How Can We Reconnect with Nature as Scientists?

[pergradus]

The job of a physicist is to study nature, but how many actually get out and experience nature?

It seems that the more professional someone becomes, the less interested they are in actually enjoying the things they study - it all becomes about data and graphs and lab work.

How many astrophysicists or astronomers actually go out at night and look up at the night sky, or through a telescope with their eye god forbid?

How many biochemists take the time to walk in a wild field and breath in the life around them? I do enjoy learning about physics and I'd like to make a career of it one day, but at the same time I really don't like the idea of always being couped up in a lab or chained to a computer chair. I'd like to live in the mountains one day when I'm older and fish and hunt, and chop wood and read infront of a fireplace through the long winter and live a simple life...

Maybe I'm just feeling this way because it's the start of spring, but as much as I am fascinated and find studying nature inspirational, I am somewhat horrified by the way in which it is done and the sacrifices one has to make to pursue it. Any other people feel this way?

 

[Jack21222]

How many astrophysicists or astronomers actually go out at night and look up at the night sky, or through a telescope with their eye god forbid?

I'd guess most of them. The ones at my university do.

 

[matt.o]

How many astrophysicists or astronomers actually go out at night and look up at the night sky, or through a telescope with their eye god forbid?

I do.

 

[Danger]

I was quite surprised about 30 years ago to discover that the overwhelmingly most popular recreational activity for particle physicists was rock-climbing and/or back-pack hiking. I don't know whether or not that still applies.

 

[cobalt124]

Judging by some of the avatars here, that would still seem to be the case.

 

[PhDorBust]

How many biochemists take the time to walk in a wild field and breath in the life around them? I do enjoy learning about physics and I'd like to make a career of it one day, but at the same time I really don't like the idea of always being couped up in a lab or chained to a computer chair. I'd like to live in the mountains one day when I'm older and fish and hunt, and chop wood and read infront of a fireplace through the long winter and live a simple life...

My feelings precisely. Moreover, that's exactly what I'm doing next Summer before I start grad school. Going to drive to the middle of nowhere and set up camp...

 

[Gokul43201]

I was quite surprised about 30 years ago to discover that the overwhelmingly most popular recreational activity for particle physicists was rock-climbing and/or back-pack hiking. I don't know whether or not that still applies.

It's not surprising if you think about it. A lot of particle physicists spend several weeks a year at CERN, with the [STRIKE]Swiss[/STRIKE]French Alps in their backyard. Going back a few decades before that, a significant fraction of the community included Cosmic Ray physicists. And if you wanted good fluxes, you had to work at high elevations. With that kind of work setting, you can't help but take up climbing, hiking and/or backpacking.

 

[rootX]

Maybe I'm just feeling this way because it's the start of spring, but as much as I am fascinated and find studying nature inspirational, I am somewhat horrified by the way in which it is done and the sacrifices one has to make to pursue it. Any other people feel this way?

It's hard work, rest is just Hollywood.

 

[nismaratwork]

The job of a physicist is to study nature, but how many actually get out and experience nature?

It seems that the more professional someone becomes, the less interested they are in actually enjoying the things they study - it all becomes about data and graphs and lab work.

How many astrophysicists or astronomers actually go out at night and look up at the night sky, or through a telescope with their eye god forbid?

How many biochemists take the time to walk in a wild field and breath in the life around them? I do enjoy learning about physics and I'd like to make a career of it one day, but at the same time I really don't like the idea of always being couped up in a lab or chained to a computer chair. I'd like to live in the mountains one day when I'm older and fish and hunt, and chop wood and read infront of a fireplace through the long winter and live a simple life...

Maybe I'm just feeling this way because it's the start of spring, but as much as I am fascinated and find studying nature inspirational, I am somewhat horrified by the way in which it is done and the sacrifices one has to make to pursue it. Any other people feel this way?

You need to learn to compartmentalize these things... love of nature and exploring it as a hobby, and exploring the fundamentals in through the scientific method is very different, but you can do both.