Guide to Ph.D. Research

Friday, 9. September 2005, 21:42:00

When you don't know what you are doing, do it neatly.
Experience is directly proportional to the quantity of equipment ruined or destroyed.
Past experience is always correct, and should never be misled by present facts.
In case of doubt, make it sound convincing.
Don't believe in miracles, rely on them.
Teamwork is essential, it allows you to blame someone else.
Record of data is essential, it indicates you have been doing something.
No matter what result is anticipated, someone will always fit the facts to it.
No matter what happens, there is always someone that believes it happened according to his or her pet theory.
The probability of an event occurring is inversely proportional to its desirability.
The quantity which when added to, subtracted from, divided into, or multiplied by the results obtained experimentally to give the correct result, is known as a constant.
Experiments must be reproducible, they should fail in the same way. If any experiment works you must be using the wrong equipment.
An experiment may be considered successful if no more than half the data must be discarded to obtain the results required.
For neatness always draw the curves first and afterwards plot the data.
If an experiment is a complete failure it can always be used as a bad example.