- #1
B3NR4Y
Gold Member
- 170
- 8
When I started undergrad I was speaking with my lab professor, a theoretical physicist, and he asked what I wanted to do when I am done with school. I said I planned on being a theoretical physicist and he told me that about 3/4 of the students in his graduate program at Stanford wanted to be theoretical physicists, and 1/4 wanted to be experimental. That number was flipped at the end of the program.
At the time I thought nothing of it, I said to myself "Well I am pretty set in stone right now". That was until just recently, I was told the last Nobel Prize has been won by a theorist, and that the field is pretty much dead- all the good stuff is in experiment.
While I am not particularly dreaming of a Nobel Prize, that struck me as odd. To me, there is no way we've thought of all the possible things to think of. If that's true, why should I even want to be a theorist anymore? Is getting a doctorate just to have one and then never contribute to the world worth it?
At the time I thought nothing of it, I said to myself "Well I am pretty set in stone right now". That was until just recently, I was told the last Nobel Prize has been won by a theorist, and that the field is pretty much dead- all the good stuff is in experiment.
While I am not particularly dreaming of a Nobel Prize, that struck me as odd. To me, there is no way we've thought of all the possible things to think of. If that's true, why should I even want to be a theorist anymore? Is getting a doctorate just to have one and then never contribute to the world worth it?