I used to be a failing student, if not actually considered a failed one by some. I once studied at the mining department of the Engineering Faculty at Chulalongkorn University. There was a person senior to me studying the same subject at the same place who failed and later became a successful and acknowledged national writer.

I do not think I am even in the process becoming one. I had a total of five Fs during my time at the university. At the lowest point my grade point average (GPA) was 1.27. Needless to say I struggled hard. Despite trying so hard my GPA was still a mere 1.71 by the end of the third year and my cumulative GPA was such that I anticipated being retired from the university the following year.

Then I went over to England for an engineering apprenticeship, which was when I discovered the problem-oriented approach. Back at the university the following semester, I experimented with my discovery and applied it to my study. I tried my hand at solving as many problems related to my course as well as I could.

Studying suddenly became interesting and fun to me, no different from solving puzzles and playing games. With half the amount of the swotting I used to do, my GPA rose to 3.63 - an all-time high, in commemoration of which the university gave me a certificate.

This is how I tell my students to study: skim through the book, and then try to solve the exercises. You may not be able to find the solution at first. This is when you need to look up theories and look at examples. When you are stuck on a particular problem, shelve it and pick up another one. This process is repeated indefinitely and, to tell the truth, the more the better. At the heart of all this is the problem at hand.

Search and research to ensure that as many resources as possible contribute toward your solution. The former is the best possible guarantee that the latter is no mere opinion. As searching and researching can never be exhaustive, and as the problem lies at the centre of all this, the research may go on even after we have found a solution. There are then not only one but many solutions, and your answer to the same question tomorrow may not be the same as the answer you have for it today.

Problems are more important than theories. There is theory upon theory in physics, but there is only one problem, which is how to describe the behaviour of matter. The trouble is that sometimes size matters.

Isaac Newton (1643-1727) wrote his "Philosophiae naturalis principia mathematica", which explains the motion of bodies, in 1687. It remained unchallenged until Albert Einstein (1879-1955) came up with his "General theory of relativity" in 1915 that managed to explain Newton's theory and things on the cosmic scale to boot.

But the problem never goes away. In fact, both Einstein and Newton's theories explain things on different scales. Optimists may say that both can explain everything on some scales, but even they agree that neither can explain everything on all scales. At the smaller end of the scale there is weird matter with strange behaviour. This is the realm of atoms and subatomic particles, where quantum mechanics enjoys an authority that nobody fully understands.

A problem-oriented approach is very important in both research and education. We must bear in mind that theories are not everything. In fact they are nothing - merely stepping stones even; it is the problem that is everything. It is good not to trade everything for nothing.

Scientists live by problems. Theories are useful, some immensely so, but an approach centred on one particular theory can only lead us nowhere. However, one must learn and know them thoroughly before one can contribute something different to humanity. Only then will one be able to find a new solution or improve upon an existing one.

To guess a solution without proper search and research seems to me to be tantamount to ignorance.

If we read the "Theory of Harmony" ("Harmonielehre", 1911) by Arnold Schoenberg (1874-1951), we see how profound his knowledge of tonal music was before he gave us his 12-tone system, an atonal system answering the problem: "What is harmony?"

The list of benefits to ourselves when we give problems proper attention is endless. What is a position but an answer to a job description, and a job description but a set of problems to be solved? A leader of a firm is a solution for its needs, in other words problems. If we centre our thinking on the job description instead of on the person then our evaluation becomes objective instead of subjective.

Evaluation itself is an individual process that must be carried out by each person with a fair amount of search and research, independently of others and without blindly following a person or group.

Problems come in various areas and at various levels, be it how matter behaves, what harmony is, or why we are here. Collectively they are everything - definitely more valuable to us than solutions. Whatever we do, it is important that we never lose sight of them.

Dr Kit Tyabandha teaches in the Department of Mathematics at Mahidol University.

Kit Tyabandha