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Losing Good Students from Physics

Writer's picture: Mishkat BhattacharyaMishkat Bhattacharya

A phenomenon that is common in undergraduate as well as graduate physics education: a student who is quite competent comes across a classmate who is brilliant, and takes that as a signal that (s)he should quit physics, because only the brilliant classmate has what it takes to 'succeed' in the field.


I rather suspect this happens in every field of human endeavor, but I will stick to physics which is where I have faced this phenomenon in person, have been told about other cases by colleagues, and have tracked publicly available confessions by people I do not personally know - see below for the example of Jeff Bezos.


This post is aimed at gathering thoughts about the phenomenon, without judging anybody to be right or wrong, and making some suggestions that students might find useful to consider before quitting physics, even though their final decision might be unchanged.


Have you examined your career aims?


If you are completely in love with physics (as an intellectual discipline) and desire nothing more than the privilege of practicing it every day, you will likely not be stopped by the brilliance of others (you may in fact be inspired by it).


If love of the subject is not the prime motivation for doing physics, then the sort of interaction described at the beginning of this article may indeed lead you to choose to excel in a different field, where brilliance comes to you more naturally.


A famous example is Jeff Bezos, who decided to leave theoretical physics at Princeton (and eventually start Amazon) because a classmate from Sri Lanka was able to solve a particular differential equation in a few minutes, something that Bezos (and his roommate) had been stuck at for three hours.


Whether you choose to change your field will depend on the kind of person you are. Some people are naturally ambitious for success and recognition (not a bad thing) and would like to take the path that leads them there most naturally (though this might prove difficult too - remember the saying 'I had to work half my life to be an overnight success'?). Others are looking for a challenge from something they are not easily good at, and do not care about (external) success. In my opinion the world needs both kinds of people.


Have you considered that brilliance may not be necessary for success in physics?


At the undergraduate and graduate levels brilliance might consist of solving homework problems faster or more economically, of already knowing what the professor has to say, of reading ahead in the scientific literature, of thinking faster, etc. (It does not consist in proposing an original problem, or solving an outstanding puzzle in physics - except in very rare cases).


In my opinion, it is not wise - though it is all too human - to be intimidated by these qualities, which I will club under 'technical brilliance'. This is because in physics research, speed usually does not count for much, unless there is a close competition to reach a suspected conclusion, and even then papers which are received weeks or months apart are usually published back-to-back, i.e. simultaneously.


More importantly, the real problems worth solving are usually not the ones which many people know how to solve and where you beat other people out by using speed. They are often the problems that nobody knows how to solve and that require persistence - and time - to be cracked open. I personally tend to believe that anything that can be done quickly has an equally short shelf life in physics. Fashionable today, forgotten tomorrow. (Having said that, I am sometimes guilty of being fashionable myself).


Also, physics thinking requires some maturity and exposure before you can become good at it. Your 'brilliant' classmate may have had a head start on you on this (maybe his mother is a physicist; Bezos' Sri Lankan friend knew of a related problem which he had solved earlier). But you can catch up, in some sense, given time. Then his thinking no longer seems so magical or overpowering. In other words, give yourself a chance.


Have you considered that physics requires many kinds of talents?


This is related to the previous point. Technical brilliance (which I consider to be the mastery of complexity, just as creativity is the mastery of simplicity) is not the only quality, nor even a necessary quality, in my opinion, required to do physics successfully (professionally), although it is a very useful trait to have (if you don't have it, you can hire people who do). The history of physics shows that other qualities like depth, solidity, risk-taking, networking and creativity are also very important.


In this context I am reminded of Einstein's quote: "I have no special talent. I am just passionately curious." I am also reminded of James Watson's article, available online, where he gives some rules of thumb for succeeding in science. One of them is about networking, specifically about how both his (and Crick's) competitors for deciphering the structure of DNA failed to win the Nobel because they were isolated: Rosalind Franklin by her distaste for small talk; Linus Pauling because no one dared to disagree with him.


Have you considered that being around brilliant people may be good for you?


Both throughout my undergraduate and graduate days, I was academically never top of the class, sometimes not even close. Yet, I appreciated how much I learned from the top students. Even day, twenty years after the fact, I can trace back specific tricks and techniques and ways of thinking that I learnt from them, and then molded to my needs. Surviving their academic company also gave me useful confidence that even if there were tigers in the jungle, I could find enough food to survive (i.e. endure the competition).


Have you considered that the physicist you consider brilliant may not even stay on in physics?


Keep in mind that the person who made you quit physics might not end up being a physicist. One of my brilliant topper classmates moved to Wall Street, another to being a Public Policy expert in the energy sector. 'Brilliant' people can be quite capricious in their choices.


One remembers the meeting of Harish Chandra (who had trained in theoretical physics under Dirac) and Freeman Dyson (who grew up as a mathematical child prodigy). Harish Chandra told Dyson he was going over to mathematics because he found physics to be too messy. Dyson replied that he was going the other way, because he found mathematics to be too messy. They both succeeded in their careers.


Summary


Think (at least!) twice before quitting.

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