{"news":[{"uid":4705,"title":"\u201cThe best quality you can have to become a researcher is to be resistant to frustration\u201d","teasertext":"David Cimasoni, senior lecturer at the University of Geneva, shares what it means to be a researcher in an interview by Science Olympiad volunteers Yuta Mikhalkin and Tanish Patil.","short":"\u201cWhen I was in high school, my math teacher mentioned different sizes of the infinite, and \r\nI thought to myself that I really want to understand this one day.\u201d A few years later, David \r\nCimasoni did not only understand that, but just a couple of weeks into his master\u2019s thesis, he \r\nsolved a problem in a way his advisor had believed impossible. Still unsure about a career in \r\nresearch, he decided to give it a try \u2014 and it paid off. Now a senior lecturer at the University \r\nof Geneva, his research primarily focuses on knot theory and mathematical physics. In an \r\ninterview by Science Olympiad volunteers Yuta Mikhalkin and Tanish Patil, he shares what it \r\nmeans to be a researcher.","body":"

\u201cKnot theory is very intuitive and therefore pleasant to explain. You have a rope, you tie its ends together and you study the different knots it can be shaped into: some are trivial, some are equivalent to each other\u201d \u2014 David Cimasoni explains, meaning that some knots can be untied or transformed into other knots. \u201cIn the end, once you formalize it, it comes down to a topological question that involves something called an invariant \u2014 in other words, a mathematical object assigned to each knot that doesn\u2019t change when the knot is being deformed. This way, you can prove that two knots aren\u2019t equivalent to each other if you show that their invariants aren\u2019t equal. One fun fact is that defining these invariants can involve techniques from virtually any branch of mathematics.\"<\/p>\r\n

Knot theory is very intuitive and therefore pleasant to explain. You have a rope, you tie its ends together and you study the different knots it can be shaped into.<\/p>\r\n

As the name suggests, mathematical physics is the branch that studies mathematical models behind physical laws and phenomena. One model that David Cimasoni is currently working on is called the dimer model. According to the model, if you have a graph and a set of edges that doesn\u2019t have common vertices yet covers all of them, it\u2019s called a \u201cperfect matching\u201d. You need to find those perfect matchings and ways to count them: for example, if a graph can be embedded in a plane, there is an efficient way of counting them. For more general graphs, one can apply tools from knot theory, which particularly catches David Cimasoni\u2019s interest.<\/p>\r\n

About the author: <\/strong>Yuta Mikhalkin volunteers for Physics in the Science Olympiad media team after participating herself. She studies mathematics in the University of Geneva. <\/p>\r\n

David Cimasoni's area of research is not just of interest to mathematicians though; he mentions that knot theory, for instance, is of interest to molecular biologists for the insights it provides into how DNA molecules behave and interact with each other, and how enzymes act on entangled molecules. He has personally collaborated with a physicist who was studying light signals and how they could become knotted, providing insights into the mathematical aspect of the research. He comments that the intersection of mathematics and other topics is not just about the 'what', but the 'why': \u201cA very good friend of mine works at Google now, and he's really trying to understand why the algorithms that drive AI work. Parameters can be tuned in order to improve the performance of machine learning models, but understanding the mathematics behind these decisions - visualizing what the geometric model is doing geometrically, as a sort of gradient descent on a manifold that finds good choices of local minima \u2014 is an important question too.\u201d<\/p>\r\n

Stay tuned! More conversations with researchers are coming soon. Subscribe to the newsletter<\/a> or follow on Instagram<\/a> or Linkedin<\/a> so that you don't miss anything.<\/p>\r\n

When people think about doing research, one common impression is that finding topics must be difficult. David Cimasoni explains that it\u2019s actually not as difficult as it seems \u2014 most research ideas come from reading other people\u2019s works, where open questions are almost always waiting to be explored. Although, occasionally, someone else might publish the same idea while you\u2019re still working on it, which happened to David Cimasoni not long ago. Even though he still managed to publish his own paper on the topic, it made him realize how deeply we rely on external recognition for a sense of accomplishment.<\/p>\r\n

Another aspect of research is that you\u2019re working on a topic without really knowing in what direction to go or if there\u2019s even an answer to your question. Or worse, the whole theory you spent so much time developing might just fall apart all of a sudden. No one\u2019s really there to check that what you\u2019re doing is right \u2014 you\u2019re fully left on your own. \u201cOne year ago, a colleague and I published this paper, and about two months ago we noticed that there\u2019s actually a mistake in it, and no one had seen it! So we had to write an email to the editor asking to block it and all. Fortunately, the mistake is now corrected and the main results of the article still hold true.\u201d <\/p>\r\n

One year ago, a colleague and I published this paper, and about two months ago we noticed that there\u2019s actually a mistake in it, and no one had seen it! So we had to write an email to the editor asking to block it and all. Fortunately, the mistake is now corrected and the main results of the article still hold true.<\/p>\r\n

And what about teaching, the \u201cburden\u201d of a job in research? David Cimasoni primarily teaches undergraduate courses \u2014 often considered the least desirable \u2014 but he views this as a stimulating and meaningful part of his career. Whenever he hits a dead end in his research, which inevitably happens to everyone in the field, he finds reassurance in teaching, knowing it will always be valuable to someone out there: indeed, with an emphasis on clarity and structure, his lectures are particularly fascinating, and his well-written and precise lecture notes, even for courses he no longer teaches, are used and loved by many. And, contrary to what some might think, teaching is not nearly as boring as it seems. \u201cIt\u2019s extremely easy to communicate art \u2014 you can just look at it or listen to it \u2014 but communicating math is not the same: it\u2019s quite challenging and extremely interesting.\u201d<\/p>\r\n

When David Cimasoni was a student, and he once read, in a journal at EPFL, an interview with EPFL Professor Manuel Ojanguren. One thing he read in that interview struck him, and he still thinks about it today. \u201cThe question was: what is the main quality that one should have as a researcher? I thought he would obviously say you need to be smart. Instead, he said in French something like: Il faut avoir une tr\u00e8s grande r\u00e9sistance \u00e0 la frustration. You must be immensely resistant to frustration. And at the time, I just didn\u2019t understand what he meant.\u201d <\/p>\r\n

The question was: what is the main quality that one should have as a researcher? I thought he would obviously say you need to be smart. Instead, he said in French something like: Il faut avoir une tr\u00e8s grande r\u00e9sistance \u00e0 la frustration. You must be immensely resistant to frustration. And at the time, I just didn\u2019t understand what he meant.<\/p>\r\n

But today, the words hold much more meaning to him. In his words: \u201cAs a student, the exercises you are confronted with are often approachable in the sense that you are guaranteed to have solutions for them, and rarely are they open-ended even in the sense where you don\u2019t know what your final answer is expected to be - and in any case, you know there will be an answer. During your master\u2019s, questions you tackle become more open, but you\u2019re still supervised by someone with expertise who has a good idea of how to solve it and who can ensure it gets done. In actual research, once you\u2019re doing your PhD or after it, it\u2019s much more difficult to know whether you\u2019re going in the right direction!\"<\/p>\r\n

In actual research, once you\u2019re doing your PhD or after it, it\u2019s much more difficult to know whether you\u2019re going in the right direction!  <\/p>\r\n

So it\u2019s not so much about being smart. It becomes a question of being tenacious, of not letting go, and of having the psychological ability to think to yourself \"I can overcome this.\" Many times in his career, David Cimasoni saw people who were extremely smart, but unable to come to terms with the particularities of doing long-term problems. Conversely, he remarks that there are countless examples of people not considered prodigious by any means but who were able to reach the peaks of mathematics through perseverance and hard work, the most famous example of which is June Huh, the 2022 recipient of the Fields Medal (the most prestigious award in mathematics) who was famously rejected from almost every university he applied to for his PhD and did not obtain one until the age of 31, but proved to be a late bloomer and an outstanding mathematician.<\/p>\r\n

In general, mathematics is currently at a crossroads: applied mathematics has become better and better funded, with recent advancements in artificial intelligence bringing in big external interest. Meanwhile, pure mathematics, which is often more abstract in nature and less readily connected to real-world applications, can find itself left behind at times. David Cimasoni points out that students who are concerned about studying pure mathematics should not worry that they are missing the pipeline towards research jobs at firms like Google and Amazon. Of course, a degree in a more applied topic provides a more direct route, but David Cimasoni course, a degree in a more applied topic provides a more direct route, but David Cimasoni remarks that he has a lot of colleagues that made the move from research into industry. \"I have a friend, for example, who used to work in symplectic geometry and is now at Google. People hiring at these firms are smart enough to know that if someone has a Phd in pure mathematics, most probably they won't know everything about machine learning but they can pick it up very quickly.\" David Cimasoni\u2019s concluding advice to any young budding mathematician is simple but meaningful: \u201cWork hard, do what you love, and never stop trying!\u201d<\/p>\r\n

Work hard, do what you love, and never stop trying!<\/p>","datetime":1746634140,"datetimeend":0,"newstype":1,"newstypetext":null,"links":"","subjects":["Sapere","Suggerimenti"],"image":["https:\/\/science.olympiad.ch\/fileadmin\/_processed_\/2\/c\/csm_IMG-20250502-WA0007_ce113478b3.jpg"],"link":"https:\/\/mathematical.olympiad.ch\/it\/notizie\/news\/the-best-quality-you-can-have-to-become-a-researcher-is-to-be-resistant-to-frustration","category":[{"uid":10,"title":"Matematica"},{"uid":11,"title":"Fisica"},{"uid":5,"title":"Startseite"},{"uid":4,"title":"Associazione"}]},{"uid":4603,"title":"Starke Experimente","teasertext":"Mit Kartoffeln kann man viel machen: Pommes, R\u00f6sti und sogar Experimente! Mit diesen Anleitungen lernen Ihre Sch\u00fclerinnen und Sch\u00fcler mit einfachen Mitteln mehr \u00fcber Nachweis und Entstehung von St\u00e4rke.","short":"Mit Kartoffeln kann man viel machen: Pommes, R\u00f6sti und sogar Experimente! Mit diesen Anleitungen lernen Ihre Sch\u00fclerinnen und Sch\u00fcler mit einfachen Mitteln mehr \u00fcber Nachweis und Entstehung von St\u00e4rke.","body":"

Teil 1: Wie ist St\u00e4rke aufgebaut und wie kann man sie nachweisen?<\/span><\/h2>\r\n\r\n

St\u00e4rke ist ein sehr guter Energiespeicher. Pflanzen k\u00f6nnen durch St\u00e4rke die w\u00e4hrend der Photosynthese nutzbar gemachte Energie f\u00fcr einen sp\u00e4teren Gebrauch speichern. Man findet St\u00e4rke daher vor allem in Speicherorganen wie Knollen, Zwiebeln und Samen. St\u00e4rke ist ein Hauptnahrungsmittel der Menschen und vielen anderen Organismen auf der Welt. St\u00e4rke wird vom Menschen aber auch als nachwachsender Rohstoff in der chemisch-technischen Industrie, zum Beispiel als Biodiesel oder zur Herstellung von Papier eingesetzt. <\/p>\r\n\r\n

In diesem Experiment werden wir eine St\u00e4rkel\u00f6sung mit Maizena erstellen und diese mit Lugol\u2019scher L\u00f6sung f\u00e4rben. Als Nulltest werden noch eine reine Wasserl\u00f6sung und eine Zuckerl\u00f6sung mit Lugol\u2019scher L\u00f6sung versetzt.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

So wirds gemacht:<\/p>\r\n

  1. Gib ganz wenig Maizena in ein Glassgef\u00e4ss und f\u00fclle dieses mit 100 bis 200 ml Wasser auf. Die L\u00f6sung soll leicht milchig-tr\u00fcb sein (weniger ist mehr).<\/span><\/li>
  2. In ein zweites Glassgef\u00e4ss gibst du etwas Rohrzucker und gleich viel Wasser wie bei Punkt 1.<\/span><\/li>
  3. In ein drittes Glasgef\u00e4ss gibst du gleich viel Wasser wie in Punkt 1 und 2, sonst nichts.<\/span><\/li>
  4. Tropfe nun in alle drei Glasgef\u00e4sse jeweils einige Tropfen der Lugol-L\u00f6sung. Fange mit der Zugabe von kleinen Mengen an und tropfe bei st\u00e4ndigem Schwenken des Glasgef\u00e4sses nach und nach so viel Lugol-L\u00f6sung hinein bis sich die L\u00f6sung kr\u00e4ftig f\u00e4rbt.<\/span><\/li><\/ol>\r\n\r\n

    Man stelle sich die St\u00e4rke als eine lange Kette, bestehen aus vielen einzelnen sechseckigen Bausteine vor. Die Grundbausteine sind Zuckermolek\u00fcle, welche miteinander verbunden sind. Die langen und teilweise verzweigten St\u00e4rkeketten sind nicht gerade, sondern bilden lange R\u00f6hren. Die in der Lugol\u2019schen L\u00f6sung enthaltenen Iodid-Ionen lagern sich in den St\u00e4rker\u00f6hren ein, wodurch eine intensive schwarz-violett F\u00e4rbung entsteht. Im Wasser gel\u00f6st erschienen die selben Iodid-Ionen bernsteinfarben.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    Take home message:<\/strong> Nicht die Identit\u00e4t der Zuckermolek\u00fcle, sondern deren r\u00e4umliche Anordnung im St\u00e4rkemolek\u00fcl erm\u00f6glichen einen sensitiven und eindeutigen Nachweis von St\u00e4rke mit Lugol\u2019scher L\u00f6sung.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    Teil 2: Wo und wie wird St\u00e4rke in der Natur gebildet?<\/span><\/h2>\r\n\r\n

    St\u00e4rke wird in der Natur entweder in gr\u00fcnen Chloroplasten, dort wo auch die Photosynthese stattfindet, oder in speziellen, chlorophyllfreien Plastiden in gewissen Speicherorganen von Pflanzen hergestellt. Dies weisen wir mit Hilfe von panaschierten Bl\u00e4tter und einer Alufolie nach.<\/p>\r\n

    So wirds gemacht:<\/p>\r\n

    1. Erhitze in einem grossen Becherglas Wasser auf etwa 80\u00b0C.<\/span><\/li>
    2. Nimm ein panaschiertes Pflanzenblatt, welches partiell mit einer Alufolie abgedeckt war und \u00fcber Nacht belichtet wurde.<\/span><\/li>
    3. Gib das Blatt in ein kleines Glassgef\u00e4ss und f\u00fclle dieses mit Ethanol auf.<\/span><\/li>
    4. Stelle das kleine Glassgef\u00e4ss mit dem Blatt in das grosse Becherglas und lass dieses f\u00fcr mindestens 10 Minuten im heissen Wasserbad. Durch das Kochen in Ethanol geht das Chlorophyll in L\u00f6sung, und man kann den Farbversuch durchf\u00fchren.<\/span><\/li>
    5. Entferne das kleine Glassgef\u00e4ss aus dem Becherglas. Das Blatt sollte nun weich und entf\u00e4rbt sein.<\/span><\/li>
    6. Transferiere das Blatt mit einer Pinzette vom Glassgef\u00e4ss in eine Petrischale.<\/span><\/li>
    7. Gib so viel Lugol\u2019sche L\u00f6sung in die Petrischale, dass diese das Blatt vollst\u00e4ndig bedeckt, um St\u00e4rke nachzuweisen wie in Teil 1. <\/span><\/li><\/ol>\r\n\r\n

      Take home message:<\/strong> Nur an den belichteten und urspr\u00fcnglich gr\u00fcnen Stellen wurde St\u00e4rke gebildet! St\u00e4rke wird n\u00e4mlich aus Produkten der Photosynthese synthetisiert. Die Chloroplaste in den Pflanzen verarbeiten Kohlendioxid mit Hilfe von Wasser und Licht in kurzkettige Kohlenhydrate. Da diese kleinen Zuckermolek\u00fcle die Eigenschaft haben, viel Wasser anzuziehen und in der Pflanze daher viel Platz ben\u00f6tigen, verbindet die Pflanze diese zu langen, verzweigten Ketten, welche dann St\u00e4rke genannt werden. Da die langen St\u00e4rkeketten nur wenig Wasser anziehen, k\u00f6nnen Pflanzen so sehr platzsparend momentan nicht ben\u00f6tigte Energie f\u00fcr einen sp\u00e4teren Zeitpunkt speichern. Die St\u00e4rke besteht daher aus sehr vielen einzelnen Zuckermolek\u00fclen, die miteinander verbunden sind.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

      Quelle: Unterlagen des Verbands Schweizer Wissenschafts-Olympiaden (heute Wissenschafts-Olympiade) f\u00fcr den Stand an der tunZ\u00fcrich, 2011.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

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