Slashdot Mirror
Ask Slashdot: How To Pick Up Astronomy and Physics As an Adult?
First time accepted submitter samalex01 (1290786) writes "I'm 38, married, two young kids, and I have a nice job in the IT industry, but since I was a kid I've had this deep love and passion for astronomy and astrophysics. This love and passion though never evolved into any formal education or anything beyond just a distant fascination as I got out of high school, into college, and started going through life on more of an IT career path. So my question, now that I'm 38 is there any hope that I could start learning more about astronomy or physics to make it more than just a hobby? I don't expect to be a Carl Sagan or Neil deGrasse Tyson, but I'd love to have enough knowledge in these subjects to research and experiment to the point where I could possibly start contributing back to the field. MIT Open Courseware has some online courses for free that cover these topics, but given I can only spend maybe 10 hours a week on this would it be a pointless venture? Not to mention my mind isn't as sharp now as it was 20 years ago when I graduated high school. Thanks for any advice or suggestions."
Honestly, one of the most exciting things that I did was to take an overnight tour at Kitt Peak. They've dedicated one of their older optical telescopes that's not really adequate for leading-edge science anymore to use for public outreach, and seeing the Jovian moons so clearly was very exciting and made it easier to want to continue.
It's probably safe to accept that you'll be a consumer of science rather than a producer of it, but that's okay. Go camping with a large telescope and enjoy the world. Buy books or programs that let you track the objects of the night sky. Look at what NASA, the ESA, and IAU release.
If you're lucky you'll identify a new asteroid or comet.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
I went to an Ivy League school, and we actually had a professional astronomer visit and beg us not to try to get a job in the field! There are NO jobs in the field, at least paying jobs.
Look up "Galaxy Zoo". You can start contributing today.
As for classes, start reading. Find out which books are used for the courses and buy the books and read them even if you cannot take the courses.
Hit the local community college. At one class per term you can brush up on math and after that's all fresh take a physics/chemistry/astronomy class as you deem appropriate. Once you have the basics down then move on to the MOOCs at least that's my plan.
Brush up on calculus. Without math, astrophysics, well, anything, really, is just playing with Legos. Khan Academy or a million other sites can assist your math textbook self-study. From there, get an Astrophysics "required courses" guide from a university and have at. Oh, be sure to skip the humanities and other useless classes. O:-)
I can't give you any specific advice, but maybe a local astronomy club?
I know one of the people who discovered Hale-Bopp is a gifted amateur, and I'm quite certain lots of stuff by amateurs happens which is pretty cool.
In fact, I get the impression lots of amateurs can give coverage which the "pros" can't really do just because of the sheer number of amateurs.
Good luck with it. Hopefully people can point you at more concrete stuff, but you'd hardly be the first amateur who contributed something to the field if you get there.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
The Teaching Company has some awesome courses on those topics. Link: http://www.thegreatcourses.com... They are taught by college professors and intended for audiences of educated adults, but not those who have majored in the topics of interest. These are a good place to start. With 10 hours a week to watch these, you can pick up quite a bit of background and then go from there. I've watched dozens of their courses and am always impressed! You can often find them used on Amazon for much cheap, and I've even seen them at my local library.
1) Find your local planetarium and get involved. They may need/want volunteers to conduct shows, etc.
2) Find a local community college that offers an AA in astronomy or similar field.
Now, these may be unreliable for you, but the community college I work at has both an AA for astronomy, one for physics (both for transferring to a state university) but we also have a kick ass planetarium that is managed by one of the new Star Gazers. So, at least if you are in N Florida, it could work.
Don't blame me, I voted for Kodos
It's unlikely you can make the transition to working in the field without some really major sacrifices. (And if you do, it will probably be more on the computational side.) But if you love it for it's own sake I'd suggest talking to local labs and seeing if you can get involved in any projects - especially projects where you can work remotely at least part of the time, since your time is limited. And as a volunteer, you often get to avoid some of the more tedious bits that people who are being paid have to work on. My experience is that people with solid computer skills are needed, and people who will work are needed, and there's way more cool work to be done than there are money and people to do it.
And, of course, if there are any opportunities for you to work in a paid capacity, you'll be in the perfect position to hear about them.
I made the transition from tech to computational biochemistry to neurobio - but I had a lot of stock options, and I've been willing to become a grad student, and live mostly like a grad student, which is hard to do when you have a family. And while biomed funding has been cut, there's a lot more of it out there to begin with.
(I'm not generically saying that people should work for free, BTW. I know for me, research turned out to be what I wanted to be doing when I wasn't worrying about money. Though, um, then there were a couple of stock market crashes...)
I can only spend maybe 10 hours a week on this
Since you already have a full life, something would have to give. The amount of time you estimate to be available would get to hobby level: the same as the other thousands of amateur astronomers in the country. But it's not enough to do any serious studying, get qualified or do research to a publishable quality.
politicians are like babies' nappies: they should both be changed regularly and for the same reasons
As a family man, finding a topic that can involve the kids may fit into your life better. If you like making, optical telescopes can be rewarding. There's the optics, telescope manufacturing and sky trackers (robotics). Nowadays digital photography goes with telescopes.
If you really want to contribute peripherally, there are lots of open data sets. Contributing code is especially useful.
I recommend "The Theoretical Minimum" books as a good starter to get you through to the level of mathematics needed to be able to read the quantum math and vector/tensor calculus used in field equations. Statistical calculus also.
Once you have these under your belt, comprehending the real physics textbooks and papers will be unlocked.
This stuff is not hard are impenetrable, but the language is if you don't know it. The language isn't hard or impenetrable. E.G. Vector calculus is much simpler that algebra. Just find a good book or teacher that doesn't blind you with procedure over concepts.
I should use this sig to advertise my book ISBN-13 : 978-1501515132.
PhD candidate here: are you in the 434 or 919 areas? If so, tell me and I we'll get coffee and see if setting up scheduled lunches gets us somewhere.
If not, Craigslist. Type "physics" or "physicist" in the meetup section of Craigslist and you'll find lots of budding graduate students or new professors that live to meet people like you.
I recall hearing a few stories about amateur astronomers and/or teams detecting exoplanets. See this previous Slashdot article, for example:
http://science.slashdot.org/st...
Is this the kind of thing that you're interested in?
I've been a physics professor at a large public university for 22 years, and have taught many introductory classes. (Yes, we are innovating our teaching with new techniques -- different question.)
You will never learn anything by reading books or watching videos. The only way to learn physics is by working problems. Hard problems, that make you sweat, and lots of them. But you can do this, and with the online resources you could be successful. Also you can pace yourself.
Ten hours per week is one class. Start with calculus based mechanics, (kinematics, Newton's laws, work-energy theorem, conservation of momentum, energy, and angular momentum.) If you can do the problems in a standard university physics book, then move on to electricity and magnetism. If you get through that and you don't think Maxwell's equations are the most awesome thing ever, then stop.
Also, never be afraid to learn your math in a physics course. It's the best way.
Good luck! You could really enjoy this if you will truly work at it for 10 hours per week as you suggest. But like dieting, you have to commit.
—George
You mentioned online courses. There are plenty of good quality ones these days. Some you're expected to work to a particular schedule, some you can do at your own pace. 10 hours a week is plenty.
Wrong! Unless you have early onset Alzheimer's, your brain can be as sharp or sharper than it was in high school. I'm 49 and doing 2nd year university math, physics and statistics and I'm MUCH better at any of them than I was when I graduated high school.
Suggestions:
1. Join an astronomy club (mentioned above, but I'd reinforce it). See the wonder, gain experience and confidence from others.
2. Buy a small telescope with a motorized mount and learn to do some astrophotography
3. Do a course or two on edX or coursera - the way to get better at running is to run, the way to get better at science is to do science.
4. Reading books is good. Doing what the book says is much better.
Your mind is saying "feed me" so go feed it. You won't regret it.
Tubby or not tubby. Fat is the question
Kerbal Space Program
Don't do it, man! You'll have a hard time finding a good (read interesting) job without a PhD and with a PhD, you'll be out of work at 50. And you'll be bitter. Oh, and that PhD needs to be from a top ten university and you need to work for a big name and you'll have to work a lot harder than you think unless you're real smart. Oh, you'll also have to do a post-doc at an even better university and with an even more famous professor. If you're real smart and lucky you can make six-figures. Maybe, till you turn 50. Then you have to find something else to do. Or maybe you can get an academic job and you'll have to work 80 hours/week for 5 to 7 years after that post-doc till you get tenure, if you do. If you don't then you start over. And you may never make six-figures. It's a lot harder to be a happy chemist these days.
The best place to start is by connecting with other people who share the same passions as you. I've similarly been fascinated by astronomy since I was a young child. A few years ago I rekindled my interest by buying a telescope and joining a club in Pittsburgh. I learned more from a few casual conversations with members than I had in months and months of reading and practicing on my own. Now I practice astrophotography and engage in lots of educational and community outreach events, and I owe just about everything to the club I joined. Best of luck, and clear skies!
Quite frankly, one of the options that I frequently see underrated is simply helping out a professor.
As an example, my local university (University of Central Florida) was hiring for a position in IT support for exoplanet discovery.
http://planets.ucf.edu/people/...
http://planets.ucf.edu/researc...
They were looking for someone with a background in IT/process managment/cloudsourcing to help with keeping their cluster computing infrastructure up/functional. I'm sure that they would have accepted a "volunteer" at 50% of the pay who had IT experience (even if only 10 hours/week).
You can get surprising results by simply walking down to the state college during a professor's office hours and asking if they would like any help. You will learn a lot, and will be more useful than the undergraduates.
. . . and drawing conclusions. Most of astrophysics is creating models based on a deep understanding of the physics involved in astronomical objects. In both cases, it boils down primarily to having a good understanding of the physics of what you are doing and being good with computer programming and analyzing data.
The barrier for entry is theoretically really low, because most people have a fast computer. But can you really learn years of physics and astronomy as well as analytical techniques on your own? Quite possibly, especially if you already took the whole lower division math and physics courses as part of another degree (3 Semesters of Physics, 3 semesters of calculus, differential equations, linear algebra, computer programming for science and engineering, statistics). A lot of astronomy is done with the data already available from first class telescopes such as the Hubble and you could probably read all the basic undergraduate and introductory graduate texts on your own.
On the other hand, if you're coming into the field with no background in math and physics, it's going to be tough to read books full of differential equations, triple integrals, and electromechanics. Could you learn all that math and physics background on your own? Possibly, but you'd probably be best served with night school at the JC.
On the other hand, amateur astronomy can be fun. You can collaborate with professional astronomers on projects, and you can learn at your own pace without getting bogged down in the details right away. It is a lot more fun to look at Orion nebula through a 12" scope than it is to calibrate it for spectroscopy or photometry and analyze the data.
Start reading it. They go through the basics and have articles on how amateurs can contribute to research.
But you really need to limit your expectations. Observational astronomy (even amateur-style) requires several hours of daytime prep work, followed by 1-2 hours of equipment setup and familiarization, before you even embark in a 3-4 hour observation run. After an observing run, you might have another 2-10 hours of data processing to do.
If you have a wife, two kids, and a day job, you will get pretty tired pretty quick.
Good equipment (solid mount, high quality telescope, imaging system, star stracker) is not cheap either and, sadly, most people need to invest in or borrow good equipment before they can really evaluate if they like it or if they want to stick with it.
I was an astronomer until I left the field last year after I graduated with my PhD. First, I definitely think it's great you want to contribute to research. My personal suggestion is to find a local astronomy club and see what they're doing. Find some books, news articles, etc... to read. That will hopefully give you a decent introduction. If you live near a university with a decent astrophysics program, you can also see if they have any public lectures or, if you want something more intense, attend seminars (though they're typically during the day). They're typically open to the public, but you should probably e-mail first just to double check. There are also things like Galaxy Zoo and similar projects that let you get involved without any commitment.
If you want to get more serious, you should think about what you want to do. Do you want to do any research? Participate in volunteer activities? Just go observing? For the latter, local astronomy clubs (or star parties) would be a good first start. Some of the big observatories also have programs for amateur observing. Mauna Kea is absolutely amazing for this - every night at the visitor center they bring out some decent sized telescopes (decent sized for seeing with your eyes) and there's usually a bunch of volunteers to help understand what they're pointing them at. Oftentimes dedicated amateurs will come up as well with even bigger telescopes and are happy to share. You also sometimes get professional astronomers who hang out there (like I did a few nights) though the amateurs are usually better at describing what you're seeing (professional astronomy is all about physics - not pretty images).
If you live near a big observatory (mostly southwest US, California, or Hawaii) you can also try to volunteer to be a docent there or something similar. Many of the observatories have some program for volunteers to help lead tours, attend public talks by researchers, and similar. The more dedicated volunteers get some perks, like joining for observing runs, seeing some of the behind-the-scenes things at the telescopes, and similar.
On the research side, it's a lot harder and a lot more investment (time, money, or both). To be able to do semi-independent research in astronomy you'd need to basically do a PhD. That's 40-50 hours a week (at least) for 5-7 years. It's hard. You can do more limited things though. For example, the AAVSO (American Association of Variable Star Observers) is a great organization that organizes observing of variable stars and provides some support to write up the results. Amateur data has been used in many papers. But, this requires having your own telescope that can take scientific quality images. You can also work on data analysis, but this will definitely require some time to understand how to do it. I'd also point out that most people underestimate how hard it is to write a scientific paper. Especially your first one.
As for going into it professionally, I agree with others who have said there are few jobs in the field. Especially if you have a family, it would be very hard to start from scratch.
It's been proposed that it takes about 10,000 hours to get really good at anything. At 10 hours per week, 40 weeks a year (dropped to 40 to account for breaks), equals 400 hours a year. 10,000 / 400 = 25 years. So, if you keep at it, by the time you get to be about retirement age you would be at the point where you could contribute back to the field. Plus, on retirement, you could dedicate more time...
Some things take less than 10,000 hours to master. However, astronomy is a wide open concept with a lot of moving parts (literally)...
Good luck and, most important of all, have fun....