Student seeking guidance

[Lumko]

Please excuse me if this is in the wrong forum area. I attempted to fit it in the best I could.

 

I am a high school student that is interested in a career in research in some area of science. I am not certain which field I would like to go into.

 

I am not sure how to begin exploring these interests. The kind of material I am learning now is a bit frustrating. I feel like the way we learn science in school is a bit superficial. For example, we learn that electrons like to be in groups of eight to be “stable,” causing certain atoms to bond to one another. There are subatomic particles, like protons that have a positive charge, and negatively charged electrons that fly around in these crazy shapes and patterns. But I am unsatisfied with this, as I do not really understand the concepts beyond the context in which they explain it. What is charge? What specifically causes these particles to behave the way they do? I would like to fully understand the concepts and how these things actually work in life, not what seems like analogies or simplifications or explanations that are very incomplete.

 

It seems like much of the written material available to me is like this. Other books seem too advanced and beyond my current level of experience. Similarly, reading scientific articles can be interesting, but at the same time unsatisfying as I understand very little of the specific details that allowed the researchers to build their conclusions.

 

I have a good amount of time explore this area of interest, but I am not sure what the best way for me to use it is as a high school student. From what I’ve read, it seems like I would have to learn classical mechanics and then move onto subjects in quantum mechanics and electromagnetism to get the level of understanding I am looking for. But I wouldn’t know where to start or what books to look for. It seems like that also might be an inefficient use of my time at this point. Am I looking at this in the wrong way?

 

I guess the question of this post is: What is the best way for me to start learning more about science?

[Klaynos]

You've asked some quite deep and complex questions there as for what is charge and why do orbitals exist as they do. The second part of this is quite well understood now and if you do a good college course in quantum mechanics you will cover this (I'm a third year in the UK doing physics and we studied this last semester if very great depth).

 

Haver you tried talking to your science teacher about it?

 

If I where you I'd read some of the popular science QM books there are several around, I think Penrose has written some.

 

But yes you'd need to know classical mechanics, and alot more maths than you already do to get a good understanding. There is a book which I like,

 

http://www.amazon.com/Quantum-Mechanics-Alastair-I-M-Rae/dp/0750302178

 

You're probably not at a point where you could understand it so no point buying it yet, but see if you can find a copy in a library and just have a flick through it.

[foodchain]

Please excuse me if this is in the wrong forum area. I attempted to fit it in the best I could.

 

I am a high school student that is interested in a career in research in some area of science. I am not certain which field I would like to go into.

 

I am not sure how to begin exploring these interests. The kind of material I am learning now is a bit frustrating. I feel like the way we learn science in school is a bit superficial. For example, we learn that electrons like to be in groups of eight to be “stable,” causing certain atoms to bond to one another. There are subatomic particles, like protons that have a positive charge, and negatively charged electrons that fly around in these crazy shapes and patterns. But I am unsatisfied with this, as I do not really understand the concepts beyond the context in which they explain it. What is charge? What specifically causes these particles to behave the way they do? I would like to fully understand the concepts and how these things actually work in life, not what seems like analogies or simplifications or explanations that are very incomplete.

 

It seems like much of the written material available to me is like this. Other books seem too advanced and beyond my current level of experience. Similarly, reading scientific articles can be interesting, but at the same time unsatisfying as I understand very little of the specific details that allowed the researchers to build their conclusions.

 

I have a good amount of time explore this area of interest, but I am not sure what the best way for me to use it is as a high school student. From what I’ve read, it seems like I would have to learn classical mechanics and then move onto subjects in quantum mechanics and electromagnetism to get the level of understanding I am looking for. But I wouldn’t know where to start or what books to look for. It seems like that also might be an inefficient use of my time at this point. Am I looking at this in the wrong way?

 

I guess the question of this post is: What is the best way for me to start learning more about science?

 

I am pretty much where you are at save for I would imagine age and place. I find all of it interesting but harbor the same ideas that you do that such is not complete. Furthermore that fields like physics have gone off to marvelous ideas such as string theory and have seemed to put less and less attention into solving atomic structure and function down to the smallest particle.

 

For me, or my idea of how to better understand it in terms of available material I try to find articles or books writing by quantum chemists, quantum physics, don’t know why the separate but hey, solid state & nuclear physics. Basically to me it should be able to reach to every area, if physics is still studying energy and matter + the interactions of such, but it does not seem like such at all times. Particle physics is still alive and well though, and it should be another prime area of interest for such, I had made a thread a few days back attempting to find all the areas people may know of that study energy/matter interactions simply because I thought it would be the best way to study atomic structure function, or at least a prime way.

[Gypsy Cake]

I am in a similar situation to you (Lumko) and Foodchain I would say, except I'm in my first year in sixth form college, though I suppose you may in sixth form at High school.

Personally, I loved physics when I was in High school and just sort of read bits of books from library,: string Theory, Steven Hawking, new scientist magazine. Really at sort of 15/16 you don't need to know the details. It's best to just ease into, get a taste for all the ideas that are about.

I've only just started looking at specific areas of physics, because I'm applying to uni. Physics at AS is rubbish btw but I think it starts to get better after that. Chemistry is amazing, if you wanna find out more about electron shells and interaction stuff then pick that.

 

Sorry if your already at A-level, all of that will be irrelevant but send me a message and we'll chat.

[Klaynos]

Hi Gypsy Cake, it's a good idea to go to general uni open days in your first year of college. And fyi, in the US high school is basically the same as FE College in the UK (Sixth form).

 

I'm at Exeter doing a Physics degree, if you want good books to read (the one I linked above is great, also the road to reality is supposed to be good but I'm yet to find the time to read it), or whether articles are accurate from stuff you read online don't fear to post

[dstebbins]

Well, keep in mind he said he wanted a CAREER, and I'm exactly like him. I want to research things and try to figure out unexplained phenomina, so I believe I'm in a good position to answer this question.

 

I'm majoring in physics later this year. My emphasis is on theoretical physics. For you, your emphasis should be quantum mechanics, which is the study of subatomic particles. Then, when you get your Ph.D (this is important. A bachelor's, or even a Master's, just won't do. The job market in science is too competitive to settle for anything less that the very best education), you need to get a job as a professor at a University. That's what most of these "scientists" do for their full-time living. Very rarely will you find a scientist who earsn his entire living from research. Most of them have a day job outside the lab, and for most people, that day job is a college science professor.

 

Hope this helps.

[Klaynos]

Well, keep in mind he said he wanted a CAREER, and I'm exactly like him. I want to research things and try to figure out unexplained phenomina, so I believe I'm in a good position to answer this question.

 

I'm majoring in physics later this year. My emphasis is on theoretical physics. For you, your emphasis should be quantum mechanics, which is the study of subatomic particles. Then, when you get your Ph.D (this is important. A bachelor's, or even a Master's, just won't do. The job market in science is too competitive to settle for anything less that the very best education), you need to get a job as a professor at a University. That's what most of these "scientists" do for their full-time living. Very rarely will you find a scientist who earsn his entire living from research. Most of them have a day job outside the lab, and for most people, that day job is a college science professor.

 

Hope this helps.

 

To UKify this a general physics degree with a quantum emphasys. And professor at university, should probably be a research post at a university, which will be mostly research probably with some teaching depending on where you work, and your exact position. Here the top ranks do some teaching, the middle do most of it, and the bottom do mostly labs teaching.

[dstebbins]

To UKify this a general physics degree with a quantum emphasys. And professor at university, should probably be a research post at a university, which will be mostly research probably with some teaching depending on where you work, and your exact position. Here the top ranks do some teaching, the middle do most of it, and the bottom do mostly labs teaching.

 

Well, judging by the fact that he used the term "high school," I assume he's in the United States.

[Klaynos]

Well, judging by the fact that he used the term "high school," I assume he's in the United States.

 

Yes, but just incase people from the UK read it... as I know one probably will....

[Severian]

Well, judging by the fact that he used the term "high school," I assume he's in the United States.

 

Why would you assume that? High school is also a UK expression.

[Comandante]

Please excuse me if this is in the wrong forum area. I attempted to fit it in the best I could.

 

I am a high school student that is interested in a career in research in some area of science. I am not certain which field I would like to go into.

 

I am not sure how to begin exploring these interests. The kind of material I am learning now is a bit frustrating. I feel like the way we learn science in school is a bit superficial. For example, we learn that electrons like to be in groups of eight to be “stable,” causing certain atoms to bond to one another. There are subatomic particles, like protons that have a positive charge, and negatively charged electrons that fly around in these crazy shapes and patterns. But I am unsatisfied with this, as I do not really understand the concepts beyond the context in which they explain it. What is charge? What specifically causes these particles to behave the way they do? I would like to fully understand the concepts and how these things actually work in life, not what seems like analogies or simplifications or explanations that are very incomplete.

 

It seems like much of the written material available to me is like this. Other books seem too advanced and beyond my current level of experience. Similarly, reading scientific articles can be interesting, but at the same time unsatisfying as I understand very little of the specific details that allowed the researchers to build their conclusions.

 

I have a good amount of time explore this area of interest, but I am not sure what the best way for me to use it is as a high school student. From what I’ve read, it seems like I would have to learn classical mechanics and then move onto subjects in quantum mechanics and electromagnetism to get the level of understanding I am looking for. But I wouldn’t know where to start or what books to look for. It seems like that also might be an inefficient use of my time at this point. Am I looking at this in the wrong way?

 

I guess the question of this post is: What is the best way for me to start learning more about science?

 

I can answer most of your questions.

 

As for trying to understand a lot in high school, especially if you live in a country where you need to get a good end result to be able to get into a university, don't bother. All you need to do is make sure that you get to university, to BSc (Science) course meeting all the prerequisites. I've tried to understand everything to depth in high school and that has cost me a lot, I would spend heaps of time on single topic researching further to satisfy my logical reasoning (like you said the idea about electrons sounded absurd in high school) and I did this for almost all my subjects. This has caused me too much work and eventually I ran out of time in trying to cover other basic concepts, and as a consequence did not prepare for my final exams properly. Luckily this didn't happen with all my subjects, in fact, the subjects that didn't really interest me gained me the most 'points' for my entrance score and that's what got me to university, otherwise I would've stayed another year in high school.

 

Once you get to university then it's all good. Take a science course and pick yourself whatever you like, you will have enough time to research things in depth because there is less subjects/units to study at university in a single semester and that will allow you to spend more time on certain things. The prescribed textbooks will have almost all the information you need and explanations, and this part is important, explanations will start from high school science, for example, in a few lectures you will go from 'what is chemistry' to orbital angular momentum. Everything will start to fit in if you have interest in science. In further years you can decide what path you want to do choose.

 

However, don't take my "dont need to know anything" philosophy and go home and do nothing, make sure you at least 'mechanically' learn how to follow examples and do what they ask you, even if you find it hard to understand due to the lack of in-depth explanations, it will all be compensated for you at uni level.

 

BUT, you should try and understand the philosophy of science in general terms and I think the best way to "get into" science and know what you really want is to start realizing the connections between all different sciences, watch documentaries, they're usually interesting and entertaining and you can look up some books but don't waste too much time on them.

 

Good skills to bring with you from high school would definitely be stuff like algebra, bit of calculus, balancing chemical equations, bit of electrochemistry and organics, basic understand of some physical laws and depending if you want to do biology, a bit of basics from there, but in general, you should cover it all from the start at university, and even if you don't, usually every uni textbook has first 15-20+ pages dedicated to 'revision' of what you're supposed to know, usually in much better context than books designed for high school.

 

I'm in my second year, in Australia, so if anything of what I said is different (like number of units per sem etc) in your country then I apologize, but basic ideas which I discussed still count. I wish someone told me all this when I was in high school! Luckily I got where I wanted to be, gradually but firmly.

 

To conclude, you don't have enough time to fully learn and understand electromagnetics, quantum physics or synthetic organic chemistry (or anything else along those lines) in high school, you're better off concentrating at gaining high marks so you can get into university, once you get there you're all good. You can choose to do whatever you like and study to whatever depth you want. Even if you find that science isn't the area you want to base your career upon you can always change to a new course in second year, or even transfer to another university. All options are open. But if you spend too much time on these things now, and you fail to get into university, then you will have to repeat your last year of high school or whatever and I assure you, that will be extremely boring! (As far as I'm concerned it's better to get into any course at university than do one year of high school again, for one thing you will have gained uni experience and for another it won't be nowhere near as boring as if you had to repeat a year)

 

Cheers.

[Gypsy Cake]

I'm less qualified than all these lot because I'm in the same position as you. I'm taking note of what their saying at the same time. Everything Sysco said sounds very helpful but I still plan to look into stuff I'm interested in. There's no reason why we have to know all the details but if all you do is high school/college physics you'll get bored, with out a doubt.

On a further point, if I was you I would continue to participate in this site. I've been on for about a week and I've learnt so much about physics, maths, philosophy, arguing, politics, economics; just by saying what I think and reading the responses.

[Comandante]

Everything Sysco said sounds very helpful but I still plan to look into stuff I'm interested in. There's no reason why we have to know all the details but if all you do is high school/college physics you'll get bored, with out a doubt.

On a further point, if I was you I would continue to participate in this site. I've been on for about a week and I've learnt so much about physics, maths, philosophy, arguing, politics, economics; just by saying what I think and reading the responses.

 

Yes, that's very important that you mentioned that, SFN is a great resource, as you can see I've been on the site since 2005 (final year of my high school!). And another thing I forgot to mention is that you can of course spend time reading about quantum physics for example if you want instead of the time you would've otherwise spent watching TV or playing games, but be careful, sometimes you can get tired from all the reading and then you can't do your normal school work. I know 'cause I've been there recently