• I don’t want to take away from your joy and validation. You sound like a generally curious person who is frequently churning out ideas.

    But that’s not how ideas (for doing experiments/doing research) work. Especially not in a scientific context. You have to have intimate knowledge of any matter to sift through a huge amount of various ideas and pluck out the ones that are feasible, that make sense and that are promising. That takes time and effort. Curiosity is obviously key, but actually pursuing any idea means a lot of work. It’s much more frustrating than one might think, especially because it usually doesn’t work the way you initially imagine it will. And most of these ideas need many years, or even decades to develop and study.

    • Yes, I’m very aware of everything you just said. Doesn’t mean it isn’t frustrating to find out that an idea you had was a good idea, but you couldn’t study it because you don’t know enough about the subject. I love science and engineering, but I didn’t find that out until after I graduated and I don’t have the money to “respec”.