ADVICE TO YOUNG SCIENTIST

PETER MEDAWAR M.V. Satyanarayana Department of Physics

17 Sep 2009

Contents
Introduction How can I tell if I am cut out to be a Scientific Research Worker? What shall I do research on? How can I equip myself to be a Scientist or a better one? Aspects of scientific life and manners Presentations Experiment and Discovery Prizes and Rewards The Scientific process

From Authors Preface

I have tried to write the kind of book, I myself should have like to have read, when I began research ..

Scientists are of dissimilar temperaments

Collectors, Classifiers, Tidiers-up etc Explorers, Detectives,.. Artists, Artisans,.. Poet-Scientists Philosopher-Scientists Mystics Obligative scientists must be very rare, and most scientists could easily have been something else instead.

How can I tell ?

Motives Curiosity Restless endeavor(Kant) A strong sense of unease and dissatisfaction always goes with lack of comprehension, understanding. If you fell bored or indifferent, then you should leave science. You should leave without any sense of self-reproach or misdirection.

What shall I research on?

Important Problems Interesting Problems

How to equip
Getting Results Psychologically important, even if they are not original. Discussions with friends, other workers in the field. Research Art of the soluble!

Personal Advice
Hard luck on spouses! Husband-and-wife teams.

General Advice
I cannot give any scientist of any age better advice than this: the intensity of conviction that a hypothesis is true has no bearing on whether it is true or not

Different kinds of Research

Baconian Aristotelian Galilean Kantian

Assignment
Give examples for different kinds of research.