Under what circumstances do the instructor do experiments himself?

Text ｜ Xu Xudong (Researcher Institute of Aquatic Institute of Chinese Academy of Sciences)

A few days ago, I visited the laboratory of two young professors and learned that they had been experimented by themselves and achieved important results. They couldn't help but applaud them in their hearts. In fact, when I was in the MSU-DOE PRL (Michigan State University-Department of Energy's Energy Research Laboratory) at that time, the boss Peter Wolk was still in his 60s and still experimented every day.

Not long ago, he participated in the American Symposium in the United States through videos. The home of this meeting was in the PRL. There was a link at the meeting as "Honoring Peter Wolk". My speech also mentioned that he had a chat with Peter while chatting with Peter. He corrected my English past.

I call Peter "boss", in fact he is a strict worker.

A few years ago, some media criticized graduate students and post -doctoral tutors as "boss". I said straightforwardly that this is really a big misunderstanding like a mountain, because this is just a titling of the instructor in an informal occasion.

When I was PRL, I was not only Peter, but also the bosses in other laboratories also experimented. I remember that in another laboratory, two graduate students were unhappy about the paper ranking, and they did not do experiments. As a result, the boss personally supplemented the key data for them, so that the paper was published.

Let go of the misunderstanding of the "boss". I want to discuss it. Under what circumstances, the mentor will do experiments in person?

The first is to take experimental hobbies. My boss Peter Wolk is a person who does not do experiment. He did experiments every day, and he had been the director of PRL for several years. When he was the director, he criticized the female professor of the laboratory on the opposite side, saying that they did not perform experiments in their own young people, causing people to be unhappy.

Now Peter has retired, and people in their 80s have actually used a laboratory to conduct experiments from the newly -promoting young professor to take a bicycle to school. After my student's students went to this laboratory to do blog, they met such an old man who loved to do experiments, and talked to find that he was the teacher of the teacher's teacher.

When I left MSU, Peter said to me: "When I was 90 years old, what strains do you want, I will still pick up from the refrigerator and send it to you!"

The second is when young professors were established in the early stage of the laboratory.

The two young professors I mentioned are in a stage where the laboratory is not large and there are not many students. They are very capable people, and they are not satisfied with the level and progress of the students. They are not as good as they do it.

At that time, when I first established a laboratory, I was also inadequate and anxious, and I did experiments like students every day. Later, there were more and more affairs, and the experiments were constantly interrupted by calls. The students took the initiative to say that the teacher still does not do it, we do more.

I also realize that I should put my main energy on planning and guiding students. Later, the startup cost was almost the same, and more energy turned out to be written on writing a book and looking for funds. There are more funds and more students, and it is impossible to perform experiments by themselves. I can only take everyone every week to discuss the progress of the experiment.

The third is to explore new directions and introduce new technologies. When a laboratory's long -term overcome scientific issues are basically resolved, and the new direction is explored by new interests or tasks driven, and the instructor personally leads students to try new materials and test new tools.

In the United States and Europe, there are also some professors who use academic vacation to visit the laboratories of other countries, learn new technologies and methods, and then return to the laboratory to take students to do it together.

The bloggers have not used the "gun" for experiments for many years, but recently exploring the reproductive development of a large type of freshwater algae. First of all, they need to find the appropriate experimental materials. Students do not even know this group of algae. What should I do? The old driver said nothing, rolling up his sleeve and doing it in person. Find different types, explore breeding conditions, and stare at it every day.

The student asked puzzled, what is the same time to watch so many times, and look at it a few more times? The old driver told the students: This is like you talk about the object. You stare at it every day, and she may be yours; if you care about it, she has nothing to do with you.

In summary, the tutor may have experiments because of their personal hobbies, or it may be due to the needs of research work.

In fact, there are more students and the projects. Most mentors can hardly continue to do experiments with both hands, but they have been using the brain to do "experiments".

My personal experience, doing experiments in my head is not only when listening to reports and discussions, but also when I was lonely, rolling around, and even when the journey and early morning meditation.

Although you can't fight next to the experimental desk like a student, you can see what the students want to know about what the experimental results and problems encounter.

From discussing the experimental plan to viewing the results of the experiment and inquiring the experiment, step by step to go forward, it is ten years and twenty years. Yes, for more than two decades, we have sent more than 70 students, and we work hard to find out several issues.

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