Who is your ideal researcher?

益川流「のりしろ」思考

The book, 'Norishiro-shiko" (Thinking of margin) written by a Nobel prize winner, Masukawa Toshihide, is full of messages and hints for what researchers need. The book is written with very plain language, so this gave me a very casual impression prima-facie. However, I could see a number of researcher's principles concealed under such everyday words.

Of course, he is very different from me - I am a young researcher with a small number of papers in the field of applied linguistics, but (fortunately) I found a lot of commons as a researcher between what I have thought and what he insists in the book. He says 'there is no difference between humanities/social sciences (so called bun-kei) and science (ri-kei). What is different is just the target they are aiming' (p. 71). I totally agree with this point.

I like a popular expression among physicians, which is introduced in the book; Galois-point, Abelian-point and Weierstrass-point after famous scientists. (pp. 66-7)

Galois died at twenty after he made a mathematical theory. So, researchers first try to be successful like him until 20, but they soon pass the age without any achievement.

Then they aim at something Abel achieved. He made Abelian Theory but died of tuberculosis at the age of 28. Despite their attempts, researchers pass the Abelian-point too.

However, they were optimistic; "We can then try Weierstrass". He is a mathematician who achieved a great success at 39 after a junior high school teacher.

This episodes just reminds me of a great applied linguist. Now he is one of the biggest names in the area of SLA. Everyone knows his name. However, he wasn't known just 20 years ago. So, he is a Weierstrass.

I think I made a good start as a researcher - soon after completing PhD, I started working as a university lecturer. However, I have been worried about the fact that I'm not so productive. Of course, I have a lot of reasons (or excuses) - I've spent too much time on teaching preparation due to a lack of teaching experience. But This is far from what I think ideal. This is not something I dreamed of!

Knowing the Weierstrass-point reassures me. I'm overwhelmed if I try to get the summit of Everest from the foot of the mountain, but I can cross small (sometimes big) hurdles lined up in front of me. While jumping big and small hurdles, I'm approaching to the Weierstrass point.