Life Experiment 26, 2021

Hey There.

So we finally have the Library of Experiments live. Check it out.

New experiments will be added over the upcoming days, months, years. Let's see what we build up. Oh, there's a Google Form (proper bootstrapping style) where you can submit your own experiment proposal.

So I spent the whole afternoon yesterday watching Billions series . Again.

Because? I left like it. Still went to bed early enough, though 🙂

Devils the British "version" of Billions is also pretty good.

There's a quote from the Billions of S03E09:

I raised glasses with movie stars, presidents and nuclear physicists. And you want to impress me with a USA treasury secretary. Grigor Andolov, Russian oligarch

The whole re-watching of the series made me think about world-class expertise. What would be the cost of switching the field of expertise from nuclear/heavy-ion physics to whatever else? To change the field again (I switched the field after my master thesis).

The short answer is the focus. Long answer? I would be sacrificing the path I already walked to get towards world-class expertise in a small niche. To be clear, I probably walked the first 1% of the path till now 😉

A world-class expert of field X

Let's say that you want to become a world-class expert in field X. Let's say that you need to be one of the top 70 people in the field to be considered a world-class expert.

• 7 billion people in the world population.
• 70 million is 1% of the world population.
• 700k people is one per mill of the world population.
• 70 people in the world is 0.0001 per mill of the world population.

70 really isn't a lot of people if you look at the population of the whole world.

Once I did this math, I realised that I already found my world-class expert field. Stuff I'm working on for my PhD.

OK, the mass spectrometry field of rare heavy ions has probably several thousand researchers. Ion dynamics for mass spectrometry has way less, at least based on regular publications. I would say the active researchers are in hundreds, probably less.

Now ion dynamics for mass spectrometry might not be the hottest field in physics, but it's at least a bit useful. And I really like it—just the right combo of math, coding, experimental physics and theoretical physics. Not easy, but it doesn't require a supercomputer of a brain like some other areas of physics.

So I did the percentage math in the morning. But then later today had a conversation with my department boss.

I mentioned how I realised what a privilege it is to do a PhD. You have uninterrupted time (approximately 4 years) to work on a single problem. With very little pressure if you find an understandable supervisor. Oh, and are paid to think. I mean, what else do you want?

We chatted a bit. What made me speechless the most was:

Work you do for a PhD should make you number one in the world for a specific topic. Top 10 is also OK.

Huh OK ... So I'm trying to become a world-class expert without realising. Than all good.

I think I already have my physics niche or at least are going towards it 😂

This brings me to my second question.

Can you be a world-class expert in two areas?

A world-class expert in multiple fields? Maybe? Probably not.

If yes, one field has to probably be a bit less complicated than my current topic of work 😉

I'll keep working on the side hustle, but not at the cost of the research work.

Yes, I'm finally OK with making the PhD and research career no. 1 priority. Downsizing everything else (obligations, projects, mental commitments) even if I have time outside of "work hours" to thinker with something I won't, at least not always. But the side hustle is staying. For a reason 🙂

Been doing this for a few weeks, and it feels good when after 7:00 - 15:00, you have the rest of the day with no constraints and do whatever the heck you want. I quite like it. Should have given myself permission to do that before ...

If I feel like it, I work on the side hustle. I'll definitely try to work on it during weekends, till around 12:00. But then rest of the day, I aim to be at 0% brain capacity.

It should work out OK as long as I don't jump to a new side-focus project every five minutes. Same work's for the PhD. If no. 1 in a niche field is the goal well, then I better not shift research topics every five minutes.

Now, of course, should you aim to be world-class? I don't know. It probably doesn't hurt if you are.

Although maybe don't do it to pump your ego. Although being a world-class expert feels good. I just started my path, and after a year, I'm starting to get pretty satisfied. Hard focused work is paying off.

Cheers

Ziga