[splittingTimes]

Exactly my experience back in the days doing the mandatory "advanced experimental physics laboratory semester" where you had to do like 14 vastly different experiment of the caliber described in that post in the course of one semester on old equipment that would break during the experiment, with less than motivated PhD students or post grads as teachers. Of the 14 experiments only two worked and we got the expected results.

This experience drove me right into theoretical physics and writing computer simulations of electron dynamics and light-matter interactions in confined semiconductors (quantum dots, graphene and the like). That was fun.

Now I am working on medical device software development, as the other stuff does not pay the bills.

[pbmonster]

> one semester on old equipment that would break during the experiment

I saw that as a learning opportunity, teaches you which glues are cryo-proof, how to switch fuses on amplifiers (and other, more complicated electronics quick-fixes), and how important knowing people to borrow equipment from is.

Unless your lab is swimming in money, those are valuable skills for an experimentalist. And even if you swim in money, buying fancy new stuff has a minimum 8 week lead time while walking down the hall to the correct shelf to pilfer takes 5 minutes and gets you results before lunch.

> with less than motivated PhD students or post grads as teachers

This is an unfortunate truth everywhere I taught. Unfortunately, teaching the same thing 14 times a semester is no fun, and every single person who enjoys teaching (and is good at it) knows it, and instead teaches any available lecture, seminar, tutorial or exercise - anything, where you get to teach something new every week and that allows you to stay with the same students for longer.

[javajosh]

Yeah I don't quite understand how the physics curriculum is set. There is more and more physics discovered over time and yet the time you get to study remains the same. 4 years is not enough time to learn the math and physics you need to do anything real, not counting the other important stuff you need to do (like English comp and partying and getting your heart broken).

[doctorwho42]

Physics course is set to do two things

(1) 'to teach you to think like a physicist' as my professor was fond of saying to us. No one is going to be able to learn all of the subjects knowledge in 4 years, let alone a complex and rigorous field like physics.

(2) to give you a core foundation of understanding on which all other physics is built upon.

By teaching the core subjects and lessons of physics, you can get a pretty good understanding of the world, how it works, and how to derive equations to explain it.

As for it not being able to learn enough to do anything real. I beg to differ, like all fields you tend to learn the most in 'the field'. Most physicists learn by doing just like any other field. Take for instance engineering, there are some exceptions but most of the engineers I have known in my life have really only become fully viewed as engineers once they had some years of experience under their belts... Same thing goes for comp sci, and same goes for physics.

It's hard to explain because the field is viewed as an abstraction to those outside of it. The goal of understanding something new, discovering some new phenomenon, or better understanding an old one. But what that looks like in practice is years of working in a lab failing, trying things, taking results, tilting your head and going 'thats weird', and charting to colleagues about how to get something to work. Those who have done experimental physics, this is just experimentation and it makes sense, those who haven't, this probably sound simplistic and it is. Like your own fields, it's hard to really capture the depth of what experimentation looks like because even in physics it varies from sub field to sub field.

So it goes, sorry for the rambling from an experimental physicist

[javajosh]

Thanks for the thoughtful response. I think maybe my objection to MY curriculum was being handed a lot of mathematical tools which I didn't need, and so it was impossible for me to "slot them in" to my toolbox. Most named solutions to differential equations were just like...why? (e.g. Bessel functions, or Green's function or...). I think it's a failure of pedagogy - I personally think you should give students the problem before giving them the solution. But the physics curriculum seems to want to give you solutions first and then tell you how you can use them. My brain doesn't work that way; tools fulfill a need. It would be like teaching a carpenter all the ins and outs of every tool in the shop, without ever building anything. How is the student supposed to organize that knowledge? Alphabetically?

I suspect that, just like how algorithms rarely pop up in software practice, so too do these kinds of tools pop up in physics practice, and when they do you probably get that same happy jolt of "Hey I finally get to apply this knowledge!" And that happens about once every 2 years.

[EvgeniyZh]

At my uni (and probably and most others) undergrad physics just ends around 1930s. Then for master's you get some of the mid-20 century (phase transitions and intro to qft). Then you specialize and learn the remaining 50 years

[tired_and_awake]

Heh this strikes me as funny. I remember studying hierarchical image classifiers... If you think physics changes fast you should check out CS sometime.

[i_am_jl]

This strikes me as funny, because Lucas Kovar, the author, is now a software engineer at Google.

[aragilar]

Astronomy tends to be a way to get "newer" physics involved (at least in terms of discoveries), but it's also worth noting that formulations used usually evolve from what was originally published (Maxwell's equations are a well-known example), so you're getting more of a cleaned-up version, with insights based on newer discoveries.

[robocat]

> on old equipment that would break during the experiment

Isn’t that closer to the real conditions in a research lab?

I met some NASA scientists doing atmospheric sampling on a plane, and they had to accompany their equipment to manage any equipment glitches during the expensive sampling process (a custom modified 747 flying from Hawaii to New Zealand IIRC)

[doctorwho42]

Can confirm, work in a top physics university in the lab. It is not a rare sight to see equipment from 10, 20, 30 years ago still in operation. Though it really depends on the equipment. Optics? They don't really go bad if you treat them right. Electronics? You'd be surprised as the quality of design and fab went into that plastic box that looks older than you.

Really physics discovery is partially limited by equipment, but in my time in the lab I have seen great physicists get remarkable results with equipment or setups that I personally thought was not up to the task.

As to college level experimental physics lab: the goal is not to get you to reproduce the nobel winning results, but to learn how to think like an experimental physicist. To hunt down issues, to calculate sources of error, to find out that some guy keeps running the microwave while you are taking sensitive measurements and that it actually impacted them and how.

It is the unimaginative or poorly taught that think the experimental physics lab in undergrad isn't important.

[ilyt]

Yeah I've bought some old test equipment and it's a wonder than you just plug it in and it is still within specs. They knew how to build them back when HP was called HP and not agilent/keysight/whatever they rename themselves in next decade.

[antidisalloc7]

> 14 vastly different experiment of the caliber described in that post in the course of one semester

My one remaining did-not-graduate nightmare is that I never completed that course. And I was an experimentalist.

> This experience drove me right into theoretical physics

Had a summer student work on my nearly-intractable dissertation experiment. He immediately switched to theory.

[doctorwho42]

It's not that bad of a course, it's just a struggle because it's different than all other physics courses you take.

In that class you aren't being graded on getting to the right answer. You are getting graded on how you approach getting the right answer, and no one expects you to get the right answer - in the ball park is generally the average for the course.

[wholinator2]

Wow! I'm less than a year from applying to grad programs and all of my undergrad research experience is in very similar things. Theoretical is my jam. Did you do a PhD? If so do you now believe it was worth it?

[splittingTimes]

In total, yes it was. Working for some years in a field, having the time afforded to emerse yourself into a subject and deeply think about it, calculating yourself into frustrating dead ends and also into successes, writing papers, going to conferences presenting your results, have scientific exchanges with peers, write applications for research grants, sit in committees, work as a referee for scientific journals, teaching students, then writing a coherent and compelling thesis and finally defending it against & having a scientific discussion on eye-to-eye level with your supervisors will shape your character... a lot.

You might wanna skip that postdoc thing though if you know you don't wanna stay in academia (and trust me, you don't).