this month's issue of Scientific American has a special titled "The Future of Physics". I was quickly disappointed when I realized that the article covers only "terascale" physics, primarily focusing on LHC.
I guess I am tired of arrogant statements like "physics" = "high energy physics", which is how a lot of popular media characterizes it. The irony, however, is that with ILC construction in serious peril, and with LHC not even operational yet (unclear what, if anything, they will find) - the REAL "future of physics" is arguably with biophysics, condensed matter or "materials" physics and AMO. I would expect that large particle collider experiments being phased out, with more useful data coming from cosmology (=astronomy).
At the same time, experiments in low-energy physics (condensed matter, optical, molecular, biophysics, materials and chemical physics) will continue to ramp up at an increasing rate.
If I was a first year grad student now, there is no way I would seriously consider going into experimental high energy physics - even forgetting for a second about funding woes Fermilab is facing. If there is such a thing as "future of physics", it is definitely not high energy (no offense to high energy folks).
Thursday, January 17, 2008
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4 comments:
I totally agree with your post.
I did my PhD in particle physics (5 years ago) and all my formers colleagues have left the field.
Personally I switched to computational biology and I found it so much more exciting, moving, alive... that I never regret my choice.
I've had this discussion with grad students that want to go into HEP or strings. My argument is that whether you like it or not, the job market situation should be an important factor (I grant it is not the only one) in deciding what research to go into.
The answer that I keep getting is that they are in physics because they love HEP or strings, and that eventually they will find a job in that field (they assume that they are exceptionally good. IMO, they are good, not sure if I would call them exceptional.) I am not familiar with the job availability in those areas but I can't get it out of my head that most likely you'll be unemployed.
I think people generally see physics as something without any direct application to life. Under that definition physics, for the most part, is only composed of HEP and strings. The rest are just a form of engineering. Pretty disappointing considering it is just as hard to get your PhD in any area of physics. We need to educate the ordinary citizen of what physics is and what benefits it provides to daily life. Maybe then they'll write an article on how the future of physics is on "engineering" haha....
People in physics should do what they like. For employment and financial rewards people do something else. When HEP loses government support, the number of jobs will get smaller for HEP and number of grad. students in this field will shrink. It's really sad to see smart people wasting their time on physics having zero passion about things that they do and work only on stuff that gets them their next job in science. The world outside is full of challenging problems for smart people to deal with. So let students choose what they are passioned about instead of something more "practical". Don't forget that only 10-15% of them will stay in science and majority will leave anyway.
Dmitry - I don't think I would argue that students shouldn't go into HEP because it's not practical. Heavy fermion physics or supersolid He may be similarly "unpractical", but I wouldn't argue against those areas of physics.
What I am arguing is that big accelerator particle physics is coming to a logical dead-end, a situation where it is increasingly more difficult to learn anything new about universe with existing accelerators, and even the future even larger machines. There are similar arguments among many branches of theoretical HEP, like string theory.
We may like to accuse congress of effectively killing off accelerator-based HEP in this country, but I think the case could be made that the "point of diminishing returns" was being reached well before the current budget woes.
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