So he spent five years on this project and the end result just wasn't there. I worked with a graduate student on zirconium and hafnium chemistry, and we discovered an example of a new kind a molecule, which was really exciting. When you're in a classroom lab, you don't really learn how to think independently. You're always following a recipe that you know has been tried before and is supposed to work. And at some point, you start improvising in an attempt to make things work.
Research is actually a very creative activity.
I was a peeping tom to the parrot's every motion. Trends were sighted, generalized and tested, hunches were fleshed out to greater or lesser certainties, and soon theories were born. I joined the other researchers at the dinner table each evening, where we acted as a serious-minded convention assessing data, propounding theories, designing new experiments. We were humanity's representatives at the frontier, searching the underlying patterns of seemingly ordinary, even repetitive data for extraordinary conclusions. The project was rigorous, taking its toll on both body and mind.