What is research
All the summer, I was reading Bertrand Russell’s two books “the principles of mathematics” and “the history of Western Philosophy”. He is a man who really devoted himself to explore the new frontier of several domains.
Recent days, I am thinking where my research goes. The driving force of my research is to know what I do not know, especially to solve my confusion about life. That is why my research is a little bit scattered. But maybe it is a matter of deep thinking. If I were able to think as Russell, my jumping of topics is nothing.
I changed a lot after I came to NRC. I switched from practical project driven research to more theoretical oriented research. But I do not agree some professor’s claim that he/she is not interested in “real problems”. I remember Dave Patterson in UC Berkeley has some talks about “How to have a bad career in research/academia”. One symptom is publishing without testing against real applications. It does not count as “impact”. Some students come to me is because they do not want to do “theoretical” research with a university professor. They said many research papers go to garbage directly. I do not think some master students can judge research in this way, but it makes me think.
Another thing is research circle is full of big egos. I am tired of tough characters to grasp the projects and the authorships of papers. I am not so aggressive in my career. But do I need to do this?
Recent days, I am thinking where my research goes. The driving force of my research is to know what I do not know, especially to solve my confusion about life. That is why my research is a little bit scattered. But maybe it is a matter of deep thinking. If I were able to think as Russell, my jumping of topics is nothing.
I changed a lot after I came to NRC. I switched from practical project driven research to more theoretical oriented research. But I do not agree some professor’s claim that he/she is not interested in “real problems”. I remember Dave Patterson in UC Berkeley has some talks about “How to have a bad career in research/academia”. One symptom is publishing without testing against real applications. It does not count as “impact”. Some students come to me is because they do not want to do “theoretical” research with a university professor. They said many research papers go to garbage directly. I do not think some master students can judge research in this way, but it makes me think.
Another thing is research circle is full of big egos. I am tired of tough characters to grasp the projects and the authorships of papers. I am not so aggressive in my career. But do I need to do this?
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