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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?

#281

Post by scottishcow »

madhadron wrote: post #166
PaulHoule wrote: post #10

When I got my PhD (1999) the American Physical Society said that you had a 2% chance of getting a permanent job in the field with a PhD. At that point you are not being judged on your merits but on your connections, ability to navigate politics, etc. (The job is way too valuable compared to the value you can give to it.) I saw a postdoc who is now rather well known struggling with anxiety over his career even though…

There was a similar issue with power laws in biology, mostly driven by a guy named Barabasi. I don't think any of his results have held up when someone did the math right, but he's gone so far as to try to politically pressure people to keep quiet about it because they were hurting his career. I've been out for a few years, so I don't know what the current state of affairs is.

Surprised to hear this about Barabasi, I'm no physicist but enjoyed reading his books on network science as a layperson.

Is there any published criticism against his work? His papers get cited everywhere, I know citations are more metric of popularity than scientific quality but I find it puzzling that his work continues to get attention if the results don't hold up.

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

#282

Post by tobmlt »

ISL wrote: post #41

Physicist, working as a physicist (PhD 2015). Precision tests of gravity, primarily. We test the equivalence principle, Newton's inverse square law, hunt for exotic forms of dark matter, and build/invent cutting-edge sensors for LIGO. I have begun looking about at jobs outside of academia in order to decide whether to stay or go. Data science is one of the easiest transitions a physicist with data-analysis can make,…

How about the going the other way? I'm an engineer (hydrodynamics and optimization, and econometrics way back before all that.. and.. aerospace before that) who just finished a PhD and who has been writing software professionally for a large-ish engineering-software-company for 5 years while working on said degree. I have a serious-for-an-amateur physics side habit and really want to bring my work and play closer together. At work I look after a code base that is a half million lines of ancient f77/c++ so maybe that is a factor in my wanting something new!

Any room for scientific software developer at LIGO? Gravity is a beast... I will leave it at that. But I can signal process and I am not afraid to ask stupid questions. Looking for growth industries, I've had my eye on quantum computing and am just putting resumes together now. I'm really into differential geometry and topology but my understanding is amateurish and what I've learned of QFT, geometric physics, topology, etc., is uneven at best.

If you really are interested in software dev / data science I can ask around my company. They have a Seattle office* and a broad range of needs for different developer backgrounds --- at least when all offices are considered. Typically there is wiggle room to work from one office with a group based elsewhere. I can't guarantee anything though -- it's been hard to get anyone hired lately!

Back to gravity and such: I doubt you find anything, without physics in it, that draws you in as much as your present work, but it can't hurt to look around! How about a switch to focus on quantum computing if data science doesn't draw you? Bar that, what about numerical simulation?

*I'm not in Seattle.

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

#283

Post by tobmlt »

fsloth wrote: post #29

I got my masters, then pursued a PhD for 6 months after which an opening in computer graphics came up in the industry. I abandoned my PHd and started a career as software engineer. The reason was I sucked in physics, did not find my PhD position motivating and loved computer graphics. 13 years later I'm a valued technical contributor in a team in an ISV creating a valuable global software packages in the CAD field. M…

Fixing bugs in a legacy monstrosity checking in! Updating my resume this week.

What's an ISV?

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

#284

Post by tobmlt »

dangirsh wrote: post #263

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.yco…

Are there Quantum Applications & SDK positions open? I am planning to apply within the week. (PhD engineering - optimization for my thesis, lots of hydrodynamics at school and work. I started life in aerospace incidentally)

Also, I'm pretty happily obsessed with physics. It's really heartening to read so many Physics folk ended up in software. I kick myself for not going for it sometimes. Then I buy another book.

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

#285

Post by fsloth »

tobmlt wrote: post #283
fsloth wrote: post #29

I got my masters, then pursued a PhD for 6 months after which an opening in computer graphics came up in the industry. I abandoned my PHd and started a career as software engineer. The reason was I sucked in physics, did not find my PhD position motivating and loved computer graphics. 13 years later I'm a valued technical contributor in a team in an ISV creating a valuable global software packages in the CAD field. M…

Fixing bugs in a legacy monstrosity checking in! Updating my resume this week. What's an ISV?

That's what I was saying - you need to understand the game. Part of this is knowing the core business terminology in you field :)

ISV - independent software vendor. An entity having an ownership of a software product, usually developing the software as well.

The other entity this is often compared against is the ESP - external service provider. I.e. consultants.

I spent years with legacy monstrosity and it does develop important skills. If the organization is otherwise ok it might not be that bad - but generally production software is absolutely horrible. The thing is legacy maintenance is important, and there's quite nothing like it that will teach you about the lifecycle requirements of software development. But I find it much more fullfilling to maintain and develop software that is alive and well and actively kept out of the 'legacy' label.

Not all old software is 'legacy'. One definition is that does it have tests. I've found an equally good definition of 'you are not afraid to modify it' and 'you can understand what changes in one place do elsewhere'.

So to be clear, I was not saying "anyhing but greenfield development sucks".

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

#286

Post by SiempreViernes »

mef51 wrote: post #276
SiempreViernes wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yo! Zeeman splitting or faraday rotation?

Fancier! Goldreich-Kylafis of molecular lines (which you can do with weakly zeeman splitting molecules) and anisotropic resonant scattering (houde et al. 2013, 2014 etc.)

That does sound fancy indeed

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

#288

Post by mpsanders »

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…

* "All, in all"

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

#289

Post by jason_slack »

megnaro wrote: post #16
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.

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

And is this book a good read for someone re-learning math having only taken high school physics?

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

#290

Post by wuschel »

da-bacon wrote: post #261

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…

Hi,

> my background in quantum computing caught back up to me,

I would be curious on that part. Could you describe the process what happened there? Internal skill screening program? Did you jump projects?

Thanks!

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