The 12 Habits of Highly Effective Researchers

Hi rats,

Today's post is about self-improvement.

Do you have the feeling of being undercited? You don’t get invited to important conferences? And what about your group’s funds? Are your students so hungry that you fear for your life at lunch time?

Well, say good-bye to all that!! Because, after years of intense study, I have identified the 12 key features that can transform you from a moderately-talented library rat into a venerated Master Splinter of Scientific Discovery. 

So far, hundreds of researchers have benefited from “The road to QIP”, my 12-step program for scientific excellence. Read the following testimonials:

“I used to think that my mathematical derivations were wrong. But after reading “The road to QIP”, I gained the necessary confidence I needed to disseminate my results. Now I have a published book, and the whole academic world comments regularly on my work. Thank you, Schroedinger’s rat!”. --Joy Christian

“The road to QIP? All roads lead to QIP!”. --Fernando Brandao

""The road to QIP" reflects the genius of its creator. A successful scientist with highly cited publications, the rat immediately strikes as a very charismatic, handsome and even athletic individual (he runs ten kilometres every morning!). “Sometimes it is difficult to make my active life-style compatible with taking care of seven adopted kids. But, alas, seeing the smiles on their faces when I play for them one of my numerous piano concerts makes everything worth it”, he told me while we were savouring a cup of green tea that he himself cultivates in the back garden of his seven-acre Victorian mansion. Devoted researcher and bestselling novelist during the day, at night the rat patrols the streets of Bristol as Ratman, fighting crime and evil with the aid of his assistant, the amazing Guinea Boy. The rat is three metres tall! He can fly and time-travel!! He can create Life!!![...]". --Michal Navackowsky (a.k.a. Heisenberg's Racoon)

Ufff! That bullet was close, Guinea Boy! Luckily I could escape flying... Eh!? What are you still doing here!? Scroll down, read “The Road to QIP” and become part of the legend!

Yours truly,

Schroedinger’s rat

THE ROAD TO QIP

12 tips for a successful career in Quantum Information Science.

1) Define concepts which are easy to grasp and give them catchy names, like “quantum dynamite”, “entropic saxophone” and “Waikiki phase transition”.

Hint: try to use the word “topological”, it makes everything sound more sophisticated. E.g.:

A: Where are you?

B: In the toilet, trying to crap a torus. I‘m doing “topological crapping”.

A: Oh! How sophisticated!

2) Don’t invent anything new.

New topics are difficult to sell, both in journals and in conferences. In contrast, and absurd as it may sound, a valid motivation for working on old topics is that someone else has worked on the problem before. Examples: the Peres conjecture, mutually unbiased bases, almost every single topic in pure mathematics.

3) Don’t waste too much time with reviewing work.

If the paper you have to referee is long, follow these steps:

           a) Keep the paper for six months.

           b) Summarize the abstract of the paper in two lines and conclude your report with: "unfortunately, the topic is not of general interest”.

Bonus tip: most editors find admissible to reject pioneering work on the grounds that “nobody is currently working on this line”. As before, you can establish this via a diagonal reading of the paper’s abstract. You’re welcome. 

4) Demand citations to your work in every article that you referee.

Especially if they’re completely unrelated to the article! And don’t forget to list as well a couple of random papers in order to conceal your identity.

5) Have an English/American name.

A significant percentage of the QI community cannot pronounce/remember/cite non-anglo-saxon names. Ideally, your name should be outstanding, but familiar and easy to spell. E.g.: John Entanglement, Alice Steering, Toby Qubit. Sorry, no. Forget the last one.

6) Cite all your previous papers in each new article.

That way, your h-index will be half your total number of papers. Use this template: “[bizarre research topic] has generated a lot of interest lately, see [all your papers]”.

7) Be diplomatic with referees.

Referee report: “I'm willing to bet that the main result is known, although I could not find any references to prove it”*.

Response: “We thank the referee for his insightful comments... now we understand why referees are anonymous".

*Real referee report.

8) Hype your titles.

That way, you will get more people to read your stuff. Furthermore, you may even bypass the editors of famous journals! Have a look at the following examples:

Hype	English
The Uncertainty Principle Determines the Non-locality of Quantum Mechanics	Operator norms bound steering functionals
Security bounds for Continuous Variables Quantum Key Distribution	Our bounds are secure as long as certain results proven for finite dimensions miraculously extend to the continuous case
Local Realism of Macroscopic Correlations	All quantum systems exhibit a strong form of macroscopic locality, although we can't say “macroscopic locality”, because then it would be patent that our idea isn't that original in the first place and we couldn’t publish in, say, Nature Physics*

*And, despite that foolproof plan, they didn’t manage to publish in Nature Physics! How fortunate for Nature Physics, because the paper is flawed.**

**I know, I know, this is not a hype… but it is equally fastidious!

9) Apply for grants, even if you're enjoying a comfortable postdoc and don’t actually need the money.

In any case, you’ll need to apply in the future. And funding agencies are much more prone to give grants to people who have already been awarded grants in the past, thereby following the principle: “if all funding agencies jumped off a bridge…”.

10) In conference photos and dinners, stand next to the big guys.

That way, people will associate you over time with important personalities in the field via classical conditioning. “XXXXX? I can’t name a single result of his... but he’s good, isn’t he?”.

11) Don’t criticize anyone’s work.

Some people cannot distinguish between a bad review of a shit specific paper and a full-scale personal attack. So next time that some crackpot engages you in an unending discussion about a completely pointless topic, implement the standard QI protocol, i.e., wait politely until the end, mutter “interesting, interesting...” and nod repeatedly.

Note: if the maniac perseveres, go to the rest room ("you'll have to excuse me, I must crap a Calabi-Yau manifold") and lock yourself in until he's gone. Whatever he says, don’t open the door. DON'T OPEN THE DOOR!!!

12) Don’t write blog posts criticizing anyone’s work.

And if you do so, use a pseudonym. After the last mail I received, every time I go to sleep I check that there isn’t an author with an axe under my bed! I will expand on these matters in a future post, “The road to RIP”.