What does a physicist do daily?
So I'm considering becoming a physicist, I'm not sure of what branch of physics yet, leaning towards theoretical. I know what physicists do long-term, but I am curious to know what they do each day. If any physicists answer this question, it would be great for you to walk me through your work-day. All answers appreciated
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A physicist could work in any area using his education.. it could be science education law finance.
On daily basis you can not find excitement. You will need to convince yourself that your doing something important. You may wonder why your teachers have such big ego that make it sound they are the most important individuals in the science:)
What physicists in science do ..they spend tax payers money
trying to justify promises to deliver cutting edge technologies that will change the future in which they hardly believe. But once in while it works.
In the other areas they are commercially oriented so they make money
My day began when I drove to work at about 7 AM to reach the National Lab where I was a young Research Associate. And as I worked in the lab's main administrative building, I occasionally rode up the elevator with Ed. Teller, the father of the H-bomb for the U.S. I always thought that was cool.
After grabbing a cup of coffee and a donut at the cafeteria, I set about working on my current project. In the beginning they were other peoples' projects that I assisted them with. But after about six months I started my own, which lasted four years and got published in the lab's journal.
Reading and modeling the physics in my project was what I did mostly. I modeled a real-time simulation of an end-game between two weapon systems (their's and ours). And then used the simulation to run trials and develop tactics to enhance the outcomes in our favor. The physics entailed under water acoustics, fluid dynamics, strength and materials, and a lot of probability distributions.
So daily, after coffee and the donut, it was read a little, program a little, and test a little; slowly building up a very comprehensive real-time simulation that generated movies, graphs, and tables of the one on one end game encounters. And then when I had sufficient data from my simulations, it was time to write up the results and recommendations based on them. And that meant a lot of writing, graph building, and tables.