My First Paper (Michael Merrifield) - Sixty Symbols

Professor Mike Merrifield - a mainstay on our channels - shares his first academic paper from 1989.
More links and info below ↓ ↓ ↓

This project features scientists from The University of Nottingham


Sixty Symbols videos by Brady Haran

[Mutual_Information]

I believe everyone in the Sixty Symbol's audience will appreciate any video about the personal history of one who has been educating us for so long.

[flymypg]

Being a technical person who can write and present is a kind of superpower.

I once had to write a status update report on my part of a larger engineering project, in this case the real-time image processing pipeline for an enormous neutron radiography system. That was well enough received that I was asked to "buff up" the overall project status report for the customer. That in turn was well enough received that I was asked to contribute to the project documentation, especially the operation and maintenance manuals. Which was well enough received that I was then asked to write the operator training courses (huge story there). Which resulted in my teaching the courses multiple times.

Engineers who can write and present, particularly to non-technical audiences, are very rare birds. Not surprising, as most engineering degrees have negligible liberal arts requirements. In my case, at my first job I had to provide information to technical writers, then serve as a technical reviewer/proofreader to support their efforts to make it comprehensible to others. Those writers taught me the importance and power of words, where I had previously been focused exclusively on the power of data and algorithms.

I used to think "the numbers speak for themselves". I was so wrong. People must speak for the numbers!

After that, I was a regular contributor to the verbiage for bids and proposals, even on projects for which I had no other involvement. That in turn got me introduced to our patent attorneys, where I had great fun helping lawyers and paralegals convert scientists' results into the legalese needed to craft a strong patent. I seriously considered becoming a patent attorney myself!

But, no, I stayed an engineer. And while I still do some writing as part of my job, these days my public writing consists primarily of sharing stories in YouTube comments.

[ryanwaege]

Professor Merrifield's reaction to being asked if he read it was precious. Must feel gratifying to be working with someone following in his footsteps.

[Mekratrig]

Professor Merrifield is a treasure. Luv just listening to him, me. Hope his students are aware how lucky they are to have him.

[davidpower]

I loved watching this.

Only a few days ago I saw Dr. Merrifield had retired and here is is talking enthusiastically about his first published paper. He speaks with such pride and he still seems giddy about it.

What a pleasure this was.

[BillMSmith]

Always a pleasure to see a new MM video. I don't think it's a coincidence that he enjoys the writing process and that he's such an effective communicator in his videos.

[Dudleymiddleton]

A brilliant mind with un-ending enthusiasm, thank you for being here, Professor!

[PetraKann]

I recall my first scientific article very well. I packed in as much data and analysis as I could. I didn’t want to leave anything out.
It felt like this article was going to be the only article I would publish in my life.
I learnt to be more concise, direct to the point and minimalistic in the way I constructed and presented papers and presentations.
It’s not easy to be concise. Usually a second or several opinions is very handy.
😊

[jamesbarrett]

Long ago, some colleagues and I published a paper about nitrous oxide in the stratosphere over Antarctica (or rather its absence, which is involved in the formation of the ozone hole), and we got a reprint request from the Marquette University Dental School. Another request was from Bhutan, and featured a triangular postage stamp depicting the happiest yeti ever.

[BonkyTrollDoll]

Immediately one of my favorite Sixty Symbols videos!

[emilbrinchholm]

Just sent my first paper on arXiv a month ago! Exciting stuff, and Michael expresses the whole experience very well.

[avivashisht]

I really appreciate the timing of this video. I just finished up with a project this week and am about to start writing MY very first paper. Really exciting time (nervousness comes along with it too 😅)

[xyz.ijk.]

I particularly appreciate the professor's blend of humanity and science. Thank you for sharing this. Another great video.

[donaldbustell]

Trivia re: Red cover sheet -- athletic teams at Harvard are "Crimsons"

[PopeLando]

From the text: "In many ways these galaxies appear ideally suited to the task."
Pure Mike Merrifield!!🤣 Unmistakable 33 years later.

[allenyordy]

Yess thank you I very much needed some updates from one of my favorite professors

[fishnsyd]

A science communicator from the beginning! I enjoyed this tidbit of personal history, please do more!

[davidpower]

I loved watching this.

Only a few days ago I saw Dr. Merrifield had retired and here is is talking enthusiastically about his first published paper. He speaks with such pride and he still seems giddy about it.

What a pleasure this was.

Did you do a series of these “my first paper” videos? I’d love to learn more like this. How well does the paper hold up to this day? Was it referenced? Etc.

[Skyfox]

Something going undiscovered for decades and then shown to be true and important is like when Fritz Zwicky found evidence of galaxies having far more gravity and therefore more mass than was observable, and that was dismissed for decades until Vera Rubin sort of rediscovered that fact when observing the rotational velocities of galaxies at different radii.

[Namerson]

I currently have my first paper in review, and he's right - it's very exciting