Re: What does it take to be a physicist?

jmfbahciv@xxxxxxx wrote: 
In article <drg7mh$eks$1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
   Michael Varney <varney@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

jmfbahciv@xxxxxxx wrote:

In article <drd7ft$fh7$1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
  Michael Varney <varney@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:


Siah wrote:


Hi,

My name is Siah. I just graduated as an electrical engineer. I am an
entrepreneur and good computer scientist as well. I have one mission in
life (after I made some good money in a year or two), and that is to
become a physicist and devote my life to physics.

You guys are physicists. What does it take to be one?

Time and fortitude.
A deeper understanding of phenomena rather than cookbook use of equations.
No love of money. Any money you get while dedicating your life to physics will be a bonus.
The ability to think critically. 


Taking physics will also give him better lab experience.  I
doubt he got formal _science_ lab training with EE or CS work.



The thinking mode of a physicist is different from that of most engineers. Prepare yourself for that. 


JMF morphed from physicist training to engineer work.  I can't
think of any engineers who went the other way... There was one.

In my community college days, I studied mostly math.


How did you get away with that in a comm. college?

I was on the Basketball team. They let us get away with just about anything. It really sucked.
Plus, in the bus growing up, my parents were more leaning toward the humanities than the sciences. They would not mind me getting a history book at the swap meet cause they new that I would read it quick, then they could sell it. A math or science text would take much longer to read than a history text, and not as many people would buy it when I was done.
So in CC the was a program where you could test out of a class if you wanted. You still had to take a minimum of credits. So I tested out of all the no brainer humanities courses I had plenty of time in the bus to read up on, and would spend the rest of the time in the math courses. The few humanity courses I could not avoid I sluffed through, but spent most of the time studying math.
This was a CC (actually, a JC) in a small town in Colorado. There were 500 students in a town of perhaps 11000. The main sport for the JC other than rodeo was basketball. So, you can imagine the politics involved.
Not the best place to get a serious education even if you could not sluff off academically as an athlete.



When I went to university, I wanted to go into physics. I was talked out of it by an uncle (weakness on my part) 


Nah.  You were young and didn't have enough practice dealing with
adults :-).

That and the money aspect still sang to me. Having grown up dirt poor it was my goal to make lots of money and get my family an actual house to live in.
To show how clueless I was, I went to school mostly to play basketball.
There was a great teacher who interested me (or should I say connected me) with math.

and went into EE.
Hated that first semester... each time I passed the physics hall my heart ached. 


That is the itch.


The EE professors set about a campaign of stuffing cookbook formula and thinking into my head. I would ask how a particular concept related to other aspects of nature, and was told: "Who cares? It works."
No love of the science, no love of the mystery and processes. Undergraduate engineering was a mill designed to produce people who go into industry and build things. 


Yes.  The degree program was like this in 1968 at my university.
It is the aspect of the degree.


I wonder how much of this mindset is on other countries? There are several engineers I have met with the soul of a physicist. But they got their degrees over seas or in south America.
They studied engineering (usually EE) at their institutions, but their mental approach is like that of a physicist.
What is different I wonder.


Perhaps graduate engineering is different. 


I don't know.  Once a kid's brain has been burnt in with the
EE approach, it seems like it would be very difficult to
undo all the training.  Undoing this training is not a good
thing if the person is going to do EE flavored work.


Especially in industry.


The science education of the average engineer is really quite superficial. 


From my experience, which is a little bit, there is none.
IIRC, my group had four, maybe five, EEs over the years.
Most couldn't do the work because they were locked into
a mindset.  Those who were brilliant in my group had their
background in math and science degrees; note the plural.
There was one philosophy guy.

I know many physicists who took a second degree in math. Usually they are the theorists. I have not met an experimentalist yet with a second degree in math.
I am thinking of getting the 9 credits required for a BS in math, if I have the time.
I know many physicist who have a urge to read up deeply into the math that interests them. Sort of like learning more about the language rather than the message. Fully half the books I have are math. The number theory texts are among my favorite. Alas it is the time needed to go deeply into the subject that is lacking.
How I wish I could do nothing but read math texts... but there are other things that are needed to be done. :-)
If I had it to do over again... well... I still would be a physicist. :-) But I would have spent much more time studying genetics and microbiology. Fascinating subject.
In my current line of work in nanophotonics, I can make the excuse to study microbiology because of some of the applications of my work.


You get an engineering text on something like Electrodynamics, and you get reams of formulas along with tricks for computing values. You get a book that teaches you how to get answers quickly with minimum fundamental understanding.
This is great when you want quick answers, and need to learn the mechanics of solution quickly. But it is a superficial knowledge.


It is established knowledge; IOW the stuff that everybody knows works. That's what is required in any production project. 

Yup. Cookbook.


One goes to a physics text or a physics teacher to learn the deep interconnections in the subject.
Engineering is Schaums
Physics Is Jackson's

So I switched to physics.
I guess my professors were right when they say physicists are taught how to learn, 


They have to do this because that is the job requirement.


I have not met a person with an engineering undergraduate degree who has switched to physics, but there has to be some. 


Sure.  There is always one exception to the rule.

/BAH

.

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