nibot | (no subject)

James D. Patterson, professor emeritus of Florida Institute of Technology, has written An Open Letter to the Next Generation (see also physicstoday) in which he describes some of the pitfalls of the profession of Physics. A lot of what he says (for instance, about politics, respect, efficiency, and activity) is applicable to any profession, but other points are specific to Physics and are phenomena I've seen in myself any many others, like the nagging suspicion that Theory and Particle Physics are somehow the "most noble" fields. I think the most interesting thing that he says is "Scientific papers are almost always more complete and understandable than their digested versions in books. ... Textbooks are often abbreviated second− or third−hand distortions of the facts, and they usually do not convey the flavor of scientific research."

By the way, another blog I find quite interesting is languagelog.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

yes.. but what point are you trying to make? that the author of this is right? wrong? by fundamental physics do you mean "particle physics" or the basics of any subfield?

I do basically mean particle physics, or whatever else replaces it as the fundamental theory of the world. It irks me to see advice to young physicists along the lines of, "Think about doing something else, it just might be too hard." Many people go into physics because they want to understand reality, and I want to see as many of those people as possible tackle the fundamental questions. Perhaps physics in the longer run will be dominated by areas, like biophysics, which are more like mathematics in that it's all about tackling an endless variety of cool problems. But I want to stand up for the pursuit of physics, not just as something that's fun, but as an idealistic enterprise; and I think the idealism of physics is most manifest in the pursuit of the 'final theory'.