Some thoughts about research

I am interested in changing the way people think about this world.

Writing papers helped researchers how to teach/sell their ideas.

So far, I shortly conclude my research life into four interrelated phases: finding the joy in doing research, tackling down the hot potatoes, writing down what I've done, and solidifying the basis (theories and tools)

- Enjoy in the research.

• Enjoy the exchange of ideas with your advisor
• Enjoy understanding something thoroughly and thinking clearly and fast
• Training for better "input" and "output" ability.
  • Express my ideas with clear structure (Practice by doing presentation)
  • Dare to solve the seemly unsolvable problem
• Instead of evading the possible errors, one should look more into these rare cases since the potential breakthrough point and the really interesting part

-Define the problems properly. A problem well defined is a problem half-solved.

Try all you can to solve the problem at hand

-Begin with asking dumb question. The trick is that if you can write down this dumb

question, the destiny of this dumb question would be either solved or becoming a well-defined tough question. Why? This is the magic of writing something down. When you want to write something, you want to make it clear and short. In order to do so, you're forced to gather more and more knowledge about this dumb question and thus increase the probability to either understand it completely or find out something substantially important.

Take my adviser's case for example: He told me he always learn by writing it down, so do most of his genius friends.

- Lay down solid basis

• Linear Algebra, Stochastic Process, Information Theory, Communication Theory, Wireless communication
• MATLAB, Latex.
• In engineering school, the best way to learn is by solving problems after problems.

Set up schedule and method for each day! Take Latex as example, go through and practice one chapter a day. Create a new tex file for each chapter as practice and summary!

Other priceless ideas I learnt from my advisor

- Make a guess. If you are right, you're on the way to something significant. Even if you're wrong, you prove why you're wrong and to prevent others to waste time on it anymore. This is what we call "contribution".

- How to choose a topic

Send the questions to those best minds in related field. If all of them give you some sort of vague explanation and can't provide any direct reference for further information. This automatically means that nobody has a clue about how to solve it. Once confirming the importance/contribution of this problem, you can start to solve the problem by your own.

-Use suitable analogy to express your ideas.

There are two seemingly unrelated but amazingly suitable analogies. First, the story of pasting a herb on the cut and later on figure out the medical substance in it. Second, how to measure the heart rate.

Use Kaleidoscope as a perfect analogy to the idea in "World of bits"

The matters want to keep the entropy.

- Stay calm

Once my adviser credited one of his precious students like the following, I remember him most by never let us see him sweat. He's always been preternaturally graceful under pressure.

Once my friend told me what's the secret of his sudden improvement in Billiard: Calm down

-Thoughts become things

Looking back, I did all the stuffs I believe I can do it. On the other hand, I either quited or failed everything I thought I can't. Doing research also apply to this theory.