5 Powers

Being a full time theoretical physicist is very similar to being a monk practicing Buddhism.

1. Both are in the mind. It doesn't matter how much stuffs you read, the words, equations are just that, they translate to what you understand in the physics case, and what you realise in the Buddhism case.
2. You have teachers to teach you. Full time. Physicist works under a prof, until they trained up for a few year and go build their own team. Same thing with Buddhist monks, well, just that Buddhist monks don't call it teams. And both get paid/ offered donations all day for this mental activity. One in terms of money, the other food and other supports.
3. Both requires the usage of the 5 powers: Mindfulness (the present awareness of what we are doing), Concentration (the discipline to sit down and calculate/meditate), Energy (the effort to remain on an object/ mathematical equation), Faith (trust in the teacher to follow and guide you), and Wisdom (knowledge of basic Physics/Dharma, and realizing it via direct experience/ mathematical equations.)
4. And the outcomes: Both emphasize on teachings, on value transmission, on transmission of understanding, of realizations. Both are best started while young too.
5. The goals: Enlightenment, complete and full liberation for Buddhism, and for Physics? I'm still searching, is it for the love of it, for the sheer joy that I do it? Or for the benefit of future engineers which may not even be within my lifetime, or is it for accurate Science-Fiction writing, or just to teach? I suspect it should be because that Physics itself, the equations, and the understanding that comes with it is so beautiful that one cannot resist but to want to devote one's whole life in answering the deepest physical questions of the universe.