They (professors) either focus as much as they can on teaching, mentoring (while treading their tenure status as carefully as they can). Others publishing papers do safe but small improvements in their field, in my experience, they tend to be more observational-data driven, working on surveys. It's not useless by any degree, but... they could be doing a lot more.
99% is definitely an exaggeration, I apologize. The good astrophysics researchers, imo, are focusing on improving college-level physics education, pushing breaking-edge experimental results, making sense of large-scale survey results, and working on the next big simulation run. Younger departments with younger professors tend be pushing the envelope more, we might see a industry cleanup in my lifetime.
Most research is boring incremental stuff, and very often you will find a dejected or disappointed individual that realizes this. The invention of relativity only made one scientist a household name. I guess everyone else that came before and after were doing nothing at all.
There's a scene in Good Will Hunting where the two professors talk about Will [0] and Sean (Robin Williams) says it's "There's more to life than a fucking Fields medal". Both are correct but there's only a few names in history that will be remembered as "The Greats".
They (professors) either focus as much as they can on teaching, mentoring (while treading their tenure status as carefully as they can). Others publishing papers do safe but small improvements in their field, in my experience, they tend to be more observational-data driven, working on surveys. It's not useless by any degree, but... they could be doing a lot more.
99% is definitely an exaggeration, I apologize. The good astrophysics researchers, imo, are focusing on improving college-level physics education, pushing breaking-edge experimental results, making sense of large-scale survey results, and working on the next big simulation run. Younger departments with younger professors tend be pushing the envelope more, we might see a industry cleanup in my lifetime.
Most research is boring incremental stuff, and very often you will find a dejected or disappointed individual that realizes this. The invention of relativity only made one scientist a household name. I guess everyone else that came before and after were doing nothing at all.
But it's just par for the course.
Nicolaus Copernicus (19 February 1473 – 24 May 1543)
Sir Isaac Newton (4 January [O.S. 25 December] 1643 – 31 March [O.S. 20 March] 1727)
Albert Einstein (14 March 1879 – 18 April 1955)
This is obviously a cut down list just to make a point that big ideas don't come around every day. Sometimes, it takes a few hundred years in between.
I know a few more household names but he's right.
There's a scene in Good Will Hunting where the two professors talk about Will [0] and Sean (Robin Williams) says it's "There's more to life than a fucking Fields medal". Both are correct but there's only a few names in history that will be remembered as "The Greats".
[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AjXgJ1gneK8