Do I Know?

“If we knew what we were doing, it wouldn’t be called research.” — Albert Einstein

I saw it one fine day while walking down the road in 2010 at NIT Rourkela, one of the many painted placards that always brought a smile.

Initially it was met with laughter, as often happened in the company of Kamaljeet Singh, Vivek Bhatt, and Ankur Samantara. In fact, it turned into an ongoing joke with Kamaljeet. And as usually happens, it was eventually forgotten in the sands of time.

Fast forward to 2012: I was an intern at Cisco for quite some time and posted a picture on Facebook with some code running in the background about which I had little clue. When someone asked about it, in a sudden flash of insight came the answer—an improvised version of Einstein’s quote. I felt I had finally understood why he had said it.

Cut to 2013: working on my Master’s thesis with Prabal Ghosh on a problem we had received a week earlier. As engineers, it feels almost mandatory to work near the submission deadline. As work stretched deep into the night, doubts crept in and equations got reworked. All of a sudden, Prabal blurted out: “Why the hell are we doing this? I can’t see how all these models and mathematics are leading us to the solution.” It was a statement made in complete exhaustion by a nocturnal creature, and Einstein’s quote flashed right back. It took on a whole new meaning.

Why did I make this post? Mostly because the quote keeps coming back to me across different phases of life, partly because I’m free on a Sunday morning, and in some quiet corner of my mind, I don’t know why.

PS: If this post feels packed with commas and long sentences, that is courtesy of reading Mortimer Adler last night.