Square One

Well. Sigh.

For those of you that read this know that I am working on my PhD in physics. I work at the Fermi National Laboratory on one of the experiments called D-Zero. When I think about the sentance, "I work at the Fermi National Laboratory, the biggest physics lab in the world" (biggest for the next couple years anyways), I think that's a pretty cool sentance. Everyone I work with either has a PhD in physics or is working towards one, so the group that surrounds me is, ok they are REALLY nerdy, but pretty smart folks.

Being a grad student I don't yet to be one of the pretty smart folks. I have been working on my thesis analysis since about February and since then it's been going ok. There has been a lot of, "When are you going to be done? When are you going to have a plot? Where is it going to have a write up?" and not a lot of, "Do you understand this? Can you show me exactly what you are doing and explain it?" So I have been mosying down a path and making plots and all the numbers have been basically where they should be. "Are you going to have a central value by this week? I think so!"

That was until Tuesday when my advisor asked me something and when I answered he said, "Oh, well you can't do that" Oh really? um....pretty major flaw in what I have been doing. After looking at my code for the last few days it has become apparent that I can't use the fitting method I have been working with because there are limitations with it. I literally had to start all over yesterday, trying to get the first fit I got many months ago. With my office mate helping me it also because very evident that I am way behind in the mathematical understanding of what is happening with the physics and what it is that I am actually measuring.

I asked myself last night at dinner why did this happen. Is it all my advisors fault for not making sure I understand what I am doing and just asking for more plots? Maybe. Maybe it's like 10% his fault. But what is wrong with me that I wasn't sure in what I was doing? I just blindly went ahead with this method and told myself, I think I understand it, I kinda get it. I thought that would be good enough. OF COURSE IT'S NOT YOU IDIOT.

So I'm back at square one. New programming techniques &new mathematical methods, here I come. Hopefully with these annoyances will come a better zen like understanding though. I just have to do enough each day to not quit, because when 6ish months of work get deleted quitting seems like the easier step, and seems like what I deserve for being so out of touch with the physics. However, I haven't been fired yet, and so until that happens I am going forward....forward into what I still have no idea but forward none the less.

Sigh.