How the hell is Physics done anyway?

As a late developing physics undergraduate, I often gaze at the papers I see physicists publishing and wonder how they ever got to the stage of producing the mind blowing bits of work contained in them. Now I'm not saying that I come close to even remotely understanding even a small part of the content of these papers. I am, after all just starting out on my formal education in the topic. I haven't yet completed my "Basic training". I can say though, that the more I study, the more I am beginning to recognise little snippets. I guess it's like learning a language. One day you are sitting in your car repeating after the linguaphone cd, not really knowing what the hell it is you are saying. Next thing you know, you are in a shop in a foreign country understanding totally what the foreign speaking shop keeper is saying to you. You suddenly get a realisation that you actually can understand more then you were giving yourself credit for.

This seems to be how all learning experiences work and that includes Maths and Physics (for me anyway). I look back on things I didn't understand 3 years ago before I embarked on the Maths I have been recently doing and realise that I actually understand it now.  Those little twiddles and curly things actually say something to me. So now my training is actually starting for real (it is no longer preparation), I wanted to know what it is like to be at the other end of the pecking order and actually be working on the cutting edge of Physics research. So I have been asking some questions.

One of the things I have learned and surprised me just a little is that Physics research actually seems to be quite a social thing to do. It's about group discussion and interaction as much as it's about lone research, theory, experiment and observation. The Genesis of an idea is often flushed out and molded by more then one person. This means you have to learn not to be precious about what you come up with. You have to accept that you are going to be challenged.

After chatting with a MICA member about this recently, He pointed me to blog, called "Cosmic Variance" and a three part piece called "The anatomy of a paper". It's well worth a read if you are interested in how the actual work of a theorist is carried out.