Expert: Daniel Mazur - 5/9/2009

Question
QUESTION: Hello, I have always thought of being a physicist but I
don't have enough information about it, so i hope you can
help me. I want to know exactly what a physicist does and
what sort of lifestyle they have. For example, is it hard
to become one? Is it hard to find a job as a physicist? If
i were an experimentalist, do i get to choose my sort of
experiment? Can you list a few labs and companies that will
hire physicist? What is the most exciting field in physics?
How much money do they earn? Can they own nice homes and
cars? Do physicist enjoy their job like they can't wait to
go to work? What do you think a career in physics will be
like in a couple of years? At work what do most physicist
do, (especially condensed matter)? Thanks in advance and
don't be afraid to add additional information because it'll
help even more!

ANSWER: Hello Rami,

I will have to answer in several stages, because that is a whole lot of questions you have asked. I will give you simple answers to begin with and I encourage you to ask for details as a follow-up - it's the beginning of a working week and a matter of how much time I can give it. Let me take it from the top:

1) It is hard to become a physicist, yes, but we all have our own scale of "hard and easy". For me it would be harder to become a medical doctor or a pop-star or a professional athlete than a physicist. It also matters a lot, what school you study for your degree.
2) Yes and no. For each specialization there are only a few openings at a given time, one must find a good match between one's skills and the needs of the team one wants to join. You certainly need to be willing to move with your family, wherever in the world you find a good job.
3) You must agree on what experiments to do with your boss. Your interests ought to be similar, if they hired you in the first place, so this shouldn't be a problem. As a senior scientist (professor, group leader) you need to write up grant proposals and get money first. Only then you can do - or have your team do - the experiments you want.
4) Top universities always have some physics labs of their own. Then there are government labs, in the USA for example Argonne Nat'l Lab, Fermilab, Los Alamos Nat'l Lab, SLAC Nat'l Accelerator Lab,... Then private labs and companies like Bosch, Philips, Texas Instruments,... usually have one or a few positions suitable for physicists. One simply needs to ask them because market develops and companies develop as well.
5) Exciting is what excites you personally, this is not an objective thing. I am personally excited about electron behavior in solids in nanoscale. Others will have other preferences.
6) Salaries depend dramatically on where, what position you are hired for and what is your previous career. Perhaps for your first job after a doctorate you will be offered $35k-$65k.
7) Yes, but not all at once:-) They would use mortgage like most people, if starting from nothing.
8) Yes. Or at least they usually do.
9) The same as it is now, unless something dramatic happens to the world. What are you particularly asking about here?
10) At work we read other people's articles, do our experiments, analyze and try to explain our measurements, write our own articles, go to conferences, attend presentations and seminars, workshops, designing and building experimental equipment, teaching at a university, write grant proposals... One does a lot of different things in this line of work.

I hope these answers give you an idea. I recommend that you contact a nearby university and pay them a visit. Then you'll see them at work, they'll show you, what excites them. Personal contact is often important to get the right impression.

Have a nice day!
Daniel


---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: First of all, i'd like to thank you for answering my
question. I have another question not regarding a career.
Instead, i'd like to ask what physics textbook would be
great to buy that is able to cover a whole lot of physics.
I'd prefer if it used more advanced math such as calculus
and differential equation. If it covers classical
mechanics, electrodynamics, and modern physics that would
be great as long as it is very descriptive. Also, do you
know of a good intro calculus textbook that covers most of
calculus. Stewart seems like a good choice but some reviews
say otherwise. I'm trying to not to buy a whole lot of
books because they're pretty expensive. Thank you for your
time!


Answer
Dear Rami,
there is no single book that would cover all branches of undergraduate physics to sufficient depth. Electrodynamics (Johnson) alone traditionally requires 600+ pages, quantum mechanics as well (Messiah). Thermodynamics and statistical physics is a 300-page topic, but more is better, because more pages offer more examples and exercises. If you are looking for "everything in one", the Internet offers good basics through hyperphysics (http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/HFrame.html) and wikipedia.
My advise is to enroll a university library and borrow your books there. To some extent you can make copies, even electronic, of their chapters for your later perusal - it's completely up to you to observe the legal aspects of making those copies. Libraries have their purpose even nowadays.
Take care,
Daniel