The problem with this blog is that the most exciting things about my life - I can't share them here because of many reasons. This renders the blog to sheer boredom sometimes.
I'm actually a bit drunk... Stayed at work drumming the keyboard for my research, till midnight. I am going to present my work at
a major Optics conference in the US, at the end of this month. It's amazing how my fingers still type without me even having to tell them what to do, I just think of what I want to appear on the screen and it does. I am barely aware of my fingers working.
So, it's like this.
When you're in the academy (MSc or PhD student, postdoc or a faculty member), you are supposedly this smart guy who has knowledge at the frontier level of his area. You are paid scholarship (if you're a good student), and salary (if you're faculty or postdoc), and you're allowed to make extra money by teaching.
For instance, I teach a physics laboratory course, I have 11 students. I get a scholarship and the tuition is paid for me by the institution. In total, I get less than half the salary I used to get while I was engineer in the high-tech industry. The money comes from science foundations, governments. They give money to institutions and scientists, knowing that this investment doesn't pay back (not directly and not neccessarily to them).
The purpose. It's innovation in science. Whatever that is new, and has scientific value. I am often asked, what is this good for, what you are researching? Well, in my case there's plenty of potential uses. But many other scientists are working on themes / projects which have no commercial use at all, - from astrophysics to elementary particles (this includes vast armies of physicists employed on the
collider, for instance).
Most of the scientists work for very low pay, comparing to how their capabilities would have been rewarded in the industry. There are rare cases of people who work with / for companies, or own small companies. Often you can see a frontier scientist driving a very humble car. Maybe out of ideology but still...
Fially, the result is advancement in research, understanding of Nature by Humanity, if you want. The immediate reward is articles, publications. When you publish your work, it relies on prior works in this field, yours or mostly other authors. So you cite their works in yours. The more your work get cited by others, this indicates your publication's importance. Publishing (for physicists) can be done in several journals, the most prestigious of which is Nature. Then there's Science, and Physical Review Letters (PRL).
Other rewards are prizes. Next to the title that goes along with it (such as the most recognized one, Nobel prize) there's also a very nice sum of money. There's can be also many trips abroad sometimes on a monthly basis, for heads of research teams. As a beginner, I got my first "free" trip abroad within half a year "on the job". The purpose is collaboration, presenting your work at a conference, giving seminars, etc.
I was supposed to "score" a PRL a month ago but eventually had to publish in a less-important journal, because I had to keep ahead of another team doing something very similar to my project, in another system. It's like playing the same song, on another instrument. Once they play it first, my play won't be considered new any more.
They scored a PRL, but I went for a less important journal and published 1 month earlier, because it has faster acceptance procedures. Now the race is on for the experimental part.
