>>13647725But this was my point - people have done their own research, but due to both research picking lower hanging fruits and the nature of a lot of research becoming interdisciplinary either by the content or the people studying it in different contexts (the amount of literature tying machine learning and SAT problems to mean field theory and the Ising model respectively are higher than you think - and both have their applications). It is becoming increasingly the case that solo research, at least in academia, is much slower and usually in smaller scope than research with a group of peers in your group or even commonly across groups / departments
For research at private institutions, I only have national lab research, which isn’t really private at all but is less “public” and more publicly funded. That being said, most people there were eager to share and work together, even if we didn’t get to write a paper until potentially years in the future because of red tape.
Researchers are among the most vocal about their work if you give them a chance to talk about it, as far as I’ve encountered across the board. I know there’s a stereotype of having the academic social retard around, but honestly every distinguished professor I’ve known has been more than social (not necessarily friendly, but social) and most professors in general have been at least courteous and visibly social with like 1-3 people in the office. I honestly think you’ll suffer a lot if you think academia will support a loner attitude.
