XPost: sci.electronics.design   
   From: nospam@de-ster.demon.nl   
      
   Bill Sloman  wrote:   
      
   > On 21/02/2026 9:19 pm, J. J. Lodder wrote:   
   > > Bill Sloman  wrote:   
   [-]   
   > >> It helps if they are publishable in a high impact journal.   
   > >> When I was a graduate student one of the lecturers kept his students   
   > >> busy publishing papers on the properties of the simpler conpounds of   
   > >> technicium - the lightest element that hasn't got a stable isotope. He   
   > >> had contacts in the reactor business that let him get hold of enough of   
   > >> it to do that kid of work. The results got published in mior league   
   > >> journals.   
   > >   
   > > Minor league professors tend to have minor league students,   
   > > who may become in their turn minor league professors.   
   > > So it goes, in this, the best of all possible worlds.   
   > >   
   > > Conversely, great names tend to have connections with other great names.   
   > > Books have been written about it,   
   > > like on 'heritability' of Nobel prizes.   
   > > There is a nature versus nurture problem here.   
   >   
   > Students vary a lot. The nuture problem is about putting the good ones   
   > where they will do well, and some great names were good at doing that   
   >   
   > > One may speculate that the better students   
   > > tend to move out to more promising places,   
   >   
   > I've seen a bit of that.   
   >   
   > > or that great professors may bring out the best in their students.   
   >   
   > They tend to send them on to places where their particular skills will   
   > be appreciated, and to get students and post-docs from acquaintances who   
   > think that particular students would do well with them.   
      
   Here, at SPR, some of the great lights may tell you   
   that it is all a conspiracy of Einstein-worshippers.   
      
   > You can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear, but a bad supervisor can   
   > wreck a pontential silk purse.   
      
   In the olden days, pre-WWII, students tended to travel a lot,   
   moving between universities, to take courses from reputed professors.   
   Letters of recommendation played an important part.   
      
   Americans and Australians with the good luck of having a scholarship   
   likewise made European tours, of a few months in several places.   
      
   Nowadays there are the Erasmus scholarships and for that,   
   but that is EU only,   
   (those dumb Brits locked themselves out of it)   
      
   Jan   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)