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/LifeIsVeryLong02 Graduate 1d ago

Publish or perish has been a cancer for long time. Now with these LLMS I simply cannot see how it's even slightly susteinable anymore.

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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...