What about Physicists?

Physicists are clearly motivated to advance physics and its associated technologies and they derive great pleasure from this activity. This pleasure can result from many aspects of their work from the joy of solving a problem or developing a theory and so increasing understanding, from creating a new piece of apparatus or technique, from seeing the technological benefit of their work and, understandably, from external recognition of their standing and prestige they are only human. The skills they develop as physicists can be described as problem solving, visionary, organizational, quantitative, communicative (with each other and, increasingly, with laypersons) and presentational. These latter skills arise since physics, indeed all science, advances most effectively when ideas, theories, techniques etc are shared and discussed both informally in seminars and lectures at institutions and at conferences together, of course, with the circulation and publication of papers as preprints (preliminary unpublished versions of papers), in journals and on the internet. These qualities and skills of physicists mean that they are well equipped to undertake a variety of tasks and careers. A high proportion of those who train initially as physicists embark on very different successful careers in business, finance and administration. Not least important are their problem solving, quantitative and communication skills which are highly valued in many professional activities. This is not to say that other qualitative human attributes, feelings and perceptions are suppressed. In particular they are very conscious that many technological developments resulting from the advance of physics have a downside to them witness nuclear weapons, and the disposal of radioactive waste. Here many physicists have played an important role nationally and internationally, through organizations such as Pug wash (an international organization of scientists concerned with the control of developments in the area of nuclear energy and nuclear weapons), in trying to deal with such important moral and political issues. Neither is religious faith necessarily diminished by increasing confidence in the correctness of fundamental physical theories. The spectrum of beliefs of individual physicists, as in most other professions, spans atheism, humanism and agnosticism through to devout belief in the existence of God. They are much the same as everyone else. However the important thing that their training and experience as physicists brings to bear on their activities in life is a desire to understand what is happening in terms of more fundamental concepts, to seek a rational analysis of events and, not least, to use quantitative methods wherever appropriate. They recognize that physics is not the solution to everything but, nevertheless, see it is as the basic science for achieving understanding of the physical universe in which they live.