Ancestors

Written by Matthias C. Rillig on 2025-01-09 at 09:21

The stories behind out research are mostly hidden, since they are typically not part of the papers we write.

Could we include these creative background stories in a section of the research paper format, maybe just as online supplements?

What do you think?

[#]science #research #creativity

https://open.substack.com/pub/matthiasrillig/p/the-stories-behind-our-research?r=1yu2t7&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=true

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Written by Petra van Cronenburg on 2025-01-09 at 10:46

@mrillig It may be that you are giving away great stories because it would only remain in the study-reading bubble.

When working at a daily newspaper, it was a pleasure to lure these stories out of scientists, who often had no idea what could be done with them.

Unforgotten: In the mid-1980s, an AI researcher whose appetite for bratwurst played a major role in finding a solution for a problem. He then had to explain AI to me as if it were a bratwurst. 😁 People loved that! Suddenly, even the 1/2

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Written by Petra van Cronenburg on 2025-01-09 at 10:49

@mrillig 2/2 "normal" people understood what this man did. When he went to the weekly market, the butcher gave him a hot bratwurst: ‘So that you can find out exciting things again.’

Some scientists know how to find the bratwurst hook and have fascinating blogs.

A book tip: https://arthurimiller.com/books/einstein-picasso/ It's a wild experiment to tell 2 parallel biographies focusing on creativity of an artist/scientist.

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Toot

Written by Matthias C. Rillig on 2025-01-09 at 11:40

@NatureMC PS: I just ordered the book.

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Descendants

Written by Petra van Cronenburg on 2025-01-09 at 11:55

@mrillig I'm surprised that it still exists, it's quite old.I am curious to hear what you think. He got a lot of criticism from scientists that it was "too much historical stuff", but he wrote it as a historian of science. I found it fascinating how he shows the eureka effect on both sides.

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Written by Matthias C. Rillig on 2025-01-09 at 12:36

@NatureMC it was available for kindle, really cheap.

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