Book: "The Formula: The Universal Laws of Success" by Albert-László Barabási

This book is about "success". But it is not another common "success book" that either (a) so-called successful person tells his secret, or (b) a writer, consultant or analyst interviews bunch of successful people and extract the rules and science of success.


The author is a scientist who studies network science and is an expert of big data analysis (that is how I figured).

In this book, he tells you about the results of a series of their projects on "success", with unique approach of quantifying "success" with mining measurable data. Their approach revealed five laws of success, he says.


But "success" is a hard-to-define event. Just try to define success in general. You may have your success, but how do you measure and compare it among all others?

They tackle this tricky definition of success in many different fields from something easier (tennis and golf by contest scores, science measured by impact) to trickier ones (art). Some "success" are creatively defined, like how many google access the subject gets (=fame), or like in how many languages the wikipedia article appears (=outreach of the fame).


The five laws they extracted from their findings are;


1. Performance drives success, but when performance can't be measured, networks drive success.
2. Performance is bounded, but success is unbounded.
3. Previous success x fitness [high potential]= future success.
4. While team success requires diversity and balance, a single individual will receive credit for the group's achievements.
5. With persistence success can come at any time.

Interested? Then I suggest you to read this book. 

I find the laws highly relevant to scientists. As a scientist myself, I did think the performance of scientists is similar to that of professional athletes. Like Einstein published his famous paper in age 26, high performance is achieved while young, and quality of the work diminish over age....that was what I thought, even with discounting the fact that theoretical fields of math and physics may quite be different from more physical fields of chemistry and biology. 


But the law #5 refutes the notion, saying that a paper published later in life can be the "best one" for the scientist, which is personally quite encouraging. 


In fact, all their analysis is done in an "in retrospect" manner (naturally), while we live our lives as ongoing events. 

We do not always see ongoing event from a higher, "in retrospect" standpoint. 

For example, my publication list currently shows 26 published papers. I have personal memories for each. But I don't really dwell on them. I just sent 27th manuscript and working on 28th. 

I cannot tell which paper will be my "best" yet. I am actually thinking the 27th one I just sent (or the 28th in preparation) may become the best. Or perhaps, my 33rd paper would be a breakthrough?    ...I guess I would have to keep going on to know that. Years later, in retrospect, an answer would emerge.


Greatest merit of such laws is that we can practice them. The law#5 kindly states that it may not be too late even if you are in some point of late in life.


This book may be interesting to you all, if you are interested in the subject of "success in life". It may take some thinking to apply the laws to your chosen field, though.

Dance: Play rock, paper, scissors with your foot (body mapping 101)

There is a technique called body mapping. It is useful for dancers, actors, musicians,... all physical performers.

When you use the technique, 

(a) you pay attention to your anatomical body part (hand, elbow, foot, knee, spine,....etc), 
(b) recognize its precise location, 
(c) learn its structure,
(d) understand how it works,
(e) move it, and reconnect your sensation to actual motion of the body part.

So that you'll know your body as instrument much better. This technique can improve your body usage.

Body mapping is not exactly an Adrenalin-filled hard training with sweat-kind of thing. It is reprogramming, re-calibration, of fine-tuning type of technique. It should be quite amusing, with full of discoveries.


That said, what are you supposed to do?


Let's take a foot.


First, know its anatomy and bone structure. (Google it)

[from wikipedia]

Foot is terribly important for dance. You support your entire body weight on such a small structure. It is amazing.

Next, recognize there are three arches in a foot. Each arch allows you to balance and to move. Three together, they work like a tripod.

Move your foot (like, lift inside/big toe, lift outside/pinky side, lift all fingers, rotate clockwise, counterclockwise, etc). 

Recognize the motion and connect your sensation to your command. You'll notice some exercises are easy for you, but others are difficult or un-smooth.


Playing rock, paper, scissors with your foot is one of these exercises.



A dancer's primary instrument is his/her own body. Much like a violinist knows about violin, you should know how your body works, and study it to use it efficiently.


There are many techniques for dancers. Body mapping is one of them. This kind of techniques separate professional opera singers and recreational Thursday Karaoke people, or separate serious dancers and dance enthusiasts. You can tell.

Beauty is in the details....details that are made by techniques. 


One of my summer projects was to collect these techniques.

Life: Back to blog, summer projects 2019

I took a month off from this blog, to focus on my summer projects on professional, personal, and fun subjects.

One of the projects, a research project that should be completed with writing a review article (professional), is almost done. I sent the manuscript to an editor for the second time for finalization today. It should be submitted soon.

Some projects are like sowing seeds. I may not get to leap the results soon. For other projects, I want to see the results. Research and writing is the latter, something I want to see the outcome in a tangible form, like a manuscript or panels in Figure 5.


Making new eyeglasses is one of these projects (personal+fun). It only took little effort (visit optometrist and get current prescription) and some money (for ordering new glasses, obviously). Picking new ones, as well as learning a thing or two about eyeglasses, is fun. I am curious about how these hyped blue blocker lenses actually work.


This Summer is going fast. The first week of August and my birthday is over already. Time to organize my thoughts on progresses of these projects. But overall I am quite happy about what is going on.