How much money can you make in physics?

[tylerfarzam]

I am currently trying to decide between going into artificial intelligence and being a researcher in theoretical particle physics. I think I could make a lot of money in ai but the second option seems far more interesting and fulfilling. So my question is; is there potential to make around 500k a year as a researcher in theoretical particle physics, and if so, what level of degree would I need, about how many years will I have to be in the work force to land a job like this, and are the odds very low of this happening or is it not too uncommon?

 

[russ_watters]

So my question is; is there potential to make around 500k a year as a researcher in theoretical particle physics...

It's essentially impossible. About the only way is if the physics is just an enabler of something else, like an invention or fame or a high end management job.

 

[Vanadium 50]

500K? In US dollars? You realize this is nine times the average US family income?

 

[Orodruin]

Also, becoming a researcher in particle physics really is not something you can decide on your own. You will have to pass through several selection processes and every time you might end up without a job because competition is fierce. If salary means so much to you, particle physics is not for you.

 

[mfb]

Only 3% of US households (not individuals!) have a yearly income over $250,000, the fraction over $500,000 will be significantly smaller but the statistics don't split that up.
Jobs in theoretical particle physics are paid by the government in one way or another, they don't get anywhere close to that. Even the US president gets "just" $400,000.
The vast majority of jobs in every other field (including AI) is way below $500,000 as well.

 

[haushofer]

I am currently trying to decide between going into artificial intelligence and being a researcher in theoretical particle physics. I think I could make a lot of money in ai but the second option seems far more interesting and fulfilling. So my question is; is there potential to make around 500k a year as a researcher in theoretical particle physics, and if so, what level of degree would I need, about how many years will I have to be in the work force to land a job like this, and are the odds very low of this happening or is it not too uncommon?

500K? :D I don't know about American standards, but I think professors like my supervisor, a renowned theoretical physicist in Holland, maybe hit the 100K gross (euros) at the end of their carreer.

But I guess your statement

the second option seems far more interesting and fulfilling

should be the important one. In both cases, you'll make a way to sustain yourself and a family. So choose wisely.

 

[jtbell]

If you can leverage your (or someone else's ) research in AI to build a successful startup company, you might end up with a net worth of several million dollars. But that requires a lot of luck and good business skills. Look at the overall success rate for startups.

 

[Choppy]

I suspect the question is stemming largely from this thread:
https://www.physicsforums.com/threads/ai-or-theoretical-physics.961731/
where @MarneMath mentioned former particle physicists who make $500k+.

As others have suggested, a $500k + salary is very rare, and from a career-planning point of view it certainly should not be something you count on if your pursue a PhD in physics.

 

[tylerfarzam]

I suspect the question is stemming largely from this thread:
https://www.physicsforums.com/threads/ai-or-theoretical-physics.961731/
where @MarneMath mentioned former particle physicists who make $500k+.

As others have suggested, a $500k + salary is very rare, and from a career-planning point of view it certainly should not be something you count on if your pursue a PhD in physics.

ya you are exactly right. I thought researchers make around 100k which is still good but @MarneMath said people make more so I was confused. I am just not familiar with how hard it would be to get a job like that, and how much luck it might take.

 

[Orodruin]

ya you are exactly right. I thought researchers make around 100k which is still good but @MarneMath said people make more so I was confused. I am just not familiar with how hard it would be to get a job like that, and how much luck it might take.

It is hard enough to get a permanent job in academia. Getting one that is paid at that level is a fantasy for most. It is like planning to become a well paid sports star or artist.

 

[jtbell]

I suspect the question is stemming largely from this thread:
https://www.physicsforums.com/threads/ai-or-theoretical-physics.961731/
where @MarneMath mentioned former particle physicists who make $500k+.

Note his comment:

We also get about a few thousand applicants for our few job openings per year.

This makes the odds even lower than in academic research, which might have what, on the order of a hundred applicants per position?

 

[MarneMath]

Yea, we typically hire fresh PhD at the 250k range, to get to 500k, you have to have lasted for quite a few years. Most PhD on our staff last typically 2-3 years before they are stolen (thus the high pay) or burnt out. Also, we're based out of NYC so cost of living is a bit higher than the rest of the nation. Nevertheless, I think it's reasonable for a former PhD to be able to reinvent themselves into a role from 125k-250k range. I think most people would agree that's more than sufficient salary for most people.

 

[mfb]

This makes the odds even lower than in academic research, which might have what, on the order of a hundred applicants per position?

Total number of applicants is rarely a useful number for well-paid jobs. You have so many applicants who know they don't have a chance anyway.

 

[rkr]

My advice is always to (1) be good at your craft, (2) set constraints, don't just make global maxima decisions.

Regarding (1), take your claim about AI for example. I was at the most recent ICML and EMNLP, and my Fermi estimate's that we had about 250 attendees for every 1 company recruitment booth. To put that ratio in perspective, Google's AI team has a headcount of about 150, and that's probably one of the largest groups. AI is commoditized, and it will be even more so by the time you're at the peak paying stage of your career. Also take into consideration that 5 tech firms have propped up the market for the last 8 years, and that has slowed down rapidly this year. The job market is incredibly efficient, and it doesn't make sense for there to be a systematic salary bias in favor of AI jobs forever, especially considering the barrier to entry is very low.

I run a hedge fund and have come across a wide cross-section of wealthy persons as a side effect of my work. (By construction, we are only allowed to accept investors that are 'QPs', which is about a small group of about 30,000 entities in the U.S.) I've come across people making >10^6/year writing books; doing standup comedy; marketing FX derivatives; selling underwear; doing biology or math research; doing runway modeling; selling maple syrup; being employee n<5 at FB/GOOG/AAPL; taking photographs, and so on. The one thing in common is that they're all amazing at their craft.

(2) is really just a corollary of (1). You can't be amazing at your craft if it's overly broad. Being #1 and biology research or #1 in AI is incredibly difficult. Feng Zhang will probably net a Nobel Prize and amass a $10^8-10^9 net worth in the next decade, and he didn't get there by being #1 in biology research, or even #1 in genome engineering, or even #1 in utilizing the CRISPR system. A constrained optimization is a lot easier.

@MarneMath's numbers are not as uncommon as it sounds. I'm in the high-frequency space and our numbers are actually slightly higher across the board because of the scalability. I won't speak exactly about our firm, but one of my employees has a physics PhD and netted a $37M bonus in 1 year from generating over $400M for his last firm in a year (his team of 3 was behind 1/10 out of every dollar traded in every single one of the European stock markets), and he was there for 8 years.

 

[Dr. Courtney]

I recommend you learn to be content with a much smaller income.

 

[Ophiolite]

I recommend you learn to be content with a much smaller income.

And a corollorary of that is to focus, as others have suggested, on what you enjoy. Then, surprise, surprise, because you enjoy it you are, or become, very good at it, thereby maximising the possible income for that role: the best of both worlds.

 

[Dr. Courtney]

And a corollorary of that is to focus, as others have suggested, on what you enjoy. Then, surprise, surprise, because you enjoy it you are, or become, very good at it, thereby maximising the possible income for that role: the best of both worlds.

I agree, but only to a point. On the path of earning a living, there are bound to be a few things that one does not enjoy. The path to a good income nearly always involves some heard work and sweat of the brow. Too much emphasis on paths of less resistance tend to just push the less enjoyable and harder stuff off until later.

 

[Ophiolite]

I agree, but only to a point. On the path of earning a living, there are bound to be a few things that one does not enjoy. The path to a good income nearly always involves some heard work and sweat of the brow. Too much emphasis on paths of less resistance tend to just push the less enjoyable and harder stuff off until later.

We are probably in closer agreement than my earlier post may suggest. From my perspective "hard work and sweat of brow" can be part of the fun and are certainly part of the satisfaction. In my last job I estimate that about 20%-30% of my time was spent in boring paperwork and necessary company politics, but that was the price required to get "access" to the fun part. My salary compensated me for that 20%-30% - the rest I did for free. I imagine - but have only anecdotal evidence to support the view - that most people who enjoy their work have a similar perspective.

 

[Dr. Courtney]

We are probably in closer agreement than my earlier post may suggest. From my perspective "hard work and sweat of brow" can be part of the fun and are certainly part of the satisfaction. In my last job I estimate that about 20%-30% of my time was spent in boring paperwork and necessary company politics, but that was the price required to get "access" to the fun part. My salary compensated me for that 20%-30% - the rest I did for free. I imagine - but have only anecdotal evidence to support the view - that most people who enjoy their work have a similar perspective.

I think so, but until they've actually earned a real living for several years, most teens and college students don't get it. The idea of spending 40 hours a week at a real job when 8-12 hours of that is particularly unenjoyable is not on their minds. They tend to focus on the part of stuff they don't like and have not yet matured to work 40 real hours a week, particularly if it includes 8-12 hours of stuff like boring paperwork and stupid company politics.

 

[russ_watters]

In my last job I estimate that about 20%-30% of my time was spent in boring paperwork and necessary company politics, but that was the price required to get "access" to the fun part. My salary compensated me for that 20%-30% - the rest I did for free. I imagine - but have only anecdotal evidence to support the view - that most people who enjoy their work have a similar perspective.

I think so, but until they've actually earned a real living for several years, most teens and college students don't get it. The idea of spending 40 hours a week at a real job when 8-12 hours of that is particularly unenjoyable is not on their minds. They tend to focus on the part of stuff they don't like and have not yet matured to work 40 real hours a week, particularly if it includes 8-12 hours of stuff like boring paperwork and stupid company politics.

That's great for you guys, but it is probably worth pointing out that for most of the people on the planet, that isn't the case. For most people, work is little more than a way to make money to live on. Kids who have had summer jobs flipping burgers probably do recognize that at least they are looking for a job that sucks less and pays more.

The enjoyment factor is what causes physics (and other jobs) to be highly competitive and relatively low pay compared with the qualifications. And the other side of the coin is why @MarneMath 's company will pay you $500k to crush your spirit until you quit.

Pay = suckiness * demand / supply

 

[CrysPhys]

@MarneMath's numbers are not as uncommon as it sounds. I'm in the high-frequency space and our numbers are actually slightly higher across the board because of the scalability. I won't speak exactly about our firm, but one of my employees has a physics PhD and netted a $37M bonus in 1 year from generating over $400M for his last firm in a year (his team of 3 was behind 1/10 out of every dollar traded in every single one of the European stock markets), and he was there for 8 years.

<<Emphasis added.>> You and MarneMath apparently work in a highly lucrative niche of the financial sector. So, although the stratospheric salaries you two cite "may not be uncommon" for your niche, we should make it clear for prospective PhD students that such salaries are rare for the overall population of physics PhDs.

 

[rkr]

<<Emphasis added.>> You and MarneMath apparently work in a highly lucrative niche of the financial sector. So, although the stratospheric salaries you two cite "may not be uncommon" for your niche, we should make it clear for prospective PhD students that such salaries are rare for the overall population of physics PhDs.

Absolutely. For starters, our hiring rate for the research job has been about 1 out of 3,700. The largest firm in our space has barely over 1,000 employees, of which really about 100 of them really matter for the core research. I estimate there's less than 10,000 jobs of my kind in the entire industry, probably much fewer if you focus exclusively on the high-frequency space. Said firm above has a team of maybe about 15-30 involved in HFT. It depends on the firm you're with, but some firms do have a fairly high turnover rate (average tenure of 1 year for new employees); some almost exclusively hire from 4 colleges (partly because of their founders' lineage), and have fairly long hours. I might say the only "soul-crushing" part is that you don't get to interact with many people.

On the positive end, I won't be specific about what we're looking for but I can safely say that physics PhDs enjoy an order of magnitude improvement in their chances of passing the resume screen than the average applicant. I can also say that almost every physics PhD is qualified for the work, it's more of a matter of cultural fit and competitiveness of the applicant pool that's the restriction. You can't say that of most applicants from CS, finance programs or business schools, where the average applicant tends to be rejected because they're underqualified. There's less politics than I had experienced in academic research and the production cycle and feedback loop for testing your ideas is much faster. I've also never heard of anyone complaining about the hours in the mid to top tier firms. I think that my work is incredibly rewarding on an intellectual front for either a generalist (like myself) or anyone keen on applied math. The cross-section of research I've had to go through has included compressive sensing, probabilistic graphical models, conditional random fields, multi-resolution wavelet decomposition, deep NNs, nonlinear PDEs, stochastic control, RMT, learning on graphs, robust optimization, multivariate survival analysis, optimal stopping, Markov processes, queueing theory. Most of the people I've worked with are brighter than myself.

 

[mathwonk]

I suspect the only scientists who make that kind of money are those who use their scientific degree to prove their smarts to enter other fields, e.g. in high tech or finance. I never made 100K my whole 30 year career as a (reasonably successful) research mathematician. For this reason several of my friends among more recent math students have chosen to enter other careers. They have nicer cars, and they seem happy as well, but I know more fields medalists than they do.

botom line: a PhD in physics or algebraic geometry may persuade some people that you are bright enough to command a high salary in another field. but you are advised to choose one you enjoy.

my advice: if you want to make money and have the talent and ability, do not waste time and energy earning a phd in science - go right to what you aspire to. a phd program in science is really difficult and time consuming.

 

[StatGuy2000]

I think that my work is incredibly rewarding on an intellectual front for either a generalist (like myself) or anyone keen on applied math. The cross-section of research I've had to go through has included compressive sensing, probabilistic graphical models, conditional random fields, multi-resolution wavelet decomposition, deep NNs, nonlinear PDEs, stochastic control, RMT, learning on graphs, robust optimization, multivariate survival analysis, optimal stopping, Markov processes, queueing theory. Most of the people I've worked with are brighter than myself.

It's interesting to note that many of the areas you've listed in the research at your firm is tied one way or another to research in statistics -- multivariate survival analysis, probabilistic graphical models, and Markov processes being areas I'm familiar with. Just out of interest, do any of your colleagues in your firm have a background in statistics?

 

[rkr]

It's interesting to note that many of the areas you've listed in the research at your firm is tied one way or another to research in statistics -- multivariate survival analysis, probabilistic graphical models, and Markov processes being areas I'm familiar with. Just out of interest, do any of your colleagues in your firm have a background in statistics?

Only two of us. The rest of us were in different disciplines: algebraic geometry, string theory, ergodic theory, homotopical algebra, experimental high energy, bioinformatics etc.

 

[russ_watters]

<<Emphasis added.>> You and MarneMath apparently work in a highly lucrative niche of the financial sector. So, although the stratospheric salaries you two cite "may not be uncommon" for your niche, we should make it clear for prospective PhD students that such salaries are rare for the overall population of physics PhDs.

Also, while they employ physicists they are not physics [research] jobs, which is what the OP was asking about.

 

[PAllen]

Entropy places a limit on the efficiency of making money.

 

[MidgetDwarf]

Become a plastic surgeon. Then end.

 

[Dr. Courtney]

How do you make a million dollars in physics?

Spoiler: Punch line

Start with 10 million.

 

[haushofer]

How do you make a million dollars in physics?

Spoiler: Punch line

Start with 10 million.

Yes. It's similar to the jokes writers tell each other: to become a millionaire as a writer, you have to start out as a billionaire. :P

 

[Dr. Courtney]

Yes. It's similar to the jokes writers tell each other: to become a millionaire as a writer, you have to start out as a billionaire. :P

Don't get me wrong, Physics is a path to a solid upper-middle class income and can definitely pay the bills. But like most career choices, focussing on the money and hoping to get rich is likely a path to frustration. My advice is to be content with more moderate income and do science for the love rather than the money.

https://www.physicsforums.com/insights/science-love-money/

When you stop to think about it, by historical standards, or even by worldwide standards, an upper-middle class income in 21st century America is greater wealth than most people in human history have enjoyed.

 

[pinball1970]

I am currently trying to decide between going into artificial intelligence and being a researcher in theoretical particle physics. I think I could make a lot of money in ai but the second option seems far more interesting and fulfilling. So my question is; is there potential to make around 500k a year as a researcher in theoretical particle physics, and if so, what level of degree would I need, about how many years will I have to be in the work force to land a job like this, and are the odds very low of this happening or is it not too uncommon?

Banking I think or the actuarial /stocks side. Lots of maths and stats. Keep you interested with potentially very high salary.

 

[elkend]

If you want to pursue money and a highly fulfilling career, there's medical physics. 2 years MS which you can be paid for at some schools, 2 year residency making 50k, couple years at 120-140k, then 180k median. Caveat? It's difficult to get a residency unless you're smart, hardworking, and can interview decent. Unfortunately, I think anyone who didn't get a residency when I was in school had some deficiencies in their application or as an applicant.

 

[elkend]

I run a hedge fund and have come across a wide cross-section of wealthy persons as a side effect of my work.

I'm interested in this. I enjoy my career as a medical physicist, but towards the end of my physics BS I realized I had a personal interest in finance and investments. How did your career take you here? About how many hours do you spend a week at work and also working from home? I hear some finance careers can be brutal.

 

[mfb]

When you stop to think about it, by historical standards, or even by worldwide standards, an upper-middle class income in 21st century America is greater wealth than most people in human history have enjoyed.

That is true even for a minimum-wage job in the US, Western Europe and so on.

 

[jtbell]

Physics is a path to a solid upper-middle class income and can definitely pay the bills.

Nevertheless, if someone grows up in a high-income family (parents are e.g. MDs , or work in "big law", investment banking or high-flying tech companies) it may be difficult psychologically for him (or his parents!) if he doesn't end up with an income that supports the lifestyle that he grew up in.

I'm not saying this is necessarily the OP's situation, of course. (Nor was it for me!)

 

[rkr]

I'm interested in this. I enjoy my career as a medical physicist, but towards the end of my physics BS I realized I had a personal interest in finance and investments. How did your career take you here? About how many hours do you spend a week at work and also working from home? I hear some finance careers can be brutal.

I got into it by coincidence, really. We spawned off a class at a university. Wouldn't have been possible without the financial support of alumni who propped us up.

The median work hours are about 10h per day. There's a lot more on-site work than remote work given the nature of IP protection. Besides, you usually get free food and better idea generation on-site. The bigger issue I see is that there's a high variance of work hours - if something breaks, there's very strong incentives to drop everything to get it fixed. You can't just leave it for later. Some of my colleagues have to work a full day on Christmas Eve.

The hours are probably best in the research group of a bank because the job is more stable and the competition is less tight. Then long-term hedge funds. High-speed and intraday trading firms like us are usually a lot more short-sighted in our payroll.