When I introduce myself, I often describe my job like this:
“I develop mathematical tools to make calculations in particle physics easier and more efficient.”
However, I could equally well describe my job like this:
“I’m looking for a radical new way to reformulate particle physics in order to solve fundamental problems in space and time.”
These may sound very different, but they’re both correct. That’s because in theoretical physics, like in many branches of science, we have two types of goals: near-term and far-term.
In the near-term, I develop mathematical tools and tricks, which let me calculate things I (and others) couldn’t calculate before. Pushing the tricks to their limits gives me more proficiency, making the tools I develop more robust. In the future, I can imagine applying the tools to more types of calculations, and specifically to more “important” calculations.
All of that still involves relatively near-term goals, though. Develop a new trick, and you can already envision what it might be used for. The far-term goals are generally deeper.
End of the road, not just the next tree.
In the far term, the new techniques that I and others develop might lead to fundamentally new ways to understand particle physics. That’s because a central feature of most of the tricks we develop is that they rephrase the calculation in a way that leaves out something that used to be thought of as fundamental. They’re “revolutions”, overthrowing some basic principle of how we do things. The hope is that the right “revolution” will help us solve problems that our current understanding of physics seems incapable of solving.
Most scientists have both sorts of goals. Someone who studies quantum mechanics might talk about developing a quantum computer, but in the near-term be interested in perfecting some algorithm. A biologist might study how information is stored in a cell, but introduce themself as someone trying to cure cancer.
For some people, the far-term goals are a big component of how they view themselves. Nima Arkani-Hamed, for example, has joked that believing that “spacetime is doomed” is what allows him to get out of bed in the morning. (For a transcript of the relevant parts, see here.) There are plenty of others with similar perspectives, people who need a “big” goal to feel motivated.
Myself, I find it harder to identify with these kinds of goals, because the payoff is so uncertain. Rephrasing particle physics in a new way might be the solution to a fundamental problem…but it could also just be another way to say the same thing. There’s no guarantee that any one project will be that one magical solution. In contrast, for me, near term goals are something I can feel confident I’m making real progress on. I can envision each step along the way, and see the part my work plays in a larger picture, led along by the satisfaction of solving each puzzle as it comes.
Neither way is better than the other, and both are important parts of science. Some people do better with one, some do better with the other, and in the end, everyone can view themselves as accomplishing something they care about.
4 gravitons 