Issue87 [Victors小组]第十六次作业

乳虎UID: 2251211

87"In any field of inquiry, the beginner is more likely than the expert to make important discoveries.

提纲：
1专家能跟上学科发展的前沿。
2灵感往往来自于长期的艰苦工作，专家付出的努力比新手多。
3专家和新手各有长处和短处要取长补短。


It is at the age of 23 that Newton come up his theory of universal gravitation, similarly, Neptune was first discovered by a student of Oxford University. However in any field of inquiry, is the beginner more likely than the expert to make important discoveries as the statement claims? In my opinion, that is a complex issue.

In the first place, science is developing fast, and there are fresh discoveries almost everyday. It is reported that it will take a professor 24 years to finish reading the new thesis on chemistry published one year, if he spend 8 hours reading every day. Science advances so fast that it is difficult to keep abreast with the advancing front of a discipline. Nevertheless, If a individual would like to make new discoveries, he must keep pace with the development of the discipline, otherwise, he or she do not know which question is still unknown, maybe he spend lots of energy in a question which has been solved successfully. Besides, without keeping pace with the development of a realm, researchers can not absorb inspiration from others' work. So far as keeping abreast with the advancing front of some domain, experts have advance compared to beginners, their accumulation of knowledge on the discipline is much richer than beginners. In that sense experts are more likely than beginners to make important discoveries.

In the second place, somebody may think that beginners is rich in inspiration than experts, however they ignore a key point that inspiration springs from persistent hard work. For instance, Kekule researched the constitutional formula of benzene for a long time but fail to make headway. One night dramatically he dreamed that a snake bitted its own tail, inspired by the dream, Kekule put forward the regular hexagon constitutional formula of benzene. Assuming Kekule had not work hard continuously, it is difficult for inspiration to patronage him. Also consider the discovery of penicillin, which is also a dramatical story. Franklin Fleming did a myriad of experiment to look for a kind of substance to kill bacteria, unfortunately, those effort all failed. One day, penicillium contaminated a bacteria and killed the bacterium nearby, through which Franklin Fleming succeed in discovering penicillin. On the surface, the discovery seems by accident, in fact it is the result of Franklin Fleming’s continuous hard work. Evidently, experts immerse more effort than beginners, so they are more likely to make important discoveries than beginners.

however, compared to beginners, experts have week points that they are likely to be conservative. Researching some domain for long, experts are likely to be restricted by the traditional theory and research method, which will killed invitation. On the contrary, beginners are often rich in fresh thought which can help them break the restriction of traditional theory and method.

To sum up, beginner and experts both have strong points and week points, so it is indeterminate whether experts or beginners is more likely to make important discoveries. Besides the key point is not who are more likely to make important discoveries but that they will learn from each other to make good use of their strong points and overcome their week points.

[ 本帖最后由 乳虎 于 2007-7-25 22:17 编辑 ]