sometimes i wonder how the advisor once did it: he met with so many people and discussed all these different research problems with them. i'll never fully know what the advisor knew and thought about .. not that it's any of my business. [1]
sometimes, however, i felt there was a bigger picture involved, but we would be working with this one problem and seeing how it goes.
fool that i was,
i never thought to ask him explicitly:
why? where does it come from?
that was why i liked the advisor's talks so much. that was when he'd explain the whole, what motivated him, and there was always a motivation-- what was known and what wasn't (but remains interesting).
he wrote much like he lectured. last week i had occasion to browse through one of his last articles, from bu11etin of the AM$ of this past year. there were many topics that i had seen, but not in concert like this. then there were new ideas there -- new to me, anyway -- and on the whole, i saw him in his article.
i didn't feel ignorant, while reading it;
i felt myself becoming more aware, about what it all means.
it is nice to know, in this sense,
that the advisor will never be truly gone.
so, enough apotheosis: i do have something slightly critical to say. i wish he told me about one particular open problem himself. i don't even know if he was the one who posed it or if it was j. ¢hee9er; the problem can be found in the bu11.am$ article, but in plain text. even there, one must be looking for it.
as for this problem, i had to learn it from others who asked me recently if my methods will work towards its solution. apparently i must have been among the only ones who didn't know about it ..
.. and i'm working on a special case, now.
[1] thinking about it, that would be creepy, to know all of that. i think of the opposite situation, where people are trying to determine all the research directions that i'm currently entertaining.
that would be big-br0therish! would that make me some winsτon?
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