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Academic trends are ruled by money. In theoretical physics, computer simulations is where the money is. For the students, that means they are doing computer sci

by ktpsns 8y ago

Academic trends are ruled by money. In theoretical physics, computer simulations is where the money is. For the students, that means they are doing computer science related work, frequently the physics part is lacking. The route to leaving physics and using the data science capabilities is then a straightforward one.

killjoywashere 8y ago
I work with a few PhD physicists, one is a technical program manager in applied optics and ML; one is an individual contributor in optics and ML, and the other one is pretty straight stick ML. I bailed on physics after my bachelor's, ended up in medicine and now ... work in ML, with them. I don't think I ever heard anyone tell me, or any of my classmates "you should get a PhD in physics". It was something one did to do it. Because it's there. But even 20 years ago, the guidance was to look for jobs in finance or computers.
- rodolphoarruda 8y ago
  >20 years ago, the guidance was to look for jobs in finance or computers It was 2003 when the company I was working for acquired InterBiz from Computer Associates. By the time we were integrating teams from both companies I met this guy who were the guru, the #1 product manager from one of the most profitable lines of business that the company had. I remember the shock in people's faces when he, a Portuguese guy, said he's got a PhD in Physics, in Germany, in a second language to his own, but then ended up developing Warehouse Management Systems (WMS).
- hpcjoe 8y ago
  > But even 20 years ago, the guidance was to look for jobs in finance or computers. Yeah. I keep kicking myself for not taking the Wall Street guys who called me more seriously. That would be one important message I'd like to send backward in time. I remember some of the Physics departments I knew well commenting that they were getting 250+ applications for each open tenure track position (early/mid 90s). It skyrocketed to 1000+ at one point for a few places. Based on some back of the envelope math, and a realization that a fresh Ph.D. with ~6 publications (2 PRL, 4 others) would not be a good competitor to a senior FSU physicist with 50+ publications to their name, a solid reputation, and an interest in moving out of the FSU quickly. I determined that market forces had flooded the supply side of physics with, well, extremely good candidates for the same positions I was applying for. And my ability to compete with them was low based upon the main components that hiring committees cared about. So I looked elsewhere. 20+ years later, I've made a good career working in computing, but I really do miss physics and research in general.
- chadcmulligan 8y ago
  A surprising number of physics students I studied with, were also mountain climbers. They seem to be very much, 'because its there' sort of people.
tw1010 8y ago
Is it really bad that most time is invested in simulations? Seems like a very potent low-hanging fruit (not to mention how many cool things could come out of it).
- Anon84 8y ago
  Depends on what you enjoy doing. I spent a lot of time doing magnetic simulations during the earlier period of my PhD and the reason for doing them isn't that the theory can't explain what will happen, but rather that we don't have the mathematical chops to actually calculate it, so we build little artificial worlds and try to take measurements the old fashion way. This was certainly a lot fun, but you won't be getting any thing particularly revolutionary out of it. I remember my advisor at the time running a few dozen CPUs of our poor excuse for a cluster (built mostly by yours truly with off the shelf components) for the entire summer to add a couple of digits to the ground level energy estimate of a completely artificial magnetic model :) On the bright side, it taught me a lot about programming, numerical simulation and optimization
vanderZwan 8y ago
This kind of reminds me of what Jeff Hawkins once claimed was the issue with making sense of how the brain works: > So why don't we have a good theory of brains? People have been working on it for 100 years. Let's first take a look at what normal science looks like. This is normal science. Normal science is a nice balance between theory and experimentalists. The theorist guy says, "I think this is what's going on," the experimentalist says, "You're wrong." It goes back and forth, this works in physics, this in geology. > But if this is normal science, what does neuroscience look like? This is what neuroscience looks like. We have this mountain of data, which is anatomy, physiology and behavior. You can't imagine how much detail we know about brains. There were 28,000 people who went to the neuroscience conference this year, and every one of them is doing research in brains. A lot of data, but no theory. There's a little wimpy box on top there. Not that physics has no theories, but I dropped out of studying physics myself over a decade ago, and at that time it felt a lot like the balance in physics has shifted towards having to measure and process disproportionate amounts of data with so much precision that it has to be automated, or like you said do a ton of really complicated modelling. It feels a bit "stuck" that way. [0] https://www.ted.com/talks/jeff_hawkins_on_how_brain_science_will_change_computing https://www.ted.com/talks/jeff_hawkins_on_how_brain_science_...
- majewsky 8y ago
  I think you're seeing this in physics because, in terms of experimental accessibility, the low-hanging fruit are mostly picked. Most parts of the Standard Model are verified to 5σ at all energy levels that are accessible to us in everyday life and in contemporary particle accelerators, so it's increasingly unlikely that we've missed any obvious mechanisms. If we're going to find some completely new physics (in the same way that quantum theory and relativity theory were completely new at the turn of the 20th century), it's probably going to be at energy levels that contemporary particle accelerators cannot yet explore. EDIT: That's not to say that we know everything that is to know about the accessible energy levels. There's so much in our theory that's yet unexplained, e.g. for all I know, we still don't have any idea why time works the way it does.
- Anon84 8y ago
  > Not that physics has no theories, but I dropped out of studying physics myself over a decade ago, and at that time it felt a lot like the balance in physics has shifted towards having to measure and process disproportionate amounts of data with so much precision that has to be automated, or like you said do a ton of really complicated modelling. It feels a bit "stuck" that way. The reason for is just how damn good all the Physics Theory is. People keep having to look closer and closer to try to find a place, any place, where the theory "fails" (in a sufficiently spectacular fashion) hoping that that might point the way to new phenomena and new theory. There's a giant multibillion dollar hole on the ground in Switzerland who's main purpose was to find a chink in the armor of HEP or help point the way to new theories. It failed spectacularly, but they're already talking about building a bigger one :)

by ktpsns 8y ago

killjoywashere 8y ago

I work with a few PhD physicists, one is a technical program manager in applied optics and ML; one is an individual contributor in optics and ML, and the other one is pretty straight stick ML. I bailed on physics after my bachelor's, ended up in medicine and now ... work in ML, with them. I don't think I ever heard anyone tell me, or any of my classmates "you should get a PhD in physics". It was something one did to do it. Because it's there. But even 20 years ago, the guidance was to look for jobs in finance or computers.

rodolphoarruda 8y ago
>20 years ago, the guidance was to look for jobs in finance or computers It was 2003 when the company I was working for acquired InterBiz from Computer Associates. By the time we were integrating teams from both companies I met this guy who were the guru, the #1 product manager from one of the most profitable lines of business that the company had. I remember the shock in people's faces when he, a Portuguese guy, said he's got a PhD in Physics, in Germany, in a second language to his own, but then ended up developing Warehouse Management Systems (WMS).
hpcjoe 8y ago
> But even 20 years ago, the guidance was to look for jobs in finance or computers. Yeah. I keep kicking myself for not taking the Wall Street guys who called me more seriously. That would be one important message I'd like to send backward in time. I remember some of the Physics departments I knew well commenting that they were getting 250+ applications for each open tenure track position (early/mid 90s). It skyrocketed to 1000+ at one point for a few places. Based on some back of the envelope math, and a realization that a fresh Ph.D. with ~6 publications (2 PRL, 4 others) would not be a good competitor to a senior FSU physicist with 50+ publications to their name, a solid reputation, and an interest in moving out of the FSU quickly. I determined that market forces had flooded the supply side of physics with, well, extremely good candidates for the same positions I was applying for. And my ability to compete with them was low based upon the main components that hiring committees cared about. So I looked elsewhere. 20+ years later, I've made a good career working in computing, but I really do miss physics and research in general.
chadcmulligan 8y ago
A surprising number of physics students I studied with, were also mountain climbers. They seem to be very much, 'because its there' sort of people.

tw1010 8y ago

Is it really bad that most time is invested in simulations? Seems like a very potent low-hanging fruit (not to mention how many cool things could come out of it).

Anon84 8y ago
Depends on what you enjoy doing. I spent a lot of time doing magnetic simulations during the earlier period of my PhD and the reason for doing them isn't that the theory can't explain what will happen, but rather that we don't have the mathematical chops to actually calculate it, so we build little artificial worlds and try to take measurements the old fashion way. This was certainly a lot fun, but you won't be getting any thing particularly revolutionary out of it. I remember my advisor at the time running a few dozen CPUs of our poor excuse for a cluster (built mostly by yours truly with off the shelf components) for the entire summer to add a couple of digits to the ground level energy estimate of a completely artificial magnetic model :) On the bright side, it taught me a lot about programming, numerical simulation and optimization

vanderZwan 8y ago

This kind of reminds me of what Jeff Hawkins once claimed was the issue with making sense of how the brain works: > So why don't we have a good theory of brains? People have been working on it for 100 years. Let's first take a look at what normal science looks like. This is normal science. Normal science is a nice balance between theory and experimentalists. The theorist guy says, "I think this is what's going on," the experimentalist says, "You're wrong." It goes back and forth, this works in physics, this in geology. > But if this is normal science, what does neuroscience look like? This is what neuroscience looks like. We have this mountain of data, which is anatomy, physiology and behavior. You can't imagine how much detail we know about brains. There were 28,000 people who went to the neuroscience conference this year, and every one of them is doing research in brains. A lot of data, but no theory. There's a little wimpy box on top there. Not that physics has no theories, but I dropped out of studying physics myself over a decade ago, and at that time it felt a lot like the balance in physics has shifted towards having to measure and process disproportionate amounts of data with so much precision that it has to be automated, or like you said do a ton of really complicated modelling. It feels a bit "stuck" that way. [0] https://www.ted.com/talks/jeff_hawkins_on_how_brain_science_will_change_computing https://www.ted.com/talks/jeff_hawkins_on_how_brain_science_...

majewsky 8y ago
I think you're seeing this in physics because, in terms of experimental accessibility, the low-hanging fruit are mostly picked. Most parts of the Standard Model are verified to 5σ at all energy levels that are accessible to us in everyday life and in contemporary particle accelerators, so it's increasingly unlikely that we've missed any obvious mechanisms. If we're going to find some completely new physics (in the same way that quantum theory and relativity theory were completely new at the turn of the 20th century), it's probably going to be at energy levels that contemporary particle accelerators cannot yet explore. EDIT: That's not to say that we know everything that is to know about the accessible energy levels. There's so much in our theory that's yet unexplained, e.g. for all I know, we still don't have any idea why time works the way it does.
Anon84 8y ago
> Not that physics has no theories, but I dropped out of studying physics myself over a decade ago, and at that time it felt a lot like the balance in physics has shifted towards having to measure and process disproportionate amounts of data with so much precision that has to be automated, or like you said do a ton of really complicated modelling. It feels a bit "stuck" that way. The reason for is just how damn good all the Physics Theory is. People keep having to look closer and closer to try to find a place, any place, where the theory "fails" (in a sufficiently spectacular fashion) hoping that that might point the way to new phenomena and new theory. There's a giant multibillion dollar hole on the ground in Switzerland who's main purpose was to find a chink in the armor of HEP or help point the way to new theories. It failed spectacularly, but they're already talking about building a bigger one :)