A whole lot of questions regarding science careers

College Majors Science Majors
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<p>Yo, wondering about the depth in different fields and career prospects. For example, CS, math, theoretical physics vs chemistry, economics,linguistics, biology, and geology, etc. Am I wrong to have the impression that the left side is deeper, harder, more maths intensive and alltogether just better? Linguistics ain't very math dependent, but seems like a young and simple field. Econ involves different type of skill other than maths, namely psychology, but can that even be called hard? The other fields I named also seems second class.</p>

<p>Also, what about philosophy? Seems dead and ignored for the most part. Any differing viewpoints?</p>

<p>I guess regarding the hard science my questions should be a bit more specific. What and which field of science would be the overall most abstract? Which ten subfields of these fields would be the most abstract (If you can list that many)? </p>

<p>A question along the same lines: What field of science would overall be the most complex? Which ten subfields of these fields would be the most complex (If you can list that many)? </p>

<p>If you could compare and contrast fields and subfields in terms of abstractness and complexity that would be great! Even better if you compare subfields from wholly different fields. I'm also interested in which field have a solid amount of both complexity and abstractness, and which have little of neither. I'm also interested in a peek into the future, as these things could change, right? Historical facts and views are also interesting for perspective.</p>

<p>Another question along those very same lines: Which sciences are more affected by epistemological problems. Economics seems like one, and I have a hard time taking it seriously. Seems like a bandwagon for predator capitalists to justify their moral wrongdoings. =/ I've heard neuroscience as well. Thoughts?</p>

<p>And yet another one of those questions. Which sciences are cutthroat? I got the impression that life sciences overall are much worse with plagiarism and backstabbing.</p>

<p>Now for another question. Experimental or theoretical physics? I've read that a generation of string theorists are retiring, without any of their theories ever having been tested by experimentalists. Seems pretty horrible, and that's a definite notch-down for me. </p>

<p>On the other hand, what type of problems can an experimentalist hope to solve? Don't they just run experiments and tinker with machines to test the theories of theorists? </p>

<p>Second question, considering string theorists are retiring without testing their stuff, does that make for a huge red flag for high energy and other very abstract elitist physics stuff? Sounds like it would be better to do more manageable-scale problems so that whatever theories one comes up with (I assume the research in question is a theorist here) can actually be confirmed right or wrong within a realistic timeframe. </p>

<p>Really, what kept those string theorists who are now retiring going for so many years anyways? Are they so dead sure of their own intuitions that they can just keep working, even when their theories may be totally wrong? It just sounds bad really. With all this made up junk, even though yeah sure making patterns and theories up can be fun as way of intellectual wanking, one still can't really know if one is actually reaching new levels of insight or not. It feels bad, knowing I might be just deluding my self. You may tell me to just keep to my fantasies exclusively - but no. I think happiness comes from both the material and mental realm. Also, of course, the fact that made-up useless **** won't be useful or sustainable in the long run, not a problem if you can keep the scam going for long enough to retire, but that risk's not worth it imo.</p>

<p>Also, do you know if there are scandals of similar scale in other fields of science? Can you name any? How frequent are these? Will there probably be more of them in the future?</p>

<p>A bit more about scandals:</p>

<p>Science</a> not seen as good career choice - The Scientist Community - debate. relate. collaborate.</p>

<p>Times</a> Higher Education - Citation averages, 2000-2010, by fields and years</p>

<p>Citations</a> Needed For A Paper To Rank Among The Most Cited</p>

<p>Citations</a> Reveal Concentrated Influence</p>

<p>The first link is full of horror stories from the medical field. The second is shocking. My interpretation of the data is that one spends tons of time just reading other people's work in medical sciences. But I want to chase scientific success and make a name for my self, not read other people's works... Thus CS and maths seem better, just get to the problems, simple and easy. Probably less paperwork and teaching too. And about that, what's the best way to avoid those two things in academia? </p>

<p>I'm also interested in how easy it is to get a job as a researcher. I've heard and read unusual stories - no place for newcomers in physics, math field is full no jobs there, etc, CS full of new fields to explore, medical is cutthroat, etc. Any truth to this? Any other stories I should hear of?</p>

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<p>You’ve got too many thoughts going in too many directions. I think you would find it helpful to look at the websites for the professional societies of the science fields you are interested in (American Physics Society, American Chemistry Society, etc.). Also, the American Association for the Advancement of Science is an excellent site. These sites, as well as other scientific professional society sites, often have career links that summarize career options in the field, salary of BS, MS, PhD level scientists in that field, as well as other career resources.</p>

<p>My concern is that you seem to focus on achieving fame and fortune in a field that isn’t conducive to fame and fortune. Most scientists are successful because they are passionate about their science. Science is all about solving little pieces of a bigger puzzle. Most of those little pieces aren’t glamerous, but when put together with other scientists research, a more universal view of the problem becomes clearer. To see how everything fits together, a good portion of a scientists time is spent peer reviewing other peoples research, keeping up to date on current literature, as well as publishing their own research.</p>

<p>For what it’s worth, my advice is not to focus on which science is more abstract/theoretical, complex, prestigious, etc. Pick the science that interests you and challenges you the most.</p>

<p>Hope this helps.</p>

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<p>Why not Engineering?</p>

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<p>I’d say that the OP should be a math major based on their post.</p>

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<p>Anyone got any deep thoughts on any of this? Know of any good articles to read?</p>

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<p>You’ve asked about twenty questions, each worth their own thread (some of which have been discussed in depth previously and some which haven’t). Also, your wordage is, well, a little demanding since this is a discussion forum and not an answer forum.</p>

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<p>You should go into math…</p>

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<p>For the record, linguistics is one of the oldest of those you mention (dating back thousands of years, to the grammarian Panini - only math dates further back). And much of linguistics is “math dependent” (if by that you mean “formal”); not the “soft” areas of the field like sociolinguistics, but theoretical and formal linguistics is as hard/deep/math-dependent as CS. These are the formal sciences as defined by Wikipedia: math, logic, statistics, computer science, and some areas of linguistics.</p>

<p>There’s a reason that teams of scientists have been working for 60 years to get computers to use language on even a basic level and still haven’t been able to get it to work. Language is as much a puzzle as the physical laws of the universe are. ;)</p>

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<p>As far as career prospects go, governments hire tons of biologists, ecologists, geologists, etc. to manage public lands. Basically every field office of the Forest Service, National Park Service, BLM, Fish and Wildlife, etc. employs one or more scientific professionals to study the environment, measure human impacts and make policy recommendations.</p>

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<p>I dabble a little bit in linguistics. It’s pretty interesting to draw inferences in Language in how we structure sentences, how placement of words determines their meaning, which is generally non-semantic, etc. I suppose my main interests lie in Grammar (prescriptive grammar) and syntax. Linguistics is certainly abstract and not entirely easy in the more-challenging areas.</p>

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<p>“Linguistics ain’t”
Okay that just hurts.</p>

<p>But on topic, first, calm down, you sound like Holden Caulfield.
Important: Abstract and Complex are not at all mutually exclusive. They both tend to go up the more you study basically anything.
Also important: Economics largely studies the behaviors or consumers and markets, analyzes trends and makes predictions. Ya know, like science and stuff. They make models and test their hypotheses just like others.
Physics- Experimental vs Theoretical
Experimentalists come up with theories too. They also have challenging problems that involve creating methods to test other hypotheses. This gets very complicated. Theorists told them along time ago that if you put certain particles really close a bunch of cool stuff happens. But the hard part isn’t what you observe next, it is just learning how to manipulate the matter in the way they need it. Which can be very cool.</p>

<p>Theorists also do experiments. I don’t really know much specific stuff, but its just a Google search away. They too are not mutually exclusive. I actually just thought of one. When NASA was sending people to the Moon, there were many physical challenges to overcome. A subtle one involved communication. On the flight to the Moon, they would pass through some plasma stuffs. The way the plasma interacted with radiowaves as well as most other kinds of waves was relatively peculiar. They had to use a very specific wave to be able to communicate with the crew during this timeframe, because even though it would not be long, those minutes are very important.</p>

<p>Also, the sciences you call second class are not in any means necessarily easier. For certain people it is easy, while others wouldn’t easily understand it. Most fields require different skill sets and different ways of thinking, but in all of them critical thinking is definitely required. </p>

<p>I don’t know much about job prospects, for that I’ll let someone else answer. From what it sounds like, you have no idea what you want to study. This is okay. Spend your first year learning as much as you can in a wide variety of fields. You might find something you like. And you also might learn that something you were really interested in is boring, because after you take one semester of it you will just be sick of it. (except maybe one really small part of it that got you interested in the first place)</p>

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<p>Can you help me find some one to talk about this with?
The speed of sound is the distance travelled during a unit of time by a sound wave propagating through an elastic medium. In dry air at 20 °C (68 °F), the speed of sound is 343.2 metres per second (1,126 ft/s). This is 1,236 kilometres per hour (768 mph), or about one kilometer in three seconds or approximately one mile in five seconds.
In fluid dynamics, the speed of sound in a fluid medium (gas or liquid) is used as a relative measure of speed itself. The speed (in distance per time) divided by the speed of sound in the fluid is called the Mach number. Objects moving at speeds greater than Mach1 are traveling at supersonic speeds.
The speed of sound in an ideal gas is independent of frequency, but it weakly depends on frequency for all real physical situations. It is a function of the square root of temperature, but is nearly independent of pressure or density for a given gas. For different gases, the speed of sound is inversely dependent on square root of the mean molecular weight of the gas, and affected to a lesser extent by the number of ways in which the molecules of the gas can store heat from compression, since sound in gases is a type of compression. Although, in the case of gases only, the speed of sound may be expressed in terms of a ratio of both density and pressure, these quantities are not fully independent of each other, and canceling their common contributions from physical conditions, leads to a velocity expression using the independent variables of temperature, composition, and heat capacity noted above
Robert Donnelly- Since The speed of sound is the distance travelled during a unit of time by a sound wave propagating through an elastic medium.
Then would that make sound a foce affecting a field, Would that mean that I could affect a field by emitting a specific kind of force or forces to create a force field?</p>

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<p>I think you will find this helpful, OP:</p>

<p><a href=“http://xkcd.com/435/[/url]”>http://xkcd.com/435/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

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<p>or <a href=“http://xkcd.com/863/[/url]”>http://xkcd.com/863/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>:)</p>