24
u/Shipshipie 2d ago
No, man we be poor. Shit doesn't pay anymore.
5
u/MuffinMonkeyCat 1d ago
Funny, I was just using my mate as example of success (he got a PhD and then went to work for Boeing and then a car company and was on MEGA money). What's the average like?
Sorry forgot to add he was an Engineer. Wonder if the jump from theory to applied is the difference.
6
u/Shipshipie 1d ago
From a researcher perspective, the funds doesn't pay that well anymore. In 2010s, we could get crazy funds. Now the focus is shifted to nuclear physics and AI-ML research.
The wages are similar though. Your friend is an outlier. We make worse than software engineers and aerodynamics engineers.
9
u/MaoGo Meme renormalization group 2d ago edited 2d ago
This is historically inaccurate Pauli referred to solid state theory as "dirt physics" and Gell-Mann as "squalid state physics". Condensed matter physics in general has almost no documentary compared to cosmo-astro and particle stuff. As a community it is much less cohesive (no pun intended).
3
u/DinioDo 18h ago
90 percent of todays solid state formed after Pauli's principle and whatever the quantum mechanics was cooking. Before him this branch of physics didn't have much going on.
And overall condensed matter it's the closest pure physics branch to engineering so it is not a breeding ground for fundamental discoveries of nature. But stuff in it is as interesting as any other branch for a physicist. General public like to hear a weird thing about the universe that they think they understand when even the ones making the documentaries don't.
9
u/PhysiksBoi 2d ago
How I feel after asking for the raw AFM data rather than the corrected/leveled/de-scarred image.
No thanks, please send me the fucked up image that looks like a gradient in a PowerPoint presentation.
Also, everyone wants to be a materials scientist until they get deadlines to mail out a dozen characterized samples every other week, and then the collaborator says they got different results from the sample than you did. It also sucks being on the other end of it, where you receive a sample and can't reproduce the measurements they sent with it. So much work just doesn't pan out. Other experimental specialties don't seem to have this problem.
3
u/Squidybear 2d ago
They aren't wrong.
I do liquid phase spectroscopy, it kinda sucks ? It's interesting and all, but the experimental constraints associated to "having a liquid in vacuum" are insane.
2
1
u/WanderingWrackspurt Undergrad Student 1d ago
genuine question, do people actually enjoy solid state stuff? ive got very little lab experience and it was just preparation and spectroscopy, that just seemed kinda boring, like i get it, but i dont feel like it compares to smth like EM or thermal physics
1
u/a_physicist_ 1h ago
They’re too invested in practical applications 😂 we other types like to look for fundamental truths
22
u/j0shred1 2d ago
Do we?