At the American Chemical Society meeting last week J.T. Hynes gave a talk
Some modest proposals for 21st century physical chemists
Here are his three main points.
(1) The most familiar problems/phenomena may in fact not be at all already understood, and can provide fertile areas for discovery;
(2) Just an experiment or a theory because it is 'old' (e.g. of a certain vintage) does not mean it is inferior/wrong despite the lack of novelty and modernity;
(3) Simple, well-constructed analytic models have a significant role to play in comprehending and advancing both theory and experiment.
Unfortunately, I was not at the meeting, but my colleague Seth Olsen was and told me I would have enjoyed the talk. These points certainly resonate with my own views.
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I am glad to see #3 on the list. Time and time again I have heard the argument that the way of analytical models are giving way to computational approaches alone. I think both are necessary. In particular, an analytical model that is well thought out leads to a deeper understanding of the underpinning physical phenomenon.
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