Do You Think You Might Like to be a Scientist?

Dewey LawsonPhysicist

Professor at Duke University

What is Physics?

• “The study of matter and motion.” [stuff and how it moves]

• Matter --“Stuff” -- can be tiny particles smaller than atoms, or basketballs, bicycles, living plants or animals, planets, or giant galaxies of stars. Matter can be solid, liquid, gas, or something more strange. It can be very cold or very hot, or any temperature in between.

Are you . . .

• Curious, eager to learn new things?• Skeptical --always questioning the

explanations people give you?• Willing to change your mind as soon as

someone shows you were wrong about something?

• Patient about finding something out, not getting discouraged quickly?

Do people say you are . . .

• Creative?• Imaginative?• Do you like to think up experiments?• Do you keep track of the difference between

what you think is right and what your experiments prove is true?

• Do you really like math a lot?

Would you like to

• Be an explorer?• Discover new things?• Be a detective?• Prove you were right about something, but be

just as happy if the answer turned out to be a complete surprise?

Do you appreciate “artistic” things like . . .

• Beauty?• Symmetry and patterns?• Simplicity?• Elegance?

Would it be awesome . . .

• To one day realize that you had discovered something that no one else in the whole world knew?

• Then rush to tell everyone what you had learned and invite them to do their own experiments to prove you wrong?

Do You Like the Idea of . . .

• “Standing on the shoulders of giants” (all the scientists who came before you) to add something to what people have managed to learn here on Earth.

Kinds of Research

• Basic or Applied• Theoretical or Experimental (By yourself with

a pencil or a computer, or in a big lab full of complicated equipment with the help of lots of other scientists)

• There are MANY questions we don’t yet know the answers to, or only have complicated answers rather than simple and elegant ones.

Education

• Elementary School• Middle School• High School• Four-year College (not JUST science)• Graduate School (usually for a Ph.D.)• Postdoctoral Fellowship• Continue learning as you teach others

Useful Skills

• All kinds of math• Knowledge of computers, including how to

program them (write code for them)• Expressing yourself in words (written and

spoken) and, especially, explaining things using pictures.

Thank you, Nottingham Knights!