Why research is an art form

When I started my PhD two months ago, my idea of research was a bit too stringent. The concept I had of research was poorly informed by having read research papers, having listened to academic presentaitons, and having talked to scientists about their topics. But there is a whole epistemological question lying dormant througout any PhD journey, which I believe even senior acedmics forget (or miss altogther) to ask of their students - what is knowledge, how does one create new knowledge, and what is the process.

In today’s information-dense, fast-paced, results-oriented world, we seldom sit down to think about ‘how’ to do something - we automatically start ‘doing’. But I believe this strips us some of our fundamental human-defining traits - creating, wondering, not knowing. Thus, since the beginning of my PhD, I have been looking for someone to converse with about how to return or, more accurately, for the first time, embrace these three states. My search has lead me to three sources - “The Craft of Research”, “Ignorance, how it drives science”, and most recently “The Creative Act” (courtesy of my girlfriend, who is an architect and got that book for herself).

This blogpost will mostly be for organizing my thoughts after reading parts of these books. I will try updating the content as ideas from these readings resonate with me. I will also include quotes to come back to for when the road gets winding and dark. A vial of starlight.

What could stop us from expressing our creativity

Approach always beats results

Something that struck me when reading Rick Rubin was when he listed all of our thoughts and habits that stop us from doing our best work. Rick shares a story about one of the most successful college baskteball coaches (John Wooden), who would make his players learn to tie their shoes on their first practice. He would talk at length on how to properly put on a sock (no wrinkles on the small toe or the heel), and how to properly snuggly tie a shoe. That’s a small ritual, but it teaches an important lesson - how we approach our work often is more important than the work itself. The players on John’s team were probably just as good as any of the other elite athlethes in the country, but the culture of how they would approach the game, taught by John was different.

Another exmaple I can think of is from one of my current favorite movies (a rather popular one) - Moneyball. The thing that set the underdog baseball team appart were not the players, how hard they hit the ball, how fast they were, how young - it was the approach to building their team that was different.

Much in the same vein, setting up our daily habits and structuring our day can define the quality of our work. For me, for the past two months I felt the best when I would sit down for 1-2 hours at the start of the workday, ignore all emails and work distractions, open up my notebook and textbook on Condensed matter physics (Girvin and Yang), and strat chugging away at material, and most of all, solving the problems. Unfortuntaly, I would say I didn’t do this enough for the past two months, and that’s where I segway onto the next lesson.

Setting habits, removing habits

When talking about habits, most people think of adding new behaviours to our routine. But here, Rick Rubin nails it on the head - sometimes, it is some of our learned habits that are the ones holding us back. So, setting habits is not only about adding new behaviours, but also about removing old ones. Some examples (borrowed from Rick), which I immediately identified I had while reading:

• “Having goals so amibitions that you can’t even begin” - this is a classic. In the past years I have tried more to do than to think about doing, but sometimes I fall for this. A personal example was trying to learn MagicVLSI - I always thought that program was super cool, but it always seemed so dauting to start learning it, as I always imagined I would do an entire tape-out with it. So, naturally, having never done a tape out, and knowing the amount of work required for a tape-out, I never tried the damn thing… During the 2025 Chipathon, I finally had the chance to use it, and I designed a super small component (an ESD cell of a single resitor and two BJTs), and I immensely enjoyed it.
• “Requiring specific tools or equipment to do the work / Letting a perceived need for funding, equipment, or support get in the way” - this one is currently kind-of interferring with a good habit I am trying to build. I want to do the 1-2 hour problem solving daily for the most part of the next 4 years. However, I am trying to convince myself that I should get a Supernote, since keeping track of my two notebooks (one at work, one at home) can be combersome. That is absolutely not true, and I have managed to convince one unfortunate soul from the other PhDs to make our own problem-solving circle to be held each 2 weeks, where we discuss physics topics and solve problems. But I have tried to play this trick on meyself… not cool …
• “Believing a certain mood or state is necessary to do your best work” - some days I know what I have to do (solve physics problems), but I am not in a perfect state (haven’t slept, no creative impulse, attention-startvation). Regardless, I should still try to do the work, even if it is suboptimal (for 30 minutes, or 0 problems solved).

References

[1] The Creative Act, Rick Rubin, 9780593652886
[2] W. C. Booth, G. G. Colomb, and J. M. Williams, The Craft of Research, Third Edition (University of Chicago Press, 2009).
[3] S. Firestein, Ignorance: How It Drives Science (Oxford University Press, USA, 2012).