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What Theoretical Physicists Really Do

Writer's picture: Mishkat BhattacharyaMishkat Bhattacharya

This post is a review of the article 'Beyond The Big Bang Theory: Revealing the Everyday Research Lives of Theoretical Physics Faculty' recently published in The Physics Teacher. One of the authors is my departmental colleague Prof. Ben Zwickl, a leading expert in the field of Physics Education Research (PER).


The idea behind the article is to address the misconceptions that many students and perhaps even other faculty, not to say the general public, have about theoretical physicists (some of the stereotypes have been - profitably - promoted by shows like The Big Bang Theory).


Below I will summarize the findings of this paper, interspersed with some of my own observations.


The Misconceptions


i) The theoretical physicist is a 'lone genius':


This is largely not true. Most theoretical physicists are quite collaborative, especially those who are prolific (I should add that some, like myself, publish by themselves as well as in collaboration). In addition, many theoretical physicists (like myself, again) also collaborate closely with experimentalists.


And most theoretical physicists - myself certainly included - are not geniuses. They are hardworking and capable people. Of course, there are a few exceptions, who are acknowledged (to be) geniuses.


I'd like to recall a couple of quotes from Einstein in this regard. The first is 'I have no special gifts, I'm just curious.' The second is 'Most people think it is the intellect that makes the great scientist. They are wrong. It is the character.'


ii) The theoretical physicist is socially awkward :


I have almost never seen an example of this. In fact it is difficult to be awkward since physicists get so much practice in socializing (professionally). One is always interacting with colleagues in departments, at conferences, workshops, and talks; with students in class; with program managers at funding agencies.


In fact, theoretical physicists love talking shop with each other whenever they get a chance. Some conference centers acknowledge this by covering the walls of their corridors with black/white boards because you never know when a discussion can break out.


Even before technology (like computers and smart phones and airplanes) made contact easy, say in Europe in the 1930s, one finds the theoretical greats (Einstein, Lorentz, Bohr, Heisenberg...) always visiting each other. There is a word/phrase for it in German (I forget what it is exactly) which roughly translates to 'doing physics by walking', that is, by visiting other physicists.


Before transport became easy with trains and cars, one finds a steady professional correspondence between the prominent scientists of the day (17th century: Newton-Leibniz-Hooke, 18th century: Cauchy-Laplace-Lagrange-Lame). Going back to the Greeks, Archimedes corresponded with scientists like Conon of Samos and Eratosthenes of Cyrene.


iii) The life of a theoretical physicist is intellectually glamorous :


Meaning that they make astonishing discoveries at breakneck rates, or else spend their time talking in fancy language about esoteric concepts. Neither is true, of course. A lot of struggle (sometimes ranging over years, even decades) goes into making progress.


In fact, most theoretical physicists spend their time not feeling very smart (Feynman used to say he felt like a monkey with two sticks trying unsuccessfully to get to a fruit) as they are usually unable to solve the problem they are working on (Problems worthy of attack, said Paul Erdos, prove their worth by fighting back).


And most (theoretical) physicists, rather than hiding behind obscure jargon, try to state things as simply as possible: this is almost an indispensable requirement for making progress in research.


iv) The theoretical physicist has little common sense:


This is a stereotype, but one which I find to be alarmingly popular in the world. Multiple times I have found myself in situations where everybody else in the room is a business or corporate person and on being told that I am a theoretical physicist, immediately assumes that I am completely unware of the ways of the world, that I have no business shrewdness, and that I can be fooled by even the most naive maneuvers.


In such company, life suddenly becomes tedious; I sometimes think it might be better to introduce myself as the owner of a quantum startup, which is not far from the truth, and probably carries much more street cred.


Not only do theoretical physicists have common sense, they have even been accused of having too much of it: Einstein was once complaining to Eddington about some physicists who were too slow to accept relativity. 'No,' replied Eddington, 'They have too much common sense.'



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