In any field of inquiry, the beginner is more likely than the expert to make important contributions.

Some people believe that a novice in a field is more probable to make significant contributions than is an expert. This claim is not entirely groundless.

Beginners are usually more flexible in learning, asking and correcting their thoughts, while experts are prone to become complacent about what they know. The abecedarians who lack a significant amount of knowledge and experience take any opportunity to fill such an emptiness. The starters’ thirst of learning makes them acquire as much as the knowledge they can. In doing that, beginners can link two parts of knowledge and come up with a new idea. Experts, however, as usually are older than the beginners, take what they have learned in years for granted and make use of them more than being voracious to learn new things. Hence, as amateurs have not a noticeable knowledge to take for granted and be complacent about what they have acquired, they may have some advantages over the experts.

Furthermore, since the expertise of an expert comes with a long time one has dealt with a subject, such a period is likely to constrain the experts to the established habits and attitudes. At the same time, a newcomer to a field is passionate about everything and has a more meticulous approach as everything has a freshness. Benefiting from such a zeal from freshness, the students become sometimes more discerning about the nuances. In a personal experience, the geometrical design of a molecule, captured my attention when I was a sophomore. While my professors had been teaching the properties of this molecule for decades, they had not found the subtle detail it possesses, and an invention stroke my mind.

Nevertheless, never an idea becomes a contribution unless a beginner becomes an expert in fulfilling that idea. The practical value of an imagination only can be attained in practice and experience. The same two things by which one grows to become an expert. In the case of my own Idea, it took nearly seven years to conduct experiments and acquire enough knowledge that the idea has approximated to an invention. Thus, only by becoming expert does one make contributions.

Finally, experts can keep their amateur spirit alive and with this approach would be no weak-points for an experts that an amateur take precedence in making contributions. After all, experts can preserve their amateur spirit, but beginners cannot have the expertise unless they are experts. Although there are constraints and limitation in any practical work which professionals have to deal with, but by preserving the thirst of knowledge and the passionate interest one has in a field, there would be no ascendancy for any beginner to do a significant work.

In short, it is possible that newcomers may hold an advantage in conceiving ideas, but the expertise is what necessarily required to make inventions. Therefore, a beginner cannot make a contribution before becoming a professional.