To fund or not to fund - Are some science projects worth pursuing?

Over here in the UK, we were all (as in those of us in particle/theoretical physics) very excited about the SSC. It's especially good when someone else is footing the bill But those of us not connected to any particular experimental group do not care who does the research, as long as it gets done. There are no national boundaries in pure research. And for those who do care, the competition usually drives research forwards.The demise of the SSC set us back years in research. The LHC, not even finished yet, is much lower in energy... and the SSC was dropped in favour of the ISS! Go figure...Back to moose's point, it is very difficult to assign bang for buck with these research projects. There are so many aspects covering both the science, the public perception of science, and of course the spin-off technologies. And cancellation of grand scale projects has probably done infintely more to damage the public face of science than any over-spend. The SSC would have been awe-inspiring.

Cool The value will be to your own satisfaction and desire to learn. It can't do any harm (as I am sure you are quite capable of defending such a decision to any relevant parties) but I do not see it as a great leap up in the employability stakes, as you already have a degree.For academia, obviously a degree would only be the beginning. You will need to progress to doctorate, post-doctorate, and the battle for tenured positions only gets worse over time, not better.Particle physics covers a wide-spectrum which I would split into three:1) Instrumentation - the spanners end of physics, getting your hands dirty with the detectors and electronics - essentially a glorified engineer. Normal mathematics background required. Very employable in hi-tech engineering.2) Particle Physicist - designing experiments and exploring the results - the "real" physicist in these three areas. Requires extensive knowledge of particle physics (QED, QCD, extended standard model - Higgs, SUSY, etc) and excellent mathematics.3) Theoretical Physicist (me) - pencil, paper, and the occasional use of the computer - researching the frontiers of knowledge in the standard model, SUSY, quantum gravity, string theory, TOE - to all intents and purposes a mathematician, and a pure mathematician by subject area. 1) and 2) are totally dependent upon CERN, Fermilab, DESY, etc. 3) is wholly independent. I personally was not affected in the slightest by the lack of SSC, other than by annoyance and frustration: I hold a great deal of interest in 2) - but hold virtually none for 1). Certainly, though the EU seems to have its head screwed on when it comes to big science.This is an area you enter for the sheer love of the subject (more so when you are coming in late). I wish you every success and am very jealous given that I am sitting on the far side, having reluctantly given up on full-time professional academia.

Michael, let me offer some comfort... Not true at all. You have every hope. In astrophysics/cosmology there is more than enough to keep you going for several lifetimes at a reasonably deep level. You can learn all about our understanding of particle physics and how it is experimented at CERN, FermiLab, DESY, etc. You can read about all that we study and research in fundemental physics and attempt to grasp some of the deep analogies and gain some insight into the really bizarre aspects of our universe.Buzzsaw is not trying to learn physics and cosmology. He is trying to argue his own explanation of reality as if it has some level of merit compared to the entire world collective of cosmologists/theoretical physicists. He is trying to argue against every physicist why the Big bang somehow does not comply with thermodynamics.If your intentions follow those of Buzz's, then my comments to Buzz apply equally to you. To say otherwise would be to lie. If there were short-cuts to be able to participate in this field at the research level, do you not think I would have taken them rather than taking 8 years of uni education to get myself prepared? And this is someone who decided that black-holes would be their research interest at age 4...BUT, if you want to learn, have your eyes opened, be amazed thrilled and completely and utterly baffled by this existence of ours, then you only have to start reading... but please, please, please get some advice from here on which books to read and which books to avoid like the plague My sincere apologies if I have put you off physics/cosmology in any way. Just as a point, my own science costs several boxes of pencils and a few reams of A4...

Yes, I'm not surprised. So why then: What proportion of people would you say have anything above "no clue" concerning your research?And let's say your were studying Donaldson invariants or even just elliptic complexes in algebraic topology... how many final year maths undergraduates would be able to even read your work? Please understand that I wasn't referring to the cosmological implications of BB, which is physics and much much more tractable. We were discussing BB and thermodynamics which despite sounding as if it is more of the same, is actually skirting the edges of quantum gravity, TOE, and is essentially advanced pure mathematics with a few words thrown in. Couldn't agree more. This is not about ability (although it certainly has a large part to play). My point was not that a graduate could not understand this stuff... it is that they do not understand it YET because they haven't been taught it. If they wish, they can put in the effort and gain the understanding after the degree (postgrad, further reading, etc) No, just lots of confidence And I would describe this field as far more mathematics than physics.This message has been edited by cavediver, 04-01-2006 12:41 PM

Ok, given your position I can understand that. It's probably worth a thread of its own but we can stick here for the moment. Yep. Fortunately, a few who do have written reasonably accessible books (The First 3 Minutes - Weinberg, A Brief History of Time - Hawking, Fabric of the Cosmos - Greene, etc) that provide a good level of information. Having digetsed those books, you are in a good position to learn some of the deeper aspects, and to hopefully be able to ask the right questions. But you will be full of analogies. Should you have an argument with something in one of those books, it will be with an analogy and not with the science, although you may not be aware of the fact.To be honest, you won't find much crossover between the content of those books and a physics degree, unless you are lucky enough to have a very good final year cosmology course. Yeah, that pretty much sums it up The biggest shock I received following my degree was realising how I knew close to nothing about the subject in which I was supposedly an expert. This revelation comes from entering the post-grad world. Most graduates never experience it as they leave academia.Undergrad courses on GR and cosmology will just touch on the rudiments of BB theory, the latter focusing on the post-BB astrophysics (nucleosynthesis, recombination, maybe mentioning inflation and phase transitions) and the former will introduce the cosmological metrics: Friedmann-Roberston-Walker, Lemaitre, etc. All good stuff... but to think that armed with this you are ready to have an argument with a research scientist about e.g. the nature of thermodynamics and the universe, is laughable.That said, it doesn't take too long to get to that stage, but it does require some rapid specialisation. That is why we have postgrad courses such as Cambridge's "Part III" which provide intense specialisation into your desired area of research.My Part III notes (a total of just 20 weeks of courses) were double the volume of my notes from my entire degree! At the end of this course I started to feel that I actually knew something, and was ready for real research. And in terms of our example, just starting to get an inkling of some understanding about this thermodynamics issue. As the PhD progressed, the real understanding started to arrive. Let me reassure you of that hope. Read my recent posts in that same thread (and SGs and Eta's now he's back) as a start and in conjunction with the books mentioned. You never know, you may find your retirement the perfect time to get that PhD... the subject is quite gripping "no clue" is more an attitude than a level of understanding. As long as you are always looking to know more, you can never have "no clue". The moment you think you have all the answers is the moment you have "no clue"... new graduates are by far the worst example of this!

Perhaps then may I respectfully suggest leaving out insults aimed at a 3rd-party from your introductory statements?

Oh yeah?Well, I respectfully suggest that you... oh, never mind

[qs]The pure science of yesterday has a habit of becoming integrated into the practical science of today. If a country does not wish to fund pure science, then it can take that gamble. And its pure scientists will go elsewhere...Originally you said: But this is only important if a significant portion of the public can understand the work enough to truly appreciate it?Actually, I think your concern is slighlty more selfish Surely that's the crux? That is what drives every scientist. Real understanding is relative. Many times I have sat in the company of some of the bigger names of my field, and been utterly lost. I would say that such layman knoweldge is insuffient to have realistic orginal thoughts. But again, I am talking about my field, the search for quantum gravity and the Theory of Everything, which is an extension more of mathematics than physics. With cosmology and astrophysics, you have a much greater chance of getting close to "real understanding" becasue you are dealing with physics. True, but the more you push into one area of specialisation, the more understanding you will gain in surrounding areas. Yes, absolutely. You have to be willing to put in some serious thinking and time, but you'll get there.This all started with the Buzzsaw discussion where he claims that BB and TD are incompatible. This is very deeply rooted in the advanced math of GR, QM, and QFT and far far from Big Bang cosmology. Anyone can learn anything given sufficient ability to understand, sufficient patience and determination to persevere, and sufficient resources from which to learn. I would add one more for particle physics and GR: sufficient willingness to let go of preconceived ideas. Also, as you get deeper into these subjects, you realise that you are studying more pure mathematics than physics. Yeah, why not. Apart from Gribbin, all of the rest know exactly what they are talking about (well, I have serious disagreements with Weinberg but that is a different story, and his book is awesome)This message has been edited by cavediver, 04-02-2006 01:56 PM

I don't think anyone saw any benefits of QM 100 years ago either... from PET scans to your PC, sometimes you have to wait quite a while for the benefits.

I'm assuming that this is something you realised fifty years ago, as they were building SLAC?