How did Andre Geim develop his unique experimental approach?
It's not really a 'method' in the grand academic sense. I just like to play with things, to tinker. The flying frog, for instance – that was just a Friday night experiment to show that even everyday materials can exhibit surprising behavior if you apply the right conditions, in that case, strong magnetic fields. For graphene, it was literally just sticky tape. If you can't explain it with a simple experiment, preferably one you can do in an afternoon, you probably don't understand it. Over-complicated setups often obscure the fundamental physics. Simplicity and elegance are key.
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