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Physicist, 98, honoured with doctorate 75 years after groundbreaking discovery

theguardian.com

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Re: Physicist, 98, honoured with doctorate 75 years after groundbreaking discovery

#41

Post by glitchc »

behnamoh wrote: post #28
glitchc wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the danger of anecdotes, they can lead to bias. I have a PhD and I had my first child at 28. Almost all of my colleagues have families and children, except for the one person who was unable to attract a suitable mate (and not for lack of trying). Sometimes very bright people have trouble attracting an equivalent person. The pool is that much smaller and other factors (socioeconomic, culture) still play a role…

> This is the danger of anecdotes, they can lead to bias. Your own story is also a dangerous anecdote. Without the context, it's pointless to talk about how amazing your Ph.D. experience was. Study engineering or quantitative marketing? Most likely miserable. Study humanities? Probably happier.

It's as latexr said, my counterfactual anecdote holds as much water as the OP's. That's the point. Neither forms a verifiable statement of fact.

Regarding happiness or a Ph.D. being an amazing experience, I didn't say a word about any of that. Those seem to be some very strong assumptions around marriage/kids = happiness or engineering/marketing = misery that you're making.

Re: Physicist, 98, honoured with doctorate 75 years after groundbreaking discovery

#42

Post by n4r9 »

behnamoh wrote: post #29
bosch_mind wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My wife got a PhD by age 28 with over 20 science publications, didn’t stress at all during the time really. She traveled the world during that time and we live a pretty chill life. Met lots of friends during that time too. Don’t purely listen to anecdotes.

From the number of published articles, it seems your wife was in STEM? Engineering Ph.D.s publish a lot of papers but they contribute little to each, because there are often tens of co-authors. Not to downplay your wife's achievement, but pointing out #papers is not that informative.

Come on! 20 publications in STEM by age 28 is massively impressive regardless of field. Admittedly it's not the US, but I've found one study that suggests a publication rate of 0.52 article equivalents per year for women PhD students in engineering and technology: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S175115771...

Re: Physicist, 98, honoured with doctorate 75 years after groundbreaking discovery

#43

Post by latexr »

kgwgk wrote: post #40
latexr wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I’m never bothered because it looked like too much effort for little money. Having a PhD or a family? Because I could see that applied to either. Money and effort are not the only metrics that matter.

The family would be too much effort for negative money.

Unless you marry someone rich, I guess.

Re: Physicist, 98, honoured with doctorate 75 years after groundbreaking discovery

#44

Post by zamadatix »

dsugarman wrote: post #23
glitchc wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the danger of anecdotes, they can lead to bias. I have a PhD and I had my first child at 28. Almost all of my colleagues have families and children, except for the one person who was unable to attract a suitable mate (and not for lack of trying). Sometimes very bright people have trouble attracting an equivalent person. The pool is that much smaller and other factors (socioeconomic, culture) still play a role…

If everyone had a requirement for marriage that you marry someone as smart as you, exactly no one would be married.

I think it's implied that there is some fuzziness in the matching, not precision to the 7th decimal of some objective test or something. That said I agree it certainly isn't a requirement to be similar in specific attributes to get married. Perhaps somewhat common though.

Re: Physicist, 98, honoured with doctorate 75 years after groundbreaking discovery

#45

Post by dotnet00 »

teeheelol wrote: post #5

Every person I know with a PhD now in their 40s and 50s (7 people) doesn’t have a family and wished they did and didn’t have a PhD. I’d love to see a study on that. I’m never bothered because it looked like too much effort for little money.

Most of the people with PhDs in that age group I know are married and often talk excitedly about what activities they recently did with their kids. Many are married to other people with PhDs, and their kids also seem to intend to go for PhDs.

The early 30s postdocs seem to mostly be single though, so maybe they'll face that in their 40s and 50s.

Re: Physicist, 98, honoured with doctorate 75 years after groundbreaking discovery

#46

Post by dotnet00 »

tivert wrote: post #22
lumost wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suspect that this also depends on field. CS has been hot for a long time now, it's also not extremely expensive to make a dent - or particularly unlikely. In Physics, we graduate an order of magnitude more Phds than there are posts for Phds. There are few remunerative fields which hire Phd physicists.

> In Physics, we graduate an order of magnitude more Phds than there are posts for Phds. There are few remunerative fields which hire Phd physicists. IIRC, that's even worse in the humanities in both regards. I'd kind of think doing a career change would be easier for a Phd physicist, because they could benefit from stereotypes especially if they switch into some kind of quantitative or math-y field.

My understanding is that, as you say, Physics PhDs tend to have pretty decent paths into computing or math stuff. It's hard to be a physicist these days without being able to write some code in at least a scripting language, so fields like data science can fit them well.

The challenge is probably in finding pure physics research positions in a specific specialization.

Re: Physicist, 98, honoured with doctorate 75 years after groundbreaking discovery

#47

Post by behnamoh »

KeplerBoy wrote: post #37
behnamoh wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't see how going for a PhD limits one's family life. Only one way to find out! It limits your family/friends/sex/fun life because the work load is a lot, there are no official "work hours" (so you end up working on weekends, at nights, when others are sleeping, when others go to parties, etc.), you get paid less than people who work in industry even though your work is as difficult (if not more) than theirs (t…

yeah, I'm on the verge of finding out. Got an offer, but damn it's a big decision to make. Having supporting parents around to help with childcare (no kids yet, but 4 years is a long time) and financials is a big plus. Also being in Europe where the job market looks dire and industry only pay like 20% more is a major draw towards the PhD.

As someone who's almost done with his Ph.D., I wouldn't recommend it. Although I did mine in the US. European universities are different in some ways (e.g., I've heard they don't require Ph.D.s to do TA work, which is nice).

Re: Physicist, 98, honoured with doctorate 75 years after groundbreaking discovery

#48

Post by [deleted] »

achrono wrote: post #15

Interesting that The Guardian is leading the way in finally having non-gendered headlines, i.e. not saying "Female physicist recognized 75 years after discovery" or "Rosemary Fowler, 98-year old physicist, recognized 75 years after discovery". This will hopefully pave the way for truer equality in that the most common reaction reading this headline would probably be "oh no, why has this physicist not gotten the recog…

[deleted]

Re: Physicist, 98, honoured with doctorate 75 years after groundbreaking discovery

#49

Post by 2o3jriw3jril »

teeheelol wrote: post #5

Every person I know with a PhD now in their 40s and 50s (7 people) doesn’t have a family and wished they did and didn’t have a PhD. I’d love to see a study on that. I’m never bothered because it looked like too much effort for little money.

The majority of the people I know who have PhDs have families with children by 30-35.

My experience in grad school is that there are two different classes of people pursuing PhDs:

- people whose parents have MSs or PhDs, who had guidance from a very early age, who have been advised the entire way through and are able to complete their PhDs by age 25-28

- people whose parents don't have advanced degrees, who are at a pretty severe disadvantage, who don't know how to start preparing for grad school applications during sophomore year of undergrad, who don't know how to pick a decent advisor, who don't know how to organize their own funding which provides some level of research independence and the ability to focus on completing their degree instead of worshipping their advisor, and these people are much more likely to take 6,7,8+ years to complete their PhD if they complete it at all

But that's not really relevant to this story. This is an article about a woman who dropped out of her PhD program to have kids, and was given an honorary degree decades later because the work she did complete was groundbreaking.

Re: Physicist, 98, honoured with doctorate 75 years after groundbreaking discovery

#50

Post by seanhunter »

lumost wrote: post #19
Calavar wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do all seven work at the same place? The PhDs I know mostly work a M-W/9-5 schedule with the occasional late night or weekend day when it's crunch time for a conference deadline. Plenty of time left for family, and they all have families. But that's dependent on departmental culture, and there can be a lot of variance.

I suspect that this also depends on field. CS has been hot for a long time now, it's also not extremely expensive to make a dent - or particularly unlikely. In Physics, we graduate an order of magnitude more Phds than there are posts for Phds. There are few remunerative fields which hire Phd physicists.

High paying jobs in finance are stuffed with physics phds.
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