1. get aware that a problem exists
2. analyse and structure the problem
- divide it into smaller pieces
- start to solve the easiest pieces
Here I will focus only onto point 3:
Where can we find the needed information ?
1. ask others
2. read books, reports and patents
3. search in databases
4. use the internet
- To ask others is a good method. Even, if they don`t know the solution, each discusssion with others helps, to understand the problem and get new solution ideas.
- In a good library there should be many books or reports in journals, which deal with similar problems, from which we can learn and we get pieces of the needed information.
- There exist many databases worldwide about almost any subject, in which a huge amount of information is stored. Many are free, for others one has to pay.
Nowadays a very comfortable method to find information, is of course the internet. Problem with it is, that it oftenly is difficulty to judge, how reliable the information is.
For searches in the internet not only the well known search engines should be used, but meta search engines. These are either specialised to a subject or they use many other search engines, so that they can give better results.
There are a lot of meta search engines available and the best is, to test them, searching about a topic, which is well known.
Here is a small collection only:
Meta Search Engine
http://www.metasearchengine.com
Meta Crawler
http://www.metacrawler.com
Mamma
http://www.mamma.com/
Computational Knowledge Engine and facts in technology and sciences
http://www.wolframalpha.com/
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