Question about inspiration

[KeenMan]

Hello everyone,

 

a simple question ; what's your best place to get inspiration ?, where you can think and find new ideas or solutions to your problems.

 

and do you have any tricks for a phd student to come up with an original idea for his research theme ?

 

 

For me, it's the kitchen, when i'm eating, tons of ideas come to my mind.

 

 

[DevilSolution]

Sadly its music and drugs. There's the obvious major speeches and such for a bit of motivation but generally i just drink milk and walk the dog.

[ajb]

Walking in the park or along the river.

[Mike Smith Cosmos]

Hello everyone,

 

a simple question ; what's your best place to get inspiration ?, where you can think and find new ideas or solutions to your problems.

 

and do you have any tricks for a phd student to come up with an original idea for his research theme ?

 

 

For me, it's the kitchen, when i'm eating, tons of ideas come to my mind.

 

 

I have a view that this question of inspiration is " energy to the mind " . Like other feelings, or mental enhancement, it can be prompted , if you know what tends to act as a setting or prompt to fire up an " Inspiration"

 

Not on every occasion at all but often I use the prompt .

 

" go out for a walk or drive , with the ambition to "Observe something , see something" . I usually find that on every occasion , I see something . ( something interesting, something significant , something to think about .)

 

Yesterday I went out for a walk with the dog , it was drizzle , wet , cold , muddy under foot, and I walked in a park I have walked many times . I , without fail , always say to myself " see something " worth a thought or thinking about . This day , I thought I was out of observations. Same old view , I stopped .

 

Then an express train swished by from Plymouth to London , the motorway also with the wet road surface , was swish swish swish. A few people were walking hither and thither. All the houses had a car outside ready to head off tomorrow to work.. Gee wizz its Sunday ( I thought it was supposed to be a day of rest )!

 

There it was , I asked " Why ? , was everybody moving about, so much ? Not even free ranging animals move about so much .

 

I passed a man sitting in his van , waiting for his son from football. I asked him " why is everybody moving about so much ? "

He retorted " when I was a boy , some people stayed around their village. " it made me recant , " I lived up to 19 years Old, in a small village in Devon . I remember seeing this older lady , with a bun hairdo. An older person said to me " you know she has never left the village , all her life long ! "

 

My inspiration from this , for what it is worth .

 

" Is there a valid case that we as occupiers of earth ,are moving about , a bit too much , a bit to extravagantly and a bit too fast . To our own detriment and the worlds?

 

Might some of our world problems , become solved , and easier on ourselves , if we found a way of living , without roaring about all over the place ? "

 

 

Mike

Edited December 15, 2015 by Mike Smith Cosmos

[zapatos]

Lying in bed. It seems to block out any distractions and my mind only focuses on one thing. It is not unusual for me to get out of bed in the middle of the night to write something down so that I don't forget it when I fall back asleep.

[waitforufo]

Hunting. Particularly in rolling wheat fields like this one. When hunting you have to clear you mind and allow your senses to perceive game. Game often times seems to appear out of nowhere. Just like inspiration.

 

[hypervalent_iodine]

For inspiration and new ideas it's always been the shower. It's particularly good if I'm up all night writing and am stuck with something. For more general things, I find writing it out to be very clarifying. I think it's a very personal thing, though. By the range of responses here, what works for you may be quite different to what works for another. Getting away and finding a place where you can be introspective seems to be the common theme, however.

[Shelagh]

If you are considering a topic for a PhD, my advice would be to look at the interests of the professors who are the best supervisors, then choose something that will appeal to the prof you want as your supervisor.

[imatfaal]

If you are considering a topic for a PhD, my advice would be to look at the interests of the professors who are the best supervisors, then choose something that will appeal to the prof you want as your supervisor.

 

The problem with that is you risk spending 3-4 years on a topic you are only vaguely interested in - but because it is your supervisor's pet idea they are loath to let you vary your exact target or approach.

[Phi for All]

I enjoy the inspiration that stems from collaboration. Bouncing ideas off a fellow human never fails to enhance my perspective.

[Shelagh]

The problem with that is you risk spending 3-4 years on a topic you are only vaguely interested in - but because it is your supervisor's pet idea they are loath to let you vary your exact target or approach.

 

An even greater risk is to spend several years trying to gain your Ph.D with a poor supervisor, who offers little guidance because you have chosen a topic outside his/her expertise. If you want to see your work published in peer reviewed journals, choose your collaborator wisely!

[ajb]

An even greater risk is to spend several years trying to gain your Ph.D with a poor supervisor, who offers little guidance because you have chosen a topic outside his/her expertise.

A typical begin graduate student does not 'know the lay of the land'. A potential supervisor should have some ideas for a new student to work on and from there they can develop their own ideas. The potential student should have some idea of the general area, but more specific questions I would not expect any great insight.

 

A supervisor should not accept a student who is clearly not willing to work on a subject close to there expertise. If the student 'goes off on a tangent' then the supervisory team should intervene.

 

If you want to see your work published in peer reviewed journals, choose your collaborator wisely!

My advice here, would be to check up on potential supervisors recent papers. You are looking for a reasonable number of papers per year and hopefully they will be written with collaborators (who may be the people you get your first postdoc with). You should also see if they have written papers with their current or former students.

 

On top of that, you should try to find out what their former students are doing. Did they find postdoc positions, are they now lectures at reasonable universities, etc?

 

 

I enjoy the inspiration that stems from collaboration. Bouncing ideas off a fellow human never fails to enhance my perspective.

That is true. When it comes to collaborators you must not be scared to throw ideas out there. Quite a lot of the time you will be wrong, sometimes for simple reasons and other times not so simple. Either way you skills and knowledge grow and now and again you can make a great observation than kicks a paper into being.

[Ophiolite]

For inspiration and new ideas it's always been the shower.

When subordinates, or peers, ask me for a decision (i.e. a solution to a challenge) if that decision can be safely deferred to the following day I do so. I shall discuss the challenge and some of the optional decisions to a greater, or lesser extent then note that I shall "sleep on it". I give no further conscious consideration to the matter.

 

The following day, in the shower, I ask myself "what about that challenge" and the solution - often a rather surprisingly elegant one - pops into my mind. I have not meticulously monitored this, but the success rate appears to be 70% plus.

 

I don't see the point of wasting conscious thinking time when the unconscious can take care of the matter very efficiently.

[Bill Angel]

Inspiration can sometimes come from taking an interdisciplinary approach to problem solving. Check out the work people are doing in a field unrelated to your own, and consider whether an approach that they are using could be applied to your own area of investigation.

Edited December 21, 2015 by Bill Angel