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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?

#261

Post by da-bacon »

I currently work on the software that runs Google's quantum computers. To paraphrase the Talking Heads: How did I get there?

PhD 2001 in physics, working on quantum computation. Postdocs at Caltech and Santa Fe Institute, then landed a research faculty position at the University of Washington. Yeah, raise your own funds! Jumped ship in 2011 (burnout, quality of life, university not caring about quantum computing) and went off to become a "real" software engineer at Google. Worked on ads (as one does), then helped build Google Domains, then worked on distributed privacy preserving machine learning. About two years ago, my background in quantum computing caught back up to me, and now I run the team that builds software for Google's quantum computers.

People ask how to get into quantum computing if you are a software engineer. I will say that you really need to spend some deep time in quantum computing, either a masters or a PhD or some very very serious self study. There are certainly parts of writing software for quantum computing that don't require that, but if you really want an expansive career working in quantum computers you'll want to have a deep background.

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

#262

Post by ambicapter »

hyperjeff wrote: post #226
megnaro wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I bought Modern Classical Physics last summer as a birthday gift to myself and I am also slowly going through it.

Ex-PhD student in general relativity here, also slowly going thru that book. If anyone wants to start a reading (slack?) group together, I’d be interested. I have no one to talk to about this stuff IRL.

Does Slack let you write LaTeX?

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

#263

Post by dangirsh »

Finished a bachelor's in engineering physics in 2014. Chose to pursue a career in software/aerospace instead of continuing in physics.

I then left aerospace in 2017 for a quantum computing startup [1]. I'm currently focused on simulation software, where my physics background is certainly useful.

I like to think I'd still pursue a physics PhD if I became sufficiently obsessed with a specific topic.

1: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19281922

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

#264

Post by IlyaOrson »

sballin wrote: post #188

I'm a PhD student studying turbulence at the outer edge of plasmas in fusion experiments. Turbulence degrades plasma confinement, which makes it difficult to keep the plasma burning and produce power. I'm interested in whether different machine designs or operation procedures can help reduce turbulence. At the moment I'm analyzing data from W7-X in Germany. It's a really cool device off the beaten path of tokamaks bu…

Man I wish I could work with W7-X data, such an amazing stellarator!

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

#265

Post by wrycoder »

musgravepeter wrote: post #12

(PhD, 1996 in general relativity) Embedded graphics drivers for real-time systems. I keep the physics part of my brain alive by developing physics based Unity assets (nbodyphysics.com) and supporting a package for GR on github (grtensor). I still buy WAY too many physics books. Current aspiration is to work through "Modern Classical Physics" Thorne/Blandford.

http://nbodyphysics.com/blog/2017/06/12/on-being-the-dumbest...

Somehow I doubt it! In any case, you are like me - doing engineering and software, while doing my physics as a hobby and loving it. I'm working on Physics from Symmetry. Definitely a 21st century book - not at all like the traditional development of the subject.

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

#266

Post by musgravepeter »

wrycoder wrote: post #265
musgravepeter wrote: post #12

(PhD, 1996 in general relativity) Embedded graphics drivers for real-time systems. I keep the physics part of my brain alive by developing physics based Unity assets (nbodyphysics.com) and supporting a package for GR on github (grtensor). I still buy WAY too many physics books. Current aspiration is to work through "Modern Classical Physics" Thorne/Blandford.

http://nbodyphysics.com/blog/2017/06/12/on-being-the-dumbest... Somehow I doubt it! In any case, you are like me - doing engineering and software, while doing my physics as a hobby and loving it. I'm working on Physics from Symmetry. Definitely a 21st century book - not at all like the traditional development of the subject.

Physics from symmetry looks really fun. Another book for the pile! (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsundoku)

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

#267

Post by Crossno »

After grad school I got some very good advice from a mathematician: If you are good at math, don't go where they are good at math.

He convinced me (and a few other phd physicists) to help him tackle the problem of industrial controls for heavy industry (think large refrigerated warehouses, steel refineries, food processing, etc.). We we're all graduating so we decided to give the startup route a try. Since then we've been designing/deploying cloud-based control software to regulate the energy of these huge power consumers. https://www.crossnokaye.com/

In the day-to-day its more data science/computer science than physics but the core models we design are physics based so our white boards always have some derivations on them.

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

#268

Post by frob »

smueller1234 wrote: post #102
cozzyd wrote: post #65

I'm a postdoc (PhD 2015) working on radio detection of ultra-high-energy neutrinos. I spend most of my time writing software and doing data analysis, but I also do field work (including in Antarctica and Greenland!) and a million other things. It's a whole lot of fun except for the general uncertainty about what I'll be doing in the future part.

I used to have that uncertainty (was in Auger as a PhD student, so a similar field), but assuming it's something you think you might enjoy doing, going from writing analysis software in astrophysics to doing that as a primary profession is not very hard. It does likely come with a reset of expectations, going back to primarily learning instead of teaching for a little while. Happy to expand on my experience if that w…

The Auger detector is one of the coolest detectors I've seen. I had to do a report on it in grad school. My favorite factoid is that it is the size of Rhode Island. Also, at the time, it had seen particles in the 10s of EeV range, which is also known as a Joule. The same kinetic energy as a 2 kg object traveling ~1 m/s. In ONE SINGLE PARTICLE.

I love physics.

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