Resources, Energy, Heartburn for Academic Physics

John Rigden and James Stith discuss a marketing problem in the academic physics enterprise by stating, “Most academic physicists begin and end their careers in an academic setting. Thus, they have no direct knowledge about the careers that the great majority of new physicists pursue.” True enough, perhaps. However, in the very same issue of Physics Today, I counted 278 descriptions of open academic positions, spanning 38 pages of the “Information Exchange” (that is, about one-fourth of the entire magazine), but only one industrial position, whose plaintive cry for attention occupied approximately 0.07 page. Perhaps this asymmetry in the help-wanted ads of Physics Today also contributes to a perception problem among physics students regarding the nature of the careers that are out there.