I’ve just finished reading Michelle’s candidacy report, on some of the research she’s been doing into catalysts for certain reactions in organic chemistry. It’s highlighted for me some of the differences between different fields of research — and in particular, between theoretical physics, and the more experimental work that most other people at Caltech do.
Michelle’s report was very easy to read. That’s partially because it’s well written, but I’d say it’s also because the difficulty is in a different place to that of papers that I’m used to reading. “Reading” a longish string theory paper can take literally months — and even then, I can’t claim to understand everything that is being said. Reading Michelle’s report took a few hours, and while I didn’t understand all the jargon, I think I got the gist of the issues and approach that her research took.
On the other hand, having read Michelle’s report has brought me no nearer to actually being able to synthesise anything more interesting than a bowl of pasta and sauce. “Reading” the string theory paper, however, has involved working through the mathematics behind each step, at great length — sometimes hours for a single line. So once I’m finished, I’ve done a substantial portion of the work that was required to write the paper in the first place. The analogy would be me reading Michelle’s paper, and then making some of the reagents too — and that would take months too.
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Paul Cook 