OPPORTUNITIES IN PHYSICS

Is physics the right major for you? That depends on you. It depends on whether you have the aptitude, the interest and the skills required for college-level study in this field. You should examine both yourself and the future you might base on your study of physics before you decide.

Physics majors are individualistic, do a wide variety of things, work in a surprising number of occupations. There is no simple list of characteristics and interests you must have to succeed in the physics major. A sense of dedication is one basic requirement; another is an interest in science and in mathematics. But these are equally necessary for success in many other majors. You must look further.

Ask yourself these questions:

• Am I interested in discovering how things work?
• Am I interested in discovering how the same idea can explain a variety of things rather than just a single thing?
• Am I more interested in finding quantitative, precise explanations than in finding qualitative generalities?

Physics majors usually answer "yes" to all three questions. If you did, you may enjoy working with physics and may succeed in the physics program.

Physics has such a broad scope and plays such a basic role in all natural science and engineering that it is hard to define. In fact, people trained in physics eventually enter all scientific and engineering fields as well as a number of non-scientific areas. As a result, the best way to describe what someone with a degree in physics might do is to give examples. The following are listed alphabetically:

Acoustical Physics: The study of sound and its transmission. It is one of the oldest branches of physics, but remains an active area of research and is a branch of physics with many important applications. The compact disc recording method, the concert hall, hearing aids, the medical ultra-sonic scanner - these are just a few everyday applications. Studies of shock waves, vibration, noise, and underwater sound are all important areas of applications of acoustics.

Astrophysics: People who work in astrophysics have the largest possible laboratory - the universe. How old is the universe? How long will it last and how will it end? How do stars, including the Sun, form, mature and die? Should we listen for radio messages from extraterrestrial life? These are only a few of the questions of interest to astrophysicists.

Atomic, Molecular and Electron Physics: The study of how atoms interact, how they combine to make molecules. Work in this area provides the basis for understanding chemical reactions. The study of light given off by matter has applications ranging from medical tests to learning how Renaissance artists mixed their paints.

Biophysics: This field is concerned with developing a quantitative understanding of living things. The physical mechanisms of seeing, hearing, nerve impulses; the effects of X-rays and nuclear particles on cells and tissue; the composition of complex biological molecules like proteins or DNA are among the problems biophysicists study.

Condensed Matter Physics: The investigation of the properties of materials such as metals, alloys, semiconductors and liquids. The transistor, the best known result of work in condensed matter physics, is so widely used that every home has scores of them. High-temperature superconductors are a recent discovery in this branch of physics.

Elementary Particle Physics: This area takes up where nuclear physics leaves off. It is the study of Nature's most fundamental building blocks: the particles that combine to form the nuclear particles. Research in particle physics has unraveled the relationships of the leptons, baryons, and gluons.

Fluid and Plasma Physics: Both areas concern the flow of fluids - gases and liquids - but plasma physics deals with electrically charged fluids while fluid physics deals with uncharged fluids. Applications of this kind of physics are all around us, from the streamlining of cars to jet engine design. Plasma physics has applications as varied as the re-entry of space vehicles and the development of controlled fusion for power production.

Earth & Space Sciences (Geophysics & Atmospheric Physics) and Physical Oceanography: These are concerned with the physics of the earth from the top of the atmosphere to the earth's core. The work has applications such as long-range weather prediction, exploring for minerals and oil and earthquake prediction.

Nuclear Physics: It deals with the atomic nucleus. Accelerators are used to study the structure of nuclei and how they interact. Nuclear physics has applications such as nuclear power and the use of radioactive material for dating and for medical treatment. It also concerns the nuclear reactions involved in production of heat and light by the sun and in the formation of the universe.

Optical Physics: The study and use of light - how it is generated, controlled, described. This field has expanded far beyond design of lens systems and now includes efforts to discover efficient ways to use solar energy and applications of lasers to everything from eye surgery to cutting tools.

Space Physics: Study of the regions from the upper atmosphere to the near vacuum of outer space. This work has applications to such things as planetary exploration and communication and weather satellites.

These fields are the basis of work for two-thirds of the total number of physicists. It is impossible to enumerate all the rest here. A few examples are: mechanics, electromagnetism, statistical and thermal physics, physics education, history of science, philosophy of science. About one in twenty physicians majored in physics in college. Some lawyers, especially patent attorneys, were physics majors. Many physics majors end up in various types of administration.

Before deciding on physics as a major, you need to consider more than just what kinds of physics interest you. You need to think ahead to the type of job you want once you have obtained your degree. Your academic work is not an end in itself. It is a means by which you prepare for a career. What you want to do will affect your academic work.

Your career in physics or in areas where physics is a suitable preparation will depend on your:

• type of work
• degree level
• field of study
• type of employer

The type of work you choose may be research, or development and design, or teaching, or administration. Each type has some particular requirements not shared with the others.

Your degree level in physics can be bachelor's, master's or doctorate. About half of those who receive bachelors degrees in physics go on to earn advanced degrees in other fields.

Your employer may be an educational institution, an industrial firm, a commercial business, a government laboratory or agency, a non-profit research center. Or you may end up with your own business.

Your choices in these categories, of course, are not independent of each other. For example, you cannot get a bachelor's degree in relativistic astrophysics. If you could, then you would not be prepared to do electronic development and design work for an industrial firm.

The most important choice in determining your future work is the choice of degree level. Your job will be different if you hold a doctoral degree than it would be if you have only a bachelor's degree.

With a bachelor's or master's degree you are more likely to be employed in development and design, teaching, or administration than in research. In design or development you would probably be employed by an industrial firm, a government agency, or a non-profit research center to apply existing theory to specific problems. You probably would be working closely with people who have engineering backgrounds. In teaching, you probably would teach at the high school or two-year college level. Administrative positions are available with all types of work and employers, but for these jobs you usually need experience in the field first.

With a doctorate you are prepared for a research career and are expected to have a high degree of initiative and responsibility for your work. If you are employed in a university, your research would most likely be basic research, whereas in an industrial laboratory it would probably be applied research and also, often, promotion and sales of advanced research products. In colleges and universities, the balance between teaching and research depends on your interests and those of the institution. Colleges tend to require a large commitment of time to teaching. Universities, in addition, will expect development of a research program for the benefit of their graduate divisions.

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