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Tip for smart science-y young people: think about a career in experimental physics. Experimental data is the complement of theoretical power. Since theory can b

Tip for smart science-y young people: think about a career in experimental physics. Experimental data is the complement of theoretical power. Since theory can be provided cheaply by LLMs, experimental ability is now the bottleneck for progress in physics. I expect to see frontier labs or startups hiring experimentalists to provide data for LLMs to analyze, pushing towards breakthroughs in areas like room-temperature superconductors and fusion.

stubbi 2mo ago
Until we got robots doing that
bre1010 2mo ago
This sounds depressing. Imagine going to work every day and your boss is a computer telling you to do rote nonsense so it can barely-better-than-brute-force search for breakthroughs in whatever field. Then when it finds one we get another breathless news cycle like this while you get no credit at all. If you could understand what you were working on, you might be able to contribute more than a .csv of data, but the computer can't read you in because there is no understanding under the surface.
- alasano 2mo ago
  Barely better than brute force (I can't believe it's not brute force!™) aside, presuming we get super intelligence it will all be depressing when it comes to intellectual pursuits like this.
  - fc417fc802 2mo ago
    Even the smartest humans would end up as perpetual students but I'm not sure why that should be universally depressing.
    - ndriscoll 2mo ago
      Yeah I don't understand how people can not look forward to that outcome. Imagine you have your own super von Neumann who's willing to talk to you 1:1 for as long as you'd like at any time with not a hint of judgement at your intellectual inferiority. He's been working tirelessly to figure out how everything pieces together, and has 20 layers of abstraction to draw from to lead you toward understanding what's really going on along with a concrete understanding of every field to reify his thoughts into examples familiar to you and illustrate his connections. A nerd's dream. Maybe he'll even be able to answer about turbulence.
simianwords 2mo ago
How’s this different from just asking an llm to prompt you to perform experiments? You don’t need any expertise.
ComputerPerson 2mo ago
Politely, absolutely not. Physics as a domain is a nightmare. Even the employment statistics are hard to understand because, like Philosophy, only the best of the best pursue it. I've had countless friends throughout my PhD studies tell me that their decision to pursue a PhD in Physics ruined their lives. (Which is an exageration, but you get the point.) The bottom line is that you should pusue Physics only if you still want to in the face of excessive media/reccomendations/statistics telling you not to.
- pdhborges 2mo ago
  At least in europe you can do a 3 year Eng Phys BSc and if it doesn't pan out you can do a master in EE or MEng.
  - deleted 2mo ago
    [deleted]
  - l33tman 2mo ago
    The engineering programs and their curriculums are very different from physics in the science faculties (which I guess was the context here)
- coderatlarge 2mo ago
  i would make a similar argument for entrepreneurship and most things: do it only if you can’t bear the thought and reality of doing something else.
- ModernMech 2mo ago
  Pick any field and you'll find countless PhDs eager to tell anyone who will listen all the ways it ruined their lives.
  - CamperBob2 2mo ago
    Exactly. These fields demand all you've got. Otherwise, you'll fall behind those who are willing to sacrifice everything else for the quest, so to speak. There will always be a long-tailed distribution populated largely by smart people with personal regrets. Experimental physics is worrisome because as education becomes less-valued by society, there will be less funding available for research in general. Costly and elaborate 'big science' projects -- the kind that have to span multiple Presidential administrations in the US -- will be among the first to be classified as "waste," and performatively killed by legislators who earn votes by emulating the feeble-minded cultists who elected them. I think the way forward, at least in the US, is going to involve leveraging AI to build better models to reduce our dependence on experiment. This will be true of both biology (where's the next HeLa line going to come from, once Christian nationalists complete their takeover of NIH?) and physics (ditto the next RHIC or SLAC.) Yes, this policy amounts to eating the next generation's seed corn, but that's what Americans are voting for.
storus 2mo ago
Only theory that is a convex combination of existing theory. Any paradigm shift is currently unreachable to LLMs and can be only obtained by luck with RL due to the curse of dimensionality.
- StilesCrisis 2mo ago
  Frankly, such paradigm shifts are almost impossible for humans as well. If a mathematician proposes a truly radical paradigm shift, they're either a once-in-a-decade genius or a crackpot.
  - don_esteban 2mo ago
    It is quite typical that once in a decade genius is treated like a crackpot... (what was the name of the Austrian doctor that suggested washing you hands before surgery?) ... of course, the number of crackpots is overwhelming
- qrios 2mo ago
  The term “currently” is the sticking point here. As far as I know, there is still no one who can provide evidence as to why it should remain that way. And the "by luck with RL" is soon not by luck anymore. The more stupid and not so stupid ideas are discussed with the LLMs, the chances are growing that it is not a question about luck but by growing probability.
piloto_ciego 2mo ago
ITT: people who think there’s going to be jobs.
Yopolo 2mo ago
If (it will) it continues like this and the line is step, as soon as math is solved good enough, the next frontier will be solved. In regards of experimental physics, i would even argue this is being worked on for sure. The ML machines are now big enough that simulations are getting better and better fast.
charlieyu1 2mo ago
Not a physics guy but isn’t experimental always the bottleneck?

stubbi 2mo ago

Until we got robots doing that

bre1010 2mo ago

This sounds depressing. Imagine going to work every day and your boss is a computer telling you to do rote nonsense so it can barely-better-than-brute-force search for breakthroughs in whatever field. Then when it finds one we get another breathless news cycle like this while you get no credit at all. If you could understand what you were working on, you might be able to contribute more than a .csv of data, but the computer can't read you in because there is no understanding under the surface.

alasano 2mo ago
Barely better than brute force (I can't believe it's not brute force!™) aside, presuming we get super intelligence it will all be depressing when it comes to intellectual pursuits like this.
- fc417fc802 2mo ago
  Even the smartest humans would end up as perpetual students but I'm not sure why that should be universally depressing.
  - ndriscoll 2mo ago
    Yeah I don't understand how people can not look forward to that outcome. Imagine you have your own super von Neumann who's willing to talk to you 1:1 for as long as you'd like at any time with not a hint of judgement at your intellectual inferiority. He's been working tirelessly to figure out how everything pieces together, and has 20 layers of abstraction to draw from to lead you toward understanding what's really going on along with a concrete understanding of every field to reify his thoughts into examples familiar to you and illustrate his connections. A nerd's dream. Maybe he'll even be able to answer about turbulence.

simianwords 2mo ago

How’s this different from just asking an llm to prompt you to perform experiments? You don’t need any expertise.

ComputerPerson 2mo ago

Politely, absolutely not. Physics as a domain is a nightmare. Even the employment statistics are hard to understand because, like Philosophy, only the best of the best pursue it. I've had countless friends throughout my PhD studies tell me that their decision to pursue a PhD in Physics ruined their lives. (Which is an exageration, but you get the point.) The bottom line is that you should pusue Physics only if you still want to in the face of excessive media/reccomendations/statistics telling you not to.

pdhborges 2mo ago
At least in europe you can do a 3 year Eng Phys BSc and if it doesn't pan out you can do a master in EE or MEng.
- deleted 2mo ago
  [deleted]
- l33tman 2mo ago
  The engineering programs and their curriculums are very different from physics in the science faculties (which I guess was the context here)
coderatlarge 2mo ago
i would make a similar argument for entrepreneurship and most things: do it only if you can’t bear the thought and reality of doing something else.
ModernMech 2mo ago
Pick any field and you'll find countless PhDs eager to tell anyone who will listen all the ways it ruined their lives.
- CamperBob2 2mo ago
  Exactly. These fields demand all you've got. Otherwise, you'll fall behind those who are willing to sacrifice everything else for the quest, so to speak. There will always be a long-tailed distribution populated largely by smart people with personal regrets. Experimental physics is worrisome because as education becomes less-valued by society, there will be less funding available for research in general. Costly and elaborate 'big science' projects -- the kind that have to span multiple Presidential administrations in the US -- will be among the first to be classified as "waste," and performatively killed by legislators who earn votes by emulating the feeble-minded cultists who elected them. I think the way forward, at least in the US, is going to involve leveraging AI to build better models to reduce our dependence on experiment. This will be true of both biology (where's the next HeLa line going to come from, once Christian nationalists complete their takeover of NIH?) and physics (ditto the next RHIC or SLAC.) Yes, this policy amounts to eating the next generation's seed corn, but that's what Americans are voting for.

storus 2mo ago

Only theory that is a convex combination of existing theory. Any paradigm shift is currently unreachable to LLMs and can be only obtained by luck with RL due to the curse of dimensionality.

StilesCrisis 2mo ago
Frankly, such paradigm shifts are almost impossible for humans as well. If a mathematician proposes a truly radical paradigm shift, they're either a once-in-a-decade genius or a crackpot.
- don_esteban 2mo ago
  It is quite typical that once in a decade genius is treated like a crackpot... (what was the name of the Austrian doctor that suggested washing you hands before surgery?) ... of course, the number of crackpots is overwhelming
qrios 2mo ago
The term “currently” is the sticking point here. As far as I know, there is still no one who can provide evidence as to why it should remain that way. And the "by luck with RL" is soon not by luck anymore. The more stupid and not so stupid ideas are discussed with the LLMs, the chances are growing that it is not a question about luck but by growing probability.

piloto_ciego 2mo ago

ITT: people who think there’s going to be jobs.

Yopolo 2mo ago

If (it will) it continues like this and the line is step, as soon as math is solved good enough, the next frontier will be solved. In regards of experimental physics, i would even argue this is being worked on for sure. The ML machines are now big enough that simulations are getting better and better fast.

charlieyu1 2mo ago

Not a physics guy but isn’t experimental always the bottleneck?