Ask HN: How do you scale up your scientific reading? Everyone knows that the number of publications is growing every year, this is especially noticeable in biology. I'm wondering how other cope with this volume. Is it possible to scale up reading articles? |
A generation ago, there were a hundred times as many articles as anyone could read. Now, there are a thousand times as many. (In 2018, there were 33,486 mathematics papers published to the arXiv. [1])
I believe that the best strategy remains the same: simply pick what you do want to read, and read it.
On a similar note, I remember reading a biography of physicist Lev Landau years ago (Dorozynski's The Man They Wouldn't Let Die). If I recall correctly --- and please correct if I am wrong --- there was a part where the author described Landau's intentional reluctance to read papers, at least early on in the research process. Landau wanted to formulate original approaches to problems, so he did not want his thinking influenced by how things were previously done. I do not agree with the idea but I do find it interesting that some researchers in the past have valued the opposite of reading widely.
There is also the infamous "exercise" in Serge Lang's algebra book (scroll to the bottom):
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B_pEp00B111JYWU1NmY4MjktZTN...
Similar, I rarely read news. I think it's a waste of time. Instead I use that time to (globally) read Science and Nature. Very high quality articles that often have big impact in the world. I can suggest this habit to everyone.
I do agree with Landau that occasionally knowing how things are previously done could limit how you approach the problem, but that can be fixed by systematically reproducing or falsifying the previous results and drawing your own conclusions (trust but verify). You gotta get your hands dirty. It's slow and difficult but the right way in the long term.