Recent content by JPBenowitz

  1. J

    Uncertain about which road I should go down in physics

    I sincerely hope nobody would make a life decision solely based off of my comment. In the U.S. about 3,000 Bachelor's of Physics are awarded. In Fall 2015, 2.65 million jobs were created. The number of Physicists grows linearly where the number of jobs grows exponentially. With that being said...
  2. J

    Uncertain about which road I should go down in physics

    With a B.S. in Physics, you are almost guaranteed an Analyst position on Wall Street. Starting salaries range from 75-90K with a 15-20K signing bonus. When I'm done doing my Post-Bac I plan on going to Wall Street for a year (maybe two) before applying to Ph.D. programs. I think it will be a...
  3. J

    Undergraduate Senior Physics Research Topic (Theory)

    Take a look at Molecular Dynamics Simulation research. It's a relatively new and exponentially growing field. If you are interested and have access to a linux machine you can start setting up simulations and writing scripts to analyze the data rather quickly.
  4. J

    Schools Why is The University of Oregon too bad at ranking

    You're doing it wrong. Applying to graduate programs on the basis of who went to which school with which ranking is the fastest way to finding yourself in the wrong program. Why are you not looking into graduate programs with research groups that align with your interests? Finding a group of...
  5. J

    Need help for REU personal statement

    Hi HaLAA, I am a firm believer that if you can effectively communicate your curiosity and passion in your personal statement, you will be accepted into an REU program. The first time I applied for an REU I made several mistakes and as a consequence, I was not accepted. My first mistake was I...
  6. J

    What kind of Research Projects can an Undergraduate do?

    Most of the professors are only wanting to hire seniors and grad students because they pay them to do research with their grant money. If you want experience you need to offer to just come in the lab and participate without being paid. The first lab I've ever worked at was the Atmospheric LIDAR...
  7. J

    Entering the PhD Arena: from NSF Fellowship to Thesis

    I've known for some time now that research is my passion. However, choosing a particular field to obtain a PhD in is a daunting task. This thread will go over in some detail my strategy for entering a PhD program on my terms, which as expected will be critiqued by this forum. 1. Background...
  8. J

    Inequality - Maybe not so bad?

    The economy grows exponentially and those that fuel this growth are the ones that reap most of its benefits. Income distribution follows a power-law, one of the most ubiquitous patterns in nature.
  9. J

    Is wave function a real physical thing?

    If the wave function is a physical object, then is Hilbert Space a physical space? In other words if the wave function is a physical object then would this necessitate that quantum spacetime is an infinite dimensional complex vector space?
  10. J

    Is wave function a real physical thing?

    What if we use a scale-free network to describe a discrete quantum space time? Inertial frames would be indistinguishable by the scale-invariance imposed by a particular renormalization group. Of course I have no idea how you would experimentally verify this but it has been proposed.
  11. J

    Is wave function a real physical thing?

    I don't understand how one reconciles a "real" wave function with its instantaneous collapse. To me this is an obvious violation of causality.
  12. J

    Confusion over quantum mechanics operators

    Yes, the eigenvalue of the momentum operator is the momentum and 1/sqrt(2)*e^(ikx) is the eigenfunction of the momentum operator, i.e. it is a solution to the differential equation you get from the momentum operator.
  13. J

    Confusion over quantum mechanics operators

    The answer to your question lies in the fundamental postulates of quantum mechanics. The first of which states that for every physical observable there exists a linear hermitian operator. If there does not exist a linear hermitian operator for some physical observable then this observable cannot...
  14. J

    Psi Epistemicism & the Reality of Particles & Atoms

    The wave function is a mathematical "object" in an infinite dimensional Hilbert Space, yet our description of spacetime is a real vector space, specifically minkowski spacetime. The wave function being a physical object is incompatible with a minkowski background since this would require an...
  15. J

    Incompleteness of Bell's Theorems

    The problem is the notion of what is considered "nearby" to the quantum object. The measure we use is a minkowski metric, which assumes that quantum spacetime is described by the same metric. I appreciate where Bell's tests have taken us insofar as we are capable of entangling particles that...
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