When going off on a tangent from your regular area, where, presumably, you have such mastery of all cutting-edge research from your routine reading that you hardly need to do any extra (if this is false, please correct me), how much do you try to familiarize yourself with that area before beginning to directly attack your problem? Do you read just a few canonical papers and surveys, look thoroughly over a dozen and glance at a couple dozen more, or do enough to write a whole survey article of your own?
[Math] How much reading do you do before you attack a problem
advicecareersoft-question
Related Question
- [Math] How to select an interesting and reasonable problem for a student
- [Math] How to/Can you get a PhD position when you need more experience first
- [Math] How to not forget old math
- [Math] Reading Papers in a Language you don’t Speak
- [Math] Peer review 2.0
- [Math] Is it OK to send a manuscript to good mathematicians in the field of your paper even if they don’t know you before
Best Answer
When you know the definitions, of the elements of your problem, no doubt, start attacking the problem. Ever if you still don't know the definitions for the most general form of the problem and only for a simplified version of it the answer is the same. No better sense of what the problem is about than by putting your own hand on it. Even if it only serves to get to some conclusion that you could have easily read somewhere. It could even happen that you solve the problem by putting together two or three things that you read but more important in research than solving the problem is understanding it. Because after solving it, you need to find new problems to continue. You don't understand anything better than those that you do yourself. The above doesn't mean don't read. It means don't wait a second before start doing all you can yourself.