Random Thoughts in >2 Dimensions

13-01-2022 How to settle for a research question

Lately a friend from outside of academia (yes I have them) asked me "what it's like to do research", and "what I do all day long" ? Good question. What do I do all day long? So I requested him be a bit more concrete, upon which we settled for the question "How do you decide to pursue a particular research question?". That reminded me of that moment of enlightenment when I understood that finding a research question is the researcher's job and not anyone else's. This my moment must have been some time around the first year of my PhD, and figuring this out is about halfway of what a PhD student needs to learn. To their own detriment, some of my fellow PhD students have never had this moment. Anyway, I thought a bit and came up with some subjective perception of what the process looked like some times. I call this process the Carnage of 1000 Ideas, and it goes roughly like this:

1. You just read a lot and think, after which you have 1000 questions.

2. You google your 1000 ideas. You find that 990 of those are already published, half of them by some Russian guy in the 1960's, the other half by some Chinese guys 2 weeks ago.

3. Upon looking closer, 2 of the 10 left are not doable. You understand that this is why they are not published.

4. Of the 8 left, you find 4 of them are actually not THAT interesting. You are a busy person, and strive for the big questions.

5. Then, 2 of the 4 left are not doable BY YOU. At least not with your resources.

6. Of the 2 left, you flip a coin to choose one. You present it to your scientific advisor. He tears it to shreds.

7. You google your 1 remaining idea again. It is published on page 2.

8. Go back to Step 1