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Honest question: Did you feel this way when you were working on your PhD at CERN? Were you working toward solving everyday problems, or fundamental science pr
by JoeDaDude 4y ago
Honest question: Did you feel this way when you were working on your PhD at CERN? Were you working toward solving everyday problems, or fundamental science problems? If the latter, what changed your views since then?
I hope I don't come off as confrontational, it is not the least my intention. It just sounds like you have seen both sides of this issue and maybe you have a deeper understanding you could share.
- BrandoElFollito 4y agoMy work at CERN was a tiny little screw in a huge machine. It meant nothing. I have probably 100 or 1000 articles with my name as one of the 1000 collaborators of the project. I have no idea what they are about. I loved my time in CERN because of the people and the insane possibilities you had there. I discovered Unix and this ultimately made me change my life, going to industry. My friends who were working on solid state physics had much more impactful research, research that could potentially bring something to everyday life. I was much happier working on biophysics research afterwards. Physics today is dead in the practical sense, nothing is happening that sparks for in people's imagination. Compare this to biology where you hear about new discoveries everyday.