How do professors change research interests? My question is along the lines of How do professors usually discover &quot;new&quot; research interests? but more to do with "HOW"? The above question deals with how professors discover new areas, my question is once a professor or a grad student has found an interesting lead, how do they pursue it?

Consider Prof. X who is a mathematician and just talked to his old MS student who is now working on Machine Learning/Artificial Intelligence. He speaks to the student for 20 minutes about how is applying math to AI. Where does he go from here?

Does he:


Go to Wikipedia/Encyclopaedia to get a rough overview of the subject.
Search for papers.
Search for a good book to read.
Speak to someone in his institution who works on AI and ask them for reading references.
Something else?


How does a professor make sure he gets the right resource considering his expertise in some subject? For instance, the professor would definitely want a book which starts from a primer on Linear Algebra
"All of the above"... but maybe not wanting a book that started from a primer on Linear Algebra. (Probably the latter remark in the question is a result of a misunderstanding of some sort.) In short, all possible sources are used. I have little interest in connections to textbooks (which typically feel an obligation to include busywork exercises, etc. and express reverence to the founders of the subject by recapitulating "troubles of the old times" (which have been solved, often).)

The operational point is that one skims all these resources, looking for key points, rather than reading ploddingly, slavishly. I look to be persuaded... or, equally interestingly, to be persuaded that the people doing the thing don't adequately understand it so as to be able to explain it simply. Quasi-ironically, the latter affords more possibilities for making genuine progress. :)