Ever felt like you're not really competent to do hard physics things? Like someone is soon going to find you out? It turns out to be a pretty common thing. I wonder if it's more common amongst physicists. Anyway, Peter Coles, who blogs under an anagrammatic version of his name as, umm, erect poles, I think, has a nice post about it here.
I have certainly felt this way. The fact that I don't so much these days is probably less a change in how I think of my own abilities, which probably never go up in time, but more a realisation that I am not so different to others.
I am not a physicist; I just happened to stumble upon this blog post. With that said, I doubt that physicists question their competency/abilities any more than their colleagues in other academic fields or even in business. You won't believe how many times I've heard a brilliant IT specialist, Revenue Cycle manager, etc. question his/her ability to perform a task. :)
ReplyDeleteIn short, we probably all have these moments of self doubt :)