About 20 years ago, he was like most of us, the frustrated fresh Ph.D. awardees who leaped out of a suffocating cocoon, with dreams to fly high but with paper wings. His profile was just average (with poor h-index) and he was also suffered from discrimination (antisemitism). But he never let his spirit down. He pursued his career with hard work, intuition and passion and ultimately was rewarded with 2010 Nobel prize in physics. I am not going to rub myself with his graphene work in this essay. I just want to share his passion and dedication towards exploring science in its real spirit.
All of us get ideas, most of them are extensions of what we are already doing, some ideas may be pretty new until we find that some one already tried it; very few ideas which we dare to get but immediately laugh at them instead of giving a serious thought. There may be very few of us who do some ground work(literature search and read some of it) and try to pursue them, but stop them at the very first hurdle. But Prof. Geim never under valued his ideas. He did great ground work, designed them with precision and planning and put a serious effort.
The idea of Gecko tape (like spider man web), levitating a living frog in a magnetic field (For which he was awarded 200 Ig Nobel prize) were some of them other than his graphene work. In his own words, "The levitation experience was both interesting and addictive. It taught me the important lesson that poking in directions far away from my immediate area of expertise could lead to interesting results, even if the initial ideas were extremely basic." and also "We are probably digging too deep within established areas, leaving plenty of unexplored stuff under the surface, just one poke away. When one dares to try, rewards are not guaranteed, but at least it is an adventure."
The scenario of indian science and scientists can be described as insane in terms of creativity and compassion. Publishing in high impact journals is the whole and sole agenda. Every one wants a academic position just because its secure and can hide in an idle yet rewarding position. Once you get some good impact papers and some awards, the job is done. There is nothing constructive or motivational. Just continuing the old thesis themes or extending Pdf ideas is not going to help the fate of Indian science.
What we clearly need to change is our attitude towards research. We need to come out of our comfort zone. Instead of taking more rest, we must take more challenges and pursue them with perseverance. As the idiot rightly says.. "Always try to seek excellence..success will follow !!!".
(Inspired from the Nobel lecture & autobiography of Pro. Geim and other articles)
All of us get ideas, most of them are extensions of what we are already doing, some ideas may be pretty new until we find that some one already tried it; very few ideas which we dare to get but immediately laugh at them instead of giving a serious thought. There may be very few of us who do some ground work(literature search and read some of it) and try to pursue them, but stop them at the very first hurdle. But Prof. Geim never under valued his ideas. He did great ground work, designed them with precision and planning and put a serious effort.
The idea of Gecko tape (like spider man web), levitating a living frog in a magnetic field (For which he was awarded 200 Ig Nobel prize) were some of them other than his graphene work. In his own words, "The levitation experience was both interesting and addictive. It taught me the important lesson that poking in directions far away from my immediate area of expertise could lead to interesting results, even if the initial ideas were extremely basic." and also "We are probably digging too deep within established areas, leaving plenty of unexplored stuff under the surface, just one poke away. When one dares to try, rewards are not guaranteed, but at least it is an adventure."
The scenario of indian science and scientists can be described as insane in terms of creativity and compassion. Publishing in high impact journals is the whole and sole agenda. Every one wants a academic position just because its secure and can hide in an idle yet rewarding position. Once you get some good impact papers and some awards, the job is done. There is nothing constructive or motivational. Just continuing the old thesis themes or extending Pdf ideas is not going to help the fate of Indian science.
What we clearly need to change is our attitude towards research. We need to come out of our comfort zone. Instead of taking more rest, we must take more challenges and pursue them with perseverance. As the idiot rightly says.. "Always try to seek excellence..success will follow !!!".
(Inspired from the Nobel lecture & autobiography of Pro. Geim and other articles)
