Is Pursuing Multiple Ph.D.s a Viable Option for a Career in Theoretical Physics?

[causalset]

Hi causalset. What strickes me the most is that by judging your writting here (except for some typos that are totally forgivable), it's not evident, at least to me, that you write in such a way that nobody/few people can understand clearly. Note that I'm not a native English speaker.
This leads to me think about two things:
Either:
1)You think you know very well your field in physics but in reality you have severe misunderstandings of the most basics, leading you to write science papers hardly understandable for anyone, even if you had written them in your native tongue and read by Indians. I am not 100% sure but that could be similar to the Bogoljubov brothers.
2)It is really as you say. I.e. English is a barrier, in which case I'll start worrying myself from now and on if I ever want to publish a paper. If language is a barrier, why don't you take specialized English courses?
P.S.:Think about what you accomplished so far, you've got a Ph.D. in physics. That's something very hard to obtain for most people, you should be happy and move on and use it. Try to find a job.

First of all, I am not Indian. The only reason I am in India is because this happened to be the only country I could find post doc. Otherwise, I am originally from Russia and I moved to America at 14. So Russian is my first language and English is my second. Nevertheless, I speak English very well and I never claimed language to be the barrier.

When I said clarity is an issue I was talking about the fact that whenever I talk about PHYSICS I tend to confuse people. And this is true both in Russian AND in English. Probably part of the reason why that's the case is that my ideas are unconventional -- and in fact at the current place I am at they repeatedly advised me to find something more conventional for my own good. However, if I look at people like Sorkin, he was not conventional either, yet he found professorship. The difference between him and myself is that he had the communication skills to explain his unconventional thinking while I don't. And once again this has nothing to do with Russian or English.

Now, regarding the other thing you suggested that I have misunderstandings of basics of physics, I know this can't be the reason either. I mean if that were the case, people would be telling me "when you said such and such you were wrong for such and such reason". But instead the only feedback I get is that the paper was "too complicated" for them to understand. Now, on my end, my ideas look quite simple and not complicated at all; so clearly the issue is about clarity of my work.

 

[causalset]

No you won't. When the school finds out that you're not really interested in being a student, but are simply trying to cheat them out of a stipend, they will toss you out on your ear. That's assuming you can fool them into taking you on to begin with.

I never said i won't be taking courses that students are expected to take -- I would. But the grad students are only expected to take courses for first 2 years, and the rest of the stay there is supposed to be all research. And yes I plan to do research too since I am talking about publications.

Now, if they will ask me to do something other than what I did before, it would probably help me rather than hurt me since it would expend my horizons. Some examples of topics in which I never worked before, but which I might find interesting are doubly special relativity, loop quantum gravity, nonlinear Schrodinger's equation, modified gravity, and so forth. It is conceivable that some of the ppl working on those are in math departments.

 

[Locrian]

Some examples of topics in which I never worked before, but which I might find interesting are doubly special relativity, loop quantum gravity, nonlinear Schrodinger's equation, modified gravity, and so forth. It is conceivable that some of the ppl working on those are in math departments.

Any one of those choices would be an excellent route to not having a job upon earning your second PhD.

 

[Diracula]

However, if I look at people like Sorkin, he was not conventional either, yet he found professorship. The difference between him and myself is that he had the communication skills to explain his unconventional thinking while I don't. And once again this has nothing to do with Russian or English.

Now, regarding the other thing you suggested that I have misunderstandings of basics of physics, I know this can't be the reason either. I mean if that were the case, people would be telling me "when you said such and such you were wrong for such and such reason". But instead the only feedback I get is that the paper was "too complicated" for them to understand. Now, on my end, my ideas look quite simple and not complicated at all; so clearly the issue is about clarity of my work.

When you speak with other mathematicians or physicists who are familiar with causal sets do they understand what you are saying? (Presumably Sorkin had some people who understood his work even though it may have been unconventional, otherwise he would not have become a professor.)

 

[Pyrrhus]

Casual set, go ahead and apply for that second PhD, Why do you need our approval? You will argue your case until your feel you "won".

 

[causalset]

When you speak with other mathematicians or physicists who are familiar with causal sets do they understand what you are saying?

The person I regularly speak to is Bombelli. And the typical situation is that if I send him my paper he won't understand it; if I physically visit him it would probably take around 3 or 4 hours for him to understand me. Once the 3-4 hour conversation happened, he would be able to read the paper on his own and even contribute himself and so forth.

With other people I talked a lot less than Bombelli, but still the situation of having to explain things first is typical. I mean I don't remember a single time when someone walked up to me and said "you were talking about such and such in your paper and I agree and/or disagree with such and such". Usually they say "I saw your paper but I couldn't really understand it" or "I didn't have time to read it". During the very few times when they WERE willing to talk about my paper I had to explain to them, in person, first.

Now the problem is that when my paper is on arXiv, no one is going to call me and ask to explain it for 3-4 hours, unless it is Bombelli or someone like that. Hence I don't have any citations. Similarly, when I send it to the journal, referree can't call me either -- in fact he is not allowed to. And the exchange I do have with referree is not nearly as much as what I would do in person within 3-4 hours, since I don't get to do the "back and forth" when the other side clarifies their question, I clarify my answer, and so forth.

The other issue is that it took Bombelli a year to get used to my thinking style. During the first year he was in fact quite angry with me that I don't explain things clearly, don't define things and so forth. But starting from second year onward his opinion of me became very positive. Again, with most people I am not given a chance to "get them used to" my thinking style.

(Presumably Sorkin had some people who understood his work even though it may have been unconventional, otherwise he would not have become a professor.)

That is precisely why I am saying the issue is communication. And "communication difficulty" does not imply "language difficulty". Yes, I know English just fine, but I don't know how to communicate unconventional ideas, while others like Sorkin seem to be a lot better at it.

 

[Pyrrhus]

Solution -> Enroll in a Writing Class?

 

[Diracula]

Why do you think no one understands your work unless you explain it to them in person for 3-4 hours (and even then it's only your former advisor)? i.e. what is the limiting factor

Edit -- I mean more specifically than "communication problems".

 

[fluidistic]

Okay thanks for the clarifications causalset.
That's rather sad to depend on someone to "translate" your highly complicated thoughts into a text that physicists can understand. It wouldn't be fair for Bombelli to spend that much time to understand what you meant and then take another load of time to rewrite your papers. That guy must be busy for sure. Even if he agreed after all, if I were you I wouldn't feel really happy to depend on someone that much, that would make me feel as if I was back into childhood.
There are 2 options I would consider in your case:
1)If I really want to finish the post doc and "fight" against myself rewriting my papers: I'd try to do it on my own. The work final work certainly won't be perfect but if a few people could understand it then that's already a huge improvement.
2)Find a job related to physics in some way. You already have a Ph.D., I think it would be definitely worth the try to seek for a physics related job first in the country you'd like and then in any other country. The pressure to publish and the huge trouble to express complicated thoughts would be gone, hopefully, if you had found a job that doesn't challenges this problem of you.
In all cases I wish you the best and I also wish you not to have a "frozen idea" in mind. Some people here who give you advices have a Ph.D. too (vanadium does for sure, probably others) even though this isn't my case.
Best of luck.

 

[ParticleGrl]

Find a job related to physics in some way. You already have a Ph.D., I think it would be definitely worth the try to seek for a physics related job first in the country you'd like

Better yet- realize that most physics phds don't have jobs related to physics because there aren't that many jobs. Find a job in finance or insurance and move on with your life.

To be fair, your publication record isn't great and your citation count low. You are competing for postdocs with recent phd grads who are better published than you. Many of those better-published graduate students will do one postdoc and then leave the field themselves. Jobs in physics are scarce. Doing a second phd at a low-tier university won't change that fundamental hurdle, and it will take more years of your life. Cut your losses, sunk costs are sunk, move on.

 

[causalset]

Why do you think no one understands your work unless you explain it to them in person for 3-4 hours (and even then it's only your former advisor)? i.e. what is the limiting factor

Edit -- I mean more specifically than "communication problems".

At least part of the problem is how detailed I am at explaining concepts, which involves two opposite issues:

1. Because I have thought about a certain concept for very long time I grew in taking it for granted so I don't explain it enough

2. Because I know that what I do is unconventional I try to explain every step of the way and I do it too much, leading to pages and pages of explanation that people can't follow.

Usually it is a combination of both. Some people tell me that I skip over important things while spend hours explaining something minuscule, and this is what results in people not knowing what the paper is about anyway.

But the issue is that the amount of explaining is not just a function of importance of a given topic; it is also a function of how easy or how hard it is to understand. And that is where the problem comes in: I can't assess what is easier for others to understand and what is harder -- some things look easy for me but not so easy for others while other things people immediately catch right away even though to me they don't look particularly easy. And the fact that it is both "too much" and "too little" explaining is precisely what makes it difficult to fix, since I can't use a simple formulae such as "be more brief" or "be more detailed". Thus I depend on people like Bombelli who would tell me exactly where I should be more brief and where more detailed.

Maybe part of the problem is that I haven't spent much time communicating with other scientists and so I am used to my own thinking style and don't really know how they think. Perhaps if I were to spend more time attending conferences and so forth I would grow to learn about the latter, even if I am talking about their work rather than my own? But that's just a theory.

 

[causalset]

Okay thanks for the clarifications causalset.
That's rather sad to depend on someone to "translate" your highly complicated thoughts into a text that physicists can understand. It wouldn't be fair for Bombelli to spend that much time to understand what you meant and then take another load of time to rewrite your papers. That guy must be busy for sure. Even if he agreed after all, if I were you I wouldn't feel really happy to depend on someone that much, that would make me feel as if I was back into childhood.

Unfortunately this is precisely what I have been doing. And this is part of what slows me down since Bombelli doesn't have time to do that so I spend a long time waiting for him.

There are 2 options I would consider in your case:
1)If I really want to finish the post doc and "fight" against myself rewriting my papers: I'd try to do it on my own. The work final work certainly won't be perfect but if a few people could understand it then that's already a huge improvement.
2)Find a job related to physics in some way. You already have a Ph.D., I think it would be definitely worth the try to seek for a physics related job first in the country you'd like and then in any other country. The pressure to publish and the huge trouble to express complicated thoughts would be gone, hopefully, if you had found a job that doesn't challenges this problem of you.

I would go with Option 1. My goal since childhood was research in theoretical physics, that's why I don't give it up so easily. It is what I was defining myself to be since I was 9.

Regarding "pressure to publish", every job has some kind of pressure to do SOMETHING. So in either case I have to learn something I didn't know before. So I might as well try and learn how to write clearly -- especially since learning physics is supposed to be a lot harder and I done that part; so it would be pity to throw it away simply because I didn't bother to do the rest of the work, including learning to write.

 

[Vanadium 50]

This thread has gone on in circles for two years. It's clear that you don't really want other people's opinion or advice, and are here for validation.

My goal since childhood was research in theoretical physics, that's why I don't give it up so easily. It is what I was defining myself to be since I was 9.

This is not a healthy attitude. Counseling might help you change it.

Thread closed.