Eternal Dissatisfaction of the Obsessive Mind

Here at MIT I have many friends working in the lab. I see many researchers giving talks. I am sometimes quite jealous. I see people working in the areas where the tests of theories are possible to do in a reasonable amount of time and people. A good friend of mine in biological sciences said to me a few days ago: "I have great idea for a certain mechanism but experiments needed to verify are very demanding. I need to work for months in the lab and I already have many other projects to do." I was shocked: "What?!? You can do it yourself in a few months and do you think that it is considered as hard! You must be kidding."

Today both high energy physics and cosmology require experiments and observations that are far beyond the ability of not only one but hundred scientists. If you have a very bright idea and need certain verifications you would probably need to wait for your whole career even if the whole community agrees with you. Higgs is waiting for his boson, Wilczek is waiting for axions, Guth is waiting for new evidences for inflation and the list goes on.

So I am asking myself: "Why would I be stuck here? Why would I chase endless questions in this field? I also see many interesting questions out there waiting to be explored in a personal lab. Am I masochist or something?"

Well, I know the answer. Gravity is what I really wonder. Even though there are many ad hoc theories that fit current data for dark energy but can not be tested further, even though there are no complete theories for quantum gravity and there is no hope for direct (not semi-classical) probing in the foreseeable future, I will inevitably continue to meditate on these question. I am doomed to try to understand the picture on a huge jigsaw puzzle with only few pieces in hand. Worst part is: I like it!