Your Interim Report—Did You Time it Rightly?

Abstract

A scientist working on a research project of planned duration T—which includes a publication at the end—benefits from describing his work in an interim report. To obtain maximum verbal self-stimulation from his writing act, he should choose a time at approx 0.4T after the start of the project. A mathematical model of the situation leads to this rule of thumb. The description involves an assumed two-stage nature of research (stage I: defining the problem; stage II: solving it). The stages consist of random (Poisson) time sequences of thought flashes—“why-pulses” and “therefore-pulses.” The model fits a problem in nuclear physics, whose solution when translated back produces the timing fraction 0.4. The assumed statistical nature of brain activity is supported by evidence from other fields.

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References

Bloomfield

Leonard

, Linguistic Aspects of Science, Intern. Encycl. of Unified Science I-4, Univ. of Chicago Press, 1939.

Rapoport

, “A System—Theoretic View of Content Analysis,” in Gerbner

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For the curious: the problem may be found in, for instance, Evans

Robley D.

, The Atomic Nucleus, McGraw-Hill, New York, 1955, problem 8 on p. 772.

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