Minot Lab Wiki

Wisdom from Paul McEuen

“Play with each other like children, treat each other like adults”

On experiments

An experimentalist's work is like a three-legged chair. 1/3 knowing the literature, 1/3 communicating the results, and 1/3 doing the experiment. Remove one leg and the chair will fall.

If the fab recipe is working, don’t change it!

Experiments produce a lot of data. It helps to ask “What is the data trying to tell you?” and “What is the most interesting part of the experiment?” “Sift thought the dirt to find the gold”

If you have to do the same thing more 50 times, automate it. (the threshold is < 50 if you are good at automation!)

Even the experiments that don’t work are helpful. Give up and it will haunt you. Figure out why it didn’t work and it will come back to help you.

Rather than get in an argument about the interpretation of an unclear experiment, do a better experiment.

Choosing topics and collaborators

Nothing is boring. If you say it’s boring, you haven’t learned enough about it.

Don’t be constrained by only asking “what is it useful for?” Instead ask “what is the most interesting thing about this?”

Strive to be both broad and focused (it’s a high bar to strive for!) ! There is no downside to putting more authors in the middle of the author list. There has to be a pie before you can share the pie!

Communication

“If you can’t teach it to an undergraduate class, you don’t really understand it”

Make things simple and truthful