What kind of physics should I study?

[kelly0303]

Hello! I was accepted to one of the top universities in the USA for experimental particle physics, however after one year of going to talks and talking to people I don't think that any major breakthrough will be made in the next 15-20 years at least. By breakthrough I mean Beyond Standard Model physics.

There are still lots of things to be learned about Standard Model and do precise measurements, but I don't really find that exciting and spending my PhD to just put a better bound on SuperSymmetry models, Dark Matter or sterile neutrinos doesn't really attracts me (although I am totally aware of how important these bounds are for Beyond Standard Model searches in long term).

I talked to some professors and I am thinking to switch to condensed matter experiment (I see that lots of major discoveries have been made there in the past decades). Another area that attracts me is AI and I see that more and more fields start to heavily use that in their research. What would you advise me to do? What area of physics (even beyond the ones I mentioned) would be the most promising? What path would you take if you started your PhD now? Thank you!

 

[symbolipoint]

kelly0303
I looked at your profile page and the ABOUT tab section.

The abbreviations you used in post #1 may not be understood by most people reading your post, so maybe write them in full instead. Better understanding of what your knowledge is could be known if you tell the readers how far along you are in your undergraduate study of Physics. This would improve the kind of advice from any of the qualified forum members.

 

[kelly0303]

kelly0303
I looked at your profile page and the ABOUT tab section.

The abbreviations you used in post #1 may not be understood by most people reading your post, so maybe write them in full instead. Better understanding of what your knowledge is could be known if you tell the readers how far along you are in your undergraduate study of Physics. This would improve the kind of advice from any of the qualified forum members.

Thank you for your reply! I wrote the abbreviations in full. I am finishing my first year of PhD in experimental particle physics. The experience I had during the first year in terms of research itself (I got good results, I work on a CERN based experiment, but I don't feel like LHC or any major experiment in the world will find anything major in the near future), but also from talking to other people about their views on the field, made be think of moving to some other area. I am allowed to do so, if I find a professor willing to work with me (which I did), but I am not sure if it is a good idea. So I was wondering what people working in different areas think about the future of different field of physics.

 

[Vanadium 50]

I don't think that any major breakthrough will be made

If you are going into this field because you want to make a breakthrough, the odds are very very high you will be disappointed.

 

[kelly0303]

If you are going into this field because you want to make a breakthrough, the odds are very very high you will be disappointed.

Oh, that's not what I mean necessary. My point is that I want to go into a field where there is a chance for a breakthrough. Of course from the possibility of a breakthrough to actually doing it, is a huge step, but I want to at least have the motivation that I can aim for something. In experimental particle physics there are lots of things to be discovered, but I don't see (confidently) any experiment able to do so in the near future. So working in that field feels like going 99% sure that I won't have the chance to make something significant. But my main question is what do you think there are the fields with the biggest potential for breakthroughs given the current state of physics.

 

[Orodruin]

The more certain you become, the less will it be a breakthrough.

 

[Dr Transport]

Do what makes you happy and keeps you interested, chasing the next break-thru isn't the best way to spend your life's work.

 

[ZapperZ]

Oh, that's not what I mean necessary. My point is that I want to go into a field where there is a chance for a breakthrough. Of course from the possibility of a breakthrough to actually doing it, is a huge step, but I want to at least have the motivation that I can aim for something. In experimental particle physics there are lots of things to be discovered, but I don't see (confidently) any experiment able to do so in the near future. So working in that field feels like going 99% sure that I won't have the chance to make something significant. But my main question is what do you think there are the fields with the biggest potential for breakthroughs given the current state of physics.

What EXACTLY is your definition of a “breakthrough”?

Zz.

 

[StatGuy2000]

If you are going into this field because you want to make a breakthrough, the odds are very very high you will be disappointed.

This begs the following question: what do you feel should be the reason for going into this or any other field in physics?

What was your reason for pursuing your particular field within physics?

 

[Vanadium 50]

I measure things. I knew that much of this would be incremental work. Yes, I was involved in 3 major doscoveries: Bs mixing, the top quark and the Higgs, but had nature turned out differently those searches would have come up dry.

 

[f95toli]

This begs the following question: what do you feel should be the reason for going into this or any other field in physics?

Because you like the work. That is, the actual day-to-day work in the lab or in the office.
I do not believe it is a good idea to choose a particular field because of some grand idea of "contributing to science" . There are multiple reasons for this. One is that even if you do happen to work in a field where there is a breakthrough the resulting excitement will only be there for a very limited amount of time. The rest of the time you need to be able to enjoy (or at least not dislike) the work itself, irrespective of the goal.
Another reason is simply that most of the time the work you will not go anywhere; and if you are too goal oriented this can be hard to cope with. I've actually seen people leave science because this, the lack of progress can -literately- be depressing for some.

Hence, if you like coding you should probably not go into a field where you will spend most of your time aligning mirrors or soldering cables and vice versa.

 

[StatGuy2000]

Because you like the work. That is, the actual day-to-day work in the lab or in the office.
I do not believe it is a good idea to choose a particular field because of some grand idea of "contributing to science" . There are multiple reasons for this. One is that even if you do happen to work in a field where there is a breakthrough the resulting excitement will only be there for a very limited amount of time. The rest of the time you need to be able to enjoy (or at least not dislike) the work itself, irrespective of the goal.
Another reason is simply that most of the time the work you will not go anywhere; and if you are too goal oriented this can be hard to cope with. I've actually seen people leave science because this, the lack of progress can -literately- be depressing for some.

Hence, if you like coding you should probably not go into a field where you will spend most of your time aligning mirrors or soldering cables and vice versa.

I get what you're saying. On the other hand, isn't part of the reason why someone wants to pursue science is the possibility that they will make progress in their field, as opposed to liking the actual day-to-day work in the lab or in the office?

After all, if progress was not possible, then pursuing that field would be a waste of time and resources, and they would have been better off finding another job requiring similar skills in which they would enjoy the actual day-to-day work.

 

[ZapperZ]

I get what your saying. On the other hand, isn't part of the reason why someone wants to pursue science is the possibility that they will make progress in their field, as opposed to liking the actual day-to-day work in the lab or in the office?

After all, if progress was not possible, then pursuing that field would be a waste of time and resources, and they would have been better off finding another job requiring similar skills in which they would enjoy the actual day-to-day work.

I do not believe that's what f95toli is implying. Of course one wants to make a contribution to the body of knowledge. But this is different than the goal of making a "breakthrough". Such things can't come up on demand.

There is a romanticized idea of what doing science is, and that it is all glamorous and exciting. It can be at times, but the significant portion of the time is not glamorous, not exciting, tedious, boring, sweat-inducing, etc... etc. When you are crawling on the floor under a spaghetti of vacuum lines trying to find a leak at 2:00 am in the morning, the last thing you are thinking of is making a "breakthrough".

This is the reality of the job.

Zz.

 

[Vanadium 50]

progress ≠ breakthrough

 

[f95toli]

I do not believe that's what f95toli is implying. Of course one wants to make a contribution to the body of knowledge. But this is different than the goal of making a "breakthrough". Such things can't come up on demand.

Indeed, it is of course important that you think the area of science and/or the problem you trying to solve is interesting and/or worth working on.
However, you can -generally speaking- find interesting problems in most areas of physics but the TYPE of work you do as a physicist can vary wildly even within a specific area. This is perhaps even more true today than it used to be since so much work involve experts with many different skills; all working on the same problem.

 

[Dr Transport]

progress ≠ breakthrough

in other words, progress ==good

breakthrough == freaking great...

 

[kelly0303]

I measure things. I knew that much of this would be incremental work. Yes, I was involved in 3 major doscoveries: Bs mixing, the top quark and the Higgs, but had nature turned out differently those searches would have come up dry.

Thank you for this! Well, to begin with, that's what I would call breakthrough, for example. Now, searching for the Higgs boson, there weren't tens of experiments who tried and failed before. So being part of that was exciting. You didn't know if you would succeed, of course, but being a first was exciting on its own. On the other hand, joining an experiment that searches for dark matter, or neutrinoless double beta decay, or sterile neutrinos, the fact that so many failed before kinda made me lose the excitement. And makes me feel that no current experiment will do more than putting a better bound on masses or couplings. So I guess what I am looking for are fields where experiment or theory have still a lot to discover, but where people haven't already tried that for 50 years and failed. I would like something that is more recent.

 

[ZapperZ]

Thank you for this! Well, to begin with, that's what I would call breakthrough, for example. Now, searching for the Higgs boson, there weren't tens of experiments who tried and failed before. So being part of that was exciting. You didn't know if you would succeed, of course, but being a first was exciting on its own. On the other hand, joining an experiment that searches for dark matter, or neutrinoless double beta decay, or sterile neutrinos, the fact that so many failed before kinda made me lose the excitement. And makes me feel that no current experiment will do more than putting a better bound on masses or couplings. So I guess what I am looking for are fields where experiment or theory have still a lot to discover, but where people haven't already tried that for 50 years and failed. I would like something that is more recent.

Sorry, but to me, that is still highly vague on what YOU mean by a "breakthrough".

Let me ask you this: Does a work that gets published in PRL can be considered as a "breakthrough" in your definition?

Zz.

 

[kelly0303]

Sorry, but to me, that is still highly vague on what YOU mean by a "breakthrough".

Let me ask you this: Does a work that gets published in PRL can be considered as a "breakthrough" in your definition?

Zz.

Not really. There are many theoretical papers in famous journals that might not get experimental confirmation. There are also many experimental publications in famous journals that just set better boundaries. Even if they are good quality works, and useful in many ways, I would definitely not count them as a breakthrough. So I don't think the Journal where it gets published reflects the fact that it is a breakthrough. Moreover, breakthroughs happen quite rarely so statistically speaking, a journal can't have many breakthroughs published per month. But, how would you define a breakthrough?

 

[ZapperZ]

But, how would you define a breakthrough?

Er... why should *I* define it? You were the one using it as your "criteria". I didn't. It is you who should be defining it, and from what I have read, you have a rather vague, undefined idea of what it is anyway.

BTW, do you know how difficult it is to have a paper published in PRL?

Zz.

 

[kelly0303]

Er... why should *I* define it? You were the one using it as your "criteria". I didn't. It is you who should be defining it, and from what I have read, you have a rather vague, undefined idea of what it is anyway.

BTW, do you know how difficult it is to have a paper published in PRL?

Zz.

Oh, I was asking for your definitions because mine seems to not be good, so seeing yours maybe I can redefine mine in a better way such that I can express exactly what I mean. Also about PRL, I know (from experience) how difficult it is. I never said it is easy and I am aware that the papers published there are high quality. But PRL publishes thousands of papers per year. You can obviously not consider all of them breakthroughs, because if science would have thousands of breakthroughs per years it would simply means that the definition of breakthrough needs to be revised.

 

[ZapperZ]

Oh, I was asking for your definitions because mine seems to not be good, so seeing yours maybe I can redefine mine in a better way such that I can express exactly what I mean. Also about PRL, I know (from experience) how difficult it is. I never said it is easy and I am aware that the papers published there are high quality. But PRL publishes thousands of papers per year. You can obviously not consider all of them breakthroughs, because if science would have thousands of breakthroughs per years it would simply means that the definition of breakthrough needs to be revised.

But can't you see the absurdity in all of this? You want to go into a field to make a "breakthrough", but you can't define what that is!

Let me also point out one other thing. Many of the so-called "breakthrough" discoveries are not thought of to be a "breakthrough" in the beginning. Do you think Bednorz and Muller thought they had a "breakthrough" when they saw superconductivity in the Ba-La-Cu-O compounds? If they did, why did they published it in Z. Phys instead of PRL, or even Science or Nature? Often times, what we now considers as groundbreaking work wasn't that groundbreaking back then! Can a mundane-looking theory on Goldstone boson in superconductivity lead to the Higgs mechanism? Who would thunk it back then?

This is why when you profess to want to work in an area of physics with more possibility of a "breakthrough", any of us scratch our heads and go "huh?"

Zz.

 

[gleem]

What seems to be missing in your approach to defining the path for your future is that you do not seem interested in anything in and of itself. Not a good start for the rest of your life for if progress is slow you will want to change again.

 

[Dr. Courtney]

I recommend being content being the first person who ever lived to know something. That's an awesome moment, and I've treasured every one I've had as a scientist.

I leave it to others to gauge the importance of these "firsts." Is it a breakthrough? Does it warrant publication in PRL? How many times will the paper be cited? These questions have career implications, but they are not what drives me as a scientist.

I'm a scientist for the Eureka! moments. The "I found it" moments. When I found out some truth of nature that is not searchable anywhere on the internet or in any library.

 

[Phys12]

Let me also point out one other thing. Many of the so-called "breakthrough" discoveries are not thought of to be a "breakthrough" in the beginning. Do you think Bednorz and Muller thought they had a "breakthrough" when they saw superconductivity in the Ba-La-Cu-O compounds? If they did, why did they published it in Z. Phys instead of PRL, or even Science or Nature? Often times, what we now considers as groundbreaking work wasn't that groundbreaking back then! Can a mundane-looking theory on Goldstone boson in superconductivity lead to the Higgs mechanism? Who would thunk it back then?Zz.

In addition, I think a lot of times the "breakthroughs" that do happen are not the result of a carefully devised experiment to look for that very "breakthrough" (for instance, LIGO was looking for gravitational waves and found them!); but sometimes it just comes out as an accident-- a feature that you happen to notice in your experiment. For instance, the High-Z Supernova Search Team was trying to find distant Type Ia supernovas, not find evidence of accelerated expansion of the universe (for which the team won the Nobel Prize). Radioactivity was also detected as an accident. While there are so many experiments which are carefully devised to look for a "breakthrough", they sometimes don't see one (for instance, if I recall correctly, IceCube still hasn't found any evidence of the existence of sterile neutrinos). While I'm only an undergrad; after listening to lots of other, more experienced people and thinking hard about it myself, I think it's wise to spend my life doing something that I enjoy doing on an everyday basis and learning new things everyday, than to spend my time worrying about making a "breakthrough", which may or may not happen and make me super depressed if it takes longer than a few months/years to come.