Quarks and Dissertations
March 28th is Dr. Jerome Friedman’s birthday. Friedman won the Nobel Prize in Physics for taking something everyone thought was as small as possible and breaking it down into even smaller parts. Sounds like a useful skill for a dissertation student…
Happy birthday to Nobel Laureate, Jerome Isaac Friedman, born on this day in 1930!
Dr. Friedman is best known for his work describing the existence of very small particles (now called quarks) within protons. Think back to the last time you took a physical science class.
Remember atoms? You know, those teeny tiny little things that contain a nucleus with protons and neutrons and some electrons whizzing around them? If you split an atom, you release so much energy that everything blows up.
For a long time people thought you couldn’t get smaller than those pieces of an atom. Then in the late 60s, Friedman and his buddy Richard Taylor came along and showed everyone there are even smaller things inside of those protons.
It just goes to show, you might think you’ve got something down to the smallest it can get, and then you find that you can narrow it down even further.
You might be thinking you can’t narrow your dissertation topic down any further. But guess what—if Friedman can find quarks inside protons, you can find a bit narrower of a dissertation topic!
Many times, students bite off more than they can chew with their dissertation topics. That’s why they can’t finish. Sometimes they simply take on more than they have to in order to graduate. Either way..
Narrow it down! Then narrow it down some more! Be specific. Find the narrowest topic possible and then delve into it deeply. Constraining the scope of your dissertation makes the whole process so much easier to finish.
Are you still struggling to find what inside your proton? Click here to schedule a quick, 15-minute chat with me to see if you’re a good fit for our Fast Track Your Dissertation Coaching Program. If you are, then I’ll invite you to join the fastest group of dissertation students out there and help you to reach graduation a good year or two faster than you would on your own.
