Advice for Young Physicists

There are some people for whom physics is the only way to move forward in academia. Physics is the only subject that addresses some of the most fundamental questions that we sometimes ask ourselves and ask about the Universe around us. If you are young and planning for a career in theoretical physics then I have some advise for you.

First of all, from a more practical perspective, make sure you have an additional skill that has more applications in industry. The job industry in theoretical physics is a disaster. Secondly, if you are planning to pursue a PhD in physics then get ready to say goodbye to your creative skills. The general approach in academia these days is that you decide on what topic to major in and then find a suitable adviser who will guide you in learning that subject and publish papers on that topic. I have noticed that once students start research they tend to focus so much on a particular topic that they loose their creative skills or they cant use these skills out of the very narrow topic they chose for their PhD. They continue to collaborate with the same group their whole life and work on the same topic. (There are clearly exceptions but I am addressing the more common occurrences here.)

This is my advise to graduate students. Once you are done with your course work try to build your own world out of the knowledge you have gained. Every subfield in theoretical and applied physics has a vast amount of literature and one can spend their whole life exploring and understanding just the present status of that theory. So even if you have started research on a standard topic, try to discover something out of the knowledge you have obtained as a graduate student. In my view, at present, physics is in crisis and the only way out of this is for the young to be more creative and they should be willing to take risks by proposing new ideas.

Lorentz Violation and Condensed Matter Physics

In one of my papers titled "Lorentz Violation and Condensed Matter Physics" I pointed out several operators in condensed matter physics that arise from Lorentz violation in the Standard Model Extension. The coefficients of these operators employed in condensed matter physics are clearly enhanced, as shown from different references in the paper.

I have a feeling that we are missing something very fundamental in our understanding of Lorentz symmetry. At the heart, it makes complete sense and it is important that physics remains the same independent of the frame of reference, but one subtle point about the principle of relativity is that it is formulated for the vacuum. What if we perform a Lorentz transformation and end up in a condensed matter system where the speed of light can be slower, the mass of the electron can be different? The physics has clearly changed to some extent. This might be the reason we see an enhanced value of the coefficients of Lorentz violating operators in condensed matter.

[1] https://arxiv.org/abs/1403.7622

A great lecture: "The Astonishing Simplicity of Everything"

I recently saw this lecture by Neil Turok on youtube and was amazed by the elegance with which it was presented. I believe that every student of science and in particular physics should listen to it. Professor Turok starts with some simple math and basic questions, like the length scales in the Universe. He also present a simple introduction to quantum mechanics and then moves on to the idea of the multiverse and cyclic universe. Give it a listen!

Following are some of his quotes I liked:

"Its (nature) so simple, we don't know how nature got away with it"

"If you are a theorist you should be happy when you are wrong. It means your idea was testable. It was worth talking about"