What are you supposed to show when you have no data to present?

[ProfuselyQuarky]

Like when you're doing tons of things but it's mostly preparation for experiments and it's not really working so it's slowing experiments down. There's tons to talk about but there's really nothing to show anyone in terms of a powerpoint.

 

[.Scott]

Have you determined what you will be measuring and how?
Have you decided how much data you will need and where you are going to get it from?
Have you made arrangements for where the data will be stored, how it will be moved, and what tools you will be using?
Do you have a schedule?

 

[ProfuselyQuarky]

Have you determined what you will be measuring and how?
Have you decided how much data you will need and where you are going to get it from?
Have you made arrangements for where the data will be stored, how it will be moved, and what tools you will be using?
Do you have a schedule?

well, yes lol. I should've been data collecting today but a series of terrible things that happened and due to the nature of what I am doing I won't be able to attempt again for another week or so

 

[.Scott]

well, yes lol. I should've been data collecting today but a series of terrible things that happened and due to the nature of what I am doing I won't be able to attempt again for another week or so

My point is that the answer to each of those questions is a powerpoint slide.
What resources (office space, lab space, assistance, equipment) do you need? What arrangements have you made for them?

You can also address the purpose of the study - and what the meaning would be for different ranges of results.

 

[ProfuselyQuarky]

My point is that the answer to each of those questions is a powerpoint slide.
What resources (office space, lab space, assistance, equipment) do you need? What arrangements have you made for them?

You can also address the purpose of the study - and what the meaning would be for different ranges of results.

this is fair thanks for the suggestion.
I guess I'm worried because everyone will find it odd since, unless it's our turn to give the full one hour presentation, then these mini presentations usually consist of just 1 - 3 slides of unfinished figures/graphs of data that you explain and run through. It's exclusively images, mainly. Context is then shared verbally. I'll do what I have to, however lol.

 

[Vanadium 50]

Can you tap dance? I recommend Tea For Two.

These are called "prospects talks" and many people (including me) hate giving them. But they are a part of the job - not every talk is neatly timed to when you're getting the data. But the advice is the same for prospects talks: figure out what you are going to say and say it. For example, an outline might be:

• What are we trying to measure? Why is it important?
• Who did it before?
• How this measurement works. What equipment do you use?
• What is the status of the apparatus? Do you have pictures?

 

[gleem]

Experiments don't go according to plan. You've put a lot of work into it so far. So you describe your progress, the difficulties, and solutions that you can try to overcome them. But make sure that the next time around you have something to show as the solution to your previous problem or preliminary data.

 

[hutchphd]

And be relentlessly positive. One can always shower after the presentation.

 

[Vanadium 50]

And be relentlessly positive.

As in "I'm positive this isn't working"?

 

[hutchphd]

As in "I found a really interesting reason why doing the experiment adjacent to the NMR magnet was not a good idea......"

 

[Vanadium 50]

Fermilab E-711 was nicknamed the "Colliding Magnet Experiment"

Sometimes the reason there are problems are at least as interesting as what the experiment set out to do. The half-life of bismuth was discovered by people looking at BGO as a detector medium. KATRIN discovered a background from highly excited atomic hydrogen - like n = 50, 60 or 70. And there is a famouse case of Penzias and Wislon's noise in their apparatus....

 

[Haborix]

Just don't go all LK-99 with it.

 

[berkeman]

Just don't go all LK-99 with it.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41567-023-02225-x

 

[Vanadium 50]

So how did it go?