the consequences of tangents
Just like my last post, here are some musings on how I might put together the introduction to my dissertation where the three papers within are connected through what didn’t work instead of a unified idea. What’s floated to the surface is a hodgepodge including a bit on how water moves, a bit on how some equipment works and finally a bit on an underwater soundscape–none of this quite fits together so I’ve been gathering some old notes and writing to put my thoughts together. Since I probably can’t use these words in my dissertation, I thought I’d share them here.
“I was born not knowing and only have a little time to change that here and there.” - Richard Feynman
Early in my masters program, I attended a graduate workshop where a presenter suggested keeping systematic records of thoughts, ideas and references in a single physical notebook--an obvious piece of advice, but I needed to hear it. I walked out of the workshop and started my own research notebook.
As time passed, I kept stumbling across interesting ideas that fell outside the narrow focus of my research. To collect these outlying ideas, I started a new notebook. My first tangential notebook entry is dated January, 5th 2009 with notes on Goethe's 1810 theory of colours, a theory radically different than Newton's. A few pages later I have notes on bifurcation theory and Etruscan mythology on the same page.
One notebook morphed in to many tangential notebooks filled with ideas, information, sketches and diagrams (and ultimately notebooks for fictional ideas as well which have turned into an entirely different thing). After a year of notebook keeping I started this blog to practice writing about these ideas.
A surface meta-analysis shows that I primarily gather information on the natural world. For example, I've looked into blues found in nature, how sea ice develops and why some ice glows an electric blue. There are notes on history of science and thinking, some mythology and human quirkiness (e.g. philately), and thought processes. Plus, I can't resist recording a bad joke (what did the alien say to the tomato? Take me to your weeder.).
Through gathering seemingly random information I've had more than one happy accident that has helped my 'official' research. While struggling with my dissertation proposal, I was reading about the eccentric folks who tried and eventually succeeded in figuring out how the Antikythera Mechanism worked. A scientist turned science historian in the book came up with a theory which directly justified the work I was proposing.
I find this kind of writing fun and it keeps me interested in learning while providing an outlet for juxtaposing ideas in ways inappropriate for my academic work. Keeping track of juxtapositions captures moments of ridiculousness, which I love. For example in my last field notebook, I took note of an afternoon I spent processing data at the only table on the ship while one of the Inuit crew members sliced up a shoulder of caribou beside me – a moment where high-tech mathematical analysis clashed with ancient food preparation of another culture.
Looking at my pile of notebooks, I wonder what connects these tangential notebooks? Do they relate to my research, or does my research relate to these notebooks? Taken together are they a map of my mind? My current theory about these notebooks is that they are a symptom of deeper questions I haven't articulated yet. At some point and in some form, I'd like to explore the ideas in my notebooks to more depth (including collecting more bad jokes).
Post phd I’d like to re-visit some of these notebooks to see what I can distill out.