There is this stage of research (my research, at least) where you realize that a lot of what you were doing (or trying to do) is wrong. We got there today! Yay! I really do think this is a good sign - I've never moved in a straight line from idea to publication, so "smooth sailing" in research is just "haven't found the bumps yet". Now that we've found the (first) bump, I can have some confidence that I am going in the right direction.
A large portion of my research notebook notes are on different papers I've read lately. Some of this was in a direction that I had never studied before, and I was starting to feel like I was heading down a rabbit hole - this was, in fact, the wrong direction. The new direction involves techniques and literature that is more familiar to me. Some of what I was reading today came from neutrinoless double beta decay collaborations or dark matter experiments!
Don't worry, I'm still doing cancer-related research. I actually take it as a good sign that I need to remember back to almost a decade ago. My training is in physics - if I am just reading biology papers, I'm going in the wrong direction. I shouldn't be spending my time competing directly against biologists (or chemists, or engineers, etc). But any time that I am pulling in particle physics ideas to my cancer work, I think I'm on the right direction - this is where my skill set is the most unique and I have the best chance of finding something that (1) will work and (2) has not already been done.
A large portion of my research notebook notes are on different papers I've read lately. Some of this was in a direction that I had never studied before, and I was starting to feel like I was heading down a rabbit hole - this was, in fact, the wrong direction. The new direction involves techniques and literature that is more familiar to me. Some of what I was reading today came from neutrinoless double beta decay collaborations or dark matter experiments!
Don't worry, I'm still doing cancer-related research. I actually take it as a good sign that I need to remember back to almost a decade ago. My training is in physics - if I am just reading biology papers, I'm going in the wrong direction. I shouldn't be spending my time competing directly against biologists (or chemists, or engineers, etc). But any time that I am pulling in particle physics ideas to my cancer work, I think I'm on the right direction - this is where my skill set is the most unique and I have the best chance of finding something that (1) will work and (2) has not already been done.
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