Remote | Physics Expert (Professor / Principal Investigator) — $80–$160/hour
About The Position
24-MAG LLC is offering a fully remote independent-contractor consulting opportunity for established physics professors, principal investigators, and senior research leaders. The role involves adjudicating complex physics problems, comparing competing derivations and interpretations, identifying assumptions and validity regimes, and preparing rigorous written assessments suitable for senior-research review. No prior AI experience is required. Assignments may cover theoretical derivations, numerical checks, competing interpretations, approximation regimes, open research questions, and model-generated physics analyses. The project scope, workload, physics subfields, and evaluation standards may evolve according to project requirements. Work must not use confidential or proprietary information belonging to an employer, research institution, collaborator, laboratory, or other third party. Compensation is $80–$160 per hour.
Requirements
- PhD in Physics.
- Demonstrated scholarly expertise and research impact within a defined physics subfield.
- Current or former Associate Professor, Full Professor, Chair Professor, Principal Investigator, Group Leader, or comparable senior research professional.
- Strong record of independent research leadership.
- Ability to provide 3–5 recent representative publications, ideally with arXiv or DOI references.
- Experience supervising PhD students, postdoctoral researchers, or equivalent research staff.
- Strong ability to evaluate contested or ambiguous scientific arguments.
- Exceptional analytical, scientific-writing, and meta-level reasoning skills.
- Ability to articulate uncertainty and methodological limitations precisely.
Nice To Haves
- Expertise in areas such as high-energy physics, mathematical physics, biophysics, statistical physics, condensed matter, AMO/quantum optics, gravitation, cosmology, astrophysics, quantum information, or optical properties of materials.
- Familiarity with LaTeX, SymPy, Python, and Jupyter; candidates should indicate any gaps in these tools.
Responsibilities
- Evaluate competing physics arguments, calculations, and interpretations.
- Determine whether conclusions follow from stated assumptions and physical principles.
- Identify mathematical, conceptual, or physical inconsistencies.
- Compare alternative formulations and distinguish equivalent approaches from genuine conflicts.
- Assess the validity, limitations, and failure modes of approximations and modelling choices.
- Identify assumptions, boundary conditions, or parameter regimes that materially affect conclusions.
- Distinguish established results, open questions, and genuine scientific uncertainty.
- Apply calibrated judgement when available information does not support a definitive conclusion.
- Reproduce or verify calculations using analytical, symbolic, or numerical methods where appropriate.
- Draft rigorous written assessments suitable for review by senior physicists.
- Explain the strongest support for or against competing technical conclusions.
- Evaluate whether methods align with current research practice in the relevant subfield.
- Identify overlooked conceptual or literature-level considerations.
- Document assumptions, methodology, uncertainty, and conclusions with research-level precision.
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What This Job Offers
Career Level
Senior
Education Level
Ph.D. or professional degree
