Can you be a paid full-time researcher outside academia?

[Nyxie]

Thread title says sums up my question. I'd like to know if there are many paying jobs that focus almost exclusively if not entirely on research. I'm interested in theoretical research jobs in math or physics other than being a professor.
I don't want to teach, and it has become very hard to land a place in academia these days, or so I hear.
Yet I want to do mainly/only theoretical research without being cut off from fellow scientists (when I become a full-fledged scientist) much more than I fear grading papers, preparing tests and delivering lectures all the time. I suppose you could work at CERN or something but even there many people are from universities. I don't know. All I know is what I've always wanted to do.

I mean I could be a janitor like Good Will Hunting and do maths/physics in spare time but come on, isolation isn't conducive to good research. Einstein did it at the patent office, but I'm not Einstein.

I just wanted to know if there are alternatives to academia in pure math or theoretical physics. I can handle a good deal of applied work; I actually think it's important, but I mostly want to do more fundamental stuff (if it turns out that I'm capable). God I do not like the sound of working in industry.
Are there any such jobs? From this, it doesn't look like it: http://www.aps.org/careers/educator/bestpractices/index.cfm

 

[eri]

You'd be looking for a job at a national lab or at some place like NASA. While they don't employ as many scientists as colleges, and they aren't as big on theory, it's still an option.

 

[hadsed]

There are a few things that I've found in industry that have sparked my interest. The big thing I think for physicists would be solid state devices in the whole nanotech industry. Also semiconductor industry always does pretty well and hires lots of research engineers. The stuff you do would probably be the same as what a guy with a Ph.D in EE would do I'd guess. The big thing I think is computational physics and software. Finance and oil industry are places where you do a lot of numerical modeling. Going into defense is always an option as well, and you might not have to be stuck making nuclear weapons, but I'm not sure of the specifics in defense. Getting to the more software side of things, there is always a need for people who know how to use computers, and this doesn't necessarily mean you have to work as an IT specialist or something. Recently, on this forum, I came across a guy, elementk, who works in R&D for an IT company doing cryptography and network security and other things like that. Of course there are also government agencies who need people that are good at that, but they probably would rather hire a CS student straight out of college (read: NSA, CIA, etc.). Then of course you have your run-of-the-mill software company, and those aren't that interesting but it's a safe job and it'll probably be there for a very long time.

Anyway, these are the things I've heard and read about, but of course I'm not an expert on any of these so take it with a grain of salt.

 

[Mute]

I just wanted to know if there are alternatives to academia in pure math or theoretical physics. I can handle a good deal of applied work; I actually think it's important, but I mostly want to do more fundamental stuff (if it turns out that I'm capable). God I do not like the sound of working in industry.
Are there any such jobs?

What do you consider to be "fundamental"? I doubt you'll find a job outside of academia doing string theory, for instance. For such a thing you would probably be aiming for a job at a research institute, like the institute for advanced study. Of course, such a position is probably harder to get than a tenure-track position at a regular university.

 

[Nyxie]

eri - A national lab sounds awesome! I would die to work with CERN but that sounds like a high hope. I'm not sure what NASA does but I don't want to engineer space probes or categorize stars. Do you have any details on what the jobs are like?

hadsed - I'm taking a course called "Nanophysics" in Fall and read somewhere that the Casimir effect forms a link between that, number theory, and particle physics. I like algebra and high-energy phys so that sounds like it could be great, except if it were too engineering-y. National defense could be pretty sweet too though :) Hugh Everett III did that; it wasn't his first choice or mine but I'm trying to be realistic about my possibilities.

Mute - "What do you consider fundamental?" is a good question; I'm not sure how to nail that one down. All I can say is, I'm not interested in string theory and I suspect I wouldn't want to do something like loop quantum gravity or twistors or anything so, should I say, "hypothetical"? I'm more interested in *interpreting* experimental results and keeping the theory firmly grounded in what is known.

 

[twofish-quant]

Thread title says sums up my question. I'd like to know if there are many paying jobs that focus almost exclusively if not entirely on research.

My job in finance is applied research

Also one thing that you should do is to get some sort of internship doing some research first. A lot of people end up not likely scientific research once they find out what it really involves.

Einstein did it at the patent office, but I'm not Einstein.

One thing that I find interesting about Einstein is that because his job was a government job, he got into the office, worked for eight hours, and then spent the rest of his time thinking about physics. The problem with most jobs today is that they take up all of your time.