The knowledge-ignorance paradox

I thought this moment would never come, but I finally passed all the steps and stages required and I've been slowy getting used to putting a Dr. in front of my name. The feeling of freedom wasn't as good as I expected: A new degree means that job hunting is around the corner and I've been asking myself many questions such as Who am I? What's my future? What do I want to do with my life? How I am going to get a job in this unfavorable economy?

I've been proceeding through elimination (which seems to be a chemistry term, but it's not in French, excuse the sketchy translation). I do not want to keep working in academia: I'm more of an engineer than a researcher. I do not want to work alone all the time or in front of a screen 50+ hours a week - not counting Internet time. I've also come to realize a paradox of the doctorate: on one hand, one's becoming extra specialized on a specific case of a sub-branch of their domain, while on the other hand, the time spent working on the specific case of a sub-branch of the domain makes having a general scientific background much harder. By that, I mean being more or less up to date on the important current topics of science. For instance, I've heard on the radio that the CERN  had some trouble with the LHC, but I'm actually more counting on The Big Bang Theory rather than Science orNature to tell me if scientists  managed to find Higgs bosons.

The specific knowledge takes over a more generalist one.

Culture is what's is left, after you've forgotten everything.

Édouard Herriot

My scientific culture was never as good than when I just graduated from my physics studies. But after all those years, is there much left besides an ability to understand and process information faster?

The most frustrating part is that I've never been surrounded by so many brilliant people than during the past few years. If I take some distance, I also realize that teaching, despite being the last thing you want to do when you have to do it, allows having a real knowledge of what you're actually researching on.

So, my program for this spring is to go back to the reading list I abandoned a while back:

• The Undercover Scientist, by Peter J. Bentley
• Des atomes dans mon café crème, by Pablo Jensen
• La physique de tous les jours, by Istvàn Berkes
• Histoire mondiale des sciences, by Colin Ronan
• Surely you're joking, Mr. Feynman, by Richard P. Feynman
• Big Bang, by Simon Singh
• Lumière et Matière, by Richard P. Feyman
• Lectures on Physics, by Richard P. Feynman

That is, a few thousands pages.

Or maybe I will just start reading Science & Vie - a good vulgarization magazine.

Plus, if I don't start reading soon, I won't have anything to blog.