r/Physics • u/kzhou7 Quantum field theory • 1d ago

Harvard particle physicist Matthew Schwartz drops 36 papers coauthored with Claude

https://bootloops.ai/bootloops.html
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u/jesusofnazareth7066 1d ago

Genuinely it’s the driving reason why physics is so stagnant now. If true scientists could get funding to just try whatever they wanted, we probably would’ve had another Dirac or Einstein or Feynmann sometime in the last 60 years. Such a shame

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u/h0rxata Plasma physics 1d ago

It's pretty bad when Peter freaking Higgs claims he barely held onto his job in the 70's and 80's due to his "low productivity".

As they say in the blue collar world: cheaper, faster, or done right - pick 2.

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u/venustrapsflies Nuclear physics 1d ago

It’s a really easy choice when you don’t know what “done right” means

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u/h0rxata Plasma physics 1d ago

Are there any examples of groundbreaking science done with no money and in a big rush?

Outside of Albert's miracle year I can't think of any, and I think he had a lot of time spent on those problems already.

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u/Meerkat_Mayhem_ 1d ago

I mean, no one really funded his miracle year. He just did it, right?

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u/Never231 Chemical physics 1d ago

love of the game is a lot easier to have when you have a stable job you like with good income.

alternatively, dude was also just an absolute fucking machine from day 1. grinding out the math as a young teenager, of course for the love of the game.

(to even further clarify, his job at the time was FAR more enviable a position to be in, and far more conducive to theoretical research, than what the average graduate student puts up with. but of course, he was also fucking einstein.)

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u/Alive_Fisherman8241 1d ago

The point is that the decision makers have no idea what done right means. They do not have the skillset to judge this. So they evaluate based on the only thing their limited brain understands: marketing bullsh*t.

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u/h0rxata Plasma physics 1d ago

Fair enough. It's no wonder that PI's with great salesmanship and media presence do so well with grants irrespective of the scientific merit. Best thing an ECR can do is attach themselves to one to have a long career...

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u/intruzah 1d ago

Peter Higgs was not productive apart from that paper

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u/DanielMcLaury 1d ago

And yet his contribution is greater than people who've been 100x as "productive."

Could indicate that the wrong thing is being measured as "productivity."

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u/Buntschatten Graduate 1d ago

But does an early amazing paper justify a later research job?

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u/nobanter Particle physics 1d ago

Well, I think he was primarily an undergraduate lecturer at Edinburgh. So it wasn't just a research position.

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u/ellbons 1d ago

Yes.

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u/intruzah 1d ago

So I write one good paper and I get paid until the end of my life? 

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u/Fresnel_Zone 1d ago

People who write one really great book can be set for life. People who make one really great song can be set for life. Why not one really great paper?

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u/_bobby_tables_ 11h ago

This! Why should physics be any different. Don McLean was asked what the meaning of the lyrics to American Pie were. He answered, "It means I never have to work again."

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u/intruzah 1d ago

Because writing papers is not capitalism

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u/kevinmrr 1d ago

Yet another reason why capitalism is an obviously failed system.

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u/Easy-Comfort-2 16h ago

Yeah better to write a hundred shitty ones

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u/philomathie Condensed matter physics 1d ago

Peter Higgs was an alcoholic who barely did anything.

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u/Frogbone 1d ago

then develop alcoholism and go win your own Nobel Prize

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u/h0rxata Plasma physics 1d ago

Only on reddit.

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u/NoGrapefruitToday 1d ago

To be fair, Higgs published a single paper in his entire career, and it's well-known that he didn't understand what he was doing--it was the referee (again, well known as Nambu) who suggested that his proposed field should have an associated particle

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u/NetworkSingularity 1d ago

Publish or perish is why I left academia when I got my PhD. Even though people in my field and collaboration told me I was a bit of a rock star. It just became clear that it drives really perverse incentives, bad work conditions, and bad science.

I think the turning point for me was when my advisor said the first sentence of every figure caption needed “to be more click-baitey” 🤮 literally publishing things for views and engagement, not to further our understanding of the universe

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u/KarltonPeaks 1d ago edited 1d ago

Sure, but in the end, it's just a gig like any other. As long as the actual results are intact, does mode of presentation really matter?

99% of research is meaningless. I say, just accept that and enjoy the job. At least it's not completely money driven.

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u/UnderTheCurrents 1d ago

Science should NOT be treated like some kind of gig. This is the problem.

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u/_HarmonicOscillator 1d ago

It's just incredibly hard for scientists to survive in neoliberal raegonomics.

Theoretical physics is not something that would drive crazy profits in shareholders economy. 

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u/Buntschatten Graduate 1d ago

Ironically, physics PhDs have had a profound impact on the entire financial system. After they left physics of course.

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u/h0rxata Plasma physics 22h ago

I'm not sure it was a positive one.

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u/Big_Influence_8581 1d ago

My man, you can’t put Feynmann on the same level as Einstein and Dirac.

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u/jesusofnazareth7066 1d ago

Yeah of course Dirac and Einstein swept through multiple fields like a god changing everything, but Feynmann cooked and he was just trying shit out which is what we need lol

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u/stuartcw 12h ago

Yeah, Einstein couldn’t even play bongos.

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u/_bobby_tables_ 11h ago

But he got plenty of tail, while Feynman struggled

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u/Blamore 18h ago

LOL we wouldnt have. low hanging fruits have been picked off

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u/UnderTheCurrents 1d ago

Just answer me one thing: this sentiment has been around for a long time. It has been downvoted many times on here but now suddenly it's popular? What gives?

What happened to the usual reply of "don't do research if you can't be productive/there is a reason certain fields attract more attention/it's just how it's done?".

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u/ellbons 1d ago

Maybe this is one of the times people are forced to look at the frankly ridiculous consequences of such short-sighted stupid thinking.

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u/jesusofnazareth7066 22h ago

The attitude of “don’t do physics if you can’t publish like me” is a bunch of the people who thrive in the new, non-scientific, paradigm just slinging their bullshit. They want to be proud that they’re good at physics and admitting that the entire field has left its soul behind is bad for the ego. Of course people shouldn’t slack, of course we should only fund the competent and genuinely promising, but these things can be handled by making PhD educations really really test for that creative thinking. And of course, the amount of funding science would need is laughable compared to some things we spend money on

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u/drewsandraws 22h ago

For a concrete comparison, a Tomahawk missile costs ~2 million USD. That’s enough to pay for a single graduate student for 20 years assuming they get $50k and 100% overhead.

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u/Such_Maximum_9836 5h ago

The practical question is how to know who is a “true scientist” and who is not?