The Times' Clothes

I like the New York Times. It is usually my main source of awareness about what's going on in the mainstream media. Some say it has a liberal bias, but Colbert pointed out that so does reality. ;-) I am a bit frustrated with the coverage of Bolivian politics it the Times, though. I wouldn't mind it too much if there wasn't any: Bolivia is a tiny country whose politics don't affect DC's very much and whose happenings usually don't reach and much less affect the US or New York. However, Bolivia has been in the NYT several times over the last few months. A few of those articles have been good, but there has also been the infamous sweater article that I am so fond of. If Bolivia is being covered, is there really nothing more important going on than the president wearing a sweater? As if that wasn't enough, today in the Americas section I found this article about the current vicepresident Alvaro Garcia Linera. The article is a little bit informative, but not much more than the more succinct wikipedia article on him. In the NYT there are at least two paragraphs devoted to how Mr. Linera looks, sounds and dresses like. Yet, there are none about the currently ongoing conflict in the mines which have taken 16 lives and the role Mr. Linera is or should be playing in it.

To give a bit of credit where it is due, I should say that I am reading the free online version of the newspaper as I can't justify a subscription for myself. Furthermore, a search for articles about Bolivia does yield an article about the ongoing crisis in the mines. However, this article is not as easily found as the one on Mr. Linera and is approximately half as long. Does anyone else see a problem with this?

The End of Science Part Deux: Tied Up?

This time by means of Prof. Hsu's blog I stumbled upon this article in the New Yorker. It looks as if string theory has tied itself into a bit of a knot. Now I really want to read Smolin's book.

I like the fact that someone from within the theoretical physics clan published a book admitting that there are sociological factors which may be hindering the progress of science. Of course, Smolin's book is about a lot more than that, but still, that is one of the few things that I have noticed in my brief and limited interaction with physics. It always seemed like the kind of thing only an outsider would notice and like the kind of thing that someone who becomes an insider might forget despite having noticed earlier on.

Another interesting bit from the article is the one about the number of graduating particle theorists and how many of them will actually find jobs. This is interesting to me on two accounts. Firstly, because theoretical particle physics would probably be my career of choice right now. Secondly, it really seems like something that would hurt the progress of science. Theoretical science is really a cheap endeavor as it is and I doubt that making it a bit more appealing of a career choice would hurt matters.

Whatever the case, the more numbers I read and the more I talk to people it seems to make very little sense to pursue a career in theoretical particle physics. Don't get me wrong, it is one sexy subject, but is it sexy enough to spend four, five or six years obtaining a PhD so that you can be unemployed or sold out (think wall street) at the end? There seem to be other areas of theoretical research in which one may have a shot at a career, the top one on my list being quantum information. However, I am not exactly sure what the state of the field is, it may well be that now we are just waiting for the experiments to catch up (just like in particle physics). It may also turn out that the LHC turns up all kinds of new physics and by virtue of magic the US government decides to spend money investigating this. Right. I am rather skeptical about both of these happening, specially the latter. Hey maybe it is even time to start thinking about shifting gears into applied science as it very well may be that we know all the relevant rules of the game already and there is no more significant theoretical work to be done as was argued in the article from my earlier post about this.

This having to pick a field is becoming a bit of a burden. Mostly because it is like taking a shot in the dark. Well, not quite in the dark, but in a poorly lit room at best. It really is hard to know if there is room for work or what the work is like without having gone and gotten the PhD already. I wonder what's going to be of me in the next five years. Whatever it is, I better make the decision soon.