SWaB: the Standard Model is insufficient

[notFritzArgelander]

https://www.forbes.com/sites/startswith ... 80386f170b

[AntennaGuy]

Heh. Someone might want to suggest to Ethan that maybe it's actually better that this problem isn't too easy to solve! What would we ever do with all those many subsequently-unemployed particle theorists (that is, the ones insufficiently charismatic to host PBS TV shows or similar entertainment about the universe?) (Note: Experimentalists can typically find employment in industry, doing work as moderately-adequate engineers; that worked out for me!) There are days I regret abandoning the pursuit of particle physics, but stories like this one help me feel much better about it! And I mean that only partly in jest. I am now convinced that basic particle physics experiments will continue until long after I am dead. And perhaps there will still be enough interesting surprises ahead to make it all worthwhile for those who devote their lives to it.

[notFritzArgelander]

Heh. Someone might want to suggest to Ethan that maybe it's actually better that this problem isn't too easy to solve! What would we ever do with all those many subsequently-unemployed particle theorists (that is, the ones insufficiently charismatic to host PBS TV shows or similar entertainment about the universe?) (Note: Experimentalists can typically find employment in industry, doing work as moderately-adequate engineers; that worked out for me!) There are days I regret abandoning the pursuit of particle physics, but stories like this one help me feel much better about it! And I mean that only partly in jest. I am now convinced that basic particle physics experiments will continue until long after I am dead. And perhaps there will still be enough interesting surprises ahead to make it all worthwhile for those who devote their lives to it.

I expect that progress is going to become slower, more laborious, and costly.

Theoretical particle physicists typically find employment in quantitative finance. So when the next market crash happens, you know who to blame. Unemployed theoretical astrophysicists find jobs in bomb factories.

[helicon]

It's true that there has been an influx of "quant" guys in the financial industry, enough to be caricatured in the media. For example in the film "The big short" about the packaging up of mortgages into CDOs (collateralized debt obligations). Jeff Bezos was a quant guy at an investment bank before starting Amazon. So yeah, I would expect to see physicists in some of these occupations.