The time I realize how limited I am

I am now entering a new field, called molecular dynamics simulation, which belongs to the computational chemistry. Though usually perceived as the child in computational chemistry, it is also a subject gaining more and more attention in biology. As this child grows up, the application from simple organic or inorganic compounds to large proteins and complexes, is gradually giving out its real images. Computation can solve lots of works. Though currently the time scale of computation is still similar to that in experiments, limited by computational nodes and horsepower. But we can expect it to be faster than experiments in the near future, because this child evolves more quickly than experiments.

So three days ago, a big figure Dr. Michael Levitt, Nobel laureate of chemistry in 2013, visited our school. I happened to see a poster showing the informations of his lectures, so by the time he started the speech, I arrived at the lecture room. I listened carefully, though it was only a publich speech. Then after the lecture was over, I raised and asked the question of his opinion towards bottle-necks in molecular simulation. His answer is very impressive. He thought the bottle-necks are not the force field nor horsepower, since they are being improved now. He touched his head and said 'I think the bottle-neck is here', pointing at the brain. Then added, 'or here', pointing at his neck. People burst into laughter, and I seemed to have a vague idea of what he is talking about. Yeah, we can always think about ways to circumvent the bottle-necks.

One day after the lecture, I was looking the Evernote document about my graduate school application. Suddenly my eyes stopped at a box in the sheet, where all the school or program information were summarized. I saw 'Michael Levitt' in the box belong to Stanford! Oh, so one day ago, the PI from my dream school, whose research I have been interested about, visited us. And I knew nothing about this. I even did not know he is a Nobel laureate.

So how does such things happen? The fact that I am new to this field can explain itself. I started to really do some work from July this year, and the whole summer was spent learning all the techniques in the field. I did not read enough literature about all the popular topics in this field and I did not know who are famous for doing what. The way I got to know some PIs is through visiting their group homepage, where research interests are listed. But only going through those homepages are actually not enough. I should read their works!

The scientific works people published can demonstrate themselves. What kind of person they are, what kind of research they are doing and their opinion towards this field. To know someone, to read their works. I realized how limited my knowledge towards this area is. Now I start to read literatures.