2016.06.08. Breaks and breakthroughs in research

(Right now: Still in Puerto Princesa.) 

A paper revision that was downgraded to an outright rejection. A best poster award in an international conference. Such were the breaks and breakthroughs I have had over the last few days here in Puerto Princesa, where the 2018 Samahang Pisika ng Pilipinas (SPP) Conference has just finished. 

But first, some remarks on the conference itself. The 2018 SPP Conference this year was held in the Citystate Asturias Hotel in Puerto Princesa, Palawan. Incidentally, the same venue hosted the SPP conference in the year 2000, so it was a reunion of sorts for some plenary speakers, with some of them doing their first scientific presentations during the same event 18 years ago. This year's attendance, according to the opening remarks of the SPP President, Dr. Armando Somintac, is the record highest ever, since the SPP started conducting conferences. It is also worth noting that the SPP Conference is now an international conference, by virtue of a strong and consistent participation from researchers from all over the world over the last few years. 

On the first day of the conference, Mich, my student, and I received an email for our submission containing the reviews of our paper. While offering scant scientific remarks, the reviewers rejected our paper on broad terms, as the paper, according to them, had no “important results.” We thought that the Editor sided with us, as the letter contained instructions to revise the paper within a period of two months. Needless to say, we started drafting the response to the reviews and rereading the paper for incorporating the changes. 

Alas, we received a rejection email the following day! We promptly sent a letter of appeal, asking for clarification on the sudden change of status of the paper. 

These things of course do happen from time to time in the course of doing research. These things are, to borrow a phrase I often hear in professional sports, the breaks of the game. You can't really do much about it because oftentimes, eventhough its outcomes really do negatively affect you in a big way, it is out of your hands. 

Sometimes, however, the surprises come in the form of positive validations. At the end of the day (and I mean the literal end of the day), I received a blurred image from my chatbox. This one came from Merimae, one of the youngest members of our group.

Mae won the Best Poster Award!

But first, some context: Merimae, in her early years under the undergraduate physics program, encountered problems and had doubts about her abilities; she almost shifted to a degree in film. And now, two years under the group, she has her very own topic and a clear research direction. With a truckload of hard work and a little bit of good advising, she has presented a topic in an international conference that is understandable to the general audience and deemed interesting and substantial by a panel of judges. Now that - That is a breakthrough.

I guess, in the end, these events, which are at the opposite ends of the spectrum, are the meaning of research, after all. It is the breaks of the game that get us going for better and for more breakthroughs.