Thank you for the detailed response!
I think I wandered too far afield with the comment about Moore's law (I kinda just wanted to see how people would respond, and it seemed like a more accessible question). I don't think faster, cheaper computers are an end unto themselves, and I don't think working on AI would be my comparative advantage . My single biggest motivation is the development of quantum simulation with a view towards quantum chemistry and many-body simulation, which in turn are relevant for the development of medicine and energy. I am a transhu...
What do people here think of going into condensed matter physics to work on technology relevant for the continuation of some form of Moore's Law?
The basic motivation here is that having progress in our capacity to engineer the physical basis for information processing grind to a halt would be a bad thing. My comparative advantage is probably working in experimental or theoretical condensed matter physics.
I am an undergraduate physics concentrator, and specifically I am interested in quantum computing (esp. topological) 70%, spintronics 10%, valleytronics 10%, traditional solid state nanoelectronics 5%, atomtronics 5%.
A great question.
As a condensed matter physics grad student (doing scanning tunneling microscopy), I should start my reply by saying that going to grad school in physics is something that fewer people should be doing. If you want to do research in the field it is basically irreplaceable, but you have to be aware that there are many fewer spaces for postgraduate researchers, especially faculty, than there are grad students. If you are accepted at a top university, or get to work in a prestigious lab (good publications in Nature, PRL, Nature Physics, etc.), ...
This is really fascinating, I wonder what other existing big science efforts 'blind injection' would benefit.