[reeses]

Many are "failed" mathematicians and physicists (among other pursuits) that were unable to earn a reasonable living in their primary field.

I say "failed" only in that it was surprising to me when I discovered numbers of developers with PhDs (or ABD) in purer fields of reasoned discovery or construction than I would have previously expected to be found writing, say, web application servers in the employ of a company not related to their field of study.