How do researchers stay motivated?

[HoneyBadgerDC]

@Hari_Seldon

This is the only answer I have seen that comes even close to the explanation. David Hilbert, one of the finest mathematicians of all time said it best: “Wir muessen wissen, wir werden wissen” (We must know, we will know). Even if he was wrong (Goedel showed that we won’t always know), it expresses the sentiment perfectly. I have been retired for very nearly 15 years (on Dec. 31), but I am still actively pursuing research and publishing papers. Why? Because I want to know.

About dead ends: there is no such thing. When I started out, I thought that a successful day of research was one in which I had proved a new theorem. That’s nice, but there are few such days. No, a successful day of research is one where you understand something better in the evening than you did in the morning. If that doesn’t happen, then you will not stay a researcher.

To look at it differently, there has been a war on cancer for 40+ years. There has been progress, less than we would want, but there is a hell of a lot that is understood about it today than there was 40 years ago. An enormous amount.

Although the phrase “curiosity-driven research” is used as a put-down to contrast it with money-making research, the kind politicians love, it remains true enough and is really the only thing worth of the name. The rest is development.

And I cannot emphasize this too strongly: if you know where you are going, it is because you have already visited it. When I wrote a grant proposal, most of what I proposed to do was what I had already done. How else could I know it could be done? When you head off into the unknown, you cannot know where you will end up.

Great post, made me feel better about something I have been working on the past 15 years or so. You reach a place where you no longer even have anyone that can discuss it with you and you know you still have a good ways to go so you keep on going alone.

[Pasta]

@Chronos

One other point that nobody else has mentioned is that a professional researcher probably isn’t just working on one project.

I did! I did!

@Pasta

Keeping a moderately diversified research portfolio is one way to mitigate against such dead ends, but this is not always easy to achieve in practice in certain fields.

The point is an important one, though, so worth drawing out more explicitly. Multiple lines of research is easier to pull off in some fields (e.g., theoretical physics, where each student or postdoc might be pushing on an independent line) than in others (e.g., gravitational wave searches, where you might have most (if not all) of your eggs in a single experimental basket).

[LC_Strawhouse]

No need to get all “zen” about it… research can just be a fun lifestyle for some people even without making any great discoveries whatsoever. If they play their cards right at a good institution - they’re treated like alien gods by the general public, the pay is great and often augmented from a bunch of different sources, there’s a constant parade of recent-grad sycophants eager to do the hands-on work, there’s an ultra-casual work environment, they get to mingle with industry VIPs all day and are often invited to swan around the world attending conferences.

[Chronos]

Yeah, that just goes to show that one shouldn’t keep a thread open for 20 minutes before replying.

And it’s funny that you pick those particular examples, because I had a professor who was working on both theoretical physics and gravitational wave searches, through multiple avenues: One or two grad student each working on space-based gravitational wave detectors, pulsar timing GW detection, and LIGO; one working on cosmic strings (and incidentally how they might be detected via LIGO or LISA), one working on tests of relativity and alternate models of gravity, and was himself (without significant grad student involvement) working on one or two CMB cosmology projects. Of course, it might be different for the people actually building the instruments (one of our emeriti was a theorist who attempted to build a gravitational-wave detector back in the early days, and it… well, it didn’t end well).

[HoneyBadgerDC]

@Chronos

Yeah, that just goes to show that one shouldn’t keep a thread open for 20 minutes before replying.

And it’s funny that you pick those particular examples, because I had a professor who was working on both theoretical physics and gravitational wave searches, through multiple avenues: One or two grad student each working on space-based gravitational wave detectors, pulsar timing GW detection, and LIGO; one working on cosmic strings (and incidentally how they might be detected via LIGO or LISA), one working on tests of relativity and alternate models of gravity, and was himself (without significant grad student involvement) working on one or two CMB cosmology projects. Of course, it might be different for the people actually building the instruments (one of our emeriti was a theorist who attempted to build a gravitational-wave detector back in the early days, and it… well, it didn’t end well).

That sounds ike a facinating world you live in. Must be fun!

[Smeghead]

I’ll just say that if one particular researcher were more motivated than he is, my post count would be far lower.