I am an incoming student and looked at the courses for this upcoming semester and have a pretty good idea of my courses but just in case from your experience which professors and courses to choose and which to avoid
I’m trying to pull the discussion back to individual scientists, like how Karl Popper’s idea of falsification described what good science looks like before Thomas Kuhn.
I think it comes down to luck to some extent. If enough anomalies appear to create a crisis, and the right tools are developed before reaching a breaking point, then a field can be revolutionized. But once you reach that crisis, I feel like this is where Paul Feyerabend’s “anything goes” idea becomes relevant.
However, if “anything goes” applies all the time, then it just becomes chaos, and there is no structure or order in how we approach problems and make progress.
So if revolutionizing science is partly about luck, then maybe the better question is: how do you become a good scientist? Or, more fundamentally, how do you do good normal science?
what's your thoughts?
I graduated with honors in physics and have some research experience in cosmology, but little exposure to theoretical physics or quantum mechanics since my university didn't offer many theory opportunities. I applied to PhD programs this cycle and was rejected from all of them. I know the funding cuts made admissions more competitive, so I'm taking a gap year and plan to apply again next cycle.
What can I do over the next year to make my application stand out?
My current plan is to self-study subjects like QFT, GR, statistical physics, and relevant math, while reading literature in HEP theory and writing a literature review in the specific area I want to pursue. My goal is to show familiarity with the field and demonstrate that I'm serious about research.
I also know research experience would help. Has anyone had success cold-emailing professors outside their university to join a research group? If so, what did you work on, and how did you convince them to take you on?
Other than that any advice would be appreciated.
TL;DR: Who revolutionized our understanding of reality the most, and what made them capable of seeing what everyone else missed?
This is partly a philosophy of science question, but I'm curious what physicists think.
Thomas Kuhn argued that most scientists do "normal science" within an existing paradigm (today, things like General Relativity and Quantum Mechanics). Eventually anomalies pile up, a crisis emerges, and sometimes a scientific revolution occurs where the paradigm itself changes. We often associate those shifts with people like Newton or Einstein.
My question is: what makes someone capable of making that leap? Why did Einstein or Newton revolutionize our understanding of nature while many equally educated and talented people working in the same era did not?
I'm not looking for "luck" as the main answer. Einstein benefited from the right historical context, but so did many others. What traits, habits, or circumstances allow someone to see what everyone else misses? Or is the question itself misguided and scientific revolutions are more about timing and broader historical forces than individuals?
Personally, I'm sympathetic to Feyerabend's idea that major advances often come from people willing to break the accepted rules rather than follow them. Einstein, for example, wasn't a leading academic when he developed Special Relativity. Maybe being somewhat outside the system gives people more freedom to challenge its assumptions.
What do you think? And who would you consider a truly revolutionary scientist besides Einstein and Newton?