Question: What would you do when you cannot complete one of your problems?

Laurence Perreault Levasseur answered on 23 Jun 2014:

I close my books and wait until the next day.
It’s crazy how a good night of sleep and a fresh mind can give a different view on problems.

I’ll also go around in the department for help, knock on every door where I think I can get some advise, explain my problem to all the other PhD students, until everyone knows about me and my problem (I become a sort of celebrity by that time, ‘Laurence and her problem’!!). I’ll also bug my husband until he can’t stand me anymore. Sometimes he is REALLY helpful, like when there is some programming involved. Sometimes he has NO idea what I am talking about, but very surprisingly just saying and explaining the problem out loud helps me see a different perspective and sometimes even finding a solution.

If that doesn’t do it, I’ll work on something different for few days or a week. When I get back to it, my mind is completely fresh and I can usually tackle the problem with a new angle.

If that still doesn’t do it (and if I’m still writing by that point it’s that that has already happened to me, many times actually) I’ll email people who either are experts on the problem, or people that I met at conference that I know know more than me on that.

By that time, usually I’ll have figured few ways around the problem, or a direct solution. If it still doesn’t work, well, maybe there are no solutions to the problem, or maybe I’m not clever enough! So I’ll put it aside until a lightning bolt of genius hits me. In research, that happens that problems just don’t have solutions! That’s the beauty of it, not everything is solvable! And sometimes problems take years to be solved!