On Becoming Scientifically Great

From very early in my scientific career, I have been curious about what makes a scientist a great scientist. Certainly, the discoveries and contributions of a scientist are what would lead to public fame and widely acknowledged jeneosity. But what characteristics do they share? What traits or habits led to their 'greatness'? More importantly, what should wannabe jeniuses be focusing on to ensure their eventual place in the scientific hall of fame? I have asked many fairly well known scientists about this. It is hard to truly be considered a 'great' scientist until you die so these scientist I guess would be 'potentially' great. After listening to their wisdom ... and of course mixing it with my own, I have come up with the following four character traits of great scientists:

1. Wide knowledge base. The best scientists seem to know something about everything. They are, of course, masters in their own fields but are also capable of contributing in areas well outside their expertise. Great scientists achieve this by being voracious consumers of knowledge. They seem to be thinking about science all of the time. This can make it difficult for the scientist to socialize with non-jeniuses or get dates with hot chicks. Getting dates with geeky scientist chicks is usually not a problem. (Note: I did not intend to imply that all great scientists are male. I'm writing this from a male perspective because a) I'm a male and b) it's my blog and I can do whatever the hell I want).

2. Experimental design. The great ones are excellent at coming up with the most efficient way to find something out. Even when their experiments don't work, their effort in the design of the experiment ensures that they will learn something useful. I find that many scientists don't spend as much time on this as is usually needed. This is generally done to "save time" but often ends up wasting not just time, but resources as well. A former colleague of mine (and fellow jenius) was fond of saying " the scientific method was developed by people who were in a hurry and wanted to get answers in the most efficient way possible".

3. Analysis of data. Great scientists are great at fitting the results of their experiment into the grand scheme of things. They can quickly make connections to related findings and thoroughly understand the limitations of their results. They are aware of questions posed by their results and immediately are thinking of the next experiment to address these.

4. Reporting results. How can you be great if nobody knows what you discovered? While the stereotypical scientist is seen as an inept public speaker ... I find that the best scientists are excellent presenters. Great writing is also a hallmark of scientific jeneosity but I feel not as strong of an indicator as the ability to deliver an engaging seminar.

And there you have it. Focus on these four areas every single moment of the day for 20 or 30 years and your name will be whispered along side Galileo, Newton, Einstein, Hawking and Allain.

Blogoholism

REALLY don't feel like writing anything right now ... but am hoping that if I slog through it for a few minutes the muses will bestow some wisdom on me ... that I can then post on my BLOOOOOOOOOOOGGGGGGGGG!

I have enjoyed writing pieces for my blog and it has been fun getting joking feedback from my family and friends (the few that actually bother to read it). But I recently installed Google Analytics. This is basically a snippet of HTML code that you insert into your page that reports to Google Analytics every time someone surfs upon your page. Pretty neat actually. It tracks the time they spent on your page, where they came from and even where they are roughly located in the world. I now know that people in such far off strange lands as Minnesota, Pennsylvania and California have looked upon my page. I believe all of this non-family traffic is due to my brother. He is a Physics professor at Southeastern Louisiana State University and an 18th level blogger. He has sort of made a name for himself by commenting on the physics of various things he sees in movies, TV or the internet. He has been at this for some time and has developed a sizable base of regular readers. He was even mentioned on the popular podcast Buzz Out Loud (he was pretty pumped up about that). This success has come at a price, however, as my brother is now hopelessly addicted to blogging. For Christmas, my sister got him a t-shirt with "Enough about me ... let's talk about my blog" on it. My sister has a talent for highly appropriate gifts. I got a "jenius" t-shirt last Christmas.

Anyway, my brother, is kind of like a drug dealer of blogs now and he would like me to become addicted as well. So, he "helped" me by posting links to my blog page on various science geek sites along with a link from his own blog. This has placed pressure on me to actually write stuff that is useful and worthwhile. I obviously have not yet succumbed to this pressure.

If you'd like to check out my brother's blog you can find it here: dotphys.net.

Science Podcast Recommendations

I had planned to write a nice rant about the rampant bureaucracy in academia but I think I'll save that for a day when I'm more irritated. I'm sure an opportunity will soon arise now that the semester is starting. Instead, I will comment on the science podcasts I have listened to so far (see Jan 8 blog post). I have sampled the following: NPR: Science Friday , Science Talk (Scientific American) , Science Update Podcast ,This Week in Science Podcast , NOVA scienceNOW Podcast , The Naked Scientists and Astronomy Cast . While I don't feel I have listened to enough episodes of each podcast to make a completely fair evaluation, I'll go ahead and comment anyway just because I can.

While I enjoyed all of these casts, I think my favorite so far is Science Talk by Scientific American. Each episode lasts from about 25-45 min and is generally concerned with one or two topics of current interest. I've listened to a bunch of these podcasts. Here's a great one where you get to hear old geezer scientists who worked on the Manhattan Project as well as bits of an opera about Robert Oppenheimer: (Science Talk December 31, 2008 ). At the end of each show is a "game show" called "Totaleeeeeeeeeeey Bogus!" where we hear 4 or 5 current science news headlines all of which are true except for one which is ... of course ... "Totaleeeeeeeeeeey Bogus!" The listener is supposed to pick out the false story. Despite the lame name, I enjoy hearing the headlines along with the brief commentary about each after we try to guess which is the bogus one. Most of them are quite bizarre and interesting (kind of like me).

I also have listened to a number of the NPR: Science Friday podcasts. I find these slightly more focused on laypeople (as opposed to jeniuses) than the Science Talk podcasts. They are also usually a bit shorter (10-25 min). Like all things I've listened to by NPR, this is a high quality and well thought out show. Here's a recent one I enjoyed: (Study Shines Light On Existence of Dark Energy ).

Of all of these podcasts, the one most likely to take the place of the journals I would read to stay current would be the Science Update podcast. This is not surprising since Science Update is published by the American Association for the Advancement of Science who also publish the journal "Science". AAAS puts out a weekly as well as a daily edition of Science Update ... I've only listened to the weekly so far. It's about 5-10 minutes long and briefly covers 5 current topics in science news. I've actually only listened to one of these but liked it very much: (Science Update Podcast January 2, 2009).

This Week in Science podcast is an actual radio show broadcast by a station out of the University of California at Davis. It's an hour long show that I found a little rough around the edges but entertaining. A guy/girl team hosts the show. The guy (according to the website) is a car salesman/armchair physicist while the woman is a PhD neurobiologist who also happens to be a black belt in tae kwon do and is kind of hot to boot:(Dr. Kirsten Sanford). But were talking about mental stimulation here right? The one show I've listened to was lacking in this area: (This Week in Science - 06 January, 2009).

The NOVA scienceNOW podcasts are very brief (2-5 min) but high quality and interesting. The perfect podcast for a trip to the bathroom. Here are the two I have heard so far: (Finding Other Earths and Tiny Black Holes).

All of the hosts in The Naked Scientists podcast have British accents which as we all know makes people sound like jeniuses no matter what they say. Haven't had a chance to listen to a complete episode yet.

Finally, the Astronomy Cast was (oddly) concerned only about astronomy. Again the cast is hosted by a man and woman team (I don't know if this woman is hot or not) and the shows are about 30 min long. The episode I listened to was a bit dry: (Ep. 122: How Old is the Universe?)

I know I need to listen to more episodes and other podcasts before I can make serious recommendations for wanna be jeniuses, ... but this should get you started.

Podcasts are Rope

Snow day today so I took the kids snowboarding. Now I'm sitting in the cozy ski lodge by a huge fireplace drinking coffee and surfing (well I could be surfing) while the kids are outside in the blizzard collecting bruises. Too bad I can't join them ... but it was just too expensive for an adult lift ticket ... so I must suffer here by the warm fire with my electronic peripherals (laptop, iPod Touch, Kindle) and WiFi. Such sacrifices I make for my kids. I hope they remember this when I'm old and need to move in with one of them so they can feed me and change my diapers.

Anyway, I have recently discovered the wonderful world of podcasts. I am a complete addict. Now I am more or less constantly found with earphones on blissfully soaking in the latest bit of electronic wisdom. Some of my favorites are Scientific American's Science Talk, Coverville, Car Talk, and This American Life. Even though I barely have time to keep up with these and others I like, I still search for more like a fat man at the Pizza Hut lunch buffet.

I am currently in the process of evaluating some of the top science related podcasts. I hope to use the best of these to keep me updated on the latest and greatest discoveries. This will help me sound smart and bolster my reputation as an uber jenius. I have always found reading about findings in fields unrelated to my research stimulates creativity and problem solving in my own work. I used to religiously read Science, Nature, Scientific American and C&E News for just this reason but have fallen out of the habit partly due to the fact that I don't have my own subscriptions to these journals anymore (as I did when I was a pampered industrial scientist) and partly due to being busy with other things. I am hoping that these science podcasts can fill the science news void for me and increase my jeniosity by five orders of magnitude (that's 100,000 X for all you non-jeniuses).

In a future blog, I plan to post my evaluation and ranked list of the best science podcasts. I know you all can't wait.

Comments on "On Writing" by Stephen King

Some time ago I read "On Writing" by Steven King. Great book. I have a lot more respect for him than I did before starting this book. He begins with a well written and entertaining biography then begins discussing the art of fiction writing. I feel unqualified to comment much on his advice since I’m not much of a writer but it seems like excellent practical and down to earth advice. As a bonus, this advice is presented in a readable and humorous tone (difficult to do when discussing the intricacies of grammar). One of my favorite parts involves King’s hatred of the “wimpy” passive voice:

“It’s weak, it’s circuitous, and it’s frequently tortuous, as well. How about this: My first kiss will always be recalled by me as how my romance with Shayna was begun. Oh man – who farted, right?”

Awesome! I’m still laughing right now as I type it.

I think science writing could benefit from King’s advice. What? Science writing is NOT fiction! True, but science writing is often confusing and full of crappy grammar. It is as if scientists do this on purpose to make themselves seem more intelligent. It would be much better if we could briefly and clearly write what needs to be said without all the multisyllabic fluff. It is ironic that this problem is much more prevalent in science writing than in fiction. I guess the fiction readers simply won’t tolerate such crap while scientists encourage it in the review process. Throw in a bunch of big words to show how smart you are or at the very least confuse the reviewers enough so they accept the article fearing to admit that they are too small brained to grasp your ingenious work. I will not do this. If I do and you catch me kick me in the butt. Hard.

King also suggests that one of the most important things a writer can do is read. He claims that he is a slow reader and gets through about 70 to 80 books a year. Damn … the one year I got through 50, I thought it was a major achievement. King advocates always having a book at the ready to take advantage of opportune moments. He also promotes audio books as a great way to “read” in the car. King refers to the TV as the “glass teat” and suggests this as a prime reason for “lack of reading time”. I agree with this and would call the internet the electronic pacifier. True, you are reading a bit when you surf but it is not the type of reading that will exercise your brain. I waste far too much time mindlessly riding the electron waves.

I guess one of the reasons I really like this book is that a lot of the stuff that King is saying I have thought – consciously or subconsciously- for a long time. It’s nice to have someone agree with you … especially a famous person!

Anyway, I bought the book for Sarah for Christmas. Sarah wants to be a writer. I hope this helps her … and she acknowledges her gratitude to me in her first novel … as long as it doesn’t suck.

From the Mouth of a Jenius ...

Your life is the sum of the choices you make.

Just sayin.

Hello World!

After much study, I have decided that this internet thing may be more than just a passing fad.