So what do theoretical physicists do with their work day?

Of course, here I can only speak for myself and those people whom I have discussed work. I feel like the Big Bang Theory has given folks the wrong idea about physics research. Among some of the greater sins of the show are the idea that a scientist hops from producing publishable research in one field of physics to another within what is seemingly the time of a week. I hate to tell you but most of us have enough trouble with just a single research programme.

Here then are some of my thoughts on the differences between the reality of physics research and how it is often presented.

I spend most of my time annoyed or frustrated.

... However, when research is coming together it is very intoxicating. It feels like running down a gauntlet but every time something tries to hit you then you manage a matrix style leap around the obstacle.

Of course then you have to write it up in a paper. If you think writing a homework assignment is hard then just wait until you have to write a research paper... I have also reviewed a few papers, so I have some sympathy for the underappreciated referee. So far, my acceptance to rejection ratio is 1:2.

On a side note, in my opinion, "the paper" is not a great format for the dissemination of knowledge, in part because it is not a living document. As you get new ideas or better understanding it is currently not possible to go back and edit a published paper to better reflect this. The arXiv somewhat allows people to make replacements, maintaining old versions of a paper, but only up to five replacements last time I checked. Thus, if your improved perspective does not warrant the publication of a new paper, then it will never be recorded; unless you have the opportunity to write a book.

Wormholes, higher dimensions, warp drives and all that stuff sound cool but research that is interesting to other theoretical physicists either sounds like gobbledegook or isn't that interesting outside of physics.

That the research sounds like gobbledegook is not so hard to understand. After all, theoretical physics is a highly complicated field with a lot of mathematical content so it is necessary to be very familiar with somewhat bizarre sounding terms. But what may be surprising is that things like wormholes and warpdrives are just not that interesting as topics of research.

You may be thinking that your taxes, tuition fees and so on are spent on providing theoretical physicists a basic living wage so that they can teach physics to useful folks like engineers and such. What you may not know is that a good portion of the research scientists I have spoken to:

1. Hate teaching and consider it as interfering with their "real" job.

2. Generally do not get hired on the basis of anything to do with teaching (research scientists hire other research scientists and count teaching skills as very low on their list of priorities for jobs).

3. Are not very good teachers (they're often too smart to understand the problems that an average student will face).

So, the good news first. I have observed that point (3) tends to get better with teachers who have taught the same course for a while. I have often heard from theoretical physicists who are teaching something new that they were very surprised that students had problems with such-and-such an idea (I am looking at you mechanics of rotation and thermodynamics). In large classes however, the same difficulties tend to recur from one year to the next and any teacher who puts forth even the mildest amount of effort can fix that problem. Of course, there will be a rare few who don't care because they are either exceptional researchers or have gotten some form of tenure and now consider teaching beneath them. In most places I have been to however getting a permanent faculty job depends both on getting research grants and teaching.