Skip to main content
Academia

Return to Answer

deleted 3 characters in body
Source Link
infinitezero
infinitezero
  • 1.3k
  • 1
  • 12
  • 18

No

I've spent around 12 years in university studying/working in physics and if you didn't study it, there's no way you'll ever work in it professionally. It is an insanely hard subject. Physics requires advanced mathematical skills and builds strongly on top of its own concepts, like Maths. You will have no success for example in electrodynamics, if you didn't already study classical mechanics for basic concepts like Lagrangians and Hamiltonians, let alone all the math required for doing calculus on vector fields, green functions, etc.

Frontline physics is HARD, for the very sole reason that if it were easy, it would have been done already. For example, data science would come in very handy in particle accelerators where you need to correlate datapoints quickly. But to get a basic understanding of relativistic scattering physics reallistically takes a masters degree in physics (5 years studying) and that's the "easy" textbook examples. If you already knew you'd want to focus on that, it could probably be done in 3, if you gave it all.

Physics is an insanelya really competetive field, with lots of PhD students and less post doc let alone permanent positions. Not to take away from data science, but at the end of the day, it's math, and physicists are good at applied math. I don't see any reason why a PI would choose a non-physicist over a physicist.

No

I've spent around 12 years in university studying/working in physics and if you didn't study it, there's no way you'll ever work in it professionally. It is an insanely hard subject. Physics requires advanced mathematical skills and builds strongly on top of its own concepts, like Maths. You will have no success for example in electrodynamics, if you didn't already study classical mechanics for basic concepts like Lagrangians and Hamiltonians, let alone all the math required for doing calculus on vector fields, green functions, etc.

Frontline physics is HARD, for the very sole reason that if it were easy, it would have been done already. For example, data science would come in very handy in particle accelerators where you need to correlate datapoints quickly. But to get a basic understanding of relativistic scattering physics reallistically takes a masters degree in physics (5 years studying) and that's the "easy" textbook examples. If you already knew you'd want to focus on that, it could probably be done in 3, if you gave it all.

Physics is an insanely competetive field, with lots of PhD students and less post doc let alone permanent positions. Not to take away from data science, but at the end of the day, it's math, and physicists are good at applied math. I don't see any reason why a PI would choose a non-physicist over a physicist.

No

I've spent around 12 years in university studying/working in physics and if you didn't study it, there's no way you'll ever work in it professionally. It is an insanely hard subject. Physics requires advanced mathematical skills and builds strongly on top of its own concepts, like Maths. You will have no success for example in electrodynamics, if you didn't already study classical mechanics for basic concepts like Lagrangians and Hamiltonians, let alone all the math required for doing calculus on vector fields, green functions, etc.

Frontline physics is HARD, for the very sole reason that if it were easy, it would have been done already. For example, data science would come in very handy in particle accelerators where you need to correlate datapoints quickly. But to get a basic understanding of relativistic scattering physics reallistically takes a masters degree in physics (5 years studying) and that's the "easy" textbook examples. If you already knew you'd want to focus on that, it could probably be done in 3, if you gave it all.

Physics is a really competetive field, with lots of PhD students and less post doc let alone permanent positions. Not to take away from data science, but at the end of the day, it's math, and physicists are good at applied math. I don't see any reason why a PI would choose a non-physicist over a physicist.

Source Link
infinitezero
infinitezero
  • 1.3k
  • 1
  • 12
  • 18

No

I've spent around 12 years in university studying/working in physics and if you didn't study it, there's no way you'll ever work in it professionally. It is an insanely hard subject. Physics requires advanced mathematical skills and builds strongly on top of its own concepts, like Maths. You will have no success for example in electrodynamics, if you didn't already study classical mechanics for basic concepts like Lagrangians and Hamiltonians, let alone all the math required for doing calculus on vector fields, green functions, etc.

Frontline physics is HARD, for the very sole reason that if it were easy, it would have been done already. For example, data science would come in very handy in particle accelerators where you need to correlate datapoints quickly. But to get a basic understanding of relativistic scattering physics reallistically takes a masters degree in physics (5 years studying) and that's the "easy" textbook examples. If you already knew you'd want to focus on that, it could probably be done in 3, if you gave it all.

Physics is an insanely competetive field, with lots of PhD students and less post doc let alone permanent positions. Not to take away from data science, but at the end of the day, it's math, and physicists are good at applied math. I don't see any reason why a PI would choose a non-physicist over a physicist.