职业与工作方法matt.might.net
图解博士之旅
The illustrated guide to a Ph.D.
2010 — 2021，它一次次回到首页
黑点是上首页（≥ 50 分）的那次投稿，空心点是没冲上去的投稿，点越大分数越高。
导读
Matt Might 用一组简笔画解释读博究竟意味着什么：随着教育推进，你的知识圈不断扩大，而博士就是在人类知识的边界上顶出一个小凸起。这篇图文多年来被广泛转发，成为向他人（和家人）解释博士本质的经典之作。
为什么经久不衰：它用最简单的图示讲清了博士的本质与谦卑，十多年间四次登上 HN 首页，至今仍是解释'读博是什么'的最佳一页。
HN 评论精选
这是解释博士最通俗易懂的版本，适合分享给外行人
这是我所见过的对博士学位最好的描述。它通过了'我妈妈也能看懂'的测试。以后谁再问读博到底是怎么回事，我就把这篇发给他。
amirmc查看英文原文
This is the best description by far that I've seen of most PhDs. It passes the "Would my mother understand this" test. I'll be sending this to anyone who asks what a PhD is really like.
博士学位并非推进人类知识的唯一途径
别忘了，有不少从未走过博士这条路的人，同样突破了人类知识的边界。
prs查看英文原文
Do not forget that the boundaries of human knowledge have been surpassed by a healthy amount of individuals that never went the PhD route.
读博是一场孤独的煎熬，但突破时刻的成就感值得付出
博士学位是一张纸，证明你在五年多的时间里能持续朝一个（此前被认为）无法企及的目标推进。过程很煎熬：想法可能行不通，没人能帮你因为没人试过，你无数次尝试和失败也无人关心。读完博你会变成另一个人。但相信我，五年多里那两三个夜晚——当一切突然拼合、那该死的东西终于跑通——真的值得。
whatever1查看英文原文
The Ph.D. is a piece of paper that shows that for 5+ years you were able to consistently push towards a (previously considered) unattainable goal. It is gruesome, the idea might not work, nobody else can help you because nobody else has tried, nobody cares about the myriad things that you tried and failed. You will literally become a different person after the phd experience. But trust me, these 2-3 nights over the span of 5+ years, when pieces somehow come together and the goddamn thing works, are really worth the effort.
学得越多越发现未知更广，且多数博士研究其实并未真正推进人类知识边界
地球物理学家 David Chapman 曾给我讲过一个让我终生难忘的故事：存在你已知的边界，也存在你'以为未知'的边界。小时候你觉得剩下的未知并不遥远，也许有朝一日能全部学会；但随着学习越多，你意识到未知的半径增长得越来越快——最终你知识的相对占比渐近于零。奇怪的是，这比'读研就是在推进人类集体知识的边界'更让我心安，因为现实是大多数高级学位并没有真正触及那个边界。
dahart查看英文原文
Geophysicist David Chapman once told me a story that has stuck with me for life… There’s a boundary of what you know, and a boundary of what you think you don’t know. Not the limits of all knowledge, but a belief about where that limit is. When you’re a kid, you already know you don’t know everything, but you see the radius for the rest of it as not that far off, maybe achievable some day. As you grow and learn and go to college and keep studying, the radius of what you know increases proportionally, accumulating little by little. And the radius of what you start to realize that you don’t know increases faster and faster, not just multiplied by the population of the earth, but also by the dawning realization that we collectively know very little. The take home message being that your relative size of knowledge, the more you learn, shrinks asymptotically to zero. In a strange way I find this more comforting than believing that graduate school research is at or even pushing the boundary of collective knowledge; the reality is that most advanced degrees aren’t broaching the boundary nor feeding into the collective.
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