the messes — that's where the action is.

- Forgive yourself for wasting time. If you want to be creative, then you will have to get used to spending most of your time not being creative.

- Learn something about the history of science, or at a minimum the history of your own branch of science.

> - Learn something about the history of science, or at a minimum the history of your own branch of science.

I suppose that can be generalized to learning the history of one's area of expertise. For example, an artist stands to benefit from learning art history, likewise for musicians, mechanics, programmers, and probably any other profession.

That is a wonderful article by Weinberg. I think it all boils down to adopt a personality who is curious, courageous, confident, humble enough to own her/his mistakes, ignorance and knowledgeable.

If you are looking for more advice to young students, I think this is an excellent guide: http://www.rain.org/~rcurtis/weaver.html

Also, here is a collection of such articles: https://users.cs.duke.edu/~chase/cps300/research-advice.html

When I received my undergraduate degree — about a hundred years ago

HOW?

I hope you are asking it sarcastically. If not, it is a common usage to say "a hundred/thousand/million years ago" to convey that something was in the distant past, so long ago that it feels strange to even recollect the experiences.

Thanks! Very useful.

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