Jobs/funding in fundamental theory and cosmology

[elliot3019]

Hi,

I am a physics grad student, hoping to do theoretical cosmology. I've recently been thinking a lot about practical things like career tracks, postdoc jobs, etc. So I thought I'd ask a couple questions here to see what others think:

1) I hear that the job scene for fundamental theory is not very good these days, but that cosmology is perhaps an exception - at least, cosmology that is closer to experiment and observation. I'm curious to hear anyone's perspective on this - that is, the availability of jobs and funding for fundamental theory (especially areas like quantum gravity that are more detached from experiment), as compared to theoretical cosmology that makes contact with observation. And how might this change in the next 5-10 years, what with the LHC, progress in cosmology, and other developments?

2) I've been advised against pursuing fundamental theory because of the difficulty, competitiveness, and scarcity of jobs and funding...which I think is good advice that should be taken seriously. So my question, especially to those with more experience, is: to what extent can these obstacles be overcome with hard work, and to what extent is your success limited by how much natural ability you have?

Thanks for any ideas or advice.

 

[ordered_chaos]

http://www.math.columbia.edu/~woit/wordpress/?p=3715

Woit just blogged on this question.

 

[ParticleGrl]

2) I've been advised against pursuing fundamental theory because of the difficulty, competitiveness, and scarcity of jobs and funding...which I think is good advice that should be taken seriously. So my question, especially to those with more experience, is: to what extent can these obstacles be overcome with hard work, and to what extent is your success limited by how much natural ability you have?

Everyone is extremely hard working, and everyone has lots of natural ability. You aren't going to be able to out-work anyone else.

The most important factors involve luck- how successful was your research, and how much attention did the community pay to it? On top of being good and hard working, important research takes quite a bit of luck. Promising ideas sometimes don't lead anywhere useful, and you can't know until you put the time in.

The factors that are more in your control- How good are you at networking and building connections? How well known is your advisor? How willing is your advisor to throw his/her weight around for you?

How much are you willing to sacrifice/willing to move? Are you willing to move internationally two or three times? Is your significant other/spouse capable of getting jobs internationally? (work visas can be an issue). Do you have school loans that will make it hard to live on 30k a year and no benefits for 6 years after your postdoc (you will be paying your own moving expenses when you change contracts)?

 

[Haelfix]

There is a career guidance board for this. But generally speaking as far as ability, you pretty much have to be at the top of your graduate class and it helps a lot to be at a renowned institution. As far as workloads, expect 65+ hour weeks with difficult and stressful financial situations for several years.

And as ParticleGrl says, you have to get lucky. I was lucky and a few other people that I know were, but the majority were not.

Luck has to do with picking the right subject at the right time and being around the right people at the right time. There are countless examples of brilliant physicists who are no longer in academia who wrote papers that only became influential a decade later. And there is a veritable graveyard of physicists who picked a subject that was once booming, and is know dead.

 

[elliot3019]

Thanks for the input, appreciate it.

 

[marcus]

...scene for fundamental theory is not very good these days, but that cosmology is perhaps an exception - at least, cosmology that is closer to experiment and observation. ... how might this change in the next 5-10 years, what with the LHC, progress in cosmology, and other developments?
...

Your questions have some purely scientific content. This is interesting on its own and can be considered apart from career issues (which I gather have been satisfactorily addressed.)

Regardless of what might be a wise career move, let's just think about where the big pure-science questions are now and whether that might change over the next 10 years or any time soon.

It seems to me that (looked at disinterestedly and not presuming to give you career advice) theoretical cosmology is at the center of where the major discoveries are apt to be during the next 10-20 years. The questions are clearly evident and of great magnitude.

The cosmological constant (if attributed to a "dark energy" then 3/4 of the current energy density of the U, if not, then what is it?)

Inflation (did it occur and if so what caused it to start, what caused it to continue for 60 e-folds or more, what caused it to stop?)

Dark matter. The formation of structure.

Physics at extreme density (as at the start of expansion). How does geometry interact with matter? Since geometry and matter behave as if they are parts of a common whole, what common ground underlies them?​

Also cosmology benefits from new instrumentation---new types of "telescope", some ground-based and some orbital. Areas to mention include:

Neutrino astronomy
Gammaray astronomy
Atmospheric cherenkov telescopes
CMB (polarization is next, there is a lot more to be learned)
Possible detection of grav. waves​

Intuitively, new-concept instruments may in some cases be more cost effective in revealing new physics than continuing with ever-larger groundbased accelerator/colliders.

 

[marcus]

To sum up, I think Elliot's question has some purely scientific content independent of career strategy and that some points to be made are the following:

We may be looking at a longterm longterm trend---a shift in the kinds of questions being asked and in the way physics is done.

Astrophysical observation (whether it is ancient light CMB, neutrino, cosmic ray, grav. wave, gammaray burst, early universe imaging, galaxy counts...whatever) is apt to provide more significant new information than hypothetical post-LHC colliders.

A large part of what we are most aware of not understanding is related to GR and cosmology e.g.:
Big bang
Inflation
"Dark" features
Extreme events like gammaray bursts
Ultrahigh energy cosmic rays...
...

Intellectually (quite apart from career considerations) one would want to get in a position to appreciate and understand the new developments. That is just simple scientific curiosity. And at least in the next couple of decades these developments are apt to involve GR and cosmo. (Important areas of physics which are least understood and least clearly connected so far with the main body of fundamental theory.)

 

[elliot3019]

Hi marcus, thanks for the ideas, this is very helpful. What are your (or anyone else's) thoughts on quantum cosmology? I'm very interested in quantum cosmology but I hesitate to pursue it because it is a smaller field with fewer jobs, and no contact with experiment so far. I'm curious how any of these factors might change in coming years (or decades)...can we expect more interaction between quantum cosmology and the more mainstream cosmology that has such huge potential right now?

 

[marcus]

...can we expect more interaction between quantum cosmology and the more mainstream cosmology that has such huge potential right now?

Here are signs of that increasing interaction: 33 QC phenomenology papers written 2009 or later.
http://www-library.desy.de/cgi-bin/spiface/find/hep/www?rawcmd=FIND+%28DK+QUANTUM+GRAVITY%2C+LOOP+SPACE+OR+QUANTUM+COSMOLOGY%2C+LOOP+SPACE%29+AND+%28PRIMORDIAL%2C+FLUCTUATION+OR+INFLATION+OR+COSMIC+BACKGROUND+RADIATION%29+AND+DATE+%3E+2008&FORMAT=www&SEQUENCE=citecount%28d%29

The focus is generally on what features of the CMB can we look for as imprints of a specific QC model. Ways to test. Also QC as relates to inflation scenarios, can it relieve the requirement for fine-tuning to some extent? In any case papers like these develop the connection with mainstream observational cosmology.

=============
I want to repeat and make clear that I am not talking career here. I'm just talking about how the field of QC is developing. Objectively speaking it is getting a lot more observational. People who are early universe phenomenologists (professional theory testers) and not committed to any particular QC approach are beginning to study how to test. Over half of the above papers are by phenom'ists, not by Loop QC people.
This may or may not have career implications.