University of California, Irvine, United States
I like chess. I think it’s good training for your brain. It makes you concentrate, and I like the feeling that you’re using your skills and brain to win. It also helps me to prepare to lose, because you cannot always win, right? So, you know what failure looks like and then you’re prepared for it. I think that’s good for both life and research. For example, when you’re looking for new particles, you never know what’s going to happen. You may write a very traditional paper, or maybe you discover something new. So, you’ve got to prepare. You use your knowledge to design your analysis, similar to how you try to win the chess game. You give the effort 100 percent and if you win, you’re happy, but if you lose, you’ve got to be prepared for it and move on. I think that’s the best thing I take from chess.