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Physics Major AND Business Leader?

Craft

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how are they not verifyable?

I don't know any "Business Leaders"..actually I know one but he's no physicist.

How are examples on a forum not verifiable? Well...
 

Asterion

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I don't know any "Business Leaders"..actually I know one but he's no physicist.

How are examples on a forum not verifiable? Well...

I thought you were getting at that, wasn't too sure, anyway, I'll ask a couple of physics professors and they'll tell me and I'll get back here and tell you. But knowing you, that wouldn't be enough, so I'll just do nothing :drool:
 

uumlau

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Yes, Physics and business oddly seem to go together, but there are some caveats. HR people are stupid: they'll read a resume, wonder what Ph.D. in Physics has to do with designing a functional product, and toss it in the circular file. In general, I've been hired into my "good" jobs because an engineer reviewed my resume and recognized the problem-solving abilities.

There is a demand for "smart people" in business. It's not extremely common, but common enough to keep ex-physicists employed. As noted in prior posts, it's the problem-solving abilities: here's some weird abstract info/data- tell me what I need to do.

I find that I use my physics-modeling abilities in my work all the time. In my personal case it is creating database plus software behavior to handle business processes. Everyone thinks it's simple and straightforward, but it really isn't. Once you get more than a dozen ideas all working in the same model, the interactions become far more complicated than most people bargain for. Very often, I demonstrate that I can offer 90-95% of what they want to have work very quickly, while the last 5% can take months/years due to the "have your cake and eat it, too" nature of many business requests.

The main difference is that instead of figuring out how black holes work, I'm figuring out how payroll and billing "ought to work." It's a different kind of black hole, but no less complicated and difficult in spite of its being rather mundane.
 

Asterion

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Yes, Physics and business oddly seem to go together, but there are some caveats. HR people are stupid: they'll read a resume, wonder what Ph.D. in Physics has to do with designing a functional product, and toss it in the circular file. In general, I've been hired into my "good" jobs because an engineer reviewed my resume and recognized the problem-solving abilities.

There is a demand for "smart people" in business. It's not extremely common, but common enough to keep ex-physicists employed. As noted in prior posts, it's the problem-solving abilities: here's some weird abstract info/data- tell me what I need to do.

I find that I use my physics-modeling abilities in my work all the time. In my personal case it is creating database plus software behavior to handle business processes. Everyone thinks it's simple and straightforward, but it really isn't. Once you get more than a dozen ideas all working in the same model, the interactions become far more complicated than most people bargain for. Very often, I demonstrate that I can offer 90-95% of what they want to have work very quickly, while the last 5% can take months/years due to the "have your cake and eat it, too" nature of many business requests.

The main difference is that instead of figuring out how black holes work, I'm figuring out how payroll and billing "ought to work." It's a different kind of black hole, but no less complicated and difficult in spite of its being rather mundane.

I've actually seen a poster made by sub-atomic physicists that used physics to model expected trends in stocks and all sorts of other business stuff. It was rather surprising that they could plot a function of something seemingly subjective using physics principles.

Here's the trick though, physics is the study of the way nature itself works. Like you said, a physicist might study black holes. It's the pure mathematical ability that comes with physics that makes them able to become useful in a variety of different areas. From experience, I've found that mathematics majors are pretty rare, most people that actually study maths only do it so that they can then take on physics. So really, the pure mathematics majors are probably even more capable of this than physicists.
 

foolish heart

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physics teaches someone to solve problems by assessing value factors and leveraging mathematical principles for specific application, math by itself has little value... physics as a major is pretty specific but the skills are so fundamental that I imagine they could drive success in quite a few things, business being the most lucrative of course.
 

uumlau

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I've actually seen a poster made by sub-atomic physicists that used physics to model expected trends in stocks and all sorts of other business stuff. It was rather surprising that they could plot a function of something seemingly subjective using physics principles.
Except for the part where computer models are mostly BS. Lots of investment firms try this. The strategies aren't noticeably better, from what I've read.

Here's the trick though, physics is the study of the way nature itself works. Like you said, a physicist might study black holes. It's the pure mathematical ability that comes with physics that makes them able to become useful in a variety of different areas. From experience, I've found that mathematics majors are pretty rare, most people that actually study maths only do it so that they can then take on physics. So really, the pure mathematics majors are probably even more capable of this than physicists.

Sort of.

Remember "word problems"? The problems where you take real world situations and turn them into math, and then solve?

Physics is the major that is best-suited to solving "word problems."

Math, especially high-end pure math, is extremely abstract, and not well-suited to the "word problems" of business.

You see a physicist doing/learning some very advanced math, and you ask him what it's for, and he can say, "Oh, this describes black holes." or "Oh, this describes how currents flow in solid-state circuitry."

Ask a mathematician what his math is for, and he'll say, "For understanding math better." [The statement has been translated into English for non-math majors.]

Business needs to solve word problems, not to understand business problems better, if you see what I mean?

[That said, math majors are recruited just as strongly as physics majors, by interested enterprises: they filter out the overly-abstract people in their own ways.]
 

Scott N Denver

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Is there anything physics doesn't go well with? No, probably not.

communication skills
PR
giving a shit about other people
recognizing and dealing with people's feeling
human factors
leadership
managerial talent
getting employed by engineering companies
people knowing or understanding what you are talking about
people liking you
people inviting you to their hot happening parties
socializing
getting out of a dark cramped lab down in the basement that people avoid
probably going to the gym
.
.
.


psychology
sociology
maybe philosophy???
business
criminal justice???
english literature
any literature for that matter
I would say math personally, at least the high level [grad school] abstract stuff

I met plenty of people studying physics while also studying it myself, as you can plainly see my opinions aren't very complimentary
 

Metamorphosis

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Yes, but I meant physics, not people who study physics.

Going to the gym not applying to physics?
 

thisGuy

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critical thinking skills.

thats what attracts wall street firms towards physicist and engineers. cuz both of these have spent at least 4 years wacking their head against the wall trying out different solutions to a problem till not only can they look at a problem and predict its nature but ALSO analyze the solution itself and write a paragraph on how to better it.

in jungian term, the closest thing to these skills is Ti.

also, i cant believe its been 4 pages and noone has mentioned critical thinking yet.
 

uumlau

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critical thinking skills.

thats what attracts wall street firms towards physicist and engineers. cuz both of these have spent at least 4 years wacking their head against the wall trying out different solutions to a problem till not only can they look at a problem and predict its nature but ALSO analyze the solution itself and write a paragraph on how to better it.

in jungian term, the closest thing to these skills is Ti.

also, i cant believe its been 4 pages and noone has mentioned critical thinking yet.

That's because there is more than one set of words to describe the same thing. I used "word problems."

As for "the closest thing to these skills is Ti": Ti is not a set of skills, it's an approach. The skills are separate, and can be used with most of the Jungian functions.
 

thisGuy

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That's because there is more than one set of words to describe the same thing. I used "word problems."

As for "the closest thing to these skills is Ti": Ti is not a set of skills, it's an approach. The skills are separate, and can be used with most of the Jungian functions.

yes i read that. word problems are a WAY of developing the skill so treasured in physicists.

this process of dissecting and analyzing the subject MOST CLOSELY resembles the way Ti is attributed with analyzing stuff.
 

uumlau

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yes i read that. word problems are a WAY of developing the skill so treasured in physicists.

this process of dissecting and analyzing the subject MOST CLOSELY resembles the way Ti is attributed with analyzing stuff.

The fruit that MOST CLOSELY resembles the sun is an orange.
 

thisGuy

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were you in my grade school class when the teacher was explaining earth's revolution and rotation phenomena?

cuz he used an orange for sun.
 
G

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Dunno. People can be much more capable than their degrees suggest.

You get training in a specific subject in a degree program, sure. But you also prove that you can learn things, think critically, and read and digest information in a meaningful way. All generally good skills to have.


Our resident astrophysicist, who has three degrees in the subject, teaches statistics in the business school and regularly helps out with business-related research. How relevant to the topic :yes:

Unfortunately, his specific training has come back to bite him at least once. He's a brilliant and extremely capable guy, and he's worked in a wide variety of areas. But he was once turned down for a proposal where he showcased some great ideas, simply because his degrees were in physics and not in the domain of the proposal's subject :doh:

Me? I'm taking a bit of a different approach. I've got degrees from three different departments, and my CV lists a wide variety of projects, ranging from business to nursing to logistics to engineering to space modeling. I'm explicitly tailoring my career path to showcase myself as a generalist at the outset.

Because, sometimes, we need to make our experiences align with our capabilities.
 

entropie

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The current german chancellor has a physics major. She spent a lot of time with a former politician, who was chancellor aswell and learnt a lot. I think if we spin that well further backwards we end up with Palpatine as the ultimate answer :D
 

speculative

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I think an economics Ph.D. would be better equipped to math out business word problems than a physics Ph.D., since that is basically what they do all day?
 
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