@anonymous oh, I'd be happy learning just about anything related to physics! I think dabbling in different fields definitely helps one gain more experience. I also think it isn't good to completely isolate yourself from other topics; I just don't think that's completely healthy.

thx all for your participation, great audience today & we can always use volunteers for the chat sessions, plz drop by our Physics room whenever

@ACuriousMind You keep that thing outta here!

I'm still willing to answer questions, so keep on asking if you wish =)

@heather what are your favorite shoes?

@DanielSank, I appreciate you taking the time to moderate, whether or not you moderate from here on out is up to you, of course =)

@0celo7 Uhm...tennis shoes/sneakers for every day wear (though I do have a pair of knock-off converses that I like the design of) and climbing shoes for when I want to undergo pain and suffering. I think that goes on my strange question of the day list.

@heather I'll stick around. I have questions for you. I won't moderate much though.

@Danu The condition $\nabla R=0$ (covariantly constant curvature tensor) is equivalent to: parallel translation of nondegenerate plane sections does not change sectional curvature.

@DanielSank sounds good.

@heather One thing I really wanted to know is how your daily hours are distributed between homework/family/personal projects (physics reading)/sports/everything else.

And, importantly, are you satisfied with this distribution?

ah, yes, good question. a lot of my time is obviously taken up by school (basically from when I wake up (minus time to get ready, obviously) to 3:20 ish when I get home.

Indeed.

I was always rather frustrated by how much time school sucked out of my younger years.

@heather Make and model?

Believe it or not, I really disliked school.

three nights a week i have climbing team, and two of those days are weeknights - one of the weeknights from 6-9 (pm) one from 7-9 (pm) and the weekend day 7-9 (pm).

@DanielSank I dislike school as well. I really only like it as a social outlet.

Oh wow that's a lot of sports time. That's really, really great. I'm happy to hear that.

and occasionally I like my teachers or what have you, but school itself I detest.

@heather Converse are ok. I wore those in middle school :D

@heather Yeah, that's more or less how it was for me.

@DanielSank Yes, I love it =)

I loved my high school bio class.

Keeping physically active is one of the best things you can do as a scientist.

Do not ever give that up so long as your body is able.

As you get older you have to fight for it, but it's a fight worth fighting.

then for family time, sometimes my dad and i will spend mornings working on projects, or my mom will take me out to get a new pair of jeans or just to chill together (same on the latter with my dad). We eat meals together a decent amount. so I'd say the remaining time is decently well split between family and personal time (and sometimes the two overlap).

I let stress get on top of me last year and have been out of the gym for about eight month. Started back last week. Feel better already.

@dmckee I'm so happy to hear it.

yes, I want to rock climb for the rest of my life =) i also want to do track and field this year.

@heather Nice.

@heather Ooooh, nice!

I did discus.

so changing the various times - I'd basically bring school down to zero until I can take cool classes starting in 12th grade (though I guess I'd keep my math classes). and I'd add in social time with friends. I'd spend the balance of extra time on my personal projects and family.

@heather Which one would you prefer? Would you like to be a research/theoritical scientist (like Stephen Hawking) or something like an entrepreneur cum scientist (like Elon Musk) ? Do you have any interest in being an entrepreneur ?

I think I spend a decent amount of time on exercise and wouldn't change that.

@anonymous some interest in being an entrepreneur, i suppose, though I think that's lessened. when I was younger, I had a baking "business" and i'd literally bake cookies and brownies and sell them. i did pretty well. i don't really do it anymore because school, basically, and i don't have as much interest in baking anymore. but really, I think i love science and experimental science just for itself, and I don't know if I'd want to make it a company. obviously, that could change.

in response to the second most upvoted question, "Do your parents know that you are internet-friends with people from all around the world, most of which are at least twice your age? What do they think about that?"

yes, they know, and they think it's cool I know these people who are nerdy like me and can get help from them.

That's good.

in response to your question @DanielSank about the relation between rock climbing and the mind, I think it's a positive one - I always feel tired but at the same time energized after climbing, and I definitely feel a lot better doing it than I think I would without.

@heather Suppose you get a physics degree and then find that most of the jobs in that field are very low paying. And Academia is anyway low paying. Would you be comfortable to be switching over to a completely different field in that case like Software development or something ? And do you feel that academia needs more funding at present?

@anonymous I so curious, why would anyone suppose that jobs for physicists are low paying?

@DanielSank Depends on how you define low paying and high paying...

@anonymous i don't think I know enough to have an opinion on academia funding. anyway, i'd rather do what I love than be rich, so i think i'll look at my options and what i want to do, and go for the physics job (also, from what I heard, the sciences pay rather well.) also, I'm not sure I'll end up in academia - at this point i'd rather be at a research lab like @DanielSank's, for instance, though that could change.

finally, it seems like the average payment of jobs that i'd want is something i'd look into before getting a degree.

@DanielSank I have personally seen many people with a physics degree working in unrelated fields after their phd...that is why i asked the question...

oh, i specifically wanted to answer this question in the comments by vzn:

@anonymous Unrelated how?

"we went 6mo or longer in physics chat without seeing any females & am happy to see gender balance on this site/ chat where there is major gender imbalance typically. maybe you might comment on this at some point. do you ever get "flack" for this on this site or elsewhere? do you know other girls interested in similar topics? is the culture here welcoming to women?"

OK neat @0celo7

@DanielSank Like doing regular software jobs at places like TCS etc.. I know one person with a theoretical physics degree who is currently not getting a job related to his specialization in physics and living on state funding and some more examples....

@anonymous What kinds of theoretical physics jobs did that person consider?

i have never noticed any real gender bias here and am lucky to have never really encountered it. however, I have had a few awkward moments on this site, such as this - could just be cultural norms but I thought "heather" was pretty clearly a girl's name, that's happened to me a couple times.

In my experience, a lot of people don't find "good physics jobs" because their notion of a good physics job is ridiculously narrow.

the most awkward though was this which was kind of embarrassing.

@DanielSank Sorry, I didn't ask him about that...

@DanielSank Why do you feel so?

any other questions @DanielSank (or anyone)?

@heather lol as you know ACM got concerned about sexual innuendo recently, this room can push the boundaries sometimes, very glad you can stand it, hope that others will take some feedback from you & other females on how to stay gentlemen wink! :) (still miss sofia, snif)

@anonymous, thanks for getting up at midnight =P

@vzn dude, just don't poke the hornet's nest

what does "ffs" mean?

(sorry)

@vzn i don't think that's quite fair - i don't often see things get out of hand, if at all.

On the job front, I have a change of family circumstances on the horizon and am back on the job market. Something with better pay:cost-of-living or at least better benefits. Maybe with better long term prospects.

in fact, i'd say 99% of the people in here are quite clean in terms of what they say.

@heather I was genuinely interested :'D It's been a pleasure! :)

@anonymous thanks =)

Anyone need a experimenter, programmer and general jobbing physicist?

@dmckee You're leaving your professor job?

@0celo7 Perhaps. As I say, I'd like to get paid more. And get to do some non-trivial research.

I mean, I like teaching, but at this place it is consuming every other aspect of my life. Not healthy.

@heather "for f---'s sake"

it's the internet @DanielSank

it's ok to say frick

@dmckee Google's always looking for good folks.

Great place to work.

@heather ::facepalm:: The number of middle school students with the where withall to be usefully interested quantum computing is small in any gender.

@dmckee yeah, also true! it was still really awkward.

@DanielSank Where does one look to make the initial contact?

that person is i believe currently banned from this site, actually, for spamming.

@dmckee Website, probably.

@heather Yeah. no need to bring up anything about gender. It comes out sounding condescending at best.

@DanielSank oh, um...uh...okay, guess i'll spit it out - does google do summer internships? what do you need to know/do to get one? would that be a check the website thing?

@heather We certainly do. We have all kinds of programs.

The traditional "internship" program is mostly for college students, usually at least after their second year.

However, we have many other programs.

I hear that Queen's college in Ontario has seven (!) particle physics positions.

Sounds like they are booting a whole new group or something.

Browse the web a bit, see if you like anything, and then we can chat more.

@anonymous You certainly have a point. The last two years at high school, I had an unbelievably excellent physics teacher, Dr. Eckhart. Guess what, but teaching at school might not be too bad after all. And there was a joke at the time: "Was sagt ein arbeitsloser Physiker zu einem Physiker mit Arbeit? Ne Bratwurst bitte." Which my teacher commented with: You see, professional physics are very flexible and can be found in just any job.

@dmckee Wow!

@DanielSank okay =)

ok, everyone, I'm out for a bit. Got real work to do.

This has been a pleasure. Thank you, @heather.

Wow! How do you get suspended from the main site for a year?

@DanielSank thanks again - have a good day

@DanielSank no, thank you. =) it was a pleasure for me as well

@0celo7 Do you want to find out? :P

@ACuriousMind I'm always up to a challenge!

@ThomasKlimpel I think I've heard that joke about almost every possible subject one can study by now

@0celo7 The serious answer to the question is exactly the same kinds of things that get you suspended for a week or a month; you just do them after you've had those shorter terms.

@dmckee Does PSE do IP banning? If someone is that persistent it's hard to believe they'll stay away.

I've kinda been wondering if their shouldn't be some kind of clemency after you've been rehabilitated for N months. But there doesn't seem to be an official policy on that.

@0celo7 The internals pay attention to IP several ways, and I'm not sure I understand all the details. But the really persistent problems come back through proxies and using other schemes to evade simple minded bans, anyway.

@0celo7 The details of what the system looks out for are purposefully not disclosed.

@heather I was wondering if you get anything out of the math or science classes you are taking now in middle school or if you think they are a waste of time.

@NowIGetToLearnWhatAHeadIs well, I do get stuff out of the math classes, though I wish they were a bit more swiftly paced. The science classes i get less out of - I wish there was more of a focus on physics.

@ACuriousMind Is a faithful action always transitive?

I also don't find earth science very interesting, which is what we're doing this year. However, I do like the teacher this year, so it all balances out, to some extent.

@0celo7 Uh, no?

@ACuriousMind Is that a surprising question?

@heather There are a certain number of facts and points of view that you need before you can usefully study physics (or any science at a serious level). And while there is no particular barrier to having that background in middle school most people simple aren't there yet.

@0celo7 Just one you can see the answer to by considering any action of the trivial group.

@ACuriousMind mmm, I didn't think of that one :)

Classes at that level are mostly about laying foundations for later, and they are paced, convoy style, for the slower members of the group.

@dmckee, yes, that is true.

i was merely answering the question as it stood, you're right of course.