u/Newgate-fc

Well so I am a 1 year M.Sc student and I applied for a intership on planetary science (somehow got selected), as I just wanted to explore what actually happens in a research project, because I have been in academics and I don't feel like I am actually learning anything. So Actually the problem that my guide had gave to me to work upon is how radiative and conductive energy transfers in planetary regoliths (soil) Like in moon. So he gave me a research paper of that models this process it was given by Bruce hapke. But this was my first time actually reading a research paper and learning a model from it which I have to implement. So as expected I wasn't able to understand much of the things from it first was RAdiative transfer eqn then how it's coupled with heat equations so a complete weak I was finding there definition from where they are coming, what do they mean and how are we solving fir a general case from reference given in paper but at the end it was so confusing like at some point they are just approximate the average 2 diffrent quantities as equal just because their dimensions are matching so like that I was having a hard time understanding the basics. But when I tried to seek advice from my guide he said you don't have time to learn the foundation as it would take a whole semester to cover the model and I have just 10 weeks, the main job is to understand how to implement the solution for different cases and retrace the input parameters from the output. I now I am completely blank what should I do like is it even possible to understand how to implement the solution from research paper with actually understanding it. If anyone of you is in research how did you unders your first research paper or what did you guys do if you don't have time but you have to show the result or implement something or simulate a case from the knowledge of what you learn from references in your research project.