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Three common misconceptions about the nature and nurture of research

Nature Reviews Physics volume 5, pages 2–4 (2023)Cite this article

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Venkatesh Narayanamurti and Jeffrey Y. Tsao discuss lessons learned from the success of the great 20th-century industrial research labs and warn against three common misconceptions about what drives, and how one can stimulate, scientific and technological progress. They advocate for the value of learning and surprise, and for an irreverence for boundaries of all kind — between disciplines, science and technology, and the finding of new questions and new answers.

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Fig. 1: An updated and more nuanced view of Pasteur’s quadrant.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA

    Venkatesh Narayanamurti

  2. Sandia National Laboratories, Albuquerque, NM, USA

    Jeffrey Y. Tsao

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  1. Venkatesh Narayanamurti
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  2. Jeffrey Y. Tsao
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Correspondence to Venkatesh Narayanamurti or Jeffrey Y. Tsao.

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Narayanamurti, V., Tsao, J.Y. Three common misconceptions about the nature and nurture of research. Nat Rev Phys 5, 2–4 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s42254-022-00533-4

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