When my mentor went for his graduate studies in the lab of a ‘survived the Concentration Camps’ Biologist she told him.
“You be here half the day.”
“Why only half the day?” he asked.
She looked perplexed. “How many hours in day?”
“24” he answered.
“You be here working half the day.” she concluded.
12 hours. That was her minimum. “Half the day”.
12 hours. That was her minimum. “Half the day”.
A new faculty member who specialized in a somewhat "hot" area of theoretical physics told me that her well-known advisor at Cambridge counseled her: "You don't have to be brilliant or a genius. You just have to work 12 hours a day."
I always assumed that this was "how-to-succeed" advice, but maybe it was just how much work he wanted out of her. In any case her career seemed to be starting out very well.