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Ask HN: Physicists of HN, what are you working on these days?

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Re: Ask HN: Physicists of HN, what are you working on these days?

#191

Post by andrepd »

physics137 wrote: post #43

I'll leave this here, since many comments are about the transition from physics to data science. "For now, however, in hard-core physical science at least, there is little evidence of any major BD-driven breakthroughs, at least not in fields where insight and understanding rather than zerosales resistance is the prime target: physics and chemistry do not succumb readily to the seduction of BD/ML/AI. It is extremely r…

>And, if the best minds are employed in large corporations to work out how to persuade people to click on online advertisements instead of cracking hard-core science problems, not much can be expected to change in the years to come.

This makes me so incredibly depressed.

Re: Ask HN: Physicists of HN, what are you working on these days?

#192

Post by elliekelly »

physicsyogi wrote: post #167

(PhD, 2005 in condensed matter) I left academia after my postdoc and went to work at one of the think tanks in the DC area for a few years. When I got tired of being a government contractor and left to work in natural language processing and machine learning. Now, I build machine learning software to detect financial misconduct like insider trading. I also built software that helps law enforcement find minors who are…

I've been looking for someone with your exact skillset - applying NLP to financial regulations. I'm an investment attorney turned developer working on software that uses NLP to automate compliance for SEC-registered investment advisers.

Re: Ask HN: Physicists of HN, what are you working on these days?

#193

Post by eightorbit »

andrepd wrote: post #176
eightorbit wrote: post #62

Just so you don't get the impression every physicist is having a fabulous time, here's me: I have a bachelors in physics. I went for a phd in biology but had to bail to work to support family, plus I can't seem to come up with original ideas. I now have a job with physicist as part of the title, but what I really do is try to read bad handwriting from records from nuclear weapons plants. It's a dull job a monkey coul…

>As an undergrad I was excited about chaos and nonlinear dynamics. I, too, read the Strogatz book :^).

:) That's a good one, Devaney was more my era!

Re: Ask HN: Physicists of HN, what are you working on these days?

#194

Post by benjohnson1707 »

I wanna take the chance asking this question while having so many physicists present in this sub: is the 'first principle thinking' approach to problem-solving somewhat helpful outside academia? Is it a thing in the first place? Seems super interesting as a non-physicist, however it's hard to judge from the outside. Thanks for some insights.

Re: Ask HN: Physicists of HN, what are you working on these days?

#195

Post by loarake »

blevin wrote: post #173
loarake wrote: post #89

Just defended my PhD thesis in medical physics. Worked on radiation therapy treatment planning, which combines optimisation theory with the physics of Monte Carlo particle transport engines (and more macro energy deposition modeling as well) to simulate millions of different radiation dose distributions in patients and figure out which combination will lead to the right outcome based on what the radiation oncologist…

Sounds fascinating. What coordinate systems are used for treatment planning? Given how much bodies can change over time, and the difficulty of re-achieving a specific pose, I'm curious if there are interesting ways to correlate measurements over time. Certainly, medical training involves learning lots of prepositional anatomy words like "antecubital" but is there anything more precise, a GPS system for bodies? This s…

It's much more primitive than you think. Dose distributions are simulated based on a CT/MRI that was acquired before treatment (treatment often lasts weeks). Only minor corrections are made when anatomy changes during the course of treatment, even though the patient is often losing tons of weight due to chemo, etc. There are quite a few tools that help with patient positioning, like vac-lok bags or literally molding a mask and drilling it down on the treatment couch (an example is shown here: https://newsnetwork.mayoclinic.org/discussion/new-radiothera...).

Motion during treatment can be tracked with cameras or IR sensors or subcutaneous probes but that doesn't tell you about internal organs moving. The topic of deformable registration, where you find a non-rigid mapping between initial imaging conditions and the current ones, is still a topic of active research. Adaptive planning, where you actively change the treatment plan every N sessions based on the most up to date information, is also actively researched / implemented in some good research centers.

For treatment planning you just use a standard Cartesian grid, or a "beam's eye view" coordinate system that's aligned with the radiation beam axis as it rotates around the patient.

Re: Ask HN: Physicists of HN, what are you working on these days?

#196

Post by muvek »

I recently finished my Master's in Physics (with a minor in Applied physics, thesis in Astroparticle physics). I also have a BS in Physics. I've been looking for a job for a few months now and haven't found anything interesting.

Where do you guys search for jobs, in Europe? I was mainly looking for a Data-Science position, though I don't know ML yet (other than regressions ofc)

Re: Ask HN: Physicists of HN, what are you working on these days?

#197

Post by loarake »

bananaowl wrote: post #178
loarake wrote: post #89

Just defended my PhD thesis in medical physics. Worked on radiation therapy treatment planning, which combines optimisation theory with the physics of Monte Carlo particle transport engines (and more macro energy deposition modeling as well) to simulate millions of different radiation dose distributions in patients and figure out which combination will lead to the right outcome based on what the radiation oncologist…

So what happens to the seed??

Don't quote me on this because I only covered the topic briefly in some applied classes before doing 6 years of research, but if I remember correctly, you grab it with long tweezers and dump it in a shielded "garbage can" type container. And fill tons of paperwork that involves estimating the radiation dose delivered to everyone that could've been exposed. And probably present a post mortem at conferences about how you dealt with it.

Re: Ask HN: Physicists of HN, what are you working on these days?

#198

Post by ssivark »

Physicist (PhD 2017, hep theory/phenomenology) currently working as a researcher (in the context of AI and robotics) in a Silicon Valley startup.

I am greatly excited about ideas at the interface of probabilistic inference and quantum/statistical physics. On the one hand, these should help create better ML models/algorithms; on the other hand, I believe that tools from probabilistic inference will help better understand emergent phenomena in complex systems. The former is what I'm focusing on right now, the latter, I think might take a couple of decades.

When graduating with a PhD and thinking about what I'd like to do next, I didn't think I was a good fit for life on the academic track (post-doc, tenure-track, etc), given the kind of questions I wanted to think about and the manner in which I wanted to pursue them. I also wanted to gain some experience writing software and applying ML to real world problems (as a "regularizing" effect on my theorizing), so I took the path I did.

I've come to realize that I'm a researcher at heart, and it's difficult for me to not spend time exploring new ideas. I just need to find the time and space to do that, and I'm trying to structure my life so that I can.

> Also I have noticed a growing trend of physicists becoming data scientists post phD. Although I understand the money factor, are there any other reasons for this as well?

I think this has always been the case, at least as far back as software in the '90s and then finance and now "data science" added to the mix. The typical physics education/training makes one a generalist with a broad background in problem solving and mathematical tools, and a flexible mindset, so that one can adapt to be effective on the problem du jour, while there is a dearth of specialists with the specific skills necessary. I imagine this overarching trend continue to be true going forward as well.

Re: Ask HN: Physicists of HN, what are you working on these days?

#199

Post by freeboson »

Particle phenomenology (hep-ph) PhD in 2014. Left after 1st postdoc (3 years).

I had two kids during my postdoc and quickly became disenchanted with the prospect of hunting for postdocs in a random part of the world. I was as interested in statistics and machine learning techniques, so moving into industry was not terrible. I still love the formalism of supergravity, but it looks to be becoming less and less relevant in hep-ph.

You're absolutely right that data science is a common destination for exiles. It makes the most sense because we get to still read interesting mathy papers, develop computational tools. The mechanics are very similar for physicists (in certain fields). Literally every single former physicist friend I have on LinkedIn is working as a Data Scientist, except one who is teaching physics at a private high school in NYC.

When I left my postdoc, I worked at a data science startup for a year, and now I do general software and applied ML at google.

Re: Ask HN: Physicists of HN, what are you working on these days?

#200

Post by perfect_wave »

eightorbit wrote: post #193
andrepd wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>As an undergrad I was excited about chaos and nonlinear dynamics. I, too, read the Strogatz book :^).

:) That's a good one, Devaney was more my era!

Devaney was my advisor's advisor when he did he his PhD at BU. I took a course on discrete dynamics and chaos and wrote my senior year thesis on bifurcation diagrams.

We used this textbook by Devaney: https://www.amazon.com/First-Course-Chaotic-Dynamical-System...

Was absolutely fascinated by the class. One of my favorites from undergrad.

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