« first day (2332 days earlier)      last day (1297 days later) » 

More Anonymous
More Anonymous
3:35 AM
@Student404Mus Ah sorry I was under the impression your at postgrad level - masters
@Student404Mus Phd is harder(to migrate). My impression from the UK system is one has to do a Phd in the relevant field
@Student404Mus You have to undergo a 2'nd Phd I think ... In a relevant field.
Why don't you ask a professor (who your close with) or some sort of academic advisor (we had them in my university).
?
 
 
1 hour later…
vzn
vzn
4:42 AM
@Student404Mus hi again. occasionally over the years somewhat desperate students show up around SE sites asking for thesis ideas. to me, very strong mixed feelings, feel this is such a wasted opportunity. it is apparently extremely rare for students to pick topics that are not largely chosen by their advisors. it maybe happens rarely by students with very big "cojones" so to speak. but think there are some very excellent topics to pursue, have massive research on several already.
so feel there is massive potential for very critical paradigm shifts to get traction in the nearterm future and new phd students are perfect candidates to enlarge them & help carry them out. but it seems many phd students take (relatively) more "safe bets" and avoid risk. no question, phd work carries some risk and minimizing it is the safest way to go, and good advisors have experience/ intuition on that. but also by nature the greatest rewards are associated with the greatest risks...
 
vzn
vzn
5:45 AM
and the leaders in the field are very slowly starting to recognize this, calling for radical ideas for a new paradigm shift. at least the field is (finally!) starting to realize its maybe hitting a dead end with existing paradigms. some big names that come to mind (some long) advocating change, "breath of fresh air," or radical new approaches: Smolin [new book!], Woit, Turok (just ran across!), 't Hooft, Hossenfelder. here is some relatively recent musings by Turok... (Feb 2018)
in The h Bar, Nov 7 at 18:29, by vzn
[String theory] almost self-destructed, I would say because it turned out to be not just one theory but this vast collection of theories which could all give different descriptions of the world. —Turok https://www.cbc.ca/radio/ideas/physicist-neil-turok-explains-the-ultimate-simplicity-of-everything-1.3490322
in The h Bar, Nov 7 at 19:03, by vzn
> So I think that sort of theoretical catastrophe, as I view it — meaning the logical pursuit of quantum mechanics and relativity over a hundred years was tremendously successful at some level but finding its own successor theory, it hasn't been successful.
> I think that is also laying the ground for some sort of revolutionary change in the sense that we basically will have to go back to the founding principles. It looks like the founding principles of modern physics — quantum theory and relativity — have played out and they have not given us the answers we need. And so we have to go back …
 

« first day (2332 days earlier)      last day (1297 days later) »