A quote I'm somewhat fond of: "A couple months in the laboratory can save a couple hours in the library."
Unfortunately, I forget who said it.
Unfortunately, I forget who said it.
Isn't that backwards?
I can say this having spent months in the laboratory to learn things which were already known. Who knew that precision quartz pressure gauges were called 'manometers' in the late eighteen-hundreds? I didn't, and thought I'd invented something new for a couple months in my first year of grad school.
The adage is a good one. Reading a lot and reading widely pays off.