Initiating Physics PhD Research: Getting Started Effectively
Full Chapter List – So You Want To Be A Physicist… Series
- Part I: Early Physics Education in High schools
- Part II: Surviving the First Year of College
- Part III: Mathematical Preparations
- Part IV: The Life of a Physics Major
- Part V: Applying for Graduate School
- Part VI: What to Expect from Graduate School Before You Get There
- Part VII: The US Graduate School System
- Part VIII: Alternative Careers for a Physics Grad
- Part VIIIa: Entering Physics Graduate School From Another Major
- Part IX: First years of Graduate School from Being a TA to the Graduate Exams
- Part X: Choosing a Research area and an advisor
- Part XI: Initiating Research Work
- Part XII: Research work and The Lab Book
- Part XIII: Publishing in a Physics Journal
- Part XIV: Oral Presentations
- Part XIII: Publishing in a Physics Journal (Addendum)
- Part XIV: Oral Presentations – Addendum
- Part XV – Writing Your Doctoral Thesis/Dissertation
- Part XVI – Your Thesis Defense
- Part XVII – Getting a Job!
- Part XVIII – Postdoctoral Position
- Part XIX – Your Curriculum Vitae
Table of Contents
Initiating Research Work
It has been a while since the last installment of this series, so let’s recap where you are right now. You should have already chosen the physics subject area you want to work in, and you have picked an advisor who will be (i) supervising your Ph.D. research work and (ii) the chairperson of your thesis committee.
Expectations versus reality
We are now in the “meat” of the program — the part most physics students look forward to: doing front-line research in an area you picked and (hopefully) find fascinating. Because this is a major part of your Ph.D., I devote several chapters to it. I describe this mostly from the point of view of an experimentalist, so some advice is more applicable to experimentalists than to theorists. Still, the generic events and steps tend to be similar.
First, get rid of the notion that research is glamorous, 30-thrills-a-minute work. Nothing could be further from the truth. Much of the time you will be waiting — for an experiment to finish, for data to arrive, or for a simulation to run. You may work graveyard shifts, do physical labor (crawling under equipment, repairs), or sit in front of a monitor at 3 AM tracking down a bug in your code.
I’m telling you this so you don’t start with the wrong set of misconceptions. While research can be exciting and fascinating, most of the time it can feel mundane or even boring. Be prepared for that, and plan accordingly.
Survey the state of knowledge
One of the first things you must do after selecting an area is determine the state of knowledge in that field. You need to know:
- what is currently known,
- what is being actively studied,
- what the “hot” topics are,
- who the big names are and who is doing what.
This will likely require reading many papers and journals. Often you read a paper and then need to follow up on its references — which leads to more papers. That chain can be frustrating, but it is necessary to get up to date. When I began my Ph.D., I spent about 30% of my time during the first three months reading everything I could find on my chosen field.
Why this matters
Knowing the state of knowledge is important for several concrete reasons:
- You do not want to replicate work that has already been done (unless you have a reason to believe there is more to be discovered).
- You need to distinguish what is merely interesting from what is important.
- You should be aware of hot topics and who works on them — hot topics are more likely to receive funding.
Your advisor may propose a specific project, or you may have already agreed on what you’ll do. Even so, keep a broader perspective. If, for example, you study tunneling spectroscopy of superconductors, stay aware of progress in superconductivity more generally. Advances elsewhere in the field often directly impact your work.
Be prepared to spend a lot of time reading and catching up. Don’t be surprised if, especially early on, you spend up to half your time reading journal papers. This effort prepares you for the next step in your research work.
PhD Physics
Accelerator physics, photocathodes, field-enhancement. tunneling spectroscopy, superconductivity
I really cannot disagree with anything said, but I would like to comment on one part in particular.
Zz said, “(ii) you need to know not only what’s interesting, but what is important.”
This is true, but it needs to be taken with a grain of salt, I think. If we pay too much attention to the consensus regarding what it important, then everyone would work on the same problem. Each researcher certainly needs to know why his work is important, but it does not always come from the fact that someone else says so. If we always waited for someone else to endorse out idea, we would never get there first. If a student sees clearly that a question is important, and can truly justify it even if it disagrees with consensus, then I think he should pursue that idea and find out. The worst that can happen is that he learns something nobody cares about, but that is hardly the end of the world. He may very well discover something that lots of people will care about when they find out.