Eye of the Tiger

Being in a very strongly quantum information oriented group during my PhD at UQ, it was very easy to get lured into the trap of focusing solely on this area, forsaking all others. This is true anywhere I suppose. Especially with the vast amount of literature, it can be difficult to keep up with your own area of research, let alone worry about something else. Coming to a department with a strong focus on condensed matter theory at UBC, is giving me the opportunity to really try and expand my knowledge base into new areas of physics (and let's face it, my knowledge needs some expanding).

More importantly, ideas and techniques from one area of physics can be very useful and applicable to another. Often similar results are known by different names, or in different contexts, and the differing approaches can open new doors and prevent research from re-inventing the wheel.

Multi-disciplinary research groups are in no way new, however I think a lot of the notions of collaboration can sometimes get lost in the fight for funding.