Atterton
Master Tinkerer
Only The Shadow knows
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« Reply #50 on: December 22, 2009, 12:47:23 am » |
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No, I just felt that being clinically insane or mentally unstable really doesn´t have much to do with mad science. Mad science to me is ambitious, groundbreaking and morally dubious. I have a book full of descriptions of mad science experiments, such as sewing a live dog head onto another dog. I´m sure most people in that book were perfectly sane, they just let their curiosity get the better of them or felt that the sacrifice was necessary for the good of humanity.
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A gentleman does not conga.
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Hikaro Takayama
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« Reply #51 on: December 22, 2009, 12:49:59 am » |
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Also I'd like to add that a degree does not a scientist make.... As the Wizard in L. Frank Baum's The Wonderful Wizard of Oz said to the scarecrow, "I knew plenty of people who had less brains than you, but they had one thing you didn't: A degree!"
Remember, the man who invented the first 300x + microscope, was the first person to describe and document the existence of Bacteria, Protists and spermatozoa was a common merchant by the name of Antony van Leuuwenhoek....
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"It is by steam alone that I set my contraptions in motion.
It is by combustion of coal and boiling water that the engines acquire speed.
For protection, the eyes acquire goggles,
The goggles become a warning.
It is by steam alone that I set my contraptions in motion."
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J. Wilhelm
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« Reply #52 on: December 22, 2009, 04:06:01 am » |
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No, I just felt that being clinically insane or mentally unstable really doesn´t have much to do with mad science. Mad science to me is ambitious, groundbreaking and morally dubious. I have a book full of descriptions of mad science experiments, such as sewing a live dog head onto another dog. I´m sure most people in that book were perfectly sane, they just let their curiosity get the better of them or felt that the sacrifice was necessary for the good of humanity.
Morally dubious? I can be morally dubious!! Why didn't you say so? LOL!!!!  |
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zpyder
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« Reply #53 on: January 25, 2010, 06:56:03 pm » |
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Just to bring up the thread from the dead, like a test subject on the cold lab table with electrodes on its temples...but I got the news today that the paper from my undergrad dissertation has now been accepted for publishing woohoo! |
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The Kernel
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« Reply #54 on: January 25, 2010, 10:56:17 pm » |
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Congratulations  |
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One for whom the terms GEEK and NERD are considered great compliments
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H. MacHinery
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« Reply #55 on: January 26, 2010, 12:21:57 am » |
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Aaaw, guys, I'm touched! ^__^
Well, it's not "mad" but it's a start! |
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J. Wilhelm
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« Reply #56 on: January 26, 2010, 12:36:43 am » |
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Congratulations. Is this dissertation something you have/had to defend in front of a faculty committee, like the PhD?
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zpyder
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« Reply #58 on: January 26, 2010, 08:43:16 am » |
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Congratulations. Is this dissertation something you have/had to defend in front of a faculty committee, like the PhD?
Nope, thankfully not! Though I'd say it has been defended in the sense of continual feedback and talks with lecturers etc during the whole 9 months of experimentation, and questions from the poster presentation! This was a basic degree/undergrad dissertation. It did get the highest marks in the whole conservation sciences department, so I'd hope that there isn't much or anything fundamentally wrong with it |
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Sorontar
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« Reply #59 on: January 26, 2010, 10:48:44 am » |
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Congratulations. Publications mean a lot to the scientific world. Was this a final year project? Was it an Honours fourth year in a normally three year undergraduate degree? What is the name of your degree? Was it just a conference paper? I suspect things are done differently to Australia.
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Sorontar, Captain of 'The Aethereal Dancer'
Advisor to HM Engineers on matters aethereal, aeronautic and cosmographic
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zpyder
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« Reply #60 on: January 26, 2010, 04:44:12 pm » |
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I don't think they are done differently too much, I get the impression that there's a range of different kinds and formats of degrees which marry up with those offered at institutions over seas. In my case it was a 3-year Bachelor of Science 'Honours degree', in Environment and Coastal Management, I think the honours usually signify it's more than a basic/foundation level degree? Dissertations are the final year research project, and accounting for something like 25-50% of your total degree depending on which degree you took. The dissertation was as un-coastal as it could have got, being on carnivorous plants. (The uni's policy is that generally students do a dissertation in the field that is unique to their degree, in my case the coastal units were the unique units). I was lucky that the research idea I had was novel and interesting enough that I had half the faculty interested in it so I got away with doing it as well as a £200 for materials (Carnivorous plants ) As to the paper, it's a full on research paper written by myself and my supervisor From what I gather it could be 3+ months till it actually gets printed though  I'm a little impatient as I want to be able to cite the work when applying for funding in more research! |
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The Kernel
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« Reply #61 on: January 26, 2010, 09:29:52 pm » |
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The UK has a number of awarding bodies, including the City & Guilds with awards that range from "Entry Level Adult Literacy" to Doctoral (PhD) research, a mandatory scale for comparison and equivalence is provided by the NQF (National Qualifications Framework ) eg http://www.qcda.gov.uk/6637.aspx(Can't you just tell I'm involved in university education, among many other things) |
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Sorontar
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« Reply #62 on: January 27, 2010, 02:32:23 am » |
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In my case it was a 3-year Bachelor of Science 'Honours degree', in Environment and Coastal Management, I think the honours usually signify it's more than a basic/foundation level degree? Dissertations are the final year research project, and accounting for something like 25-50% of your total degree depending on which degree you took.
That sounds like some 4 year engineering degrees I have heard of that have a major project in their final year, and you get Honours awarded on the basis of how well you went in your fourth year. When I was an undergrad, I had done a combined Bach. Arts/Bach. Science for 5 years and had to complete an additional year to do an Honours thesis in Arts (and a few subjects). Now I'm doing a PhD a number of years later. That just proves that I must be mad. As to the paper, it's a full on research paper written by myself and my supervisor From what I gather it could be 3+ months till it actually gets printed though I'm a little impatient as I want to be able to cite the work when applying for funding in more research! You can always cite it as "to be published" with full details about the conference. Or publish a draft as an in-house technical document. I have done both of those before. It is handy when you submit multiple papers to a conference but need one to refer to the other (when neither may get accepted). Sorontar |
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Professor Fzz
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« Reply #63 on: February 01, 2010, 01:43:13 pm » |
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As to the paper, it's a full on research paper written by myself and my supervisor From what I gather it could be 3+ months till it actually gets printed though I'm a little impatient as I want to be able to cite the work when applying for funding in more research! Congratulations - your first research paper is always a big deal. There's a real boost you get to your (technical) self-confidence from knowing that you've not only done good work, but others think it interesting enough to publish. As Sorontar says, no problem with citing work as "to appear in", once you've got the final acceptance. It's done all the time. I'm just recovering from the push to get our most recent work ready in time for the deadline for the most important conference in the area. Only averaged 3 hours sleep per night last week, then worked 24 hours straight on Friday to make the 8am Saturday deadline (midnight PST). It was surreal walking through central London at 5am on Saturday morning on the way home, sleep deprived, and with snow falling gently around and not a footprint in it. Very magical. Then I fell asleep on the train home, missed my stop and took a hour to get back, which was less magical. The paper came out pretty well in the end. But this particular conference has only an 8% acceptance rate, so there's always luck involved, even for really good papers. I've published enough that one paper here or there shouldn't make a big difference, but even so you still really want to present all your hard work in the best light. For my co-authors though, whether or not this gets accepted can change whether they get a good faculty position or not. Like it or not, publication is how scientists keep score. Of course at some point you stop counting papers and start counting citations (or start comparing people's h-index or Erdos number). But still, I'll never forget the thrill of my first paper being accepted. |
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Try to learn something about everything and everything about something. - Thomas H. Huxley
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zpyder
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« Reply #64 on: February 01, 2010, 03:17:49 pm » |
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Aye, it's certainly partly responsible for my motivation going from "doing my work 9-5, and then playing on the xbox/computer till bed rinse and repeat" to Doing my work 9-5, and then going home and working on an independent research project I want to do as a masters or phd, a paper for last summers work, and some work on another bit of independent research Not had time to play on the xbox the last month, but feels good to be productive! |
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markf
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« Reply #66 on: April 07, 2010, 05:00:58 pm » |
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How can addiitonal research funding possibly improve on existing carnivorous flora mutations? markf |
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