ACTIONS
1997INTER ACTIONS
1997
Alumni Corner: What I got out of Physics...and How
by Bob Englemore
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Bob Englemore received his B.S. and Ph.D. degrees in physics from Carnegie Mellon University. He is senior research scientist and executive director of the Knowledge Systems Lab, an artificial intelligence research laboratory within the Department of Computer Sciences at Stanford University. |
As a physicist I switched from the research I did at Carnegie Tech on neutron transport theory to computational physics applied to ballistic missile defense problems. After nine years as a computational physicist simulating the effects of nuclear weapons used to defend against ballistic missiles, I left physics and took up artificial intelligence research at Stanford University, where I worked on a variety of applications of AI problem solving methods. I then took a two-year leave of absence from Stanford to serve as a program manager at DARPA, after which I joined a startup company that developed expert systems, and then returned to AI research at Stanford, where I am today. I also had the opportunity to be the editor-in-chief of AI Magazine, a position that I held for 10 years. I have never regretted giving up what I was doing to explore these new avenues as they were presented to me.
The second message was that no matter what road you take later in life, your education as a physicist is an excellent preparation for a professional life either in or out of physics, particularly if your subsequent career requires solving problems (and what career doesn't?). A physics education gives one not only a knowledge of the behavior of the physical world, but more importantly the ability and sense of confidence to take on, analyze and frequently solve a wide variety of challenging problems in biology, medicine, engineering and information processing, to mention a few. After leaving physics and entering computer science, I worked on a variety of applications, in analytic organic chemistry, protein crystallography, structural analysis, problem-solving architectures, computer configuration, device modeling, among others. I probably would have backed away from many of these applications if I hadn't developed the problem-solving skills that I learned as a physics student. In some areas, my physics background was directly applicable. In developing a system to elucidate the structure of proteins from x-ray crystallographic data, it was necessary to understand the physics of diffraction and the mathematics of Fourier transforms. However, in other domains, I used the basic heuristic of decomposing a problem into simpler parts, rather than use any specific physical principles (e.g., a system to advise coffee blenders).
I will always be indebted to Carnegie Mellon and to the teachers who prepared me for this world. I was particularly inspired by the lectures of Julius Ashkin (quantum mechanics) and Simeon Friedberg (thermodynamics), and deeply appreciate the support from my thesis advisor, George Hinman (who also taught me to play Go and helped me find my first job). And I recall taking a course in experimental methods from an enthusiastic graduate student named Hugh Young. I never had much interest in experimental physics, but I'll never forget one summer spent at the Saxonburg cyclotron lab calculating orbital trajectories with an analog computer, and once I even crawled inside the cyclotron magnet with a flip coil to measure the field! Beyond the Physics Department I owe a great debt to William Schutte, in the English Department, who taught a creative writing course that I took in my freshman year. He taught me how to communicate clearly, accurately and precisely. That skill has served me well in every endeavor.
