Qualities of a successful theorist

[spaghetti3451]

What are the most important qualities that a budding theorist ought to have?

Two of the most important I know of are the ability to finish textbooks cover-to-cover in a short period of time and technical problem-solving skills.

Can you think of any others?

 

[Vagn]

What are the most important qualities that a budding theorist ought to have?

Two of the most important I know of are the ability to finish textbooks cover-to-cover in a short period of time and technical problem-solving skills.

Can you think of any others?

It depends on the field/sub-field. The requirements for a theorist doing density functional theory will likely be different to those of a theorist working on problems beyond the standard model.

 

[spaghetti3451]

Can you elaborate?

How do the requirements for theorists in the two fields differ?

 

[Vanadium 50]

the ability to finish textbooks cover-to-cover in a short period of time

Why do you think that's important?

 

[Vagn]

Can you elaborate?

How do the requirements for theorists in the two fields differ?

DFT theorists primarily work in condensed matter physics and chemistry, in contrast a theorist working on models beyond the standard model is working with particle physics and cosmology as a guide. The knowledge and a lot of the mathematics required for each are completely different.
DFT is also more immediately testable in lab based experiments, so a DFT theorist shouldaim to have a decent working knowledge of the experimental techniques used in the fields (e.g. XPS, LEED, various optical techniques, diffraction techniques etc.) and have contact and collaborations with experimentalists.

 

[spaghetti3451]

Why do you think that's important?

I think it's important because it shows that the student can absorb vast amounts of material in a very short period of time, which in turn can lead to greater productivity.

 

[spaghetti3451]

DFT theorists primarily work in condensed matter physics and chemistry, in contrast a theorist working on models beyond the standard model is working with particle physics and cosmology as a guide. The knowledge and a lot of the mathematics required for each are completely different.
DFT is also more immediately testable in lab based experiments, so a DFT theorist shouldaim to have a decent working knowledge of the experimental techniques used in the fields (e.g. XPS, LEED, various optical techniques, diffraction techniques etc.) and have contact and collaborations with experimentalists.

I'm not talking about specific skills. I am talking about a very general set of skills that can serve a theorist well in his research career.

 

[Calaver]

the ability to finish textbooks cover-to-cover in a short period of time

From what I've heard, textbooks are rarely read cover to cover, especially in advanced fields. The reasoning is that many textbooks include superfluous information that isn't necessarily important to the overall picture. A PhD in mathematics at my (high) school said she has never read all of a textbook (even for teaching a class). Although it should be noted that some historical or really well written textbooks and most papers are different.

Perhaps someone who has more experience can provide a deeper insight into this?

 

[spaghetti3451]

From what I've heard, textbooks are rarely read cover to cover, especially in advanced fields. The reasoning is that many textbooks include superfluous information that isn't necessarily important to the overall picture. A PhD in mathematics at my (high) school said she has never read all of a textbook (even for teaching a class). Although it should be noted that some historical or really well written textbooks and most papers are different.

I say 'cover-to-cover' because any budding string theorist, for example, ought to know Peskin and Schroeder, Muller-Kirsten and Wiedemann, Wess and Bagger, and Polchinski cover-to-cover. I'm assuming that's the bare minimum.

I've read somewhere once that Witten, for example, only became really good in advanced mathematics (that he used later in his research work) after he read a whole of bunch of yellow Springer textbooks (with guidance from Michael Atiyah on what to read) while at Oxford.

 

[bacte2013]

From what I've heard, textbooks are rarely read cover to cover, especially in advanced fields. The reasoning is that many textbooks include superfluous information that isn't necessarily important to the overall picture. A PhD in mathematics at my (high) school said she has never read all of a textbook (even for teaching a class). Although it should be noted that some historical or really well written textbooks and most papers are different.

Perhaps someone who has more experience can provide a deeper insight into this?

I say 'cover-to-cover' because any budding string theorist, for example, ought to know Peskin and Schroeder, Muller-Kirsten and Wiedemann, Wess and Bagger, and Polchinski cover-to-cover. I'm assuming that's the bare minimum.

I've read somewhere once that Witten, for example, only became really good in advanced mathematics (that he used later in his research work) after he read a whole of bunch of yellow Springer textbooks (with guidance from Michael Atiyah on what to read) while at Oxford.

I never understand how it is possible to not read the books (at least in mathematics) from cover-to-cover. I often found that the mathematical books are written in author's unique style and in pedagogical order such that skipping some chapters will present the problem of deciphering later chapters of a reader's interest.

 

[Choppy]

Considering the probability of actually becoming a professional theorist is quite small, I think at least one important quality a "budding theorist" should have is flexibility.

 

[spaghetti3451]

I never understand how it is possible to not read the books (at least in mathematics) from cover-to-cover. I often found that the mathematical books are written in author's unique style and in pedagogical order such that skipping some chapters will present the problem of deciphering later chapters of a reader's interest.

But, textbooks on mathematical methods for physicists tend to have self-contained chapters, or a self-contained chunk of chapters, at most.

The difficulty is mainly with the physics textbooks, I think, but even there, one never needs to read all of the first $n$ chapters to understand the $n+1$ chapter.

 

[radium]

People usually don't read textbooks cover to cover since every book has it's strengths and weaknesses. For example, I find that Peskin and Schroeder is helpful for learning how to calculate cross sections per se but almost useless for getting a conceptual picture of renormalization. There are much better books for that.

As a theorist, it's more important to have a deep conceptual understanding of a topic and being able to see connections between different things than being able to cram information from a textbook into your head.

Also, different fields involve more brute force computations than others. If you are doing particle physics you are going to have to a lot of intensive QFT calculations. In areas of CMT involving topological phases, one barely has to calculate anything, it is much more conceptual .

 

[spaghetti3451]

Also, different fields involve more brute force computations than others. If you are doing particle physics you are going to have to a lot of intensive QFT calculations. In areas of CMT involving topological phases, one barely has to calculate anything, it is much more conceptual .

What kind of computations are usually done in string theory?

 

[JorisL]

I say 'cover-to-cover' because any budding string theorist, for example, ought to know Peskin and Schroeder, Muller-Kirsten and Wiedemann, Wess and Bagger, and Polchinski cover-to-cover. I'm assuming that's the bare minimum.

I've read somewhere once that Witten, for example, only became really good in advanced mathematics (that he used later in his research work) after he read a whole of bunch of yellow Springer textbooks (with guidance from Michael Atiyah on what to read) while at Oxford.

Hate to break it to you but the range of topics covered in e.g. Polchinski is far too broad for a single PhD.
You are supposed to gain mastery of a topic, in general this means you gain very specific knowledge.

An important part is being able to accept certain methods without deeply understanding them at first.
You need to progress in your research.
By doing this you can use some spare time/less productive time trying to understand the concepts better.

I'm still struggling with this myself but its great advice my thesis advisor gave me. (in my case the deep understanding requires lots of full string theory while calculations happen in supergravity)

What kind of computations are usually done in string theory?

Compactifications come to mind.

 

[spaghetti3451]

Compactifications come to mind.

Is it absolutely crucial to develop excellent technical (i.e. mathematical) and problem solving skills to be able to do computations in string theory?

Side question: How much of general relativity and QFT do you still need to remember/use when you're now doing string theory?

 

[JorisL]

Is it absolutely crucial to develop excellent technical (i.e. mathematical) and problem solving skills to be able to do computations in string theory?

Side question: How much of general relativity and QFT do you still need to remember/use when you're now doing string theory?

I like following a more mathematical approach to physics. Which means I exploit form notation to the fullest.
To validate that approach I rederived several identities I use time and again.
Another aspect of mathematics I needed is knowledge of linear algebra. That way I was able to restrict the moduli I have to look at.

All in all you can benefit from a broad mathematical foundation. Lie algebras are important too, more so depending on the specific part of string theory.

About the side question;
I benefited most from GR. In fact I won't use QFT in the forseeable future.

 

[Vanadium 50]

I think it's important because it shows that the student can absorb vast amounts of material in a very short period of time

Then that's the skill set you should have said you need. I would argue with that - I think depth is more important than speed - but it's not what you wrote. Besides, you gave three examples. Over a forty-year career, doing something three times isn't that often.

That said, I don't think this thread is about the skills a successful theorist needs. It seems to be more about your convincing yourself that the skills a successful theorist needs are exactly the skills you already have.

 

[spaghetti3451]

That said, I don't think this thread is about the skills a successful theorist needs. It seems to be more about your convincing yourself that the skills a successful theorist needs are exactly the skills you already have.

I don't have any of those skills I talked about :P

 

[bacte2013]

But, textbooks on mathematical methods for physicists tend to have self-contained chapters, or a self-contained chunk of chapters, at most.

The difficulty is mainly with the physics textbooks, I think, but even there, one never needs to read all of the first $n$ chapters to understand the $n+1$ chapter.

People usually don't read textbooks cover to cover since every book has it's strengths and weaknesses. For example, I find that Peskin and Schroeder is helpful for learning how to calculate cross sections per se but almost useless for getting a conceptual picture of renormalization. There are much better books for that.

As a theorist, it's more important to have a deep conceptual understanding of a topic and being able to see connections between different things than being able to cram information from a textbook into your head.

Also, different fields involve more brute force computations than others. If you are doing particle physics you are going to have to a lot of intensive QFT calculations. In areas of CMT involving topological phases, one barely has to calculate anything, it is much more conceptual .

Do you take notes from the textbooks, by any chance? I know that question is off-topic of this thread, but I lately have been suffering from the weird belief that I must create a comprehensive notes for each subject (i.e. linear algebra and analysis) by using various textbooks and taking notes from them. I somehow could not get myself out from the belief that having no textbook-style notes will prevent me from recalling the understanding later on.

 

[spaghetti3451]

Taking notes allows you to reshape the content of each topic you study from the textbook in your own personal way. And so taking notes is absolutely vital to good studying.

A better approach is to read a paragraph, close the textbook, and rewrite the essence of the paragraph in your own words, or better still using a mixture of pictorial symbols and verbal words. That way, you might retain the information for a longer period of time.

Also, it's a good idea to skim read an entire chunk of text that you feel encapsulates a single major concept of the topic you're studying, and then to read it again until you get the gist of it. Then you might want to read it carefully. Afterwards, you might wish to see if you could present the same thing in a way that seems more logical and natural to you, i.e. reshuffle the various chunks of text in such a way as to make you feel that the argument flows naturally. You know you've understood the concept when you find that if you're given the first and last sentence of your notes, you can reproduce all the intermediate sentences because your presentation of the same argument happens to flow just naturally and logically.

If you're in a hurry to finish a textbook, you might just wish to time yourself per page, say, 30 minutes per page. That way, when your 30 minutes are up, you're forced to move to the next page regardless of whether you understand all of that page or not. Usually, for me, I understand 80% of the page and I highlight (whatever of the page I don't understand) in the notes with a pencil. Once I revise my notes and its highlighted parts a week later, everything happens to fall in place (eventually). Deep understanding takes time, so no matter how much time you spend on a single page, you won't get better understanding in the short-term. So, speed reading is probably the best strategy because you know that when you come back to revise your notes, what you did not understand the first time will gradually begin to make sense. And anyway, it is not possible to understand/impractical to want to understand 100% of a textbook. Achieving a 90% understanding is sufficient and you can move on to the next textbook.

 

[radium]

For advanced books you definitely have to read through chapters several times to really understand what is going on. For many books I learn something new every time I read it.

I have realized I retain a lot more taking notes. It's tempting to just copy a lot but I find the most helpful thing is to just copy the things that you find especially insightful conceptually. It's also good to read several things simultaneously in slightly different topics since then you will be able to see connections in between seemingly different things. It really helps you see how everything is motivated. For example, in CMT, spin liquids, the quantum ising model, superfluidity and the FQHE may seem very different at first, but there are things that they have in common.

I definitely agree speed is not the most important thing. Sometimes it may seem frustrating that it is taking you a long time to understand something, but then all of the sudden you will have a breakthrough and realized something very deep. For me, that was the case with RG and the motivation of CFTs.

 

[WannabeNewton]

Have you had any experience with theory research yet?

 

[spaghetti3451]

Yes. I learned some basic material in false vacuum decay and how to calculate the functional determinants that arise in the decay rate.

 

[Student100]

Yes. I learned some basic material in false vacuum decay and how to calculate the functional determinants that arise in the decay rate.

I don't think you read WN question correctly.

 

[Student100]

What are the most important qualities that a budding theorist ought to have?

Two of the most important I know of are the ability to finish textbooks cover-to-cover in a short period of time and technical problem-solving skills.

Can you think of any others?

This isn't something that makes a whole lot of sense, I'm glad you find those prologues and indexes so interesting.

I'm sure this isn't what you meant, but it highlights the silliness of the comment. You read a textbook to the point you feel like you've satisfactorily grasped the concept of whatever it was that made you read it in the first place. What's a short amount of time to you? A few days, a week, ten years? When do you ever finish a textbook? I keep all of mine for reference, I just don't have that much brain power to ever "finish" a book.

Taking notes allows you to reshape the content of each topic you study from the textbook in your own personal way. And so taking notes is absolutely vital to good studying.

A better approach is to read a paragraph, close the textbook, and rewrite the essence of the paragraph in your own words, or better still using a mixture of pictorial symbols and verbal words. That way, you might retain the information for a longer period of time.

Also, it's a good idea to skim read an entire chunk of text that you feel encapsulates a single major concept of the topic you're studying, and then to read it again until you get the gist of it. Then you might want to read it carefully. Afterwards, you might wish to see if you could present the same thing in a way that seems more logical and natural to you, i.e. reshuffle the various chunks of text in such a way as to make you feel that the argument flows naturally. You know you've understood the concept when you find that if you're given the first and last sentence of your notes, you can reproduce all the intermediate sentences because your presentation of the same argument happens to flow just naturally and logically.

If you're in a hurry to finish a textbook, you might just wish to time yourself per page, say, 30 minutes per page. That way, when your 30 minutes are up, you're forced to move to the next page regardless of whether you understand all of that page or not. Usually, for me, I understand 80% of the page and I highlight (whatever of the page I don't understand) in the notes with a pencil. Once I revise my notes and its highlighted parts a week later, everything happens to fall in place (eventually). Deep understanding takes time, so no matter how much time you spend on a single page, you won't get better understanding in the short-term. So, speed reading is probably the best strategy because you know that when you come back to revise your notes, what you did not understand the first time will gradually begin to make sense. And anyway, it is not possible to understand/impractical to want to understand 100% of a textbook. Achieving a 90% understanding is sufficient and you can move on to the next textbook.

This sounds time consuming and unneeded. I'm a large proponent of working through a text with paper and pencil in hand, but it isn't so I can rewrite the authors prose and explanations. It's so I can work through the derivations, the notorious "left to reader" exercise, and fill in missing background information/steps.

No one should be in a hurry to finish a text, see above. Speed reading doesn't work in physics. Also, why is ninety percent of a textbook a good marker for understanding? What studies/data backs this up? What about that other ten percent?

I'm not talking about specific skills. I am talking about a very general set of skills that can serve a theorist well in his research career.

Choppy said it pretty good:

Considering the probability of actually becoming a professional theorist is quite small, I think at least one important quality a "budding theorist" should have is flexibility.

Further, I think the qualities of successful theorists are: having made it through school -> made it through post doc without throwing their hands up saying "Screw this" -> worked for around 5 years as a slave to try to get tenured somewhere -> then became really good at writing proposals for money.

 

[spaghetti3451]

This isn't something that makes a whole lot of sense, I'm glad you find those prologues and indexes so interesting.

I'm sure this isn't what you meant, but it highlights the silliness of the comment. You read a textbook to the point you feel like you've satisfactorily grasped the concept of whatever it was that made you read it in the first place. What's a short amount of time to you? A few days, a week, ten years? When do you ever finish a textbook? I keep all of mine for reference, I just don't have that much brain power to ever "finish" a book.
This sounds time consuming and unneeded. I'm a large proponent of working through a text with paper and pencil in hand, but it isn't so I can rewrite the authors prose and explanations. It's so I can work through the derivations, the notorious "left to reader" exercise, and fill in missing background information/steps.

No one should be in a hurry to finish a text, see above. Speed reading doesn't work in physics. Also, why is ninety percent of a textbook a good marker for understanding? What studies/data backs this up? What about that other ten percent?
Choppy said it pretty good:
Further, I think the qualities of successful theorists are: having made it through school -> made it through post doc without throwing their hands up saying "Screw this" -> worked for around 5 years as a slave to try to get tenured somewhere -> then became really good at writing proposals for money.

Alright, I'll try to bear the comments in mind.

 

[WannabeNewton]

Yes. I learned some basic material in false vacuum decay and how to calculate the functional determinants that arise in the decay rate.

I meant have you had any experience working in a theory research group? I ask because what you mentioned in your OP seems to be an attempt at addressing the question of "what makes a successful undergrad physics major" not "what makes a successful theorist". Nothing you mentioned really has much to do with being a successful theorist (problem solving capacity is a skill you need in basically any STEM field).

A question like this is hard to answer. It's easier to just experience it by working in a theory research group.

 

[spaghetti3451]

I meant have you had any experience working in a theory research group? I ask because what you mentioned in your OP seems to be an attempt at addressing the question of "what makes a successful undergrad physics major" not "what makes a successful theorist".

Learning about false vacuum decay and evaluation of functional determinants (e.g. Gel'fand Yaglom theorem) from papers such as http://arxiv.org/abs/hep-th/0511156 and http://arxiv.org/abs/0707.3755 was the first step of my research work. But, I did not continue with the work. So, I have not had any real research experience.

 

[WannabeNewton]

So, I have not had any real research experience.

Well then that should be your top priority, especially if you want to do theory in grad school. Furthermore if you get an idea of what theory research is like then your question will start to answer itself through practice. Meticulously working through every page of a textbook will be a complete waste of time in almost every respect. If anything, absorbing essential and relevant information from a text without spending a lot of time on the details will be a much more useful skill when you start reading papers for your research project(s).

 

[spaghetti3451]

Is it really possible to do meaningful theoretical research work at the undergrad level? By meaningful, I mean papers that get citations and continue to get citations after a couple years of publishing the paper.

Say the papers are really good. You might have your name attached to the papers published by your professor for doing grind work (i.e. computations - mathematical/programming), but the real conceptual work of the paper is essentially the work of the professor/supervisor.

The frighteningly vertical nature of the subject we are studying (physics) means that it's impossible to begin to understand the current research literature for any given topic unless one begins his PhD.

Competition in high energy theory is so intense that you have to really good in academics to stay in his field, and being prepared in courses ahead of time will help make life easier. And finishing those courses earlier (by yourself) will mean you get to begin reading the research literature and begin meaningful research ahead of your peers.

But ultimately, doing well in courses and doing well in research are simply two different things. Research potential/capability, I guess, can never be fully gauged unless one begins to publish his own papers.

 

[WannabeNewton]

Is it really possible to do meaningful theoretical research work at the undergrad level?

Yes. I know several people who have.

By meaningful, I mean papers that get citations and continue to get citations after a couple years of publishing the paper.

At the undergrad level the point is to learn how theory research works. Publishing a paper is a bonus.

The frighteningly vertical nature of the subject we are studying (physics) means that it's impossible to begin to understand the current research literature for any given topic unless one begins his PhD.

This isn't true. I'm currently doing undergrad research in two theory groups: a classical GR group and a quantum gravity group. I've been doing research in the GR group for ~2.5 years now so not having started a PhD yet has not been a hindrance.

Competition in high energy theory is so intense that you have to really good in academics to stay in his field, and being prepared in courses ahead of time will help make life easier. And finishing those courses earlier (by yourself) will mean you get to begin reading the research literature and begin meaningful research ahead of your peers.

Sure but precisely because of the intense competition in HEPT, students who end up doing theory research in undergrad tend to have already learned the pre-requisite subjects by some point in their undergraduate career.

Research potential/capability, I guess, can never be fully gauged unless one begins to publish papers.

No that isn't true. Again this is what undergraduate research is for.

Regardless, the point I'm making is a "successful" theorist is as follows definitely not one who finishes textbooks thoroughly in a short period of time or anything of the sort. Working through textbooks is something every undergrad does. The qualities of a "successful" theorist come from how they approach research problems. It's a very subjective question so, in my opinion, the best way for you to get an answer is to experience theory research yourself either in undergrad or grad school.

 

[micromass]

No that isn't true. Again this is what undergraduate research is for.

Not only that, but it is also to see whether you even enjoy research and what kind of research you enjoy. If you start research in HEP now and it turns out you don't enjoy it, then that's a lot of good information you get out of that experience. You can then take that into account for grad school where you might do something very different.

 

[ahsanxr]

I say 'cover-to-cover' because any budding string theorist, for example, ought to know Peskin and Schroeder, Muller-Kirsten and Wiedemann, Wess and Bagger, and Polchinski cover-to-cover. I'm assuming that's the bare minimum.

This is quite wrong, especially regarding Peskin and Schroeder. That book spends half of its chapters working out tedious calculations relating to QED, QCD and standard model phenomenology. Someone who works on some narrow part of string theory, say topological strings or entanglement entropy will probably never use that knowledge in his entire life. Knowing and understanding the general structure of a subject like QFT is much more crucial than understanding all the content of a particular textbook. QFT books written by string theorists reflect this: Tom Banks' book and Pierre Ramond's book are both very brief and get to the heart of the matter without spending thousands of pages on calculating some random cross-section of some random process in QCD.

Polchinski and Wess-Bagger you could argue for as being important in the sense that you can bet that an established string theorist will be very familiar with their content. But it's still misguided to think that you need to know all of this to start research.

I hadn't even heard of the Muller-Kisten book until now.

 

[spaghetti3451]

This is quite wrong, especially regarding Peskin and Schroeder. That book spends half of its chapters working out tedious calculations relating to QED, QCD and standard model phenomenology. Someone who works on some narrow part of string theory, say topological strings or entanglement entropy will probably never use that knowledge in his entire life. Knowing and understanding the general structure of a subject like QFT is much more crucial than understanding all the content of a particular textbook. QFT books written by string theorists reflect this: Tom Banks' book and Pierre Ramond's book are both very brief and get to the heart of the matter without spending thousands of pages on calculating some random cross-section of some random process in QCD.

Polchinski and Wess-Bagger you could argue for as being important in the sense that you can bet that an established string theorist will be very familiar with their content. But it's still misguided to think that you need to know all of this to start research.

Does that mean that one can do string theory without having learned how to compute cross-sections in QED and QCD, or do you mean that Peskin and Schroeder goes overboard with such types of calculations?

Doesn't a string theorist need to have learned renormalisation concepts, such as how to do renormalisation and renormlisation groups, or non-abelian gauge theories, for that matter?