New Theory of Black Holes

[Jon Miller]

Yeah, I looked some at Condensed Matter Experiment when I decided to go experiment. But I didn't like the profs, and I liked the nuclear prof...

JM
(Particle Theory -> Condensed Matter Theory -> Nuclear Experiment)

[DrS]

Experimental nuclear is nice. I liked it because it was the one field where the experimentalists wrote the laws. Theorists ruled in thermo and lattice QCD, but in between was nuclear.

[LordShiva]

I gave up Physics after undergrad - the business world wanted to pay me too much for me to continue with it

[notyoueither]

When I was a kid we didn't have enough chalk so the teacher would demonstrate accleration by dropping a fat kid and a skinny kid off the roof of the school.

[Starchild]

Originally posted by notyoueither
When I was a kid we didn't have enough chalk so the teacher would demonstrate accleration by dropping a fat kid and a skinny kid off the roof of the school.

Your school had a roof? Posh git. We sat at our desks in good weather and under them in bad.

[KrazyHorse]

Originally posted by Jon Miller
Yaeh, I have had 3-4 field theory classes.

I think KH has had more.

JM

Nope. I'm at 4.

[Jon Miller]

But sitting in < taking, so you have had more than I.

JM

[Elok]

Originally posted by DrS
For what it's worth, learn how to write grants. I absolutely hated it, and it killed me. I was always far too arrogant to effectively beg for money.

Fun Hint: We ordinary people are all very frightened of physics. It's big, it's complicated, and it's responsible for all the outlandish things they use to kill/teleport/transform things on "Star Trek." I don't know if you've seen it, but there's an episode of "Third Rock from the Sun" wherein Dick intimidates a thief into confessing by yelling a phony physics "proof" that he did it. When asked later, Dick explains that the law he cited proves only that the thief is in orbit around the sun...

You get the idea? Claim that if your research is not funded, neutrinos may cause all our testicles to implode or something, and back it up with lots of scary Greek characters.

[Jon Miller]

Physicists are in charge of determining who gets funding.

JM

[Elok]

Okay then, change of plans. In your request for funding, hide the message, "I will kill your family if you don't fork the cash over" in Greek letters and/or alphanumeric code. If they try to rat you out to the cops, the laypeople will have no way of knowing that it says what they claim it does.

Alternately, become one of those physicists who determine who gets funding.

[Colonâ„¢]

Seems like Machiavelli would have been a great physicist.

[DrS]

How is a four-course fields sequence broken up? I'm assuming of course, that it's not the sequence for retarded grandmothers, or that you're trying to sneak in softballs like electrodynamics.

[Jon Miller]

You mean you didn't read the sylabus?

One is QFT, and is more geared towards relativistic physics. This is sort of your standard first semester graduate field theory. One was focused on many bodied field theory, and was sort of light weight (The fault of the professor). One was advanced topics in condensed matter field theory, and was the most intellectually intensive class I have taken. The one I sat in on was advanced relatistic field theory.. I had already decided (in the second semester of the particle physics classes) that I didn't want to do particle physics theory.

Probably the course I took first, and the one I sat in on, corresponds to your two semester sequence. The other two dealt with stuff that is basically condensed matter (although there use to be nuclear theory that dealt with this).

The field theory classes, both particles and condensed matter, are my favorite classes ever, and actually my best non first year courses in graduate school (School work wise). Since the first year I have had a hard time doing work for a class that I wasn't super interested in.. which has caused me hardships with my grades.

Jon Miller

[chequita guevara]

I loved physics, but hated math. There was only so far that romance was going to go.

[Jon Miller]

Some of the reason I didn't want to do particle physics theory is that there is no money in that field. They told us (there were 5-6 of us in the particle physics courses.. all theorists..) that people would work on start projects the following year, and the best and most successful would be kept.

I didn't want to be looking for a group at the end of my third year, so I looked elsewhere and ended up trying condensed matter theory (which is uber cool, well at least the condensed matter field theory). Which left me looking for a group at the end of my third year anyways.

JM