Academic career in theoretical physics

thank you user, i have just started self-studying diffgeo after some topology/manifold theory

user, don't take advice from a bunch of other anons who have never accomplished shit.
If you want to be an academic then be a good student and go to graduate school. That's all you really need to do.

thanks, i studied some ZFC axiomatic set theory this summer

i see, thanks

>Hey guys is there a lot of jobs for marginally talented people in very narrow study in a vocation with Negative profitability?

Sure dude. There is absolutely endless openings for theoretical physisists fresh out of the community college corporations and government is falling overthemselves to hire!

>>If you want to be an academic then be a good student and go to graduate school.
this is false

the most important part is the choice of the phd thesis, not the master thesis

this is what matters for the phd
-the number of people in the field, too few and the topic is nearly too narrow to have a tenure via the skills alone related to this topic. too broad and you compete too much. It is okay to have a narrow field, but you must have math knowledge relating to more trendy topics
-the status of the supervisor in this field
-the availability of the supervisor
-the money given to you
-how many conferences are held at the university
-how many conferences you can pay to go to
-what previous phd students became under the supervisor
-what network can you build
[you must be able to talk to the scientists with the highest status in the field via your supervisor before year 3]

tips for the phd
-in the first year, talk to phd students about their tips
-begin writing on year 2
-by year 1 you must be able to pin point what theorems are needed

-if this fails, get your phd and do econometry, econophysics and whatnot, or join the slavery by being some trader or qant at some bank after proprietary banking is dead watching the bloomberg feed at noon and eating your subway sandwich in 30 minute before resuming your copy pasting of excel formulas until markets are closed.

you can skip the publication during the phd if your supervisor know the highest guys in the field and those guys accept to be the jury of the thesis and the thesis has really novelty to the field.
it is better to have articles+good jury ofc

thanks user, i havent got my degree wet but this was really helpful for later

the little trick to discover a topic is to go arxiv and search for ''introduction to ...''
arxiv.org/list/math-ph/pastweek?show=100

generally a paper long of 50--100 pages can be quite good and you learn who is active in what field.

the last thing to do is also to go the personal webpages of the big people in the field and look at their research paper, but more importantly at their lecture notes

for books on a topic, you go to nlab or wikipedia and look at the bottom of the page like here
ncatlab.org/nlab/show/geometric quantization

once or twice a month, just open a random page or article about the introduction of a topic and try to see if you get it.

Also, people in the academia do not teach how to read an article.
-first lecture is quick
-second lecture is to understand what theorems matter and what is the purpose of the article
-third lecture how the big theorems are used
-4th lecture is the proofs

generally you must always ask, especially when it is slides at conferences,
-what is the goal of the guy
-what is the next step after whatever you have seen so far, to reach the goal

if you are really good, you ask
-what is pertinence of the goal that the guy tries to achieve
-is what the guy is doing really achieving anything, is it really an answer to his goal

thanks very much! very helpful

for instance a little article
arxiv.org/abs/1708.09374

that uses usual notions in stat physics and qm.

or for ''' basic introduction to spin foam'' you get
arxiv.org/find/all/1/all: AND foam AND spin AND introduction to/0/1/0/all/0/1
which shows plenty of difficult articles, but some are good like
arxiv.org/abs/1003.4485
arxiv.org/abs/1303.4636

The point is not to understand it, but to learn new words, then forgets them, so that when you see the notions in books you are not a total noob to them

also, go to mendeley.com and organize your library of pdfs from arxiv and other sources. this is very important for the bibliography of the thesis. You must begin right now if possible.

which makes me think of latex. get texlive for windows, get texstudio and use xelatex of lualatex, or pdflatex is you donot care about non-english alphabet.

>in books
and conferences

wow thanks.. i should begin right now organising the paper i read you mean? im in my second year of undergrad yet but i could start...
also i use latex in mac via texmaker

get also a laser BW printer which does double-sided printing, if you cannot print a lot at the university.
get one around 100 euros like the brother dcp l2520 and dump it when the fuser is broken. you can get cheap toner on amazon.

thanks! never thought of that.

>i should begin right now organising the paper i read you mean?
yes, it is not a waste of time at all. and you must rate the articles by putting them to different ''virtual'' libraries from very good article to good article and mendeley as a little star for this, but the starred articled can be numerous so there must be a more personal way to remark a paper

the cost of the fuser is 100 euros, this is why it is cheaper to buy a new printer when the fuser is dead. then you can sell the printer and get a new one.

try to attend the conferences at your university right now if you can. it is generally 1hour long at the end of the day, in physics and math and CS, just to get new topics.

bring also a little article form arxiv or a homework to read or do if the conference gets boring..

also on conference, most people do not get this: do not do proofs on slides. just expose the current situation of the field, the goals you have, the theorems you use and do a conclusion. do the proofs on the board if somebody asks.

be repetitive about your goals and the progress done so far in the exposition during the talk, because nobody in the audience cares and at the end, even if they care, everybody is tired and do not follow what is said

thanks user!

this is not on the mater but since you gave me advice about confrences, last year (1st year of undergrad uni) i managed to give a lecture on a math subject in a undergrad/grad physics conference.

also use colors on the articles to quickly note what is important about the topic or little tricks for calculation. When you re-read the article months later, it is far better than reading anew the article.

thanksss!

read the books by isham on qm and diff geo, and also the articles for new topics
arxiv.org/find/quant-ph/1/au: Isham_C/0/1/0/all/0/1
arxiv.org/find/gr-qc/1/au: Isham_C/0/1/0/all/0/1

also, videos of conference on youtube are very good. they are 1 hour long and you can go fast or slow/ the first 10 minutes are quick expositions of the topic.

and always watch the QA. in fact the questions are more important than the talk itself, because people actually get more elementary exposition in the replies.

ex youtube.com/watch?v=SgnAYYx0aRk
youtube.com/watch?v=U6kK9ScG7Fc
youtube.com/watch?v=kE8B35WeuTo

the order to get an understanding is
-video
-basic intro via an article
-intro via a book
-then research article

save the videos you like on your hdd with this for firefox
cys-audiovideodownloader.com/

thank you so much anons

for instance. isham has a good bok on diff geo and since he has paper on arxiv tha tyou can read, you can also search for his name on google ''isham+quantum'' and get this talk
youtube.com/watch?v=uELyjfR8kgI
which introduces his paper on qm

watch his other videos too

this is the usual method to get to know a scientist and his work.

thank youu

the biggest universities have channels on youtube
youtube.com/channel/UC7qaZ5pg0l0cDKb1y4yhHRQ

you can watch these video of conferences while you have breakfast for instance. this is better than reading a paper.

super cool ty

your fist task is really to read the book by isham on QM and on diff geo. the book on qm can be read in 1 day.

will do user

for the books it is libgen
gen.lib.rus.ec/search.php?req=isham&lg_topic=libgen&open=0&view=simple&res=25&phrase=0&column=def

the book is this
gen.lib.rus.ec/book/index.php?md5=86A40DD2A88D1998AE3BDA2DAAD98D8C

you know all the tricks now.

thanks a lot dude, i appreciate it

always take the OCR version to search in the book.

for reading .djvu I use windjvu on windows

i've got a mac though..

there is something equivalent

the last trick is to search for this on libgen
Encyclopædia of mathematical physics
sciencedirect.com/science/referenceworks/9780125126663

it has everything exposed quickly

thanks!

the two books by Dirac himself are very good too
-qm
-general relativity

alsoo the book by von neuman on QM

Here's some advice from a super influential theoretical physicist
staff.science.uu.nl/~gadda001/goodtheorist/index.html

i've got the books, they are really good indeed!
thanks a lot!