Quantumly Things

The room was predominately male. I had expected that. Though, the incidence of long-haired men seemed higher than “average”. (Perhaps they are eschewing gender norms on purpose. Perhaps they’re just lazy. Perhaps the academic culture doesn’t care much on the appearance of men so long as they aren’t actually feminine...)

At the conference, the majority of people wore causal dress--T-shirts, actually (may also be due to the heat of Brisbane, Australia). There were a few men in collared shirts, and perhaps one (or two) in a suit.

(I didn’t examine the dress of the women.)

What I expected and found: everyone is very smart, and much more so than me.

What I also found: there were a select number of physicists to like (are prone to) interrupting during talks. Sometimes, it was to quickly clarify something (and so everyone benefits). But there were occasions when some started arguing about the non-technical phrases in a talk, or interuptees would carry a conversation between themselves. There was even a condescending comment starting with “Do you remember our conversation last week?” (!!)

Honestly, I did not understand most of the talks (or even half of them). As I gathered some other opinions--you’re not expected to be able to understand all of the talks.

(The aim is to be able to pose interesting and relevant questions to the presenter, and to look as though you understood the talk.)

And as people kept saying, (and it turned out true for me), the best part of the conference was not the talks, but the ~mingling~ in between the talks, at lunch, and in the evening.

It was during these off times that I had a chance to talk to other researchers (some of these PhD students, some postdocs) (rather, they spoke to me, luckily).

I even met other physicists who don’t drink! We are a rare breed.

And once I start knowing people, I become much more interested and engaged to hear about their research.

Since it was only a two-day conference, it wasn’t nearly long enough to make friends per-se. But I think they would welcome contact, be it if I was in their area, or if we wanted to do some joint research thing.

And overall, it was a very interesting experience indeed. So, some advice (for my future self):

You can angst (or not), but the conference will be okay. Physicists are people too.

Dress for small physics conferences seems to be “neat”, and very casual is fine.

Don’t expect to understand everything. (Writing notes doesn’t really help.)

How to read scientific papers

1. Find papers to read

At the start of my research, my supervisors give me papers to read. If not, I would conduct a keyword search on Google.

2. Read the introduction first

I never understand the abstract aside from the first sentence. The introduction slips into the deep end a tad slower, providing background and motivation.

Near the end of the introduction, the results should be summarised, and they usually make more sense than the abstract.

3. Read the conclusion next

If the paper still sounds relevant after you read the results----or if you have to read it, go to the conclusion for more detail about the results.

See how we’re going from the easiest task to the next easiest? This way, you now know what the paper is supposed to be saying/proving, and should have an understanding of the slightly bigger context.

4. Read the bulk (over and over again)

There’s no nice way that I know of for attacking the bulk of a paper, the hows of the results.

I usually go sequentially, many, many times. I use a highlighter for important sounding sentences, and pen and paper to try write out/distill out certain points. Sometimes, reading out loud helps.

If the paper is mathematical, I read the main body over once before going through the mathematics properly---writing it out, filling in all the jumps that I’m not convinced (in my heart) of.

It is important to pace yourself reading, because there’s so much content in just a few pages. And unless you can get someone more knowledgeable to explain the paper to you, you’re going to be reading certain paragraphs over and over.

5. Back to the abstract

Now go back and read the abstract. Hopefully it now actually makes sense: it should summarise what you understand of the paper.

6. Explain to someone else

By trying to explain it to someone else, you force yourself to reorganise and think through the main steps of the paper. If you don’t have someone else, try find a whiteboard and explain it to yourself.

Now repeat until you’re forced to stop!

Once you have a paper to read though, you’d suddenly have too many papers to read---I for one have the urge to read through every single reference in a paper, and the references into those papers and the----a process that halts only because I just don’t have the time and energy anymore.

The papers that I fully understand are the ones I co-authored (which is one paper).

The papers that I mostly understand are the ones that directly relate to my research, ones that I reference and look at hundreds of times over the course of my research.

As for the others? I only have a vague understanding of the results, and mostly trust that those researchers got it right, and that all the other researchers who cite those papers got it right too.

Because really, especially for someone [like me] who has just started researching, one simply does not have the time to deeply read and understand all the relevant literature.