17 ms·

What does any of this have to do with physics? (2016)

278 points by telotortium 6y ago

_Microft 6y ago
This article is from 2016. Would you add it to the title? I'll remove my comment once it's updated, so please don't reply.
- aklemm 6y ago
  In all seriousness, why?
  - pfortuny 6y ago
    Because some people may have already read it and the title may not be enough for them to realize it. It is not shaming information, it is just another piece of data.
    - swayvil 6y ago
      I for one think that adding the date is unnecessary.
      - pfortuny 6y ago
        Of course you may have your opinion. But I have found that datum very informative lots of times.
    - _Microft 6y ago
      Exactly this happened to me - but not only that! - I even got my hopes up to mark the "Dr. Hossenfelder" square on my HN frontpage bingo.
  - RandallBrown 6y ago
    That's kind of a tradition here on HN with old articles.
    - aklemm 6y ago
      All the more reason to find out the rationale.
ahelwer 6y ago
Still my favorite essay I've ever read on the experience of grad school, five years after publication. Of course I've never been to grad school, although if I were to go it'd be in physics (try reading Anathem without wanting to drop everything and get a PhD in physics afterward, I challenge you). I've spent the past decade or so living frugally & working in big tech. I now have enough saved up that I can conceivably work on a couple contracts a year then spend the rest of the time working on whatever I want. I think I know enough to do useful, interesting things in computer science without going to grad school. So that's one path I can take. The other would be to go to grad school for physics, but able to maintain greater material comfort than the author of this piece - and having already made peace with the end of a burning desire to shake the world. I wonder whether those two things would make a difference to my experience.
- 2sk21 6y ago
  It's interesting you mentioned Anathem. I have often fantasized about living in a Math and working on theorics myself :-) I retired early from software development last year to spend more time studying math and cognitive science.
  - giantg2 6y ago
    "I retired early from software development last year to spend more time ..." [insert anything you enjoy]. This is the dream.
    - KineticLensman 6y ago
      > insert anything you enjoy Raptor conservancy. It's often cold and wet (an outdoor job) and often menial (someone has to clean the projectile poop) and I'm a newbie where the young people are my mentors. And I don't get paid (the previous 30 years are funding this). But the experience, on a summer evening, in the rolling countryside, of a Peregrine Falcon diving at 100mph and hurtling right past you is unbeatable.
      - 6y ago
reedf1 6y ago
My whole childhood and young life I wanted to go into physics academia. I wanted to have influence - to push the boundaries of science. I had an idyllic view of this purely meritocratic system where people were paid to explore. My first year of undergrad utterly destroyed this notion. I left as soon as I had my bachelors degree. I knew what would await me in grad and post grad work and I'd seen post docs cry after endless work for grants. I wanted financial freedom and happiness, and that eventually won over pushing the boundaries of science. So sorry young me - I quit too.
- agumonkey 6y ago
  I can understand the pain of leaving that dream, but in a way, a tainted soil is rarely a good dream anyway. I so wish I could do beautiful coding work but societies are not aligned with beauty (even at zero cost) so i'm bailing toward financial independance and peace of mind. Hopefully you and I can make time to join club or do thinking on our own terms.
  - TeMPOraL 6y ago
    > Hopefully you and I can make time to join club or do thinking on our own terms. Reminds me of a thought that's been sitting in my quotes file for a while. "What one wants is to be able to talk with a diverse club of smart people, arrange to do short one-off research projects and simulations, publish papers or capture intellectual property quickly and easily, and move on to another conversation. Quickly. Easily. For a living. Can’t do that in industry. Can’t do that in the Academy. Yet in my experience, scientists and engineers all want it. Maybe even a few mathematicians and social scientists do, too." -- Bill Tozier, Diverse themes observed at GECCO 2006 https://web.archive.org/web/20120625133020/http://williamtozier.com/slurry/2006/07/17/diverse-themes-observed-at-gecco-2006 https://web.archive.org/web/20120625133020/http://williamtoz... (And personally, I do want it too.)
    - reasonabl_human 6y ago
      Yep, sounds idyllic. Maybe some form of engineering consulting?
bezout 6y ago
Life is too short for these shenanigans. But, I think that you should still go for it if and only if you understand what you’re getting yourself into. There ain't no such thing as a free lunch.
- kemiller2002 6y ago
  I think this is the most important comment. Most people don't realize until much later, that everything is a trade. This for that. You get an advanced degree at the cost of: higher income? free time? finding the right partner? That's what life is about. Everything has a price, and not knowing the cost is the biggest mistake.
  - shoo 6y ago
    >> you should still go for it if and only if you understand what you’re getting yourself into > Most people don't realize until much later, that everything is a trade. This for that. > Everything has a price, and not knowing the cost is the biggest mistake I agree. Yet people often -- perhaps nearly always -- choose to pursue things based on limited information. Some people decide at a young age that they want to be a physicist, or a ballerina, or an astronaut, or a doctor, or a professional basketballer. Perhaps the decision is based on a dream or naive external understanding of what the occupation involves that isn't based on the reality of what the training and doing the work actually entails. Let alone the realities of the labour market: is there an oversupply of people willing to do the work compared to opportunities? What base rate of intelligent, hard working aspirants actually succeed at turning that job into a career? What compromises -- in ethics, in freedom of action and thought, in terms of making the work pay a living wage -- need to be made in order to have the career succeed? Another lens: universities are in the business of selling education. If the young customer wants to buy an education in some specialised niche based on a naive misunderstanding of the true costs in doing so, who is the university to disabuse the customer of their naivety and turn away their custom? Similarly for people wishing to pursue a career in academia: if we think of the system as some kind of industrial process, what inputs does it require? Funding from grants is helpful, a few blackboards, access to libraries and journals. But we also need a feedstock of smart, well-trained, hard-working low-cost graduate students to feed into the machine.
superfamicom 6y ago
Previous discussions: 2019 - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19010164 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19010164 2016 - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13276968 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13276968
Twisol 6y ago
I last read this article before I started grad school (in computer science). I'm reading it again, now, more than two years after I left. My experience was the polar opposite, if the poles were bent around like a horseshoe magnet. Rather than suffocating under thick expectations, I was gasping for air without direction. My first advisor recognized that his lab's interests had shifted between my application and my arrival, so he gave me free reign to figure out where my interests lay for my first year. (The nexus of programming languages, concurrency, and logic, if you're wondering.) He moved on to another university, and as an introvert who'd barely been out of state without my family, much less on my own in another country, I chose not to go with him. I met my second advisor in a seminar course on static analysis and formal methods -- his first on joining the university. It was completely up my alley, and we got along really well. Given the situation with my first advisor, we were on the same wavelength about becoming his first official student. But he thought he was getting a grad student who had done real research for a year, and in reality I still had no idea how to approach research. He had to lower his expectations a few times, and since he started from an expectation that I wouldn't need much guidance, I never really got the amount of attention I asked for. We ended up parting ways with bad feelings. I can't really blame my advisors personally. I still don't know enough about the day-to-day of the academic system to judge. And I'm sure there are places where (and advisors of whom) you can expect more support. But my takeaway, from my experience and from this article, is that if you go in without knowing what you're getting into, nobody's going to be there to tell you what to do. You either luck into finding a sustainable approach, or you don't. I still want to go back to grad school. I think my experience will help me know better what my needs are and where those can be provided, and thus make me a less risky proposition for a university to take on. But I regret not taking a gap year to really dig in and understand the system I was going to put myself through. (EDIT: My advisors are good people, and I wish them well. I hope that's clear from what I've written. Things just didn't work out.)
daxfohl 6y ago
I think what the author is missing here is how does he define "succeeding" in the field. It sounds like for himself anything short of "theory of everything" is failure, but for others, finishing a PhD is success. So on his terms for himself, terms even his advisor is way short of that goal. Heck, even Einstein was. But then he sees others just completing an arbitrary thesis and thinks of them as the successful ones. The author has just failed to reconcile his expectations and hopes of himself with what he's seeing others do. In other words, I think even if the author had "succeeded" to the point of being top in his class and exceeding the research output of his advisor, he'd still be unhappy, still consider himself unsuccessful. Opting out was probably the best decision he could have made, and his life is probably more productive thereby. And heck, maybe he even still has a better chance of finding some theory of everything via some analogy he comes across in his day to day work than by a life of research in "fiber bundles".
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
quacked 6y ago
I think the crucial insight in this essay is glossed over; the author allots only a few lines to an explanation of how the other graduate students didn't need to work as hard as he did to understand the fundamental concepts relevant to his project. This, I believe, is the heart of his issue. He comes to the conclusion that "he quit" or "he didn't know what to work on", but it appears to me that he simply wasn't as high-caliber as the other students, and only persevered for as long as he did largely due to stubbornness and his tremendous work ethic. (Also, he mentions the other students' more-rigorous mathematical backgrounds, but he does not mention their IQ [1].) Immigrant outperformance of native-English-speaking students is a complicated topic; the way I choose to look at it is in terms of population competition. India has 1.3B, China has 1.4B, the U.S. has 0.33B. Assuming that the IQ distributions are exactly equal (ehh), for every one 130 IQ American, there are 4 130 IQ Indians, and 4 130 IQ Chinese. If they all compete for one spot at an American university, the Indians and Chinese will have to work much, much harder to win the "top spot from <nation>" than the American will. A look at the questions and scores for entrance exams in undergraduate physics and math for the India Institute of Technology vs. a look at the questions and scores for entrance exams in physics in math for Stanford should confirm this vast gap in curriculum and competition. Any cursory examination of formal education in terms of course complexity, workload, and exam importance of Korea, China, Japan, etc. vs. the U.S. or other western countries should also lay bare the incredible gap in preparation and competition. As I like to explain to those who support a "global meritocracy" for college admissions, the implementation of their plan would result in a majority Asian student body at every single university in the U.S. The author's work ethic is tremendous- I have never worked anywhere near as hard as he did for that sustained period of time. But the fact of the matter is that a higher-IQ, more-prepared student would not have needed to struggle as hard as he did, and from his description of the foreign students that surpassed him, they didn't. I suspect he would have been happier if he'd accepted his lot much earlier and leaned into a higher-paying, less-hours career and studied physics in his free time. Another question- did he refuse to quit because he loved physics, or did he refuse to quit because his vision of his life was overly focused on holding the identity of "guy who works on theoretical physics"? [1] Many people dislike using IQ to measure anything, and its most stringent detractors say that it is a meaningless metric. It is worth pointing out that while IQ is a completely made-up metric, it is a specific measure of memory and abstract reasoning as applied to western-style logic puzzles and patterns. This makes it a useful metric when trying to evaluate one's ability to study and perform western-style math or physics, which are giant collections of western-style logic puzzles and patterns. Many people who believe that IQ does not predict anything have never had the opportunity to spend a lot of time interacting with someone who is so much higher-IQ than they are that it shows in regular interactions. I am regularly shocked at how much more quickly my extremely smart friends can pick up and memorize concepts than I can.
cammikebrown 6y ago
Aw, man. This essay gives me some perspective. I ended up hating physics by the time I got my bachelor’s in it. I remember junior year they said, we know you’re confused, you haven’t actually learned REAL physics yet, that’s what grad school is for. And most of you won’t be accepted, and of those who are, most won’t become professors even if you want to. I figured a physics degree would allow me to get a good job, but then they said, sure, if you want to do finance, defense, or education. What?! The first two were pretty nauseating so I decided to do a year-long internship at various local public schools, and realized that I hated that too. (More the bureaucracy than the actual teaching aspect.) My school basically expected you’d double major in math or CS, so they often didn’t teach a lot of the fundamental techniques you needed, assuming you knew it already. I also learned that while my high school had done a great job teaching me English and history, the math department was not quite up to snuff comparatively, and I felt behind my classmates about “fundamentals” like linear algebra, which they had somehow been taught in high school. Sure, I knew Shakespeare a lot better than them, and even minored in literature in college (maybe biting off more than I could chew) but that clearly didn’t impress them. Why waste your time with old books when you could be making money! It definitely brought me down a notch and made me feel dumb, but I also realized college wasn’t a place for someone to learn lots of different things, but to focus on one area instead. I ended up becoming a bartender and I’m very happy with that decision. At least, once things are back to normal, hopefully within the next few months. Hopefully I didn’t just jinx it
- hellbannedguy 6y ago
  I look back on college, and so many classes seemed like a waste of time. I understand a well rounded education, but so many classes seemed like fluff. I once took a Abnormal Psychology class. It sounded interesting being premed. For half a year we sat in a circle, and talked about feelings. I was so shy that was the last place I would open up. I used to think, If I was honest, I would admit I was still a virgin, and had a deathly fear of public speaking. I loved the teacher though. She really meant well. If I had a kid, I would supplement his education. I would make sure he knew mathematics well. I also think physics should be taught much earlier, along with the finance, and the markets. As a kid, I was interested in woodworking, cars, engines, even electricity, but the teachers had us coloring world maps?
antattack 6y ago
Capitalist system does not seem to value scientific research well enough. Risk to reward ratio is very high.
- searine 6y ago
  There is a reason that scientific research was an aristocratic pastime for most of its history. The idea of a middle-class scientist is an invention of the mid-20th century, and not an enduring one. Even Einstein had to work as a patent clerk. Society will never highly value fundamental research because it cannot comprehend it, thus cannot ascribe a value to it.
  - xxpor 6y ago
    Even Bell Labs was really the result of government intervention.
    - 8bitsrule 6y ago
      Bell Labs. Many great ideas outta there. When they hired Jansky and he accidentally discovered radio astronomy. And nothing happened. But that led to the adventures of Grote Reber[0] (an inspiring figure). In 1937 the 26-year-old built a radio telescope dish in his backyard. A ham radio operator with a EE degree, he completed the first VHF survey of the sky - in his spare time. In 1939 he discovers Cygnus A. But his work 'fell between fields'. [1] During WW2 he works with John 'Big Ear' Kraus. In 1954 Reber moves to Tasmania (less radio interference, less Big Bang). Inspired by his results, in the 50s Ryle and Hewitt get busy at Cambridge. In 1974 they win a Nobel Prize. Down under, Reber just kept doing what he loved. P.S. Interesting coincidence: his mother had been a schoolteacher; one of her students: Edwin Hubble. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grote%20Reber https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grote%20Reber [1] https://physicstoday.scitation.org/doi/10.1063/1.1611360 https://physicstoday.scitation.org/doi/10.1063/1.1611360 2003 Physics Today bio
iorrus 6y ago
It's a beautifully written essay but he misses the obvious. What was the point of spending all this time in what he admits but doesn't make explicit was a dead end. He would have ended up spending his life pretending to make important discoveries and doing something worthwile, in reality he would have been making "toy models". He definitely made the right decision. I don't understand the "I quit" angst, it's sunk cost fallacy, no he didn't quit, he made a rational decision. It was a waste of his time and most likely everyone else who he mention's time.
- caente 6y ago
  He did quit, there should not be shame in quitting, but he did quit. Others have the same difficulties as him, they don't quit, nor they achieved anything, that is the risk. Now he makes money in Wall Street. By his standards, he hasn't achieve anything yet, nor will ever, other than procuring for his family, which is not a small thing! But his dreams were about "The Grail", if they still are, then he quit. He quit a path that would most likely left him in the dust, but that it was the only path that could have possibly taken him to "The Grail", the current path won't take him anywhere near it. So unless he is able to change the narrative of his own life, he will forever be a failure, independently of how much money he can make in the trading floor.
  - iorrus 6y ago
    I agree 100% but his path to the grail was stifled where he was. He made the right decision to escape but maybe he would have been better off living like Grigori Perelman and devoting himself mind body and soul to the grail. That’s what it takes, he should have left as soon as he felt the misalignment with the grail and the toy models he was working on as he was involved in fruitless make work.
  - jeffwass 6y ago
    Actually he resigned from Wall Street some time ago and is now a writer.
- microtherion 6y ago
  Presumably he did not exactly cure World Hunger at Wall Street either, though he almost certainly did not have to worry about killing cockroaches at night.
ofcrpls 6y ago
Rochester does that to one.
at_a_remove 6y ago
This resonated with me pretty hard. Despite starting as a nuke e, I figured very quickly that the situation was rather grim, so I got my BS in physics, with a ton of credits in related math, computer science, and some other hard sciences for giggles. All the time, though, I kept my eyes peeled. What I saw was some very intelligent people whose hard work, creativity, and genius I admired making very little money, scavenging for grants like jackals, their spouses working second jobs, their clothing a little worn, their cars breaking down even as they labored over Big Issues. That is the payoff? I did not pursue it any further. Yes, the degree itself impresses people (sometimes more than really necessary, is my feeling), and it certainly primes you to be able to switch gears for entirely different frameworks, but it has opened doors. Meanwhile, I occasionally look at the odd paper, sniff around. For strings (oh, not strings, superstrings) (oh, not superstrings, M-theory) it's all out of my league, but not so much so I cannot feel the shape of things and just how far they are from being more than just very abstract mathematical constructs. "Fiber bundles," exactly how many strings and shiny hag-stones are we out on that particular Glass Bead Game? I accept the possibility that the universe may simply be too difficult, on a mathematical level, for mere humans to understand. It could happen. On the other hand, I suspect that the development of mathematical models of physical phenomena without frequent touching of the "real world," fumbling for guideposts, why, you could very well wander off into a paper map of your own creation, unrelated to the world you wanted to explain.
- trhway 6y ago
  > too difficult, on a mathematical level, for mere humans to understand. to me the current situation looks similar to when we were building more and more complex combinations of epicycles in order to more and more precisely model the "Sun and the planets rotating around the Earth". Similarly we have right now a couple of dogmas, like say Copenhagen interpretation and the recently emerged dark matter, which while not confirmed by experiments yet can't be questioned (classic sign of dogma) and as a result the science resources are available only for the complex epicycle constructs based on those dogmas.
  - at_a_remove 6y ago
    Well, right now we have some perfectly valid mathematical constructs that nonetheless have nothing to do with reality. Gabriel's Horn is a good starter example, but you can wave it away with giving the paint "atoms" a finite size, but then there are more subtle constructs which lie in wait, like the Banach–Tarski paradox. This will doubtlessly irritate some, but math for me is a tool and if it is not used somehow in reality, I start wondering what it is for, then. Occasionally utility will pop up later, and good, because you don't know what will end up being handy eventually, but some branches seem so esoteric I am at a loss. Again, probably my own ignorance, but I worry that those brighter and better educated than I might be led astray by castles in the sky, just from the beauty and the sensation of satisfaction you get from finding your way into the castle, if that makes sense.
giantg2 6y ago
"... stay the stressful course of wandering in the dark and guessing ..." I feel like that's a highly accurate description of my career path (I'm a dev, not in physics). The part about dreading going back into work and the feelings of being inadequate - that the best effort is only treading water - is basically how I feel too. I wonder how common that is.
- rendall 6y ago
  That's my life, really. The only arena I don't feel that way is coding. It's always stable, steady, predictable
j7ake 6y ago
This article made me subscribe to the magazine hoping to find more amazing articles, but I don’t think there was ever an article that had this kind of emotional impact as this one in nautilus. Still this single article was worth the subscription.
- dandep 6y ago
  Emotional impact or not nautilus has a really high journalistic standards and plenty of masterpieces
intrasight 6y ago
Curious that this is article back on HN 5 years later
- wrycoder 6y ago
  If it was old hat, it would not have been upvoted to the front page. Besides, it's a good story and a cautionary tale. I read through the whole thing once again. And bookmarked the new thread of comments.
  - intrasight 6y ago
    I read it again - and enjoyed it again (as much as one can enjoy a cautionary tale). Really I'm just curious how such old articles come back to the front page.
    - wrycoder 6y ago
      Aside for some controversial subjects, which seem to get an extra ding from dang, it appears to me that articles get boosted to the front page by getting a good number of votes quickly. There's enough turnover here that many would not have seen (or remembered :) the earlier articles.
jeffwass 6y ago
This article resonates quite strongly with me. I also did a PhD in physics which I grew more and more disillusioned with as it progressed. I did physics in undergrad, then worked for a few years as an engineer. I was the only one on my team who didn’t have a PhD, and saw the limits of my own knowledge, so I went back to school to get my PhD in experimental condensed matter physics. Originally I thought I’d struggle through the classes, then do some kickass research, and come back to being a full-time engineer. Turned out to be quite the opposite. My first semester transitioning back to being a full-time student was rough, but after that I really enjoyed the classes, and for the next couple years I wanted to do tenure track research in academia. I then signed on with a faculty member athe department hired as my advisor, to study nanoscale physics (eg superconducting nanowires). Fast forward a few more years and I started to hate the daily grind. Firstly, my advisor was hired in my third year, so we had to build up the lab from scratch. Every little bit of cryogenic equipment, data measuring apparatus, data acquisition and analysis code. Took a couple years before we could do “real” research of interest. Also we had no senior grad students or post docs to learn from. I felt way behind all my colleagues who were in functioning labs and could start taking publication-quality data after just a few weeks of joining their group. Most of my day-to-day wasn’t even physics but annoying laboratory maintenance. Eg finding cold leaks in the cryogenic equipment (these only leak at temperatures of 4K or less, so it took lot of trial and error to find). Or tracking down ground loops on my circuits that were blowing up my fragile nanowires. Or fighting the sputtering chambers we used for deposition (and realising they had been contaminated with magnetic materials making it impossible to grow clean superconducting films). I saw my friends at other schools write paper after paper in top journals working in their well-established labs with huge-budget clean rooms and facilities with full-time maintenance and support staff. Meanwhile in my lab we had limited equipment, no maintenance staff, and we had to fix stuff in our ‘spare’ time, etc. I became jealous of my theorist friends who could work anywhere with just their notebooks and a pencil. I became jealous of my astrophysics friends who were assigned observing time on Hubble and other telescopes, where teams of technicians would make sure their observations would go smoothly and provide them with perfect raw data. I saw that without any seminal publications, my postdoc opportunities were slim. I thought about changing research areas, but came to the realisation that I’m stuck doing the same narrow brand of research that I had been doing the past few years. Because no faculty member would pay for a postdoc who wasn’t ready to hit the ground running as a domain expert. I saw some of my successful friends with lots of amazing papers struggle to find a postdoc appointment. Or if they found one struggle to find a second, or a good faculty position. And if it was a struggle for them, my lack of publications would make this nearly impossible for myself. I was working 12+ hour days making barely enough to live on. And not enjoying it at all, and feeling depressed, with difficulty getting out of bed to come into the lab. Then one day pretty much on a whim I applied for an internship as a quant on Wall Street. I was invited to an interview where I was grilled over two days in 11 separate one-on-one sessions. In between sessions I would look out the window of the 30 floor of a skyscraper in NYC and wonder if I was betraying myself and my fellow physicists, as if academia was a cult. I was offered an internship, and really liked it. This was my ticket out. I went back to school at the end of the summer to write up my thesis. Many of my physics friends were curious about my internship and were considering doing this themselves. All of them told me not to tell anyone else that we had spoken. I wrote a few drafts for papers, one was published, defended my thesis and got myself outta there.
GNU_James 6y ago
Wait a moment! Universities are for people who can't start their own business and make money!?
- 6nf 6y ago
  Those who can’t do, teach
  - concreteblock 6y ago
    Those who did poorly at school, love to use this trite cliche. Even when we're not even talking about teachers.
mjfl 6y ago
Ultimately this guy should have had the mind to shop around more for other professors who motivate their work better. Maybe do some experiments? You're not stuck with one advisor, and it isn't unreasonable to think that it's your job and not a convenience, or someone else's job, to find good motivation for your work.
- Koshkin 6y ago
  > Maybe do some experiments? Well, he was/is a theoretical physicist.
  - mjfl 6y ago
    No he was not. He was a graduate student. He could become anything.
    - wrycoder 6y ago
      When I finished the experimental work for my degree and was working on the thesis, the lab with its 10 KGauss magnet and other equipment was assigned to the next graduate student. One afternoon we were hanging out in one of the grad student offices, when one of the guys had a problem - his desk calculator stopped working. After doing a bit of troubleshooting, it turned out that the wall plug strip was dead, the breaker had been tripped. We went searching for the problem and discovered that the new experimental physics PhD candidate, while hooking up a power supply, had wired a switch directly across the ac line and turned it on. Back in the office, with the breaker reset, we were having a good laugh about this. The fellow's supervisor wandered in and leaned against the wall, listening to us. After a while, he said, "You know, I had to stop him from doing it two more times." I heard later that he moved into theoretical physics.
- creativeandlazy 6y ago
  He didn't want to do experiments. He wanted to chase the holy grail in theory. He was full of himself. He didn't want to be Hamilton. He wanted to be Newton. Hamilton was brilliant and amazing and changed the world. I would happily settle for being Hamilton.
mef51 6y ago
You can have as high of an ideal as you want about physics, quantum gravity, Einstein, Feynman, and hard work, but you should at least be aware when you start to abuse yourself in the name of this ideal. Fifteen hour days in the library? Reading paper after paper while ignoring the feeling you don't have a direction? These are moments where self-empathy can go a long way. And the more you dig into your ideals the less of a pedestal you put them on, and you can see them more clearly as they really are, and as human. Einstein was very close-minded about physics in his late career. Feynman was brilliant but also said a lot of other things other than "Shut up and calculate", which, by the way, the context of which is "eventually you just have to shut up an calculate" (from one of his books I believe). Quantum gravity isn't the only deep mystery in physics. And why does glory always seem to the main motivation for pursuing quantum gravity? > "But in the end, I never knew what I was looking for and I didn’t find it." To me it felt like you were looking for meaning and purpose in quantum gravity and its (mis-)characterization as the Grail, or at least in the process of working on quantum gravity. But it seemed like it was difficult to admit to yourself that it wasn't working, which ultimately makes the going even tougher. I'm in a physics phd right now and I see this disconnect in myself and in other academics a lot.
Koshkin 6y ago
> an independent writer focused on science and finance That has reminded me of https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/44535040-physics-from-finance https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/44535040-physics-from-fi....
youdonotknowme 6y ago
The author was sort of like me. When I entered my Ph.D., I had a dream of finding something really big. But I was disappointed to find that those low hanging fruits of big questions had been answered. Those left were impossible to answer with current technology. People were just guessing the answers by some hints, rather than evidences. I decided to leave to do a very ordinary job after getting my Ph.D.. I do not regret it. What I have learned is if you really like a subject, you should be fine with solving those trivial problems, while enjoy the fact that the real questions are there to be answered, but you may not see them answered in your lifetime. Otherwise, don't do a Ph.D. in theory directions.
yxwvut 6y ago
The section on being ill-prepared and out of his depth compared to fellow (mostly international) grad students with stronger math backgrounds stretching back to elementary school was almost identical to my experience in a top 5 operations research PhD program. A typical American AP Calc HS curriculum and a CS undergrad (even one with theory/ML heavy upperclass work) just don't cover the math that's relevant for top level research work in most applied math domains (theoretical CS included). I and every other US student in my cohort (roughly a quarter of the class) wound up dropping out - none of the international students did. It was undoubtedly for the best, but there is still a twinge of sadness to have closed the door on my dreams of pushing the frontiers of knowledge (foolhardy and grandiose as they may have been).
- mrfox321 6y ago
  When you say calc-heavy, you are speaking about just cranking the wheel or number crunching? What type of exposure would have prepared you better? HS obviously won't prepare you, so this is speaking more towards uni curriculum.
  - yxwvut 6y ago
    The biggest failure in graduate preparedness I found was that you learn the 'how' (eg: how to calculate a derivative or integral by hand or how to compute a determinant) without a deep understanding of the 'why', which means you don't truly Know those subjects. Even if such information is presented, it's typically not the focus of evaluation and is therefore not retained. Proof-based math coursework from first principles is the only way to really progress meaningfully in understanding these topics in a way that translates beyond just applying the mechanics you've learned. Real analysis is the first baby step most will take along that path, but the greater your depth/breadth of math knowledge the bigger your toolkit to solve problems in your chosen domain will be. It's hard to suggest subsequent steps without knowing your interest (eg: for OR, measure theory is critical but other topics might pay higher dividends for other fields).
  - davidgay 6y ago
    > When you say calc-heavy, you are speaking about just cranking the wheel or number crunching? There's a clear disconnect here: in my Swiss, CS undergrad calculus classes (1st and 2nd year), nothing was remotely as mechanical as those two choices. That (practice in hard math problem solving, not mechanical application of techniques) is probably what the grandparent is missing.
avmich 6y ago
> All of my classmates had taken up with advisors who were, like most physicists, experimentalists, the researchers who do the hands-on work of, say, smashing particles together at accelerators to see what comes out. Theorists like Rajeev, or for that matter Einstein and Feynman, who instead do the noodling necessary to explain the results of experiments with math are fewer and further between. Wow, I got so used to the idea that almost all physicists are theoreticians that this looks quite foreign :) .
pacman128 6y ago
I was also lost for a while working on my physics Ph.D. The course work ended with the state of physics in 1930 (this was the late 80's). I was also trying to do Lattice Gauge theory which involves many different areas: statistical mechanics, high energy, ... I really struggled trying to get up to speed on these. My wife was finishing her finance doctorate so I had a deadline. I had already worked on some statistical mechanics projects and had the idea of downsizing and just expand on them. After this decision, I was done in a year (and before my wife was finished). As the essay shows, it is very easy to get lost working on a physics Ph.D. After getting my degree, I ending up teaching CS for ten years before getting into software development. While it was stressful at times, I don't regret my physics education. I learned a lot (sometimes by being thrown into the deep end).
nbardy 6y ago
I love physics. But going back to university sounds like a nightmare. Those halls squash large swaths of neuro-atypicals and swallow you with debt. Luckily we have the internet now and we can learn by ourselves.
- Koshkin 6y ago
  Problem is, the company’s recruiter will not be convinced by this.
  - nbardy 6y ago
    And a big company isn't going to pay for you to break the rules. Live frugally study what you think is important and build.
zoomablemind 6y ago
Drawing yet a bittersweet story. There's one word written all over this experience - "burn-out". Science, just as any other domain of this human life does need these youthful, dreaming, some may call "naive", yet daring believers. This energy is precious, just as it is also short-lived and fragile. If it sparks at a right moment and could burn for the needed time, it may bring into view those hard to find solutions to well known hard to crack problems. However, should it glow at not so right time and for too long, that youthful source just burns out. The best a wise advisor/mentor could do is to instill some burning discipline. Or the very least to recognize when the burning may become unsustainable. And intervene, channel it, help to recharge, lead. Perhaps, developing this sort of discipline should be parents' job. Still, a lot of talented and strong minds simply overheat and shut off in one way or another just for self-preservation. No blame for quitting. I just wonder if there a way to design these young minds for stronger more efficient TDP, so to speak?
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
ffhhj 6y ago
> So I did strike out on my own. A subject called random matrix theory was hot in physics at the time, applied to condensed matter phenomena and to the quantum behavior of classically chaotic systems. The relevant math was familiar to me from engineering. I figured I’d just dive in, learn the subject, and come out the other end with a publishable discovery. Did he find something interesting on random matrices? Years ago I was researching random cycles and found a phenomenon of emergent order, that seems related to the universality of random matrices. But I'm just a programmer playing around with numbers. https://web.archive.org/web/20130610074258/https://www.simonsfoundation.org/features/science-news/in-mysterious-pattern-math-and-nature-converge/ https://web.archive.org/web/20130610074258/https://www.simon...
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
noobermin 6y ago
I feel like during graduate school I was somewhat like the author, but this line really is the answer to this: > Rajeev, I believe, just liked doing the math. The thing was a puzzle he could solve, so he solved it. For him that was enough. I started my grad school career also wanting to go into particle theory, I ended up doing plasma physics honestly because it was the opportunity I could find. I didn't really dislike math or theory or anything. I also sort of wanted to chase the grail or whatever, although I moved on after being disillusioned by HEP in general because of some of the things the author mentioned. That said, I think it wasn't until my the first year out of grad school in first post-doc (probably current, even though the grant names have changed it's the same group even though it's been a few years) that I realized no, I love doing, that is, the actual doing. I love getting on a computer, running simulations, writing code, analyzing data, closing my eyes and imagining electrons in a plasma. I mean I care about the "grail" which I'd assume would be fusion ultimately, and understanding some of the plasma physics more immediately, but the reason I'm in it isn't really the problem, I love the work itself. I think it's valuable to be chase after lofty goals and such but really doing science, with all its warts (which are legion), you have to enjoy actually doing the work, whether it's in the lab, doing calculations, or running simulations like myself. Money and stability is another issue, but if I could get paid to do this with no hicups, I would literally stay here my entire life.
senderista 6y ago
I have to say that if you have difficulty with the definitions and basic intuition of fiber bundles, you probably don't have a great future in high-energy theoretical physics. Fiber bundles are the foundation of modern approaches to gauge theory, which is ubiquitous in high-energy theory. Any junior or senior math major should be able to grok them with little or no difficulty (speaking from experience: I learned them from a physics book as a junior). I can appreciate that an engineering grad might not have much experience with comparably abstract math, though.
- jbroson 6y ago
  A beautifully written personal narrative and your only thought it "Hah! I'm smarter than this guy!" ...ok
andi999 6y ago
Actually the wrong step was not to leave physics, but to join wall street.

278 points by telotortium 6y ago

This article is from 2016. Would you add it to the title? I'll remove my comment once it's updated, so please don't reply.

aklemm 6y ago
In all seriousness, why?
- pfortuny 6y ago
  Because some people may have already read it and the title may not be enough for them to realize it. It is not shaming information, it is just another piece of data.
  - swayvil 6y ago
    I for one think that adding the date is unnecessary.
    - pfortuny 6y ago
      Of course you may have your opinion. But I have found that datum very informative lots of times.
  - _Microft 6y ago
    Exactly this happened to me - but not only that! - I even got my hopes up to mark the "Dr. Hossenfelder" square on my HN frontpage bingo.
- RandallBrown 6y ago
  That's kind of a tradition here on HN with old articles.
  - aklemm 6y ago
    All the more reason to find out the rationale.

ahelwer 6y ago

Still my favorite essay I've ever read on the experience of grad school, five years after publication. Of course I've never been to grad school, although if I were to go it'd be in physics (try reading Anathem without wanting to drop everything and get a PhD in physics afterward, I challenge you). I've spent the past decade or so living frugally & working in big tech. I now have enough saved up that I can conceivably work on a couple contracts a year then spend the rest of the time working on whatever I want. I think I know enough to do useful, interesting things in computer science without going to grad school. So that's one path I can take. The other would be to go to grad school for physics, but able to maintain greater material comfort than the author of this piece - and having already made peace with the end of a burning desire to shake the world. I wonder whether those two things would make a difference to my experience.

2sk21 6y ago
It's interesting you mentioned Anathem. I have often fantasized about living in a Math and working on theorics myself :-) I retired early from software development last year to spend more time studying math and cognitive science.
- giantg2 6y ago
  "I retired early from software development last year to spend more time ..." [insert anything you enjoy]. This is the dream.
  - KineticLensman 6y ago
    > insert anything you enjoy Raptor conservancy. It's often cold and wet (an outdoor job) and often menial (someone has to clean the projectile poop) and I'm a newbie where the young people are my mentors. And I don't get paid (the previous 30 years are funding this). But the experience, on a summer evening, in the rolling countryside, of a Peregrine Falcon diving at 100mph and hurtling right past you is unbeatable.
    - 6y ago

reedf1 6y ago

My whole childhood and young life I wanted to go into physics academia. I wanted to have influence - to push the boundaries of science. I had an idyllic view of this purely meritocratic system where people were paid to explore. My first year of undergrad utterly destroyed this notion. I left as soon as I had my bachelors degree. I knew what would await me in grad and post grad work and I'd seen post docs cry after endless work for grants. I wanted financial freedom and happiness, and that eventually won over pushing the boundaries of science. So sorry young me - I quit too.

agumonkey 6y ago
I can understand the pain of leaving that dream, but in a way, a tainted soil is rarely a good dream anyway. I so wish I could do beautiful coding work but societies are not aligned with beauty (even at zero cost) so i'm bailing toward financial independance and peace of mind. Hopefully you and I can make time to join club or do thinking on our own terms.
- TeMPOraL 6y ago
  > Hopefully you and I can make time to join club or do thinking on our own terms. Reminds me of a thought that's been sitting in my quotes file for a while. "What one wants is to be able to talk with a diverse club of smart people, arrange to do short one-off research projects and simulations, publish papers or capture intellectual property quickly and easily, and move on to another conversation. Quickly. Easily. For a living. Can’t do that in industry. Can’t do that in the Academy. Yet in my experience, scientists and engineers all want it. Maybe even a few mathematicians and social scientists do, too." -- Bill Tozier, Diverse themes observed at GECCO 2006 https://web.archive.org/web/20120625133020/http://williamtozier.com/slurry/2006/07/17/diverse-themes-observed-at-gecco-2006 https://web.archive.org/web/20120625133020/http://williamtoz... (And personally, I do want it too.)
  - reasonabl_human 6y ago
    Yep, sounds idyllic. Maybe some form of engineering consulting?

bezout 6y ago

Life is too short for these shenanigans. But, I think that you should still go for it if and only if you understand what you’re getting yourself into. There ain't no such thing as a free lunch.

kemiller2002 6y ago
I think this is the most important comment. Most people don't realize until much later, that everything is a trade. This for that. You get an advanced degree at the cost of: higher income? free time? finding the right partner? That's what life is about. Everything has a price, and not knowing the cost is the biggest mistake.
- shoo 6y ago
  >> you should still go for it if and only if you understand what you’re getting yourself into > Most people don't realize until much later, that everything is a trade. This for that. > Everything has a price, and not knowing the cost is the biggest mistake I agree. Yet people often -- perhaps nearly always -- choose to pursue things based on limited information. Some people decide at a young age that they want to be a physicist, or a ballerina, or an astronaut, or a doctor, or a professional basketballer. Perhaps the decision is based on a dream or naive external understanding of what the occupation involves that isn't based on the reality of what the training and doing the work actually entails. Let alone the realities of the labour market: is there an oversupply of people willing to do the work compared to opportunities? What base rate of intelligent, hard working aspirants actually succeed at turning that job into a career? What compromises -- in ethics, in freedom of action and thought, in terms of making the work pay a living wage -- need to be made in order to have the career succeed? Another lens: universities are in the business of selling education. If the young customer wants to buy an education in some specialised niche based on a naive misunderstanding of the true costs in doing so, who is the university to disabuse the customer of their naivety and turn away their custom? Similarly for people wishing to pursue a career in academia: if we think of the system as some kind of industrial process, what inputs does it require? Funding from grants is helpful, a few blackboards, access to libraries and journals. But we also need a feedstock of smart, well-trained, hard-working low-cost graduate students to feed into the machine.

superfamicom 6y ago

Previous discussions: 2019 - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19010164 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19010164 2016 - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13276968 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13276968

Twisol 6y ago

I last read this article before I started grad school (in computer science). I'm reading it again, now, more than two years after I left. My experience was the polar opposite, if the poles were bent around like a horseshoe magnet. Rather than suffocating under thick expectations, I was gasping for air without direction. My first advisor recognized that his lab's interests had shifted between my application and my arrival, so he gave me free reign to figure out where my interests lay for my first year. (The nexus of programming languages, concurrency, and logic, if you're wondering.) He moved on to another university, and as an introvert who'd barely been out of state without my family, much less on my own in another country, I chose not to go with him. I met my second advisor in a seminar course on static analysis and formal methods -- his first on joining the university. It was completely up my alley, and we got along really well. Given the situation with my first advisor, we were on the same wavelength about becoming his first official student. But he thought he was getting a grad student who had done real research for a year, and in reality I still had no idea how to approach research. He had to lower his expectations a few times, and since he started from an expectation that I wouldn't need much guidance, I never really got the amount of attention I asked for. We ended up parting ways with bad feelings. I can't really blame my advisors personally. I still don't know enough about the day-to-day of the academic system to judge. And I'm sure there are places where (and advisors of whom) you can expect more support. But my takeaway, from my experience and from this article, is that if you go in without knowing what you're getting into, nobody's going to be there to tell you what to do. You either luck into finding a sustainable approach, or you don't. I still want to go back to grad school. I think my experience will help me know better what my needs are and where those can be provided, and thus make me a less risky proposition for a university to take on. But I regret not taking a gap year to really dig in and understand the system I was going to put myself through. (EDIT: My advisors are good people, and I wish them well. I hope that's clear from what I've written. Things just didn't work out.)

daxfohl 6y ago

I think what the author is missing here is how does he define "succeeding" in the field. It sounds like for himself anything short of "theory of everything" is failure, but for others, finishing a PhD is success. So on his terms for himself, terms even his advisor is way short of that goal. Heck, even Einstein was. But then he sees others just completing an arbitrary thesis and thinks of them as the successful ones. The author has just failed to reconcile his expectations and hopes of himself with what he's seeing others do. In other words, I think even if the author had "succeeded" to the point of being top in his class and exceeding the research output of his advisor, he'd still be unhappy, still consider himself unsuccessful. Opting out was probably the best decision he could have made, and his life is probably more productive thereby. And heck, maybe he even still has a better chance of finding some theory of everything via some analogy he comes across in his day to day work than by a life of research in "fiber bundles".

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

quacked 6y ago

I think the crucial insight in this essay is glossed over; the author allots only a few lines to an explanation of how the other graduate students didn't need to work as hard as he did to understand the fundamental concepts relevant to his project. This, I believe, is the heart of his issue. He comes to the conclusion that "he quit" or "he didn't know what to work on", but it appears to me that he simply wasn't as high-caliber as the other students, and only persevered for as long as he did largely due to stubbornness and his tremendous work ethic. (Also, he mentions the other students' more-rigorous mathematical backgrounds, but he does not mention their IQ [1].) Immigrant outperformance of native-English-speaking students is a complicated topic; the way I choose to look at it is in terms of population competition. India has 1.3B, China has 1.4B, the U.S. has 0.33B. Assuming that the IQ distributions are exactly equal (ehh), for every one 130 IQ American, there are 4 130 IQ Indians, and 4 130 IQ Chinese. If they all compete for one spot at an American university, the Indians and Chinese will have to work much, much harder to win the "top spot from <nation>" than the American will. A look at the questions and scores for entrance exams in undergraduate physics and math for the India Institute of Technology vs. a look at the questions and scores for entrance exams in physics in math for Stanford should confirm this vast gap in curriculum and competition. Any cursory examination of formal education in terms of course complexity, workload, and exam importance of Korea, China, Japan, etc. vs. the U.S. or other western countries should also lay bare the incredible gap in preparation and competition. As I like to explain to those who support a "global meritocracy" for college admissions, the implementation of their plan would result in a majority Asian student body at every single university in the U.S. The author's work ethic is tremendous- I have never worked anywhere near as hard as he did for that sustained period of time. But the fact of the matter is that a higher-IQ, more-prepared student would not have needed to struggle as hard as he did, and from his description of the foreign students that surpassed him, they didn't. I suspect he would have been happier if he'd accepted his lot much earlier and leaned into a higher-paying, less-hours career and studied physics in his free time. Another question- did he refuse to quit because he loved physics, or did he refuse to quit because his vision of his life was overly focused on holding the identity of "guy who works on theoretical physics"? [1] Many people dislike using IQ to measure anything, and its most stringent detractors say that it is a meaningless metric. It is worth pointing out that while IQ is a completely made-up metric, it is a specific measure of memory and abstract reasoning as applied to western-style logic puzzles and patterns. This makes it a useful metric when trying to evaluate one's ability to study and perform western-style math or physics, which are giant collections of western-style logic puzzles and patterns. Many people who believe that IQ does not predict anything have never had the opportunity to spend a lot of time interacting with someone who is so much higher-IQ than they are that it shows in regular interactions. I am regularly shocked at how much more quickly my extremely smart friends can pick up and memorize concepts than I can.

cammikebrown 6y ago

Aw, man. This essay gives me some perspective. I ended up hating physics by the time I got my bachelor’s in it. I remember junior year they said, we know you’re confused, you haven’t actually learned REAL physics yet, that’s what grad school is for. And most of you won’t be accepted, and of those who are, most won’t become professors even if you want to. I figured a physics degree would allow me to get a good job, but then they said, sure, if you want to do finance, defense, or education. What?! The first two were pretty nauseating so I decided to do a year-long internship at various local public schools, and realized that I hated that too. (More the bureaucracy than the actual teaching aspect.) My school basically expected you’d double major in math or CS, so they often didn’t teach a lot of the fundamental techniques you needed, assuming you knew it already. I also learned that while my high school had done a great job teaching me English and history, the math department was not quite up to snuff comparatively, and I felt behind my classmates about “fundamentals” like linear algebra, which they had somehow been taught in high school. Sure, I knew Shakespeare a lot better than them, and even minored in literature in college (maybe biting off more than I could chew) but that clearly didn’t impress them. Why waste your time with old books when you could be making money! It definitely brought me down a notch and made me feel dumb, but I also realized college wasn’t a place for someone to learn lots of different things, but to focus on one area instead. I ended up becoming a bartender and I’m very happy with that decision. At least, once things are back to normal, hopefully within the next few months. Hopefully I didn’t just jinx it

hellbannedguy 6y ago
I look back on college, and so many classes seemed like a waste of time. I understand a well rounded education, but so many classes seemed like fluff. I once took a Abnormal Psychology class. It sounded interesting being premed. For half a year we sat in a circle, and talked about feelings. I was so shy that was the last place I would open up. I used to think, If I was honest, I would admit I was still a virgin, and had a deathly fear of public speaking. I loved the teacher though. She really meant well. If I had a kid, I would supplement his education. I would make sure he knew mathematics well. I also think physics should be taught much earlier, along with the finance, and the markets. As a kid, I was interested in woodworking, cars, engines, even electricity, but the teachers had us coloring world maps?

antattack 6y ago

Capitalist system does not seem to value scientific research well enough. Risk to reward ratio is very high.

searine 6y ago
There is a reason that scientific research was an aristocratic pastime for most of its history. The idea of a middle-class scientist is an invention of the mid-20th century, and not an enduring one. Even Einstein had to work as a patent clerk. Society will never highly value fundamental research because it cannot comprehend it, thus cannot ascribe a value to it.
- xxpor 6y ago
  Even Bell Labs was really the result of government intervention.
  - 8bitsrule 6y ago
    Bell Labs. Many great ideas outta there. When they hired Jansky and he accidentally discovered radio astronomy. And nothing happened. But that led to the adventures of Grote Reber[0] (an inspiring figure). In 1937 the 26-year-old built a radio telescope dish in his backyard. A ham radio operator with a EE degree, he completed the first VHF survey of the sky - in his spare time. In 1939 he discovers Cygnus A. But his work 'fell between fields'. [1] During WW2 he works with John 'Big Ear' Kraus. In 1954 Reber moves to Tasmania (less radio interference, less Big Bang). Inspired by his results, in the 50s Ryle and Hewitt get busy at Cambridge. In 1974 they win a Nobel Prize. Down under, Reber just kept doing what he loved. P.S. Interesting coincidence: his mother had been a schoolteacher; one of her students: Edwin Hubble. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grote%20Reber https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grote%20Reber [1] https://physicstoday.scitation.org/doi/10.1063/1.1611360 https://physicstoday.scitation.org/doi/10.1063/1.1611360 2003 Physics Today bio

iorrus 6y ago

It's a beautifully written essay but he misses the obvious. What was the point of spending all this time in what he admits but doesn't make explicit was a dead end. He would have ended up spending his life pretending to make important discoveries and doing something worthwile, in reality he would have been making "toy models". He definitely made the right decision. I don't understand the "I quit" angst, it's sunk cost fallacy, no he didn't quit, he made a rational decision. It was a waste of his time and most likely everyone else who he mention's time.

caente 6y ago
He did quit, there should not be shame in quitting, but he did quit. Others have the same difficulties as him, they don't quit, nor they achieved anything, that is the risk. Now he makes money in Wall Street. By his standards, he hasn't achieve anything yet, nor will ever, other than procuring for his family, which is not a small thing! But his dreams were about "The Grail", if they still are, then he quit. He quit a path that would most likely left him in the dust, but that it was the only path that could have possibly taken him to "The Grail", the current path won't take him anywhere near it. So unless he is able to change the narrative of his own life, he will forever be a failure, independently of how much money he can make in the trading floor.
- iorrus 6y ago
  I agree 100% but his path to the grail was stifled where he was. He made the right decision to escape but maybe he would have been better off living like Grigori Perelman and devoting himself mind body and soul to the grail. That’s what it takes, he should have left as soon as he felt the misalignment with the grail and the toy models he was working on as he was involved in fruitless make work.
- jeffwass 6y ago
  Actually he resigned from Wall Street some time ago and is now a writer.
microtherion 6y ago
Presumably he did not exactly cure World Hunger at Wall Street either, though he almost certainly did not have to worry about killing cockroaches at night.

ofcrpls 6y ago

Rochester does that to one.

at_a_remove 6y ago

This resonated with me pretty hard. Despite starting as a nuke e, I figured very quickly that the situation was rather grim, so I got my BS in physics, with a ton of credits in related math, computer science, and some other hard sciences for giggles. All the time, though, I kept my eyes peeled. What I saw was some very intelligent people whose hard work, creativity, and genius I admired making very little money, scavenging for grants like jackals, their spouses working second jobs, their clothing a little worn, their cars breaking down even as they labored over Big Issues. That is the payoff? I did not pursue it any further. Yes, the degree itself impresses people (sometimes more than really necessary, is my feeling), and it certainly primes you to be able to switch gears for entirely different frameworks, but it has opened doors. Meanwhile, I occasionally look at the odd paper, sniff around. For strings (oh, not strings, superstrings) (oh, not superstrings, M-theory) it's all out of my league, but not so much so I cannot feel the shape of things and just how far they are from being more than just very abstract mathematical constructs. "Fiber bundles," exactly how many strings and shiny hag-stones are we out on that particular Glass Bead Game? I accept the possibility that the universe may simply be too difficult, on a mathematical level, for mere humans to understand. It could happen. On the other hand, I suspect that the development of mathematical models of physical phenomena without frequent touching of the "real world," fumbling for guideposts, why, you could very well wander off into a paper map of your own creation, unrelated to the world you wanted to explain.

trhway 6y ago
> too difficult, on a mathematical level, for mere humans to understand. to me the current situation looks similar to when we were building more and more complex combinations of epicycles in order to more and more precisely model the "Sun and the planets rotating around the Earth". Similarly we have right now a couple of dogmas, like say Copenhagen interpretation and the recently emerged dark matter, which while not confirmed by experiments yet can't be questioned (classic sign of dogma) and as a result the science resources are available only for the complex epicycle constructs based on those dogmas.
- at_a_remove 6y ago
  Well, right now we have some perfectly valid mathematical constructs that nonetheless have nothing to do with reality. Gabriel's Horn is a good starter example, but you can wave it away with giving the paint "atoms" a finite size, but then there are more subtle constructs which lie in wait, like the Banach–Tarski paradox. This will doubtlessly irritate some, but math for me is a tool and if it is not used somehow in reality, I start wondering what it is for, then. Occasionally utility will pop up later, and good, because you don't know what will end up being handy eventually, but some branches seem so esoteric I am at a loss. Again, probably my own ignorance, but I worry that those brighter and better educated than I might be led astray by castles in the sky, just from the beauty and the sensation of satisfaction you get from finding your way into the castle, if that makes sense.

giantg2 6y ago

"... stay the stressful course of wandering in the dark and guessing ..." I feel like that's a highly accurate description of my career path (I'm a dev, not in physics). The part about dreading going back into work and the feelings of being inadequate - that the best effort is only treading water - is basically how I feel too. I wonder how common that is.

rendall 6y ago
That's my life, really. The only arena I don't feel that way is coding. It's always stable, steady, predictable

j7ake 6y ago

This article made me subscribe to the magazine hoping to find more amazing articles, but I don’t think there was ever an article that had this kind of emotional impact as this one in nautilus. Still this single article was worth the subscription.

dandep 6y ago
Emotional impact or not nautilus has a really high journalistic standards and plenty of masterpieces

intrasight 6y ago

Curious that this is article back on HN 5 years later

wrycoder 6y ago
If it was old hat, it would not have been upvoted to the front page. Besides, it's a good story and a cautionary tale. I read through the whole thing once again. And bookmarked the new thread of comments.
- intrasight 6y ago
  I read it again - and enjoyed it again (as much as one can enjoy a cautionary tale). Really I'm just curious how such old articles come back to the front page.
  - wrycoder 6y ago
    Aside for some controversial subjects, which seem to get an extra ding from dang, it appears to me that articles get boosted to the front page by getting a good number of votes quickly. There's enough turnover here that many would not have seen (or remembered :) the earlier articles.

jeffwass 6y ago

This article resonates quite strongly with me. I also did a PhD in physics which I grew more and more disillusioned with as it progressed. I did physics in undergrad, then worked for a few years as an engineer. I was the only one on my team who didn’t have a PhD, and saw the limits of my own knowledge, so I went back to school to get my PhD in experimental condensed matter physics. Originally I thought I’d struggle through the classes, then do some kickass research, and come back to being a full-time engineer. Turned out to be quite the opposite. My first semester transitioning back to being a full-time student was rough, but after that I really enjoyed the classes, and for the next couple years I wanted to do tenure track research in academia. I then signed on with a faculty member athe department hired as my advisor, to study nanoscale physics (eg superconducting nanowires). Fast forward a few more years and I started to hate the daily grind. Firstly, my advisor was hired in my third year, so we had to build up the lab from scratch. Every little bit of cryogenic equipment, data measuring apparatus, data acquisition and analysis code. Took a couple years before we could do “real” research of interest. Also we had no senior grad students or post docs to learn from. I felt way behind all my colleagues who were in functioning labs and could start taking publication-quality data after just a few weeks of joining their group. Most of my day-to-day wasn’t even physics but annoying laboratory maintenance. Eg finding cold leaks in the cryogenic equipment (these only leak at temperatures of 4K or less, so it took lot of trial and error to find). Or tracking down ground loops on my circuits that were blowing up my fragile nanowires. Or fighting the sputtering chambers we used for deposition (and realising they had been contaminated with magnetic materials making it impossible to grow clean superconducting films). I saw my friends at other schools write paper after paper in top journals working in their well-established labs with huge-budget clean rooms and facilities with full-time maintenance and support staff. Meanwhile in my lab we had limited equipment, no maintenance staff, and we had to fix stuff in our ‘spare’ time, etc. I became jealous of my theorist friends who could work anywhere with just their notebooks and a pencil. I became jealous of my astrophysics friends who were assigned observing time on Hubble and other telescopes, where teams of technicians would make sure their observations would go smoothly and provide them with perfect raw data. I saw that without any seminal publications, my postdoc opportunities were slim. I thought about changing research areas, but came to the realisation that I’m stuck doing the same narrow brand of research that I had been doing the past few years. Because no faculty member would pay for a postdoc who wasn’t ready to hit the ground running as a domain expert. I saw some of my successful friends with lots of amazing papers struggle to find a postdoc appointment. Or if they found one struggle to find a second, or a good faculty position. And if it was a struggle for them, my lack of publications would make this nearly impossible for myself. I was working 12+ hour days making barely enough to live on. And not enjoying it at all, and feeling depressed, with difficulty getting out of bed to come into the lab. Then one day pretty much on a whim I applied for an internship as a quant on Wall Street. I was invited to an interview where I was grilled over two days in 11 separate one-on-one sessions. In between sessions I would look out the window of the 30 floor of a skyscraper in NYC and wonder if I was betraying myself and my fellow physicists, as if academia was a cult. I was offered an internship, and really liked it. This was my ticket out. I went back to school at the end of the summer to write up my thesis. Many of my physics friends were curious about my internship and were considering doing this themselves. All of them told me not to tell anyone else that we had spoken. I wrote a few drafts for papers, one was published, defended my thesis and got myself outta there.

GNU_James 6y ago

Wait a moment! Universities are for people who can't start their own business and make money!?

6nf 6y ago
Those who can’t do, teach
- concreteblock 6y ago
  Those who did poorly at school, love to use this trite cliche. Even when we're not even talking about teachers.

mjfl 6y ago

Ultimately this guy should have had the mind to shop around more for other professors who motivate their work better. Maybe do some experiments? You're not stuck with one advisor, and it isn't unreasonable to think that it's your job and not a convenience, or someone else's job, to find good motivation for your work.

Koshkin 6y ago
> Maybe do some experiments? Well, he was/is a theoretical physicist.
- mjfl 6y ago
  No he was not. He was a graduate student. He could become anything.
  - wrycoder 6y ago
    When I finished the experimental work for my degree and was working on the thesis, the lab with its 10 KGauss magnet and other equipment was assigned to the next graduate student. One afternoon we were hanging out in one of the grad student offices, when one of the guys had a problem - his desk calculator stopped working. After doing a bit of troubleshooting, it turned out that the wall plug strip was dead, the breaker had been tripped. We went searching for the problem and discovered that the new experimental physics PhD candidate, while hooking up a power supply, had wired a switch directly across the ac line and turned it on. Back in the office, with the breaker reset, we were having a good laugh about this. The fellow's supervisor wandered in and leaned against the wall, listening to us. After a while, he said, "You know, I had to stop him from doing it two more times." I heard later that he moved into theoretical physics.
creativeandlazy 6y ago
He didn't want to do experiments. He wanted to chase the holy grail in theory. He was full of himself. He didn't want to be Hamilton. He wanted to be Newton. Hamilton was brilliant and amazing and changed the world. I would happily settle for being Hamilton.

mef51 6y ago

You can have as high of an ideal as you want about physics, quantum gravity, Einstein, Feynman, and hard work, but you should at least be aware when you start to abuse yourself in the name of this ideal. Fifteen hour days in the library? Reading paper after paper while ignoring the feeling you don't have a direction? These are moments where self-empathy can go a long way. And the more you dig into your ideals the less of a pedestal you put them on, and you can see them more clearly as they really are, and as human. Einstein was very close-minded about physics in his late career. Feynman was brilliant but also said a lot of other things other than "Shut up and calculate", which, by the way, the context of which is "eventually you just have to shut up an calculate" (from one of his books I believe). Quantum gravity isn't the only deep mystery in physics. And why does glory always seem to the main motivation for pursuing quantum gravity? > "But in the end, I never knew what I was looking for and I didn’t find it." To me it felt like you were looking for meaning and purpose in quantum gravity and its (mis-)characterization as the Grail, or at least in the process of working on quantum gravity. But it seemed like it was difficult to admit to yourself that it wasn't working, which ultimately makes the going even tougher. I'm in a physics phd right now and I see this disconnect in myself and in other academics a lot.

Koshkin 6y ago

> an independent writer focused on science and finance That has reminded me of https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/44535040-physics-from-finance https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/44535040-physics-from-fi....

youdonotknowme 6y ago

The author was sort of like me. When I entered my Ph.D., I had a dream of finding something really big. But I was disappointed to find that those low hanging fruits of big questions had been answered. Those left were impossible to answer with current technology. People were just guessing the answers by some hints, rather than evidences. I decided to leave to do a very ordinary job after getting my Ph.D.. I do not regret it. What I have learned is if you really like a subject, you should be fine with solving those trivial problems, while enjoy the fact that the real questions are there to be answered, but you may not see them answered in your lifetime. Otherwise, don't do a Ph.D. in theory directions.

yxwvut 6y ago

The section on being ill-prepared and out of his depth compared to fellow (mostly international) grad students with stronger math backgrounds stretching back to elementary school was almost identical to my experience in a top 5 operations research PhD program. A typical American AP Calc HS curriculum and a CS undergrad (even one with theory/ML heavy upperclass work) just don't cover the math that's relevant for top level research work in most applied math domains (theoretical CS included). I and every other US student in my cohort (roughly a quarter of the class) wound up dropping out - none of the international students did. It was undoubtedly for the best, but there is still a twinge of sadness to have closed the door on my dreams of pushing the frontiers of knowledge (foolhardy and grandiose as they may have been).

mrfox321 6y ago
When you say calc-heavy, you are speaking about just cranking the wheel or number crunching? What type of exposure would have prepared you better? HS obviously won't prepare you, so this is speaking more towards uni curriculum.
- yxwvut 6y ago
  The biggest failure in graduate preparedness I found was that you learn the 'how' (eg: how to calculate a derivative or integral by hand or how to compute a determinant) without a deep understanding of the 'why', which means you don't truly Know those subjects. Even if such information is presented, it's typically not the focus of evaluation and is therefore not retained. Proof-based math coursework from first principles is the only way to really progress meaningfully in understanding these topics in a way that translates beyond just applying the mechanics you've learned. Real analysis is the first baby step most will take along that path, but the greater your depth/breadth of math knowledge the bigger your toolkit to solve problems in your chosen domain will be. It's hard to suggest subsequent steps without knowing your interest (eg: for OR, measure theory is critical but other topics might pay higher dividends for other fields).
- davidgay 6y ago
  > When you say calc-heavy, you are speaking about just cranking the wheel or number crunching? There's a clear disconnect here: in my Swiss, CS undergrad calculus classes (1st and 2nd year), nothing was remotely as mechanical as those two choices. That (practice in hard math problem solving, not mechanical application of techniques) is probably what the grandparent is missing.

avmich 6y ago

> All of my classmates had taken up with advisors who were, like most physicists, experimentalists, the researchers who do the hands-on work of, say, smashing particles together at accelerators to see what comes out. Theorists like Rajeev, or for that matter Einstein and Feynman, who instead do the noodling necessary to explain the results of experiments with math are fewer and further between. Wow, I got so used to the idea that almost all physicists are theoreticians that this looks quite foreign :) .

pacman128 6y ago

I was also lost for a while working on my physics Ph.D. The course work ended with the state of physics in 1930 (this was the late 80's). I was also trying to do Lattice Gauge theory which involves many different areas: statistical mechanics, high energy, ... I really struggled trying to get up to speed on these. My wife was finishing her finance doctorate so I had a deadline. I had already worked on some statistical mechanics projects and had the idea of downsizing and just expand on them. After this decision, I was done in a year (and before my wife was finished). As the essay shows, it is very easy to get lost working on a physics Ph.D. After getting my degree, I ending up teaching CS for ten years before getting into software development. While it was stressful at times, I don't regret my physics education. I learned a lot (sometimes by being thrown into the deep end).

nbardy 6y ago

I love physics. But going back to university sounds like a nightmare. Those halls squash large swaths of neuro-atypicals and swallow you with debt. Luckily we have the internet now and we can learn by ourselves.

Koshkin 6y ago
Problem is, the company’s recruiter will not be convinced by this.
- nbardy 6y ago
  And a big company isn't going to pay for you to break the rules. Live frugally study what you think is important and build.

zoomablemind 6y ago

Drawing yet a bittersweet story. There's one word written all over this experience - "burn-out". Science, just as any other domain of this human life does need these youthful, dreaming, some may call "naive", yet daring believers. This energy is precious, just as it is also short-lived and fragile. If it sparks at a right moment and could burn for the needed time, it may bring into view those hard to find solutions to well known hard to crack problems. However, should it glow at not so right time and for too long, that youthful source just burns out. The best a wise advisor/mentor could do is to instill some burning discipline. Or the very least to recognize when the burning may become unsustainable. And intervene, channel it, help to recharge, lead. Perhaps, developing this sort of discipline should be parents' job. Still, a lot of talented and strong minds simply overheat and shut off in one way or another just for self-preservation. No blame for quitting. I just wonder if there a way to design these young minds for stronger more efficient TDP, so to speak?

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

ffhhj 6y ago

> So I did strike out on my own. A subject called random matrix theory was hot in physics at the time, applied to condensed matter phenomena and to the quantum behavior of classically chaotic systems. The relevant math was familiar to me from engineering. I figured I’d just dive in, learn the subject, and come out the other end with a publishable discovery. Did he find something interesting on random matrices? Years ago I was researching random cycles and found a phenomenon of emergent order, that seems related to the universality of random matrices. But I'm just a programmer playing around with numbers. https://web.archive.org/web/20130610074258/https://www.simonsfoundation.org/features/science-news/in-mysterious-pattern-math-and-nature-converge/ https://web.archive.org/web/20130610074258/https://www.simon...

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

noobermin 6y ago

I feel like during graduate school I was somewhat like the author, but this line really is the answer to this: > Rajeev, I believe, just liked doing the math. The thing was a puzzle he could solve, so he solved it. For him that was enough. I started my grad school career also wanting to go into particle theory, I ended up doing plasma physics honestly because it was the opportunity I could find. I didn't really dislike math or theory or anything. I also sort of wanted to chase the grail or whatever, although I moved on after being disillusioned by HEP in general because of some of the things the author mentioned. That said, I think it wasn't until my the first year out of grad school in first post-doc (probably current, even though the grant names have changed it's the same group even though it's been a few years) that I realized no, I love doing, that is, the actual doing. I love getting on a computer, running simulations, writing code, analyzing data, closing my eyes and imagining electrons in a plasma. I mean I care about the "grail" which I'd assume would be fusion ultimately, and understanding some of the plasma physics more immediately, but the reason I'm in it isn't really the problem, I love the work itself. I think it's valuable to be chase after lofty goals and such but really doing science, with all its warts (which are legion), you have to enjoy actually doing the work, whether it's in the lab, doing calculations, or running simulations like myself. Money and stability is another issue, but if I could get paid to do this with no hicups, I would literally stay here my entire life.

senderista 6y ago

I have to say that if you have difficulty with the definitions and basic intuition of fiber bundles, you probably don't have a great future in high-energy theoretical physics. Fiber bundles are the foundation of modern approaches to gauge theory, which is ubiquitous in high-energy theory. Any junior or senior math major should be able to grok them with little or no difficulty (speaking from experience: I learned them from a physics book as a junior). I can appreciate that an engineering grad might not have much experience with comparably abstract math, though.

jbroson 6y ago
A beautifully written personal narrative and your only thought it "Hah! I'm smarter than this guy!" ...ok

andi999 6y ago

Actually the wrong step was not to leave physics, but to join wall street.