I just found and read an interesting piece by Prof. Gerard 't Hooft with title How to become a bad theoretical physicist.
I think i agree with him that we should better be humbler as scientist, and control our tendency to have big ego. Also he wrote that it is better to not start our own publishing house to promote our ideas.
So, do you agree with 't Hooft on characters of good physicists? What else characters that you think are important to keep in mind? Your comments are welcome.
http://www.staff.science.uu.nl/~hooft101/theoristbad.html
Contrary to 't Hooft, I think that a theory must not be discarded too readily. A good theorist must have a deep faith in his ideas because it will take much effort and discouragement to bring it to success, and above all, if he hasn't got it himself, nobody else would. So another character is perseverance. It must of course be well balanced with due recognition of his own errors, and that is what is difficult and rare.
't Hooft is a good theoretical physicist, and that have been aknowledged by the Nobel price. Yet, he has remained mainstream and haven't done any revolutionary discoveries. Surely with some more boldness and perseverance, perhaps even with own publishing, he would have fared much better.
Dear Claude, thank you for your answer. Yes you are right, perseverance is very important. I would like to add: a big eye for real world problems. I mean, in the past two decades there is no real brekathrough to solve world's oil crises. It would need a brave scientist to have a big eye to solve that real problem. What do you think?
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