The h Bar

dmckee

3:00 AM

And copious benefits.

All the things I don't have at my little state school.

G. Bergeron

I expected something around 150k/year so fine

There is condensed matter guy at my uni leaving ship

dmckee

@G.Bergeron In places like Boston and NYC those are the numbers that bounce around.

GPhys

@dmckee my little state school gave me the things I needed to send me off somewhere nice, so I can't complain too much

G. Bergeron

for a place in the US

dmckee

A lot of Harvard and MIT profs can afford to live in Harvard.

Which is just crazy talk.

G. Bergeron

3:02 AM

@dmckee But salaries are about the same here...

Maybe a bit less (but in canadian dollar)

GPhys

so far the best advantage of my current university is the physics department has an alcohol budget instead of ban

G. Bergeron

@dmckee If you can do research, then it's fine

dmckee

Last I looks the Canadian dollar was a lot closer to parity with the US dollar than it was for most of my life. At one point during the crash it was worth more than a greenback.

@G.Bergeron I am encouraged to do all the research I can with no money, no space, no equipment, no release time and no assistance.

G. Bergeron

@dmckee OK, but isn't somethin like 120k/year what you would expect uni prof to earn after some time in their career?

dmckee

Actually, the IT people gave me a four year old computer and a monitor, so I've got some equipment...

GPhys

3:04 AM

@dmckee ouch, this one hurts

G. Bergeron

@dmckee Grants from governement? Professors gets nothing from the university here

Actually they need to pay for lab space and all

GPhys

they gave all of us decked out new computers for our offices

decked out enough that it's actually useful to run my long computations on (!)

G. Bergeron

Everything comes from grant which you get from 2 or 3 governement agencies

dmckee

@G.Bergeron Hard to get a substantial grant when you have to teach full time. The adgencies are wary of your ability to get things done in a timely manner.

G. Bergeron

@dmckee What is full time?

GPhys

3:06 AM

@G.Bergeron a hell of a buzz word (with somehow concrete consequences)

dmckee

The uni does offer small amounts of money to students with pjrojects, so I spend some time thinking up things the students can do for ~US$400 or so.

G. Bergeron

And I know it's hard, research funding is a bit in crisis

dmckee

@G.Bergeron 12 semester hours per term, Fall and Spring. In principle I have summers free.

G. Bergeron

I mean to get mine for the master, I had to pretty much have perfect grades as an undergrad. This is ridiculous

GPhys

I feel bad for the adjunct faculty here @dmckee

it's in the graduate student union contract that we are paid the same as the adjunct faculty per class time

dmckee

3:07 AM

You can feel be for the adjuncts everywhere. Even when the department head is looking out for the they get screwed by the system.

whatwhatwhat

@vzn It's an interest free loan :)

GPhys

they aren't even paid better than us

G. Bergeron

@dmckee Which is really nothing research wise. I'm so happy to be in theory. Once my livelihood is paid for, nothing much more is needed

@dmckee That's like two classes, right. But then what, the private university professors do not teach at all?

Me too, some friends want to go party

I think I'll go

GPhys

@G.Bergeron as far as I can tell, for the majority of the department, yeah

whatwhatwhat

Degrees of freedom come from the number of coordinate directions that a system can move in, right?

G. Bergeron

3:09 AM

@GPhys WHAT?

GPhys

and the exceptions seem to be mostly their choice

They teach graduate classes

dmckee

@G.Bergeron Three. Four in departments with the typical class is 3 units (but ours are usually 4).

GPhys

if that counts

whatwhatwhat

So if a particle can move in the $+x$ direction, then it has 1 D.O.F and if it can also retrace its steps, i.e. move in the $-x$ direction, then it has 2 D.O.F. right?

G. Bergeron

@whatwhatwhat Number of real number indexed parameters to specify a state in time

dmckee

3:11 AM

At better state schools profs teach three to five courses a year. A prestige schools they teach two or three. Less if they have an endowed chair.

G. Bergeron

no that it is still one

whatwhatwhat

@G.Bergeron Oh so then even if my particle can move in both the positive and negative x-directions, it's still only 1 D.O.F?

dmckee

@whatwhatwhat Yep.

whatwhatwhat

Ah I see.

G. Bergeron

@dmckee I think professors need only to teach 2 courses. But then they need to get grants.

Or byebye it is until tenure

dmckee

3:12 AM

@G.Bergeron Yeah. Bringing in money is part of what goes with those reduced teaching loads.

GPhys

@G.Bergeron well, the professors probably need to teach enough courses to get the poor little kids like me to the end of their degree

maybe not every university has so many extra bodies to do this

:P

G. Bergeron

@dmckee And there are only two funding agencies here, federal and provincial

Unless you're curing cancer, building quantum computers or doing microfabrication if you see what I mean

mochacat

how do you guys learn what you learn about physics? im in high school and i know more about the easter bunny then some of the questions asked on here

G. Bergeron

@GPhys Yeah, well one per semester is quite enough

@mochacat School < Internet < Books

4

<<<<<<< Papers

GPhys

@G.Bergeron @dmckee I think the NIH adjustment to the budget here is larger than the NSF entire budget

mochacat

3:15 AM

papers :(

G. Bergeron

@GPhys Yeah these kind of things are probably reflected worldwide

mochacat

any good places to start? i live close to a nice library and i'm going to have alot of time over break

GPhys

I heard they managed to fund a swanky gravity wave doohicky though ;)

G. Bergeron

Like one F35 being the budget of the whole federal funding agency in natural sciences

GPhys

22 years later they even found one

G. Bergeron

3:16 AM

@mochacat Books then

Don't start with papers, it's useless but that is still where I learnt the most over time

And nowadays you have like infinite resources about basic topics on the web so watch lectures, go on wiki trips, what suits you

dmckee

@mochacat You have to take enough course work to set the stage, but the real learning comes from (a) applying what you have been taught to harder problems; (b) reading enough to see what is being done with these things on the cutting edge; (c) teaching and supervising student researchers where more book learning happens than anywhere else; but most of all (d) research.

You build up to it, and it take time.

Even the people who look smart now started ignorant and struggled along the way.

G. Bergeron

@dmckee I agree coursework is structures and gives you the constant push in the back because you have to hand-in stuff.

mochacat

do you think i should wait and see what happens in school first before I take things into my own hands? @G

G. Bergeron

I am passionate, but sometimes you would just go over material lightly unless being thrown in.

@mochacat If you have the motivation do it!

Whatever you learn and however inefficient you are is not a problem. Think that most people do not learn stuff on the side!

Everything I know about electronics and programming was learnt on the side

Electronics mostly in high school and then programming later on

mochacat

that's where i hope to get, i just have to build some foundation and then scrape together some motivation. i envy you guys who learn so many things on your own

i love physics/electronics/web-dev and i'm making good time in everything except for physics. i keep shunting it aside for something else

G. Bergeron

3:25 AM

@mochacat It might help to have a project when learning on your own. It gets you motivation but also restriction from not just spreading your time on covering material only on the surface.

Physics is harder to learn on you own in my opinion

mochacat

yeah physics is brutal. there's always some foundation that i'm missing but i'm getting there

G. Bergeron

School < Internet < Books LOL who starred that?

whatwhatwhat

@G.Bergeron yo

G. Bergeron

@mochacat A degree helps in that it is paced

Haha

Alright it's getting late and I want to meet with friends... See you people

mochacat

arite cya @G.Bergeron :) thanks for the talk

whatwhatwhat

3:28 AM

@G.Bergeron bye friend!!

vzn

@G.Bergeron (rats keyboard died) what kind of (comp) experiments?

G. Bergeron

what?

vzn

@G.Bergeron oops mixed up. anyway plz seriously think over the spkr session & get back to me, there seems to be an audience hungry for experts around here :)

mochacat

all right i'm gonna be off now too. you guys have fun talking about your red-shifts and ricci tensors. hope to be more active on stack exchange in the future :) have a good one guys

whatwhatwhat

@mochacat bye new friend!

G. Bergeron

3:30 AM

@vzn Ok will let you know as soon as possible

vzn

@GPhys what kind of (comp) experiments?

mochacat

bye :) @whatwhatwhat

vzn

@G.Bergeron thx much think its a real highlight around here when it happens... "once in a blue moon"... youre in great company if you look at the list :)