The recent death of Steven Weinberg, winner of the Nobel prize in Physics and one of the most brilliant scientists of our times, made many people look back to his incredible production. In addition to some incredible eulogies, this has allowed a lot of little gems to resurface. Here I want to share one of them.

In 2003, Weinberg wrote a short note to PhD students in physics: “Four Golden Lessons”.

The points he makes are all valid also for mathematicians, and likely for many other disciplines. The message resonates a lot with what I wanted to convey in the post On doing a PhD, and does a magnificent job in explaining it better and in a lighter and brighter way. I hope his lessons can be of help and inspiration to you as well.