words about research:

"......, one man's technicality is another's professionalism."

Kai Lai Chung

- in Lectures from Markov Processes to Brownian Motion, 1981

讀書有四要:

一要深入，二要懷疑，三要虛心，四要耐煩

"Research for me is something like chasing squirrels. As soon as you
spot one and leap towards it, it darts away, zigging and zagging, always
just out of reach. If you're a little lucky, you might stick with it
long enough to see it climb a tree. You'll never catch the damn
squirrel, but it'll lead you to a tree. Chasing squirrels is a way to
find trees! In math, the trees are called theorems."

Terry Gannon,
Alberta, winner of the 2000 PIMS Research Prize.

(1) Keep starting from first principles, start right away to solve it; use simple example.

(2) Keep starting from first principles,explaining again and again just what it is you are trying to do.

(3) Believe that this problem can be solved and that you will enjoy working it out.

(4) Don't be too hampered by the original statement of the problem.  Try other problems in its neighborhood; maybe there's a better problem than yours.

(5) Work an hour or so on it frequently.

(6) Talk about it; explain it to people.

    L.J . Savage

1. STAND BACK from a particular problem to see if generality underlies it.

2. CONNECTION: Abstraction and reconcretization

3. DEVELOPE an idea FULLY: bring the work to a final useful form.

4. Math & prob training: Cutting one's intellectual cloth to suit one's intellectual pocket.

5. Look ahead and relate your work to WHAT IS LIKELY TO COME.