“Genius has an important role in developing mathematics, but actually the knowledge itself is the result of the activity of a community. It’s the real goal of knowledge to become the knowledge of the community, not the knowledge of one or two persons.” ―- André Joyal (Mathematician)
The decision to work in the industry does not imply that I do not care about science anymore. Rather, it’s to work on different types of problems and questions. Instead of understanding something about the Universe, the huge amount of data we are gathering every second can provide invaluable insights about us, human beings!
Science is like art. It’s fundamental to humanities. I’ve been working closely with a “small” group of scientists, so small that most of the knowledge we gain is only permeated within our community. Press releases and (social) media help disseminate our results to a broader group of audience, but it is far from reaching the majority of the world. Having more astrophysicists moving into the industry is not a bad thing. It allows us to be more connected to the world and share our knowledge, while allowing the rest of the world to teach us something we did not spend time ponder upon.