Wednesday, December 20, 2006

Quote of the week

Maybe this will start a new trend in this blog: quotes. I was recently rereading some old issues of Nature and found this article in the careers section. It is a nice article in which the authors give an alternative view to that of this other article of how long and hard should a PhD student work. According to the original view a researcher should work all the time. According to this other alternative view some scientists have many of the weaknesses commonly associated with humans and thus this approach is likely to be useless.

They cite this anecdote from Ernest Rutherford. It seems that he found a student working late on an evening and asked him if he also worked in the mornings. The student answered that that is what he usually did and Rutherford then asked "But, when do you think?". Some times I think to myself that my best ideas usually come in the most unexpected places and circumstances. Now I think that I never had any good idea while in the office in front of the computer. Since now I am off for Xmas holidays there is a chance I will have time for some good ideas.