Studying How hard is it to do original work in a summer dissertation

[binbagsss]

..in a taught masters (UK).

My undergrad project was a literature review on general relativity
The topic of my project this summer (3 months) will be modified theories of gravity & cosmology.

How do you go about doing some original work at this level?
- would the first step be to identify a very niche area and try to identify what has or hasn't been said on this in published articles
- Is it hard to do, do most students tend to do a literature review or original work? (would something like a project involving programming easier to do original work since it's a lot more creative and many ways to approach, compared to something like modified theories of gravity ?)
- I guess any sort of derivation that has not been done before, would class as original, but the significance of what is found here, would be a different question entirely?

many thanks

 

[martinbn]

Isn't there supposed to be an advisor?

 

[Dr. Courtney]

Coming up with an original idea is harder than executing one if your adviser has one primed and ready to go that is a good match for your skills.