Physics Are you happy being a Physicist?

[twofish-quant]

Yep the success was based mostly on abundant natural resources per capita, low population density and open land with a good temperate climate, most countries that have this and not too terrible political leadership are reasonably well off.

But luck played a huge factor. Right after the Revolutionary War, the US could have easily fragmented the way that South America did. George Washington could have turned out to have had the personality characteristics of Stalin, or he could have had a son, and that would have changed things. Finally, the South could have won the Civil War, in which case the world would be very different.

Connecting this with science. I'm fascinated with the history of the US circa 1860-1890 because those are some of the years in which the US "grew" into a great power, and there are similarities with China today. Something that is important is how the public university system got set up. The Civil War was ultimately a clash between two irreconcilable visions of how to develop the United States. One was based on machines and industry. The second was based on human (i.e. slave) labor and agriculture. The industrial vision won. One of the first things that Congress did once the South seceded was to pass the Homestead Act and the Morrill Land Grant Act. This created land grants which set up things like MIT.

One thing about history is that, people matter. You matter. Something that happened in 2007, was that we were damned lucky, because there were about a dozen things that could have made the situation a lot worse. Even the things that didn't make things worse would have made things very different.

 

[twofish-quant]

Am I happy? Hell no. But that's because of personal life events that have doomed me to be miserable for the rest of my life. I can say that getting a Ph.D. makes me *much less miserable* than I otherwise would be.

Yes but finance is still bad choice for many theoretical physicsists (especially those "paper and pen" ones). For you getting PhD is part of your lifestyle and that's fine but you can't say "PhD in theo physics was great for me so it'll be great for you too" because it's not true.

I'm not saying that. I'm saying that this worked for me, this is why I think it worked for me. You draw your own conclusions. Honestly, for most people going into college, I think it's a big mistake to go into physics.

People are different and there are evolutionary and biological reasons why people are different. You couldn't run an ecosystem in which everyone did function X, so there is some randomness in the system so that not everyone does the same thing.

I find economy very interesting subject but it doesn't change the fact that for many physicists it's boring. For them even being a number crunching code monkey can be boring and the only thing that keeps them doing it is the fun factor - "knowing sth more about particle physics" is a reward for them. Reward that can't be trade-off with money.

Much of theoretical physics involves being a number crunching code monkey. Lattice gauge theory, for example. The other thing is that money affects the "fun factor" a lot. I'm flexible, if someone is willing to pay me money to do something, I'll find a way of making it fun.

There's also reality. If you are in a situation where you can choose your job based on fun, you are in a pretty good situation. You usually can't. In my case, part of the reason I *had* to get my Ph.D. was "family duty." One reason that it was important that I finish up a Ph.D. was because my father couldn't.

There is but it's not linear and totally different for every person. I don't want to be poor but with decent income I wouldn't trade fun factor for more decent income.

Nor would I...

However, the reason making a ton of money is important is so that I can resign and do physics for the rest of my life. I'm definitely going to retire at age 59.5 when my pensions mature. If I'm lucky, then I can quit my job before that so that I can do physics.

You say that US should invest more into science but from what I can see many US scientists aren't productive.

That's the thing about science. You don't know what's going to work or not. It's this stupid obsession with "productivity" that's killing the US economy. If you spend $10 billion on a supercollider, it's not going to generate anything useful for a decade and maybe it never generates anything useful. So if you run your economy based on productivity, then you will decide it's a stupid idea to spend money on anything that doesn't make money now. And you make a ton of money, until the inventions run out.

The other thing about science is that you can fail at 99.9% of the projects, but that one project that works will pay for everything else. Someone (I think it might have been Malcolm Gladwell) points out that almost all of the projects at Xerox PARC research went nowhere, but one invention (the fax machine) paid for the total budget of the research center for several decades.

 

[mayonaise]

Or maybe you weren't prepared or didn't realize that being in HEP involves doing mostly that!

I was replying to the mis-suggestion in the quoted sentence: "Being a physicist is a great privilege. Be worthy of it. Most of humanity spends its life doing boring repetitive tasks." This and many versions of it are frequently thrown about, with the exact consequence of preparing students for romanticized fantasies.

I'm basically fine with HEP being boring as hell, as many other things are boring as hell, but I'm seriously against brainwashing young people with garbage. I'm compelled to tell the contradicting story whenever possible.

 

[StatGuy2000]

But what I'm telling you is that China today is more friendly to risk takers and entrepreneurs than the US, particularly if you don't have a ton of education. Take Mark Zuckerberg. Suppose he didn't go to Harvard? Suppose he was a high school dropout. What's he supposed to do? In China, he could rent out a stall on Huaqiangbei Lu and sell cell phone parts.

There are tons of business opportunities in China, both for people with education and for people without education. These attract the entrepreneurial and risk-takers. There are a lot of internet companies like QQ, Tencent, Sohu, Baidu, etc. etc.

The other thing is that there is a time lag. Facebook exists today because of massive government spending in the 1960's and 1970's.



Again the more you sweat, the less you bleed. I'm worried that people aren't worried.

I think I more or less agree with you about what drives the US economy. The point that I'm making is that the longer the US takes to recover, the more likely it is that the factors that drive US economic growth will disappear. The longer the US economy stays in the doldrums, the more likely it is that it will no longer be a destination for immigration, and the more likely it is that people with entrepreneur spirit will just leave. If the US economy recovers in two years, this won't be a problem.

If it takes >5 years for there to be a recovery, then the US will no longer be an destination for either immigration or entrepreneurs, at which point you are hosed. It's not the end of the world. The US will still be a nice comfortable place to life, but the "American Dream" will no longer be in America.

I don't want to drag this discussion any further off topic, but is it really true that China is more friendly to risk taking and entrepreneurship than the US as of this moment (perhaps the fact that you live in Hong Kong may colour your outlook on this)?

From what I read, and from reports of people I know who traveled to China, much of the economic growth up until recently has been drive by state-owned enterprises (many of whom squeeze out small-scale entrepreneurs) or enterprises which are technically "private" but have significant degree of control and direction from the state or the Communist party (which are more or less synonymous). This includes the many business opportunities you point out that exist in China at the present moment.

Same thing with the Internet companies you highlight such as Baidu. Of course, all of this could change.

Now I do agree that the longer it takes for the US economy to recover, the drivers of economic growth will weaken and this could have a negative impact on both immigration and entrepreneurship.

 

[twofish-quant]

I don't want to drag this discussion any further off topic, but is it really true that China is more friendly to risk taking and entrepreneurship than the US as of this moment (perhaps the fact that you live in Hong Kong may colour your outlook on this)?

Of course, being overseas creates a selection effect.

Also Hong Kong does color my outlook a lot, because PRC is learning a lot from Hong Kong. In Hong Kong, the real power is held by a very small number of families that live on the Peak, and for that most part the politicians are just there for entertainment. Hong Kong has very strong free speech, but a lot of that is because holding a demonstration just let's people vent anger without really changing the system.

From what I read, and from reports of people I know who traveled to China, much of the economic growth up until recently has been drive by state-owned enterprises (many of whom squeeze out small-scale entrepreneurs) or enterprises which are technically "private" but have significant degree of control and direction from the state or the Communist party (which are more or less synonymous). This includes the many business opportunities you point out that exist in China at the present moment.

OK. Government pumps massive amounts of money into state-owned enterprises and infrastructure projects, but what happens is that money "trickles down" to small scale private enterprises. For example, government orders that a high speed railway is built, and puts massive amounts of money into that. OK you just have a bunch of construction workers that are hungry. At that point, you have people setting up food carts and cheap restaurants. Once the construction workers go home, you have lots of service industries.

If you want start a high technology business, you *will* have to make some sort of deal with the government. You find some son or daughter of some connected official and put them on your board or give them some job doing whatever. But once you make the deal, then at that point the system is interested in having your business succeed, because if you don't make money, the son or daughter of the connected official doesn't make money.

The other thing is that what ends up happening turns out to be rational. Your business has some connected employees, but every other business does too, so who wins turns out to be because of business reasons. The other thing is that there is a "market" for princelings. You will need a princeling in your company, but it turns out that some princelings actually have good skills, so if it's a choice between hiring an idiot princeling and one with brains, you hire the one with brains. Curiously, US universities play a part in this. If you have a choice between hiring a princeling with a Harvard MBA, and one without. You hire the one with the MBA since it means that Harvard has "certified" that they person isn't an idiot.

And the money is there.

It's very odd. The state-owned enterprises don't squeeze out small-scale entrepreneurs. They squeeze out large-scale entrepreneurs. Ironically, by squeezing out large-scale entrepreneurs, they make life easier for small-scale entrepreneurs.

Same thing with the Internet companies you highlight such as Baidu. Of course, all of this could change.

In China, the Communist Party runs everything. However, the Communist Party has figured out that without entrepreneurs, they are going to end up like the CPSU. So as long as you don't challenge the party and "pay your taxes" (both official and unofficial), they want your business to succeed. It's actually funny to hear about a "corruption negotiation" because it really is a negotiation. There are lots of corrupt officials in China, but the corruption is "pro-business" because if they demand too much, and your business goes under, they get nothing.

Also, I think that the system is pretty stable. I can imagine a situation in which the Communist Party gets "overthrown" but what will eventually happen is that people just change their name cards from "Communist Party" to "New Democratic Communists-are-evil Party" and things will go on as before.

This matters for science and high technology, because the system is moving past dim-sum carts and into solar panels. What depresses me is stuff like the Solyndra situation. The DOE had a grant program for renewable energy, but it got killed because of allegations of corruption. In China, you have payoffs and "corruption" that is 1000x times worse than anything in the US, but in the end solar panel factories get built, and China is starting to corner the market there. Same for high speed railroads. Yes it might be a bad thing that large amounts of construction funds go into official pockets, but in the end the railroad got built.

 

[GNRtau]

My lame token contribution to this thread. The graduate student I work with on research is Chinese, and he plans on going back to China as soon as the Phd/postdoc is done. From what I've HEARD and observed, this desire is a recent phenomenon(20 years ago, graduate students wished to stay in America). Take it as you will.

 

[GNRtau]

What I really want to ask is this.


I'm a current undergrad who has just finished up his freshman year. I'm seriously considering switching to physics from EE. This is more due to personal happiness(I've been depressed a lot lately, and having some thoughts I'd rather not have, so this is important) and fit reasons than academic reasons, though there are some of those too. I find the physics department friendlier, and a more pleasant place. Is that stupid? I'm not going to lie, parental expectations and the economy play a role in this(though I guess BS physics + MSEE is an option). One worry of mine is that I'm "jumping the ship at the end of the storm". If I were to stay in EE, I could focus myself more on my core(quantum electronics/nanotech/solid state) in the upcoming semesters. The worst is over-the weeders and the digital/computing courses that I'm being forced to take(YUCK)-and there are some cool courses coming up(I'd like to still take them even I go physics, might not get to, but that's a separate rant).

I don't want to commit myself to a Phd in physics(or materials science, or whatever) just yet,so I want to make sure there are options(non fast food ones) with a BS in physics. Maybe I could teach abroad, I dunno...

Another weird thing is that I'm interested in a Phd in physics(this is assuming I could even get into a good grad school, which is a stretch at the moment), but not in academia in the least. Is that normal?

My own personal guess to this question of happiness is that happiness and fulfillment are different things, I dunno...

 

[Andy Resnick]

<snip>
For me, the "non-boring, non-repetitive" rosy image of physics has long since burned.

<snip>But I don't wake up looking forward to doing it. I don't even wake up dreaming to go to the lab. You did, you enjoyed it, so you succeeded and became a professor, right? <snip>.

I can't speak to your personal experiences, but I've spent plenty of time doing repetitive tasks that seem disconnected with anything 'interesting' or 'enjoyable'. That's often called 'paying your dues', and *every* professional in *any* career- lawyer, musician, writer...- has plenty of those stories. Being able to get through those days distinguishes someone who is successful from someone who quits. There isn't any secret or shortcut to success: just keep getting up after you've been knocked down.

 

[Rika]

Am I happy? Hell no. But that's because of personal life events that have doomed me to be miserable for the rest of my life. I can say that getting a Ph.D. makes me *much less miserable* than I otherwise would be.

I believe that there are no personal life events that make you dommed to be miserable. I think that being happy or not depends on the state of your mind.

People are different and there are evolutionary and biological reasons why people are different. You couldn't run an ecosystem in which everyone did function X, so there is some randomness in the system so that not everyone does the same thing.

And it's good.

That's the thing about science. You don't know what's going to work or not. It's this stupid obsession with "productivity" that's killing the US economy. If you spend $10 billion on a supercollider, it's not going to generate anything useful for a decade and maybe it never generates anything useful. So if you run your economy based on productivity, then you will decide it's a stupid idea to spend money on anything that doesn't make money now. And you make a ton of money, until the inventions run out.

You don't understand me. I know how the science works and I'm ok with that. However I'm not ok with scientists publishing crap or doing totally useless research with public money.

Before "publish or perish" era world class scientist had very few published papers but those papers were very important. Now you have 200-300 papers per scientist which are totally useless. I mean you publish one paper that says: "with x=1 and y=2 you get z=3" and then you publish another identical(!) paper that says: "with x=1.1 and y=2.1 you get z=3". I mean what the hell? If you don't find out sth very important you shouldn't publish a paper about it. If it's helpful for other scientists who do the same experiment you just can post you results on a website.

I'm ok if supercollider won't show us anything important because it happenes. And because while building and running supercollider you make so many useful discoveries along the way that it really doesn't matter.

 

[dipole]

Whoa, this thread has grown quite a bit over my head in some places, but I'm glad people are enjoying the discussion!

This thread has meander quite a bit, and it needs to come back to the OP or it will be closed.

Coming back to the original question, my answer is YES, I am extremely happy being a physicist. I look forward to going to work almost every single morning, and practically every single day challenges my creativity, not just in terms of physics, but also in terms of dealing with people and bureaucracies (I'm in charge of safety issues for our facility).

Would I recommend it as a career? ABSOLUTELY, but with a major caveat that you go into pursuing it with eyes wide open and not be seduced with the "sexiness" of the field. This is very important because if you go into it with some lofty ideals, you will set yourself up for disappointment because you did not prepare yourself for the possibility that you might not make it as a physicist, either due to academics, or due to lack of jobs in a particular field.

BTW, isn't it implicitly a criteria that a person responding to this topic should be a practicing physicist? Otherwise, one is simply responding based on ignorance or some superficial idea of what a physicist should think.

Zz.

Thanks for the reply. Do you feel though that you've had to give up on other things in life in order to pursue your career? Has it taken away from your ability to spend time with your family and pursue other interests?

I can't seem to get past this feeling that having a career in physics means you have to be completely dedicated to it and willing to put your work above everything else. I personally am not willing to choose a career that demands so much of me, which is why I'm feeling so hesitant. Have you had to make a lot of sacrifices to be successful? Though perhaps to you they aren't sacrifices if you love your job.

 

[twofish-quant]

Now you have 200-300 papers per scientist which are totally useless. I mean you publish one paper that says: "with x=1 and y=2 you get z=3" and then you publish another identical(!) paper that says: "with x=1.1 and y=2.1 you get z=3". I mean what the hell?

In the case of theoretical astrophysics, "me too" papers are extremely important. All computer programs have bugs, and having another team try to replicate your results with a different code base is pretty essential to figuring out what is going on. What happens invariably when you run two (or more) different simulations is that the results don't match completely and part of the point of doing independent runs is to figure out which results are "robust" and which ones are sensitive to the simulation.

If you don't find out sth very important you shouldn't publish a paper about it.

Except that you don't know if it's important or not. The other thing is that most of astronomy are "I pointed my telescope at object X and I saw Y."

One problem with "publish only if you find something important" is publication bias. For example (and this is a real example), you do a statistical test to either look for a particle or see if a drug cures cancer. You run into major, major problems if only "important" results get published. Because the one lucky (or unlucky) experimenter that cures cancer by some statistical fluke publishes where as the 999 people that "find nothing" don't.

Another problem is that if you publish 70% of the submissions, then the editorial boards really don't have that much power that they can abuse. If you publish 1% of the submissions then then editorial boards become super-powerful and then can just kill any line of research that they are ideologically opposed to. This is a big problem with economics, management, and finance journals.

Then there is the "dumb luck factor." You just can't decide where nature is weird. The people that showed that the universe was accelerating did really solid work, but it would not have been a spectacular result if it turned out that the universe was working the way everyone thought it would.

If it's helpful for other scientists who do the same experiment you just can post you results on a website.

You mean like

http://adswww.harvard.edu/ and http://arxiv.org/

Astrophysics publication went online about a decade ago.

I'm ok if supercollider won't show us anything important because it happenes.

One thing about LHC and the supercollider is that they are *going* so show us something important. If LHC does a search of energies between 100 and 200 GeV and finds no Higgs boson, that's extremely important information.

Similarly, if LIGO doesn't find any gravity waves that's an extremely important result.