A couple of years ago Paul Corkum, one of Canada’s outstanding physicists, was given an honorary degree by Western. In his address to convocation, he talked about the social aspects of being a scientist. For example, he said that when he was young, he imagined that a scientist would spend his life working alone in a lab, when in reality all of his work is done in collaboration: with students, technicians, colleagues…. He also talked about the fact that he spent a lot of time traveling the world to talk about his research with others. His comments have come back to me this year, as I have been doing a lot of traveling and collaborating myself!
The stereotyped image of the scientist, with lab coat and unruly hairdo, closeted alone in a windowless basement lab, emerging only for injections of caffeine or to catch the last bus home at 2 AM is very far from reality. Wait – let me correct that statement. It was actually fairly close to reality for me when I was a grad student, but it’s certainly not true now. For a fair chunk of my grad student career I indeed worked in a windowless basement lab, wore a lab coat, and was addicted to caffeine. I often worked until 2 AM, partly because there wasn’t anyone around at that time to distract me with invitations to go for coffee. I even had unruly hair, although not a lot of it by then. However even then my science was far from being a solitary pursuit. There were several other grad students captive in the same lab, and we talked a lot and learned much from each other. I am still close friends with many of them. There were postdocs around (even at 2 AM), and even my supervisor dropped in now and then to chat. I spent a lot of time in the machine shop, where I gossiped with and learned from the technicians and other students. I also went to conferences, in Canada and internationally, where I was thrilled to learn that there were at least a few other people in the world who were interested in my little esoteric corner of physics.
And nowadays? No lab coat, no hair, and my lab has windows. I haven’t been able to drink caffeine for a long time; the result of overindulgence when I was young. I leave the office at 5:30 and although I often work at home in the evenings, it is rare that I stay up past 10 PM. But my work is even more social than ever. I have lots of collaborators, and I probably wouldn’t get any science at all done without them. I love talking to and working with students; they are the part of the job I enjoy the most. I have long-time friends who have become scientific collaborators, and collaborators who have become friends, all over the world. I go to two or three conferences a year, in various exotic (Cyprus, Rio) or not so exotic (Cleveland, Calgary) places, where I see friends and colleagues and talk about my research and theirs. I am continually in e-communication with colleagues, collaborators, current and former students. I am fortunate to be able to spend part of this year visiting, and working with, colleagues around the world. I believe that science is truly a social endeavor.
http://www.thinkgeek.com/tshirts-apparel/unisex/generic/a69c/works for me.
When I was a student, we observed that when Chem profs met in the hall they talked about their squash games, but Physics profs talked about their experiments. This is probably not entirely true, though. The people I tend to hang around with talk about everything. There is always a significant amount of discussion of research, and what’s going on at the conference in question, since after all it is our research interests that bring us together in the first place, but we also talk about family and politics and travel and music and books and food and life, the universe, and everything. Just like real people. A little while ago someone wrote a post about pick-up lines. Want a fool-proof pick-up line to use at a science conference? “Tell me about your research.” Never fails.
The amount of socialization likely varies with field, and with sub-field. I would guess that experimentalists/observers might be more social than theorists, but I wonder if anyone has tried to measure this?
That’s really cool. What’s the socializing like? Is it mainly talking about technicalities at work? Or do you socialize about everything?