why Physics ?

Why did I choose a career in Physics ?

Well, the question is a tough one to answer. I have always been good at mathematics - when I was five years old I could compute square roots by heart with decimal places, to the astonishment of everybody. But fortunately enough, my parents were wise and did not put any accent into my gifts, which became invisible by the time I got to high school. I think I came to love physics when I understood that simple laws could explain very complex phenomena - like why a lake won't completely freeze in the winter, thereby allowing life to continue inside. The concept of Entropy, which was debated very thoroughly during my last year in high school, was also something that fascinated me.

From that to choosing Physics at the University the step was a very small one. And then, when I graduated, the step of deciding to try a PhD in Physics was also small - it basically was the only way to continue what I had been doing and liked.

I think the major decisions in my life that brought me into a career in particle physics were basically two.

The first was at the age of 18, when I had to decide whether to go the University or to continue the music studies I had been doing for almost a decade by then. I had already got a master diploma in antique instruments, and was studying for my fourth year of Composition at the Venice Conservatory. But I was not good enough at that, and Physics seemed a more concrete career.

The second decision took itself, but I mention it here because it was anyway a big turning point for me. Back in 1992, when I was still struggling to finish all the exams and had not obtained the privilege of starting to work at a undergrad thesis, I came across a notice of positions as Summer Students at Fermilab, to do three months of research in particle physics. I already liked particle physics, but had not definitively chosen to pursue that as a specialization. Seeing that sign and filling an application form was one and the same thing to me. I did it sort of like in a trance, without thinking at the consequences of three months away, nor anything else. I just felt I wanted to do it.

So, 13 years after that day, I am still working for the same experiment. Not a wise choice career wise, but I do like what I do and there is still lots to discover with the CDF detector.

A career in Physics is a hard one in Italy. There is grave shortage of tenured positions, and in fact I have none as of yet. I do survive without too many worries, thanks to a string of two-year contracts that has started after the end of my PhD with an appointment in Harvard, and continued back in Padova where I had graduated till today. The thing is, the salary is very scarce (I am ashamed to broadcast it here - suffices to say that coming back to Italy from Harvard I left an offer in the US for one worth one fourth of that in Italy), so many decide they don't want that kind of a life and choose differently - not unwisely. I can afford to suffer for a while longer, and a tenured position is not far in the distance by now.