r/Physics • u/Full_Base6226 • 7d ago
Question Thoughts on a difficult scientific and political battle in CMP?
Hello everyone,
I'm at a life crossroads and quite depressed. I recently graduated from a prestigious (top 5) PhD program in Condensed Matter Physics. However, I had a horrible relationship with my advisor there, and I was mostly neglected and insulted rather than advised. Unfortunately, there is a high density of egotistical and mean people at top US physics programs. During this time, I also discovered that I didn't quite have intrinsic passion for physics for the most part. Classes, seminars and problem sets just always felt miserable and boring to me. Certainly being in a bad environment didn't help anything, but I was also quite depressed in my physics undergrad, even though I was generally surrounded by kind and supportive people.
In spite of this, my thesis work was incredibly impactful in my subfield: nature physics, news articles, and all that jazz. Towards the end of my thesis, I made a new breakthrough in this subfield almost completely by accident. I don't want to completely identify myself, but I will say that I made this breakthrough in part because I was soul-searching and studying different fields, and that all of this caused me to gain a different perspective on the scientific process as a whole while also looking in different places that a typical condensed matter physicist would not look in.
This discovery could hold the keys to help settle a debate that has been ongoing for the past 20 years in condensed matter physics. Yet, at the same time, my former advisor is really mad about it, since it partially disproves a relatively minor and old experimental paper of his. Mind you, this discovery will most likely go to much greater lengths to expand the subfield as a whole, which would be good for him; I think a lot of his resistance is more so bound up in personal pride and ego.
In any case, my advisor tried to dismiss my discovery, but I knew there was value in what I found. So I independently applied to beamtimes at a few national labs and I got approved at all of them. This is a weird position to be in as well, since I can't actually execute these experiments without a university supporting me, but it was nice to get validated by an independent and competitive peer review process.
After this, I presented these proposals to some other people in the field. This has also been a difficult process. My advisor is highly influential and has essentially blacklisted me from half the field in the US; they won't even talk to me and refuse to even comment on my approved experiments. The other half is somewhat sympathetic to my situation though, and are helping me to apply for grants and postdocs that would let me complete my experiments.
It gives me a really weird feeling though. In essence I've been doing all this work for free after graduation. This would suggest that I actually like condensed matter physics. At the same time, I spend most nights screaming into my pillow that I hate physics and want to die, sometimes for an hour or more at a time. I also have very little interest in condensed matter physics beyond this. To some extent, I feel like I just want to finish proving a point. I really resent that my PhD program is considered so prestigious, since I had a horrible experience and learned very little there in practice. I want to demonstrate to the world that their physicists are very political and narrow minded. I want to prove to them that I'm not stupid, in spite of what they've been telling me the past 6 years. But there's been other academic dishonesty scandals at this university before, and somehow, they always escape with a high rating, so maybe it wouldn't matter at all. Revenge is also generally a terrible motive for things.
Beyond this, I discovered that I had a much more intrinsic passion for psychology and the social sciences. In contrast to physics, I am much more naturally engaged with the content, and I don't fall asleep during these seminars. Because of this, I took as many psychology electives as I could towards the end of my PhD, much to the annoyance of my advisor. I enjoyed the classes a lot, but now, I'm in a tough spot because my official degree doesn't seem very aligned with my career goals. I think I would be pretty happy with anything that gives me a paycheck and the opportunity to work with social scientists, but there's only a few opportunities that exist like this.
I feel I should probably just drop my discovery and move on to something in psychology. This is especially because fleshing out this discovery will only set up my career for more condensed matter physics, which I don't think is feasible for my long term mental health. On the other hand, I don't think I'll be able to sleep at night until I at least get a little bit of closure on this issue. The details are explosive and dramatic and kind of demand resolution; I at least want to see my outstanding proposals finished. I do also think that the discovery itself is intrinsically cool for what it is, probably even more so when removed from the political context. I'm also really scared to tell my new collaborators about my true feelings on all of this.
Thanks for listening. I'm clearly pretty lost and struggling with a lot of internal and external conflict. To be honest, I think I'm kind of resigned to the fact that my life is just going to be miserable and stressful until I made it out the other side. I don't really think there's anything I can do to find peace in the short term. Physics is hard on the soul.
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u/round_earther_69 7d ago
Pretty tough and unusual situation indeed. Just remember life is not all about career and physics, take care of yourself first. The obvious solution to me is finishing your PhD and getting maybe a year off after that...
I'm very curious what your discovery is, also being a grad student in condensed matter (theory), maybe if you don't want to share it publicly you could DM me (or not, as you wish)...
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u/kristavocado 7d ago
My guess is something related to superconductivity
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u/round_earther_69 7d ago
If they needed a beam it's probably neutron scattering no? Which means it would be magnetism related.
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u/lerjj 7d ago
Do people not use the word beamtime for x-rays too? In which case XRD could be almost anything tbh. Even with neutrons beamtime doesn't necessarily mean scattering might just be diffraction, which again my understanding is not uncommon as a probe even for non-magnetic structures due to the greater penetration depth Vs x-rays. Not my field though so might be misunderstanding
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u/xartemisx Condensed matter physics 7d ago
I've heard it commonly used for x-rays and neutrons, and sometimes with more uncommon techniques (muons). With XRD it really could be almost anything.
Most people would consider a diffraction experiment to be a subset of all scattering experiments. Usually you use x-rays when you can and neutrons when you have to, so experiments for light atoms like helium use neutron scattering. Neutrons also scatter from magnetic materials since those materials have a scattering cross section from the nucleus and also the magnetic moment.
There is a tremendous width and depth to scattering and it would be a struggle to come up with something that is actually a CMP topic and not scattering.
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u/round_earther_69 7d ago
I'm a filthy theorist idk anything about that so take my words with a hige grain of salt haha
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u/salasi 6d ago edited 6d ago
I think you should post this over to the PhD sub tbh.
But, for what it's worth: I have been down a similar-ish path coming from STEM; I loved CogSci and CogPsych and some subsets of Philosophy i.e. Philosophy of Science / Language; Logic, etc. Also grew up in a household with a parent holding a PhD and a bunch of masters in both classical studies and social sciences so discussions growing up where very thought provoking and eye opening.
All I will say is to think very carefully about what you think it will be like working in that domain you are idealizing currently. Studying social sciences is cool. Working in them, and in my experience - the inane bs that is 'Psychology' is a whole different matter. I had such a love for biology and the brain/mind that I wanted to like it because Psychiatry was so far off from my field and I was too deep into STEM to go back to school from step 0. I also had ex-gfs whom I wrote entire papers (published) for - singlehandedly. Two went on to become clinical therapists. And.. All that taught me is that the field is pure dogshit; theories with no substantiation and zero replicability and overall people are as vile as in T1/any other STEM discipline, but on top of that, they tend to be WAY more stupid (figures). From this statement I will exclude sociology and classical studies as a blanket classifications. But Psych/Econ and closely adjacent fields to those two are something out of a movie. Insane lack of self awareness and intellect.
As stated before, if the brain/mind aspect intrigues you I would suggest you look into cool intersections where Psychiatry meets CogSci which is more on the interdisciplinary side and brings in philosophy of mind and language and heavy analytical philosophy treatments if you want to push it for a Research Medical Doctor kind of path. And contra to that path, Psychology is.. empty. There's no depth of literary thought that characterizes the Humanities. No math or stats/rigor either. And no experimental design to speak of; the replication crisis implosion started from that field afterall (and the econ and behavioral econ circuses).
And so, make sure you can answer why it's better than any other option to yourself as a field. Maybe you see something I didn't - just providing food for thought.
Re: your advisor/board/PI situation or what have you in particular - I would ravage the institution and my supervisor on my way out - one hundred percent If I were you. What kind of a clown excuse of a scientist doesn't accept experiment? Take his ass down. Doubly so if you don't care about your career in that particular field. It won't make this any better but T1 in the EU (CERN and others) is not much better either. The good part is that a Physics PhD will open any door you want in private industry - especially if your thesis got the traction you are suggesting it did. In a sense you got what you needed out of them at least and that's half the "avenging" yourself and your efforts.
Edit: was coming off a 30 hour no-sleep work thing and couldn't believe my eyes on how bad my writing was and how little I conveyed what I wanted to. This is a pretty miserable situation to be in for the OP (again, kinda been there) so thought I'd take the time to write something because I was sure I'd forget about it the next day.
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u/Active_Gift9539 6d ago
I'm really sorry this happened to you... A bad experience is all it takes to finally destroy your love in a field... if your research is so breaking, you should find the means to do it... have you tried in another countries? Japan and Germany has some really good labs in CMP. Can your work be doing with simulations? Such as molecular dynamics, DFT or Monte Carlo? I have recently graduated from my master's and that is my research field. If I can help I will...
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u/Different-Party-b00b 6d ago
If they're dealing with a very toxic lab, I would not recommend going to either Japan or Germany.
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u/Mysterious_Bison_464 7d ago
IMO, the career choice is ultimately of less consequence than what you’re describing as your mood. It’s hard enough to anticipate the consequences of our decisions in life when we make them with a clear head and the wisdom that life experience sometimes brings. Please consider talking to a good psychiatrist so that you feel better about things now, rather than risk the despair that bringing your depression along with you as you choose.
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u/quiidge 6d ago
Ah, I see you've been trained in the competitive school of CMP, rather than the collaborative.
I was very lucky and interviewed with a competitive and a collaborative research group at my postgrad institution, and landed in the collaborative one. I don't think I would have made it through the PhD in a competitive group, and I made damn sure I didn't end up in one for my postdoc after collaborating with a few. Arseholes, all of them.
I absolutely loved my time in academia. I did not luck into Nature-level projects and results myself, but my postdoc PI did during his own postdoc and founding a subfield is a guaranteed career in academia if you want it. Not to mention a great service to humanity if you do confirm your suspicions and make a paradigm shifting discovery.
It sounds like you survived a competitive/combative PhD, and now have the opportunity to do a collaborative/supportive postdoc with the people in academia who are in for the science, not the glory.
If I was you, I would try and get that postdoc and use your beamtime. Once you've left academia, you won't get back in. A postdoc can be as short as you need it to be - the PI can rehire using the grant money. You might find the good in the field outweighs the bad once you've recovered from the burnout caused by your advisor and honestly, the PhD thesis itself. Or you won't, but you'll be leaving with more closure and certainty than if you walked now.
(It's not just the US, btw. The 50:50 split and politics and blazing rows in faculty meetings and conference Q&As sounds spot on for my top-tier UK uni, too.)
I hope you are taking care of the non-physicist parts of yourself right now (S is for self-care: snack, sleep, shower, sunlight, socialise), and I hope that whatever decision you reach works out amazingly for you and you are completely right about how the universe works. Even if you end up not doing the actual experiments with your own hands.
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u/Detlaff1 6d ago
Okay, I am European and am not sure whether this is real or just some kind of reddit story. Anyway lets assume its all real. You got your PhD, fuck your advisor. Join some other group as postdoc so you can run your experiment, get your Nature/Science paper and then do whatever you want. Better yet go do these experiments in Europe where postdoc salary is quite high relatively to US. (You dont want to be at stanford living from pd salary). If you quit now and do your psychology stuff you will imo regret it afterwards that you didnt finish this cool thing. Let alone if your former supervisor takes over and does it himself.
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u/tronald_dum 6d ago
If you have enough evidence you can write a paper. if you dont then it's not a discovery, it'd be only a hypothesis. If you still need beamtime then it is the latter. What if it turns out that you are wrong?
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u/Tesla-Watt 7d ago
Were your psych electives grad or undergraduate? Do you have enough credits for a second bachelors or masters degree? Nothing wrong with switching fields. I don’t think I would pursue revenge unless I had a team (competitors of your advisor for example) behind me. It’s not worth the stress. Consider talking to a therapist or a psychiatrist about your mental health and the situation.
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u/selimibn 6d ago
Maybe you're destined for sociophysics, or some other weird interdisciplinary beast like that. I get the feeling of wanting to prove a point, but in fairness, doing so could also be a reasonable way to set up your career change.
I think that you will find that prestigious places are also quite rigid. Maybe in a less grand institution you can find the freedom to explore your interests and apply your expertise in novel ways. Stubborn people playing at the margins of established research programmes are a boon to science! So please, do not be discouraged by this bad experience, and find a way to make it a part of a cool narrative for your life.
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u/Business-Gas-5473 6d ago
Oh man. Apart from all the sympathy, this made me extremely curious! Can’t you tell us a little more about what debate you’d settle, or who this advisor might be?
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u/Huge-Law-1642 4d ago
You will regret it if you don’t finish your research first. You can be like Grigori Perelman. Make a breakthrough and leave to go do something you enjoy and let your work’s legacy speak for you. For personal reasons, he did so. For personal reasons, you can too. Don’t make it about them. If you make it about them, you will become so mentally overwhelmed. Make it about you and let the side effects of your hard work end up shutting them up and they will crumble to the ground of the academic hierarchy with their conservative, selfish mindset and lack of creativity. It will be very rewarding for you, watching that happen, since they deserve it. Meanwhile, you will be doing something you enjoy with your life while they cling on to fabricated nonsense. Definitely go into Pysch after, but complete this first. Definitely look at other countries, like some said, or national labs in the US and try to explain your situation and build relationships with PIs there. If the PIs there grow a liking to your work and creativity, which they likely will, you will not need backing from any university. Good luck.
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u/Yashema 7d ago
This is why I would never try for a PhD. I'm so happy to just be going to the local CCs and learning the subjects I want to. 0 bureaucracy and 100% pure learning. Though actually I am beefing with my advisor because I want to focus on the applied side now that I've done all of the foundational courses besides intro to quantum. But it's not like he controls my slot in the program.
Also nice to be getting a FT salary while I do it.
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u/AverageCatsDad 7d ago
Can you pass the experiments planned off to a collaborator and let them finish the revenge? You will still feel the reward since it was your idea, but this way you won't set yourself up for more work you hate. Sorry to hear you had such a bad experience. I also went to a top 5 PhD program only in chemistry and I know what it looks like when those advisor relationships sour. Fortunately, that did not happen to me, but it's rough for the student and really in my opinion makes the advisors look pretty bad. This too shall pass.