Theoretical physics? Get a job

[Pangloss]

I thought you all might enjoy getting angry at this dweeb. Some of the comments in response are great.

 

http://www.registercitizen.com/articles/2010/06/01/opinion/doc4c04756303926753836832.txt

 

I think the best job in the world must be that of theoretical physicist. Sure, you have a decade or more of mathematics and science schooling and then years of toiling in obscurity (unless you’re one of the few star physicists who, say, invent a nuclear bomb or rely on a motorized wheelchair) but, after that, you’re golden.

 

Anyway, it seems to me the problem is that theoretical physics has some sort of love-hate relationship with practical application. They want to figure out how to do things like, oh, I don’t know, harness the immense and unstoppable power of the atom and then whine when the Enola Gay starts revving her engines. Oh, you didn’t mean for Hiroshima to be destroyed in the blink of an eye? Well then, maybe you shouldn’t have gotten any chalk on the coat in the first place. If you didn’t want your theoretical physics perverted to develop machines of war, perhaps you should have been a fisherman instead, or a piano mover.

 

I would love it if some theoretical physicists out there would put their considerable intelligence toward helping the world out, instead of just lying around daydreaming all the time.

 

Hey, take your eyes off the telescope, pal, we’ve got a few problems down here, you know. There’s a huge oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico, for instance. Maybe you’ve heard?

[divagreen]

Hey, go get a real job, Roger. They actually pay you for dreaming that stuff up?

 

They actually pay this guy to write this stuff?

 

It doesn't make me angry, it makes me feel amused...

[timo]

What is that text supposed to be? It certainly doesn't make me any more or less angry (or amused) than the average "physicists are brainwashed from university and hence cannot acknowledge my great theory of 'everything consists of pure energy'"-post on sfn. That is unless there is a reason to take this text seriously.

[ajb]

The world needs all sorts of people, from pure mathematicians, theoretical physicists all the way to practical thinking engineers. From editors of science journals to the uneducated anti-science ranters on the web. LOL

[rigney]

He must have heard you Timo. I understand he's working at McDonalds; and happy as a lark!!