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Can I get into PhD in Physics with a high GRE score and an unrelated masters degree?
I recently completed my MBA and have worked in the IT field for the last 7 years. I have an undergraduate degree in mathematics, and have completed 3 physics graduate courses (mechanics, E&M, QM) as an open university student. Is it realistic for me to self study for the physics GRE, get a great score, and then have a chance to be admitted to a physics PhD program?
The physics graduate courses I took were from a master’s school, but I had to pay for these out of my pocket. I though about continuing in that masters program but it is just too expensive given my situation (I have a family and a mortgage).
I want to know if I have a shot at a PhD program without going for the masters and only with a great physics GRE score and a mathematics undergraduate degree.

It's certainly possible in many countries to enrol in a PhD with four years of previous study (e.g. with a four-year BSc (Hons) program or a BSc + PgDip). Your country will play a role here. You may have to rely on an individual university to grant you an exemption for academic excellence, as I haven't heard of anywhere where admission to a PhD program with only a 3-year bachelor's degree is standard policy.

This seems related to, and may even be a duplicate of, this question and this one

Yes.  Few American physics PhD students have master's degrees, and some have math undergrad degrees and have work experience.  However, you need a really good GRE score to convince people you know your stuff.

Sure you can. There are many universities in Europe and Australia, where you can try.

Despite all the probable prerequisites to a PhD program, have you done any research projects or published any papers? Have you ever been to a research methods class?

Typically the only reason that PhD granting institutions in the US give out a master's degree en route to the doctorate is the existence of capitation money in some states that reward them for each advanced degree they grant. You don't need a master's degree. I never got one, and I could have for $50 and two weeks spent converting a couple of journal articles to thesis format. Nobody worth talking to expects you to have an MS when you apply.

To get admitted into a PhD program directly without MS, requires some research experience in the field(if you want admission to a good, competitive program). A really good GRE score might help substitute this factor but not always.
An alternative to that may be, take admission in the MS program and then switch it to PhD after a semester or two. But you should join some research lab right in the beginning of your MS, in order to be successful in changing the program.
Hope this helps.
Courtesy:
--MS candidate planning to switch to PhD
--Even after a good GRE profile and 3.96 gpa in pharmacy school, got rejected for PhD at UCSD(not enough research experience)


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How bad is a B+ for master's application?
I have had at-least two to three B+ in each semester of engineering but in third year when I feel sick I ended up getting 4 to 5 B+ in the two semesters of third year. Some of them in core papers like AI, Databases, compilers, Design and analysis of algorithms etc., I am from an unknown college in India where people very rarely score A+ in any paper, Even if they do it's only a single paper per sem. Most of the time people end up with one or two A and 3 ~ 4 A-. I got A- in most of the theory papers and A+ in labs(Everyone gets A+ in labs) and final year project(which is rare). The grade ranges is exactly identical to what people use in the US. Also we have to take 6 theory courses each sem and 3 labs related to those 6 courses.
I am currently shortlisting colleges according to my interest for spring and I was wondering if I have a shot at any of the 20 ~ 50 ranked colleges in US for MS?

My rank in class is 24 out of 66. My GPA is 8/10. most of the people except top 7 maybe have a gpa of around 8.3/10

I am not sure how to interpet a GPA on a 10 scale. US GPAs are on the 4 scale.

3.61/4 most of my classmates who are above me have a gpa of 3.75ish out of 4. Calculated using wes iGpa calculator. The highest in my batch would be around 3.8 or 3.85 maybe.

Your chances with good grades and good publications is much more than excellent grades with no/low publications. Most people I know don't care whether its 3.5 or 3.9 out of 4 .

I am from an unknown college in India — Unfortunately, this is probably a more significant barrier to admission than your slightly-less-than-perfect GPA.

@Jeffe I am not applying to your college sir, but hypothetically if you do get a application from someone from an unknown college how do you evaluate it? Some of my friends say that it depends on your GRE score and the others say that it they just scale it down to 4 (8/10 * 4 in my case). Which is true?

Or do you just expect a perfect score from people from unknown colleges?

GPA is not only the major criteria for master's application, there are many other things that will make your profile good. More specifically for masters application, GPA weighs upto 30-40% of consideration and the rest goes with your GRE & TOEFL scores, SOP, LOR and publication/research interests.
Upto my knowledge, yours is a good profile. Your GPA will definitely qualify for most of the universities, just start working on rest of the things. And don't compare GPA with others in your class, no one cares about it especially US grad schools.

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Should my SOP be a narrative of all the events in my life that lead me to develop my research interest?
I am applying to a master's degree in computer science and while writing my SOP I see two options:

I participated in a bunch of competitions, read a bunch of papers, worked with a senior scientist and produced a draft of a paper which is about to be published. These are all chronological events. Should I describe each one of these events in a separate paragraph and explain what I have learnt from these that caused me to develop a research interest?
Should I just directly mention all the events very briefly in 5 ~ 6 sentences and the next couple of paragraphs talk about the specific topics I am interested in conducting research in, without mentioning the motivation behind what got me interested in these topics.

While concluding I would like to mention few specific faculties whose work fascinates me. I would like to describe the works of few particular faculty members which I would like to work under(Possibly have them as my thesis advisor if it is fine by them).
Are either of these two options fine or which one should I choose preferably? Also how the should overly narrative(Tone and everything) of a SOP be?

Go with number (2).

And... an SOP is... what?

@Nicholas Statement of Purpose

The short answer to the title question is 'no'. A document of type (1) is not really of interest to someone deciding whether to take you as a student. In my experience, things like that also often convey a lack of understanding of what research in the field is about (I've heard potential maths students talk about how inspired they were by being introduced to basic arithmetic or similar as small children).

To answer your top-level question:
Absolutely not.
Your statement of purpose should be an account of what you want to do in graduate school, and your qualifications to undertake that research. Admissions officers do not want to read about everything you've done as a researcher since you were a child. Nor do we want a blow-by-blow account of your research career.
Instead, briefly summarize your history, and move on from there. The bulk of your essay should be what you plan to do, not what you've already done.

To the best of my knowledge nobody cares how you got interested in a specific topic in details but the idea which got you there is important (i.e. something that shows your point of view to the topic). After this you better jump into the main body and start writing experiences.
I strongly recommend to avoid being arrogant i.e. do not mention all the positive points directly but try to put them between lines in a smart manner e.g. if you have worked with a great scientist you do not mention that but having a sentence like "when I was working with Dr.xxx" or "Dr.xxx whom I used to work with encouraged me to do this" or stuff like that.
about "I would like to describe the works of few particular faculty members which I would like to work under(Possibly have them as my thesis advisor if it is fine by them)." I'd say in a maswter program you have enough freedom to choose your supervisor so there is no need to mention in the application phase! that option is for PhD applications usually. On the other hand when you mention your special interests, people out there figure out which direction you'll probably go and who is better to be your supervisor. But in the section that you are showing your enthusiasm for this program you can name 1 or 2 faculty member and a keyword of what they do just to show that this is not just a random application but you know where you are applying to!

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What to put in "affiliation" field when submitting paper without affiliation?
Recently my paper is reviewed (by a professor from independent third party) and accepted by a journal. But, my employer allows me to publish this paper only without its name there.
Publishing house is expecting affiliation for each author, i.e. I can not leave affiliation as blank.
What should I write as the affiliation?

As noted by @mankoff in a comment on Does one need to be affiliated with a university to publish papers?, you can use "Independent Scholar":

Here is a recent paper published by someone affiliated as "Independent Scholar": dx.doi.org/10.1175/BAMS-D-12-00171.1

Or "Independent Researcher" or "Unaffiliated" or "None". Different online systems might filter differently.

For completeness’ sake, I mention that another option would be to give your private address as an affiliation.
Here is an example for this. Here is another one (affiliations are at the end of the paper)¹. This one only lists the city and country part of the address².

¹ Credits to Jessica B for pointing this one out.
² Credits to Cheersmate for pointing this one out.

@cheersmate: Thanks. I added it to my answer.

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How to improve as undergraduate student doing research?
I am currently working for a Computer Science researcher as an undergraduate. I worked for them last semester and have continued into the semester. However, I am having a bit of trouble lately because I feel like I haven't been as helpful as I could be and at times feel like a burden when I ask too many questions or am unsure how to do something. Do advisors get annoyed by undergraduates when they ask too many questions? Is there a way that I can improve? Or any general practices that are good to follow?

Being a burden is the sine qua non of undergraduate researchers! That's not a dis, it reflects the truth that the professor isn't having you in their lab for your abundant research output, but for your own education (and possibly so they can lure you in to joining them as a graduate student). After all (it's easy to forget sometimes) a professor's main job is education.
Therefore, don't worry about asking too many questions. Those are natural because you're in a situation where nearly every step of your work is new to you. The key thing you want to focus on is how to make it so the question frequency decreases with time. The gradual transition from undergraduate newbie to postdoctoral rock star of course has something to do with gaining additional domain knowledge, but it's just as much about learning how to learn, and learning how to work.
So part of your learning now should be a bit meta. In addition to "how do I write a python script to do X?", your questions should also take the form of "how can I solve this myself?" "before I go to Prof. X, have I googled? did I ask their other students?" "is this related to my previous experience, and, if so, how did I solve it last time?"
I think as long as you are going to Prof. X with novel questions (and getting clarification counts as novelty), then you are doing your job just fine, and answering those questions (or helping you to answer them yourself) is them doing their job.
And to +1 what Buffy said, keeping a good notebook where you record not only your conversations with Prof. X and other members of their group, but also your own learning (like summaries of papers, results of experiments, key techniques you picked up) is a key skill to learn.

Some advisors will get exasperated and others will be more patient. The latter are to be preferred, but everyone is different. But if you ask too many, look for signals of exasperation. Instead of asking for answers to your questions, you might try asking for places to look for answers.
But even the exasperated professor should be clear if you are becoming a bother. Won't necessarily happen, of course.
In particular, you want to develop insight into your field, not just answers. Insight comes from hard work, of course.

Let me add that asking a lot of questions is, in general, a good thing, though not everyone will agree. But take notes of any conversation, perhaps immediately after, so that you capture the essence in a way that is easier to recall than depending on an imperfect memory.

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Master's studies in France and Greece (one year per country) plausibility
This might sound a bit ridiculous, but I would love to spend a year in Greece and France and I think my master's studies might be a great time for that. However, I am not sure how plausible such an idea would be. Assuming I were to go to Greece first and apply to a French university for my second year, will I just need to ensure that the syllabus taken at the Greek university is compatible with the French one? I haven't thought through many of the details so this is the only issue that jumps out to me, are there any other problems I should be concerned with?

There are many universities in the EU offering joint degrees of this sort. Enrolling in one of those is a much better idea. However, availability of course depends on what you want to study and where, does it absolutely have to be France and Greece for example?

@Peter Thanks for the response! I definitely want to go to Greece and France. Should I just look up various universities and look for joint degrees, or is there another way to find such programs? I also heard of Erasmus programs, is that similar to what you are talking about?

The Erasmus program is another option, that would allow you to be enrolled at one university and then spend one or two semesters at another, where ideally the credit you receive counts towards your degree at the first university. This is of course more flexible but keep in mind that every university has a limited set of "partner" Erasmus universities and getting a spot is not guaranteed. I suggest you find a degree that interests you and then ask the university about their exchange program.

@Peter Thanks for the information! I'll contact some universities to find out more :)

If your plan is to live in each country one year, you would be better off by doing a master course of 2 years in Greece (or France) and being one year exchange student with Erasmus program in France (or Greece).
As far as I know, you can be Erasmus student without scholarship (which means you will fund yourself through the abroad stay).
Bureaucracy can be complicated (transcript of exams must be translated, syllabus not matching, etcetc) but being under the umbrella of the Erasmus Programm will help you a lot.


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My PI is publicly humiliating me: Why would a PI do this and what can I do to mitigate the damage from this?
My principal investigator (PI) and I tend to get along pretty well; however, he is often moody and has some quirks about him. Sometimes this means that he is in a bad mood and will take it out on me. He is also very gossipy about other people at the university. Nonetheless, he thinks I am doing very well in our lab and in the Biochemistry PhD program. I always keep my cool with him, even if he is stressing me the f*ck out.
However, there are times in which he really likes to pick on me in front of other students/faculty. It is almost exclusively when he has an audience. Sometimes it is benign - a funny joke, or something lighthearted. But other times, it really bothers me and I get extremely embarrassed. The times when it bothers me is when he makes a disparaging remark about something I said (even though he agrees with me), or will embarrass me when I am training an undergraduate research assistant on a protocol in our lab.
He has told me before that I am awkward, which makes me incredibly anxious to talk to him. He is one of those people with zero filter, but am I right in thinking that there has to be a limit to this? Again, he only really embarrasses me in front of other people. When we talk one-on-one, everything seems fine; he will even occasionally tell me that I am talented. I mean, he does talk over me at times, but it is perhaps not abnormal for a male superior-female subordinate mentorship. I am a pretty thick-skinned person, but these interactions are exhausting, anxiety-provoking, and incredibly distracting from how I want to be spending my time (i.e. on research/coursework).
Why is he acting like this? What could I do to mitigate the damage from this? Keep in mind that, ironically, he is very sensitive. I have addressed something with him before and he took it as a personal attack, which indicates that he is often anxious and paranoid himself. Thus, my options are literally to just deal with these feelings in private and push through. This is what I have been doing, but it is starting to get old.

More ideas: Are you the only one singled out? Do you "stand out in the lab" for gender or race (etc) reasons? Other women in the lab? How are they treated?  How do others feel ("Oh that's just Buffy being Buffy")? Does anyone feed it right back at him?

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Notice: we can move comments to chat only once; if you want to provide partial answers, give pieces of advice or discuss the PI's personality, please do it in above linked chat, keeping the tone professional. Further comments will be deleted without notice.

The general solution is to not surround yourself with weak-minded dickheads. This includes all people that are into gossip.

The best way to mitigate the effects of his behavior is to be really, really clear on what's happening and stop making excuses for him. This will help you separate out blaming yourself for something you have no control over: his bad behavior. It's your best chance at preserving your mental health while you have to work with him.
This behavior you describe from him is toxic, and it is very likely intentional. He has demonstrated that he has the self control to not make you uncomfortable in one-on-one interactions. He chooses to make you uncomfortable in front of an audience.
Also, teasing in any context, but especially in professional situations, isn't fun anymore when the target repeatedly shows discomfort. Teasing is only acceptable at work when all parties are benefitting from the relaxed atmosphere.
Finally, his sensitive/negative reaction to you asking him to stop has the following effect: it creates as much friction as possible so that you won't keep complaining and will allow him to continue enjoying making you uncomfortable and embarrassing you.
He is an adult and should be able to handle hearing, "hey, this was all in good fun at first, but I'm not having fun anymore, and I'd like you to stop." A person managing a lab should have the capacity to listen to that. If he can't handle that conversation, he is the problem, not you, OP.
Also, I would try to avoid speculating about why he's like this or what's going on in his head. It's getting you more wrapped up and emotionally invested in keeping the peace with him, which will make it more painful when he decides to be cruel. Try to decouple from his thoughts/emotions, and just focus on behavior. His behavior is unacceptable. You've asked him to stop, he refuses. That means he's wrong to be saying these things to you. Try to keep that in mind, and hopefully it will help you stay less stressed out and not internalize the negative and inappropriate things he's saying.
ETA: Upon rereading your question, it looks like you may not have directly asked him to stop teasing, but that you know him well enough to know it will go badly. You have the higher moral high ground if you directly ask him to stop, and I would try it once, but you know him best. If he's created an environment where you are sure speaking up will just cause more difficulty, he's still the problem and my advice stands.

He seems to be engaged in jockeying among the hierarchy in social contexts. One on one, he feels no need to jockey, because the hierarchy is well-defined; in groups, he’s (perhaps lacking the insight on exactly what is motivating his behavior), putting down the OP to make clear his relative status. This likely comes from a lack on confidence in his own status. It also comports with his sensitivity to critique around these topics — such critiques force him to reconcile with his own perception of his shortcomings.

Yes, ideally ‘as an adult’, he would be able to modify his behavior. In reality, I suspect this is a compulsion he himself finds unpalatable (no doubt he’s been on the receiving end before). Two solutions: 1. Appeal to him with empathy (‘when you do x, it makes me feel y’) and couch it in a way that you think will resonate with his own experiences. It seems he’s not a bad person, just one with an inferiority complex. Which brings me to 2. He needs to address his own perception of his shortcomings in a group contexts.

One way to do that is to learn what would make him feel successful and help him realize that in a tangible way, signaling that you see your successes as being intertwined (and in such situations, they often are). This is the ‘long term’ fix; to commit to empowering each other and to make it clear through a conversation and subsequent action that you are both aligned to each others success. I’m not necessarily advocating it; there’s a reasonable argument that it’s ‘not your job.’ But I would venture this is a level of compassion worth trying; PIs don’t manage students, often it’s the reverse.

I think I mostly agree with you, but I'd put it simpler: he is a bully and the way to deal with a bully is to stand up to them; at least, that is the short story. We can be understanding of his personal issues, but he is, like quite a few academics I know of, just a misogynistic bully, at the end of the day. One can stand up to bullying in a kind and controlled way, but he needs to be left in no doubt that this behaviour has to stop.

The above answer is correct.  I'd add you need to have a conversation with him, in person, so he can see the emotion on your face.  If you are young and more comfortable with written conversation as so many are, I encourage you to read "Reclaiming Conversation" by Sherry Turkle, take a deep breath, and do it in person anyway.  Finally, if you live in a one-part consent state for recording conversations, consider quietly and subtly recording your talk.  If he persists, you will have a record of your request to take to his superiors.  Consider carefully before escalating to superiors, of course.

@j4nd3r53n I agree, not trying to give him any doubt, he should be clear on how his actions are affecting the OP (and potentially those around him, when I’ve seen this behavior in a group it makes my skin crawl, and usually I’ll call the person out). Don’t really see the misogyny though; talking over someone could very well just be a thing he does with anyone he feels above of (i.e. grad student) — in other words, it seems like an assumption that inevitably leads to more complex solutions. It’s much easier to try a simple one first and, if it doesn’t take, then begin asking why.

Over many years, I have learned how to deal with people like this. There are several ways forward but they depend on your character. For this reason there is no "correct" answer.
A very simple riposte to a cruel joke is just to say, "That's not very nice." I learned this from a woman who was an out and out bully to others and would go out of her way to embarrass them.  If anyone tried to do it back to her, she would literally say, "That's not very nice" in a calm and collected way and then change the subject.
People who are quick-thinking can come back with a funny remark. I'm not like that. Sometimes I don't even realise I've been insulted until afterwards. The method that works for me as a slow but deep thinker is to ask questions at an opportune moment, even weeks later, and keep going until I get an answer.
Example
I've been meaning to ask you. A couple of weeks ago, you said XYZ in front of the students. Was that a joke or did you intend it as a real criticism?
If they say it's a real criticism, say, "Thanks for the feedback. I'll give it some thought"
If they say it's a joke, then next time he says something you can say to the room in general, "Don't worry, he's always like that. He's just joking."

If they continue at a later date, you can simply ask in private, in a neutral tone, "Were you trying to embarrass me the other day?"
If they say Yes, you can say, "Oh, that's a bit mean of you. I hope you won't do it again."
If they say No, you can say, "Oh well, you did embarrass me. I'd prefer it if you didn't."

The point is not to reproach the person. It is to make them pause and think about what they are doing. Do it repeatedly until they get the message.
I could say more but I have found this works for me.

This is pretty good advice if the person just a bit of a jerk which is probably most of the cases, but if someone is bad enough that they are creeping into sociopath territory, or they are trying to manipulate a situation, nothing is going give them pause for thought because that's probably how they want you to feel. What's worse, gentle push back will start to raise the stakes. This kind of situation can get very tricky to deal with.

@Phill - Yes. If that's the case then get out of the situation ASAP.

@chasly-supportsMonica Wow this is brilliant advice! Thank you so much for it!! The best part about this is that you can even say these lines in a very nice or serious tone depending on the situation and it will have different effects.

If they claim that saying XYZ in front of the students was intended as a real criticism, I would ask them to give feedback directly to you, as its unproductive and potentially embarrassing to broadcast it to students first. Saying "thanks for the feedback" might positively encourage this behaviour

It is impossible for anyone here to answer the question as asked. None of us know your adviser or have observed your interactions. Moreover, we can only get the story from your perspective, so we are operating with incomplete data.
The more pertinent question to ask is: "Are there steps that I can take to change the tone or content of these interactions?" To that, I think the answer is probably yes. I would begin by speaking with him directly about the issue. It sounds like you've tried to discuss something else with him in the past, though we don't have enough information about that interaction to judge. You might start by simply saying, "I don't like when you ridicule me. It's demeaning and discouraging." It will be helpful to have specific examples ready. If he persists, you can escalate the issue to the university ombudsman.

Confronting this sort of abuse with "I don't like it when you do that" feels like poor advice to me.  Why would you assume that he doesn't know that she doesn't like being demeaned in front of others?  This route will create more conflict and more difficulty for the poster.

+1 This is the only professional answer (though some tact when addressing the issue and speaking to the PI might be a good idea). Others just assume the OP is right and the PI is wrong and suggest moral grandstanding. It also directly addresses the fact that the OP has never been clear or straightforward with the PI or talked about the problem with him. Nobody can read minds and direct and clear communication is needed.

@David You don't need to read minds to know not to demean your students.  And yes, I do assume the OP is right and the PI is wrong, because we give the posters the benefit of the doubt.

@Jeff We should never presume someone can read other people’s minds or if they take something the wrong way. It is always best to communicate with someone in a clear fashion. We should also not be automatically assuming any one side is right or wrong. We should be neutral and consider that the OP maybe misinterpreting or misunderstanding due to culture, background, or experience. There is not a good substitute for just talking with someone and being clear. Morally grandstanding, being vague and indirect just makes everything worse...clearly as we have seen.

@Libor I think you misunderstood. I am saying others are suggesting solutions paramount to responding with morally superiority (these don't help). Keep in mind, the OP provided no specific examples, has not made it clear to the PI regarding the comments in public, and says they have a thick-skin but has not said anything to anyone. If we look at the facts and remain objective, we can clearly see the OP has not acted in good faith and has not made any action to improve or resolve the situation at all. There are two sides to every story & Yasha is the only noting that and to actually communicate

@David It seems like your argument boils down to "I don't believe the OP and those of you who do are moral grandstanding", so I'm just going to agree to disagree with your comments and leave it at that.

@Jeff disagreeing is fine but the other person equated the guy to a "jackass" (multiple times), you accused him of "abuse", being a narcissist, and being toxic ... all without any evidence or actual examples.You are passing judgment with no facts. It's insane to start throwing around degrading terms based on no real examples or specific details. The story is not adding up and making me suspect that there is a personality clash, background/culture difference, or other factors in play. Even consider that the others in the public context didn't step in or say something to these comments?

@David You are being overly suspicious of OP. She's not trying to destroy the PI's reputation, she is asking for help. She doesn't need to provide an airtight case to ask for help, and we are trying to help her. She is describing his behavior and how it is affecting her, and from that evidence it does read like textbook abuse. That's not enough evidence to fire her PI, but it is enough evidence for us to estimate the likeliness of various scenarios and give advice based on what appears to be the most likely situation she is experiencing. It has nothing to do with moral grandstanding.

@David "If we look at the facts and remain objective, we can clearly see the OP has not acted in good faith and has not made any action to improve or resolve the situation at all" -- Um, that's what she's asking for advice on? Nothing suggests she has acted in bad faith. Unless you think a woman not being happy with however her male supervisor treats her is bad faith.

First off, nothing about his behavior is acceptable or excusable, and if you weren't in his lab the ideal solution would be to get away from him and never look back.  What you're experiencing is absolutely a form of abuse.  Unfortunately, I'm assuming you want to finish your degree with minimal interruption and without having to start over, which is totally understandable.
Obviously we can't actually diagnose why he's doing this, but, far from being some kind of harmless insecurity, his behavior - particularly the combination of putting others down while being super sensitive to criticism himself - sounds a lot like narcissist traits to me.  My suggestion would be to use the Grey Rock strategy of dealing with toxic relationships, which should work regardless of his motivations.  These sorts of people often thrive on the disorder and attention that comes with their erratic behavior.  If you're reacting negatively, or feeling bad, or trying to discuss it with him like you would a reasonable adult, or literally any other response, that's both interesting and part of the point of his behavior.
The gist of the Grey Rock strategy is to make yourself as uninteresting as possible to this sort of person.  It can be hard to enact, but it can be incredibly liberating when you stick to it.  Do your work, collaborate when necessary, and show zero emotional reaction to anything he does.  Don't laugh, don't cry, don't complain.  Another way to frame it is "customer service polite".  Smile and do business with him with no real emotion behind it.
This serves two purposes.  First, it helps you emotionally distance yourself from the abuse, and second, it makes you very boring and uninteresting to the abuser.  Both are good.
Now obviously you will need to evaluate as you go here, in case he tries to escalate his abuse.  I would also strongly suggest discussing this with an advisor or counselor in advance, both for your own well-being, and as a hedge against escalation.  I'm sorry you found yourself in this spot!

I have been struggling throughout my PhD to figure out how to deal with my PI who is very much like yours.
Similar to your situation, my PI is famous for being moody. Everyone in the group must be very careful talking with him when he obviously seems mad, which happens frequently for around every three days. Sometimes, he asks someone who is unlucky enough into his office and yells at him/her for at least 2 hours. Once I was asked to stay in the lab until 11 pm to listen to his personal lectures without rest and dinner. Another student was shouted at for 5 hours in his office every week for about 2 months. During this long time, nothing was solved actually. He just complains about every mistake from us he remembers since he knows us. He just wants to release his mood.
He humiliates people using very bad words. Once in a lab meeting, a student who just asked for a sick leave said one of her family members had COVID. My PI replied, "Now I see what your family gene is like." We were shocked but nobody dared to say a word.
He provides very little help within academia. For his 2-hour lectures, the most frequent sentence is like "You did something, this shows you're xxx(lazy, not careful, not honest, not reading)." We don't dare to ask him questions because he'll judge us and just asks us to read the paper. No contributing answers were given. Our researches are all very slow and our group hasn't published any paper for nearly 5 years. He doesn't financially support us in our study and conferences. We need to write a report if we want to buy expensive reagents or use expensive equipment.
He eats his lunch 1/2 of the time in our office. This means during 12-2 pm, we need to either read the paper or join him if we want to eat in our office. This is very stressful. He'll be furious if we take a vacation for more than 3 weeks a year. Though our university allows 8 weeks of vacation per year, nobody in our lab had a break for more than 4 weeks in total every year.
The result of this toxic environment is: up to now, among the 7 students I know in this lab, 1 had the autoimmune disease during her study and her face was ruined; 1 student nearly didn't pass her PhD viva; 6 had to extend the time of study because of anxiety or depression. 2 students became toxic themselves - they not only gave my PI an insulting name, but also avoid helping others in the lab to see them being yelled at by my PI. No undergrads or master students remained in our lab after "a taste" of this environment.
When I found the situation unhealthy in the first year of my PhD, I started to try many solutions:
(1) Directly tell him that I'm not happy about this.
He didn't care and thought I challenged his authority. He said directly: "I won't change. You need to change." After this, I was worse treated like a punishment. His "punishment" is: first, he said my writing/experiment was very bad and I need to change; when I did according to what he said, he judged me again and changed back to the previous way. He used this method with other “brave” students as I heard and success every time.
(2) Cry.
This worked to his tone and reduced humiliating words. But he used a soft tone giving lectures for even longer. He would also add "I do this because I care about you" when he sees us cry.
(3) Tell my college tutor and advisor.
They helped me a lot. They listened to me and calmed me down. They even talked to my PI to let him stop using threatening/humiliating words. They provided suggestions on how to pull the talk with him onto academia and tell my examiners about this situation in my PhD viva. It's definitely very important to let someone in your supervisor group know about your situation.
(4) Avoid talking to my PI.
During the lockdown, we are able to not see him every day and this truly helped. We just had weekly lab meetings and everybody talked very shortly. When he asked whether anyone needed individual meetings with him, no one replied. When he asked for personal meetings himself, what we do is lowing down the speaker and looking at other websites when he starts to list our previous mistakes and repeat judging us.
(5) Agree on everything he says without emotion.
This is the best way I found to deal with him for now. You know that a PI like him just wants to release his emotions. It's totally not your problem. We cannot escape this environment for now, so just let him do. Whatever he says, I say 'Yes you're right. Yes I understand.' Keep in mind what he says is not always right. Then I discovered that the time wasted on him repeating himself, judging me or listing my previous mistakes largely reduced. Why is this? I think I just let his bad mood quickly released and he feels satisfying in announcing his authority.
Sorry that all my practical suggestions sound passive. This is because aggressive ways didn't work for my situation. However, I know what I am inside. Now I am able to protect myself in the lab, and show my personality in other areas. My PI is the reason I plan to quit academia after my PhD, but he is also the reason for me to look into other opportunities and open other doors. Although I spent nearly one year to rebuild myself, now I'm as confident as before and on my way to use my talent in other areas. Consider your PI as a difficulty that you have to pass to become stronger.

Have you considered reporting him to HR? I imagine that the way he's treating you is violating workplace policies.

@nick012000 Not yet. I worried about what he would do to me if I report him to HR. But I'll definitely consider reporting after graduation.

It sounds like everyone who works under him hates him, so make your report anonymous and he'll have no idea who to retaliate against.

@nick012000 Good point. I'll do that. Thank you!

@nick012000: Unfortunately, such toxic people might retaliate against all who might have reported against him. While I applaud and support anyone who stands up against such bullies directly, I think it's entirely justifiable to wait until after one has graduated before reporting. So I'd say that it's up to Metis to decide what is the best time and manner to report. =)

@user21820 Thank you <3 I'll also discuss with my advisor/tutor when I decide to report. For now, they suggest me to avoid any conflict before graduation. I'll submit my thesis soon so if I do want to report, it'll not be long.

@Metis533: Wish you all the best! Take care! =)

I think his behavior is wrong. I've worked with two people who routinely did that to me. The first one almost ran me out of academia. The second was my PhD adviser who did that just because he was a bully. Actually, they were both bullies, if I think of it.
Working with the first guy was really stressful for me, and we never really made progress. With my PhD adviser, I just found a way to tolerate his occasionally insufferable personality, and we did a lot of great work together. I actually think it was one of the good periods in my academic life.
The difference between the two guys was that my PhD adviser really cared if I made it or not. So, although I thought of leaving him, I stayed because he took his role seriously. After three years of PhD, I got used to his rough edges, and him to mine, and we were finally doing good research together.
What I mean to say by this example is that the main thing to look at is your bottom line. Is the adviser helping you advance with your PhD research? Are you getting published together? Is he paying for your research? Is he sending you to summer schools, conferences, is he connecting you with future collaborators or employers?
If all those questions above have a positive answer, maybe you should find ways to deal with his quirks and inappropriate behavior. If not, you should just leave him.

This is not specific to Academia, you have assholes everywhere.
What you can do depends on your character.
Case 1: Professor A
I was in your case with a very, very senior professor A. He told me publicly in front of 200 people that my research is for kindergarten and his precious time is wasted. I answered that this is research that requires a minimum level of intelligence so I understand that he does not get it.
PhD student: 1 - professor A: 0
He made sure to make my life a hell, and I made sure to pay back. I went to the dean and what not to tell I was harassed, they told me that he is a well known professor etc. so I told the dean that I will now call Prof A "Dumb Prick" publicly and I want him to know it in advance.
Fun times. My PhD defence was moved at a time Dumb Prick was in hospital.
I left academia mostly for this. Not because of Dumb Prick but because of the medieval state of mind.
My recommendation: if you want to go for the fight, make sure you enjoy it because otherwise it will be very, very tough. The documentary about how to best do this is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6pJC0FLA3Sk
Case 2: Professor B
I had an exam in quantum mechanics with Prof B. We did not like each other (these were the only two cases in my academia time, do not think that I had an issue with everyone :)).
Prof B told me once that I can call him by name because "all clever grad students realize that they can call him by name by year 5". To what I replied "Well, I guess I will have to keep on calling you Professor, then". Quelle ambiance, quelle ambiance! as a French movies says.
Comes the time of the exam (an oral one). I get 5 questions, 4 are easy and one is extra super mega complicated. I am sure I won't be able to do it.
I answer easily to the first 4 and tell him that I only have a partial answer for answer 5. To what he says "Well, only the very good students can answer it. Sorry, I will have to only give you a 20/20 mark - you could have gotten more" (20 is the highest mark, you could in exceptional cases get a small extra).
I was seriously impressed. Despite our relationship, he remained extremely fair. It was a great lesson learned for me.
I visited my lab some 15 years later and met him. I told him that we will never get along but I would like to highlight how much I was impressed by what he did and it was something I learned from. We had lunch together, it was quite stiff but I will never forget that prof.
My recommendation: it is sometimes useful to take a step back.

I have decided to offer a second answer from a different point of view. That of the bully.
1.
Years ago I went on a residential course in the US (I'm British). It was about personal development and I paid for it myself. It lasted for 8 weeks and the participants did a lot of sharing in front of the group.
One session was about "the worst thing you have ever done". A young woman stood up and said that she had been a bully at school. She picked on one particular girl whenever she could. She said that she had no understanding of the damage it was causing and did it because it made her friends laugh and made her feel clever and popular.
She had only come to realise the profound damage this caused to another young person after hearing another member of our course confessing their own experience of being bullied.
Some bullies, especially verbal bullies, are blind to the effect on the recipient, they simply revel in the acclaim and laughter of their friends.
Is it a good idea to admit your vulnerability to the bully? In my opinion this is a strong No. Outside of the long-term close-knit group situation, where others are listening, this could be seen as an encouragement to escalate. Be strong, not vulnerable.

Me as the bully. When I was in my early teens I was annoying in class to teachers who could not keep good order. It was all verbal - silly noises, chanting, etc.

One day, when I was about fourteen, I noticed that our French teacher almost ran to the back of the room and stood behind us with his back against the wall. I turned to look and realised that he had tears in his eyes. This was the first time I had thought of a teacher as a human being with feelings. From that day onwards I observed him and came to understand that he was really enthusiastic about his subject and all he wanted to do was treat us like adults who wanted to learn. He would have done well at an evening class but he had no idea how to control unruly teenagers.
At that point I also started to notice that other teachers somehow had a presence that precluded anyone trying to make fun of them. I've never fully understood it but it was somehow a manner that simply expected good manners and would be disappointed with anything less. We were more interested in getting their approval than that of our classmates. I think it was because they showed their approval for good thinking in class.

My father

He was not a bully, or at least not much of one. However he completely lacked any understanding of another's point of view. When I wanted to go to music college, he was testing me by playing simple tunes on the piano that I had to write down in music notation without looking. He grew very impatient with me at one point. In frustration, I said, "Let's swap". He was amazed to discover that he had as much trouble as I did. Some people are like that - they simply can't stand in the shoes of another.

A woman at work

I came to think of her as evil. She would deliberately make fun of anyone who she perceived to be vulnerable - especially if they were going through a difficult time.  Example: Someone said their mother had died and they had scattered the ashes in her favourite place. Her remark was, "Oh, you can never be sure you get the right ashes, they could be anybody's." She was acutely sensitive to weakness but had zero empathy.
I later discovered that she recorded conversations on her phone so that if anyone said anything nasty to her, she could complain they were the bully. I know of at least two people who left their jobs because of her.
Moral: Never try to use a true bully's tactics back to them. They have a lifetime of experience and you will lose, just as surely as if you are an amateur at chess playing a grand master.. Retain your own morals and standards.

Conclusion
The true sociopaths are rare. They will never give you credit for anything, in private or in public. Their purpose is to pull you down. There are two ways forward,
(a) Leave and avoid them as much as possible. If you stay nearby, they will still continue to undermine when possible
(b) Become sure of your own worth. This may not be at all easy. Keep your behaviour impeccable including being polite to the bully - but firm.  Have a few phrases, e.g. "Please don't speak to me like that", "That's not very nice" or a fake laugh pronounced as words, "Ha ha" if they try to be funny.
Notice their criticisms and internalise them as feedback. Compare with your honest beliefs about yourself. If you know deep down that what you are doing is okay, then think that to yourself when necessary

Summary
They may simply be unaware of others feelings - help them to understand but without showing weakness. They may be a genuinely nasty person. Do not stoop to their level -- they will win. Behave impeccably but make a non-emotional response when they cross the line. Prepare the phrases ahead of time. You only need a few and they don't need to be funny - just an expression of disapproval as from a parent who expects better.
Finally
Treat the whole thing as a fascinating psychological experiment that does not affect you or your emotions. Observe their behaviour and your own behaviour as would a third party. Have fun analysing what is happening.
You may like to experiment with complimenting the bully in public when they do something good. This will give a pleasant shock to their system. If you combine this with mild criticism when they are not good, they will start to crave your praise. It's like dog training.
Above all, keep clean yourself. The more you define your standards and stick to them, the more you can expect from others. Don't lower yourself to anyone else's level.

You are not alone, and not the only one embarrassed. For sure, other people are taking notice and finding the behavior cringe-inducing when he says something humiliating, which is confirmed that way by your reaction.
Also, quite likely, some recipients of his gossip are unwilling, but polite about it. People just don't say anything because they don't want to generate animosity, let alone between themselves and someone who oversteps boundaries. When people are confronted with a gossiper, of course they don't want that person saying anything negative about themselves to anyone, so they nod and act nice.
I think, someone needs to send this person an anonymous, but kindly worded letter about their obnoxious social behaviors, keeping in mind that it could be the first piece of concrete feedback they have ever received, and therefore surprising and shocking. Any specifics that could identify the author of the letter should be carefully omitted using anonymized examples. The letter could even take the form of a fictional story about a similar person, with a different name, at a different institution.


text:
What is the average salary of assistant professor in New Zealand?
What is the rough salary one should expect from a research university in New Zealand, say in mathematics or sciences areas, at the beginning assistant professor (called Lecturer in NZ) level professor?

This study, Univeristy Staff Academic Salaries and Remuneration: A Comparison of New Zealand and Select International, from 2012 looks like it might be helpful.

You can find the current collective agreements for all universities on the Tertiary Education Union's website. Entry-level salaries for a lecturer, and the low point of the senior lecturer range, at the start of 2021 were as follows (all NZD):

University
L1 salary
SL1 salary

Auckland
83,602
106,285

AUT
73,966
91,226

Waikato
77,402
95,883

Massey
74,478
93,335

Victoria
79,276
99,870

Canterbury
79,671
102,142

Lincoln
73,018
92,723

Otago
82,416
103,678

The average is about NZ$78,000. These generally have annual percentage adjustments built in, so the base rate increases each year. There is generally also an automatic progression within a grade for current staff across several steps spread between the lecturer base and senior lecturer base, and it is generally possible to be appointed mid-grade as well according to experience (e.g. working time since PhD). All of this varies from school to school, and there are also other payments that may apply, so you should check the agreements for particular details you're interested in. If you're not a union member these rates will generally apply to you when you start as well (by law, historically, but the situation may change).
A couple of the agreements linked above have expired, and may have been replaced but not yet made available on the website, and some contain increments that hadn't come into effect yet. The general area of the numbers is right, though. There is a fair amount of variation between institutions, particularly the largest and smallest universities. There's also quite a bit of variation in how the scale works above that lowest-level entry point and how many steps there are (between 6 and 9 before moving to SL).

Wikipedia suggests that "assistant professor" is equivalent to "Lecturer" in the Australian and New Zealand Academic ranking systems.
My guess is that you can google any New Zealand university and they will list salaries for a Lecturer. For example, I searched for "university of auckland academic salaries"
and obtained the following document
So if you were employed as a lecturer in 2014, you'd probably start at $76,535 (New Zealand Dollars; exchange rate as of 19th Dec 2014 is 1 NZ dollar buys .78 US dollars; so starting salary would be around $60,000 USD) and each year you'd typically go up an increment (i.e., about $2,500 NZD; $1,950 USD) until you hit the top of "lecturer". At that point, further pay rises would be contingent on applying for a promotion to senior lecturer.
The relevant section from the University of Auckland agreement is shown below.

If it is like the Australian system then an entry-level position will start around L5-L6 for applicants with a PhD (including postdocs). Specific salary information should be available on the university websites.


text:
Is a second bachelors degree worth it?
I'm about to finish up a BA in linguistics and am looking at some interdisciplinary options for grad school (specifically in cognitive science).
I have a competitive GPA in my last two academic years, though my first year was a bit of a wash to say the least.
I was thinking that it would be a good idea to go back for a second degree for the following reasons:

to boost my cumulative gpa (my academic performance in first year was a pretty big blow to my cgpa)
to gain a better understanding of my research interests. (There are certain science courses that I haven't taken that make me feel downright incompetent without, such as first year physics and math.)

However, I'm acutely aware that I know nothing when it comes to grad school admissions, especially when it comes to interdisciplinary programs such as cognitive science. Is a second degree worth it?

This question may help: Second bachelor degree vs Master program in USA (math/engineering)

Unless you have in mind a second degree in a completely different field, I think you'd be spinning your wheels.  You can probably take those physics and math courses in post-baccalaureate status; check with the institution from which you got your degree.
If you are thinking of a second bachelor's degree in a field similar to your first, go for the master's degree in that field instead.  Your freshman year GPA will probably not keep you out of most programs since you have a solid record in your final years.  Presumably you'd get good recommendations from your upper division professors.

Thanks for the reply. Yes, I have the feeling that I don't necessarily need an entire new degree to make up for the deficits in my knowledge. So this route makes much sense.


text:
What are the masters funded opportunities for a British citizen living abroad?
Since I have been living in Pakistan for the past 6 years (completed my Bachelors of Electrical Engineering from here), I find myself not eligible for most academic scholarships in the UK.

For international students, the scholarship criteria usually states that I should not be a British Citizen
For British students, the scholarship criteria usually states that I should have been nominally residing in the UK to be eligible for the scholarship or even for standard UK/EU student fees

So I am at the worst of both ends! What do I do?
I am looking for an opportunity preferably in the UK but would be willing to go elsewhere

As an EU citizen, you are eligible for free education in Sweden:
https://studyinsweden.se

And all the nordic countries, actually.


text:
What is (S’73-M’76-SM’81-F’87) in author biography?
What does (S’73-M’76-SM’81-F’87) mean in author biography. I am writing a paper and the format given for author biography also include a must fill entry: (S’73-M’76-SM’81-F’87). I tried to Google it and I can see many similar entries in authors biographies in published papers.
Can someone please help me about how to fill up the field (S’73-M’76-SM’81-F’87) for myself?

Disclaimer: I base my answer on my familiarity with the IEEE. Other societies may follow similar conventions.
For members of the IEEE, the notation in your example is a "shorthand" way for indicating when the author achieved a certain membership status within the society. For example,

(S’73-M’76-SM’81-F’87)

means that A. N. Author became a Student Member (S) in 1973, a Member (M) in 1976, a Senior Member (SM) in 1981, and an IEEE Fellow (F) in 1987.
If you are not a member of the IEEE, then you do not use this shorthand in your biography.

As well as Mad Jack, I'm basing my answer on IEEE.
You can find IEEE's documents guiding authors on how to style their papers. The most updated one that I could find today can be download from here. The document is called IEEE Editorial Style Manual and it was published in 07/10/19.
The passage you are looking for is located in the section Biographies, page 13:

[...] The format for listing the IEEE membership history is to list each grade of membership attained followed by an apostrophe and the year it was attained, with each year and grade combination separated from the others by an en dash. Note that if an author attains the same membership grade in more than one year, list only the first year that it was reached. The current membership listed with the biography must match the byline.
Abbreviations for IEEE membership grades are S (Student Member), GS (Graduate Student Member), A (Associate Member), M (Member), SM (Senior Member), F (Fellow), LA (Life Associate Member), LM (Life Member), LSM (Life Senior Member), and LF (Life Fellow). Note that A stands for Associate, not Affiliate, Member. Affiliate memberships are not listed in the byline or biography membership history. Do not include references to IEEE membership from the text of the biography.


text:
Surface plots vs. colour maps
There are essentially two ways for plotting three-dimensional data:

Colour maps (or heat maps)¹:

Surface plots:

While surface plots are quite nice to visualise data if you can interactively move the perspective, they often obfuscate aspects of the data if you only have one perspective at hand – as it is mostly the case in papers or presentations. And even if the data is benign for surface plots, I have not yet met an example where it adds anything to the colour map, at least in my opinion. This holds for the case where the two are combined, i.e., the surface is coloured (as in the above example).
As surface plots are still used, even by people who are otherwise making very good plots, I wonder whether I am missing something here. Thus my question is: Given that I have evenly sampled, three-dimensional data and that I can only show one image to visualise it², is there any argument or situation due to which I should use a surface plot instead of a colour map? In both cases, assume optimally chosen plotting parameters, such as the colour scheme or the viewing angle. Also, you can assume that the plot is being used in an academic context, e.g., a paper, presentation or poster. In particular, the audience can be expected to be able to read such a plot and things like fanciness should not be an argument.

¹ This example is just to illustrate the types of plot. I am not asking about how they specifically should be presented.
² And thus, showing a video or multiple perspectives is not an option.

I am open to suggestions how to better tag this question.

This question appears to be off-topic because it is about graphs.

@DaveClarke: Why does being about graphs make the question off-topic? All I could find on meta is about one specific question, which is not accessible anymore.

The question is not about academica.

The question is not about how to do a graph but how to represent data. We accept questions on writing along the same lines so although I agree it is on the fringes of the topic authoring and presenting data in publications should be on topic.

Sometimes when I see surface plot and only one view perspective is available, I usually feel that they are going to hide something behind the readers, without other representations such as a tabulated data.

[stats.se] deals with data visualisation. [ux.se] deals with the ergonomics of visualisation

Preparing figures for manuscripts is on-topic here.

Contour plot has contours (i.e. lines). What you've shown is a heat map, also a valid visualization of 2-d function; please change question accordingly (optimally: adding the 3rd option; or just using proper names). (Side note: a nice question! It is about way of presenting plot suitable for publication so it is on-topic on Academia.SE; from software or plotting perspective both ways are fine.)

@Wrzlprmft I misread, sorry (I've never heard colour map in this context, so my brain read it as contour map, perhaps because of common letters). In any case, for the plot you show contour plot may be the most appropriate.

I like this kind of things that are done for the pressure, when printed on a normal printer this is what looks best, IMHO.

This belongs on CrossValidated.

@aeismail I don't really feel like this is a "preparing figures for manuscripts" question - for one thing, the OP never states that it's for a manuscript. It's purely a data visualization question, and one not specific to academia.

I usually go with heatmaps or contour plots. But occasionally I also use surface plots where the colour adds yet another dimension of information.

@Fomite: Why CrossValidated? No statistics have to be involved in obtaining what is plotted. Also, my question is not about a plot for a specific paper, let alone the examples I gave about a general academic application, be it a paper, presentation or poster. Though, given where we are, I did not mention that I was talking about academic audiences, this matters to the question in my opinion, as I am not interested in arguments about the fanciness or the plots’ accessibility to an audience that is not used to reading plots.

@Wrzlprmft "Cross Validated is a question and answer site for people interested in...and data visualization." The question you asked is purely about data visualization, and isn't academia specific - industrial or myriad other applications of three-dimensional plots exist.

As everything, it depends. Here is a 3d plot of a mass-spectroscopic peak in time and mass to charge:

You can get a pretty good idea of its shape and how important noise is. Also, as it is a wireframe, you can see what is behind. If you want to see several of them I can show you too:

Now the thickness is not so obvious, but still, you get a nice idea of the whole thing. You can immediately see the relative intensities, and patterns like the uppermost corner, where there are several peaks parallel to each other (which is an important feature of my data), with falling intensities.
For the show off, I generated a bigger slice with Blender, that gives a nice feeling of how the data looks like, including the long "ridges", parallel peaks, noise, and profiles:

In this case, I don't care some peaks are covering each other because the exact positioning is quite random. If I do a heatmap I get this:

I can overlay more information, like the red lines on top, but now we have lost track of the relative intensities, actual shapes, and level of noise.
In my case, the 3D works because the position of the peaks is quite random, and the exact shape varies from experiment to experiment. Also, intensities and noise are important, and one needs to keep them in mind. But if you want to plot a function (say, a kernel density), where the exact shape is important, and relative values are not so much, a heatmap or a contour plot are usually a better choice.

+1 - using color can not effectively show magnitudes in  numeric data - it is mostly only effective for showing ordinal changes in ranks. In terms of the occlusion problem I have seen people provide multiple perspectives of the same plot rotated as static images.

To definitely solve the occlusion problem and add a WOW factor, when possible, show a video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PeAUDzMr_Fg

With your second 3d graph, I would almost recommend taking the slice between 402 and 403, averaging each point along that axis and display a 2d graph. That's where the interesting data is.

@Cruncher in my application, the separation is also important, the gap between the peaks are actual zeroes (they are the same thing with an extra neutron or two). Averaging along an axis doesn't work here, because separations in both x and y are very relevant, and the presence of small features, very important.

While I agree with @AndyW that this a good example where there is an advantage to surface plots (and thus what I have been asking for), namely better visualising details of the relative magnitudes, this is not a generalisable feature. In fact, this is the first such example, I have seen, while in other cases, this information is not well-accessible in either type of plot. Also, I would guess that the colour map can be drastically improved by tweaking the colour scheme and scale.

@Wrzlprmft, I agree your particular example is fine with a 2d heatmap. Some nice examples of 3d maps I have seen from Alasdair Rae's blog (1,2) - although I agree it should be used sparingly. I talk about generating biased color ramps in this Q on the stats site, Generating visually appealing density heat maps in R, but I doubt it would ever be as striking as the 3d in Davidmh's example here.

There are four questions, in the order as below:

what you want to show or put the emphasis on?
which visualization makes the data as clear as possible to read and interpret?
what is typical way of showing data in your field (to reduce confusion)?
(optional) does it make sense in black and white? (some people print papers; sometimes displays have poor color display)

In the case you have shown, heat map looks much more clear; surface plot may have some visual appeal (arguably), but obfuscates the data (some places are hidden, it is harder to read numerical values and see symmetries). Also, it may be good to consider contour plot with values on contours as it is printable in black and white.

I think the choice here is mainly a question of taste. Personally, I always prefer the the colour map type plots but I know some people who strongly prefer surface plots. The brief arguments for each are as follows:
Colour map:
Pros:

Less possibility of hiding or misleading data by obstruction.
More accurate representation of the data (no perspective effects).

Cons:

Can be hard to plot selected areas and similar things (although not impossible).

Surface plot:
Pros:

Look nicer (I strongly disagree)
Can be useful if you want to show multiple things on one plot, e.g. height with one area selected (you colour the selected area but put the height surface)

Cons:

Very easy to hide some data behind something or make it unclear.
I find it sometimes difficult to "unwrap" the image to get back to the height.

I've downvoted for the comment "a question of taste". Both the other answers and yourself have provided instances of situations to prefer one over the other. These don't have to do with "taste" but with accurately presenting information to your audience.

@AndyW I think it is a question of taste. I don't think any of the arguments for surface plots are really valid and given the choice I would never use them. Other people have a different opinion and quite like them. Also I'm not really convinced by any of the other arguments as to why I would want to use a surface plot other than its what everyone else does in the field, which doesn't actually make one way better objectively.

There is a field of study related to data visualization; mostly occupied by statisticians, psychologists, geographers, and computer scientists. For but one reference on the topic and where 3d can be useful, I would refer you to Illuminated Choropleth Maps (Stewart & Kennelly, 2010). Online PDF preprint here.

For a more general reference I would recommend Thematic Cartography and Geovisualization (Slocum et al. 2005 - although there are newer versions which I have not read). There certainly are objective criteria to guide us as to what graphics will convey information more accurately to our audience than simply aesthetic preferences.


text:
How is a PhD project budget set?
In experimental fields, such as physics, chemistry, and engineering, every professor has their own lab/workshop, normally with several externally funded projects. A PhD student may work on currently funded projects.
However, it is the responsibility of the university or department  to provide the cost of this PhD project. How and by whom is the budget of a PhD project set?
I mentioned experimental fields, because the costs of these PhD projects are normally much higher than tuition fees (consider that the student has no research fellowship).

What do you mean it is the department's responsibility to provide the cost of this PhD project? In general, that duty falls on the principal investigator, not the university.

@aeismail You mean if a PI does not have external funding cannot supervise PhD students? University does not have research budget for academic projects?

Universities typically have very limited research budgets for projects—far less than would be needed to cover the costs for all of the doctoral candidates. Typically in the US, a new professor will get funding for one student or postdoc for a few years at the outset, but is expected to raise her own funds thereafter. Even in Germany, where funding is more plentiful, faculty will only have enough "permanent slots" for two or three assistants (while groups typically are many times larger than that).

And yes, if faculty members don't have the funding to take on new students, they normally are not allowed to.

@aeismail Then when a department announce they have x free slots for PhD students, the department relies on the faculty members' external funds? I am referring to departmental admission of a batch of students, not fellowship provided by specific professor. For example, when a department enrolls x number of PhD students annually, who guarantee that the PhD students get fund for a descent research project? Note that in coursework-based PhD programs, students normally start to work on a project on their 3nd year.

Unless the department explicitly promises to provide support for some number of years, it's the responsibility of the individual advisors to see that the students' projects are paid for. (This is the case in virtually all "experimental sciences"; in math and CS it may be different.)

@aeismail: Yes, it is different in math.  At least in the US and in pure math, the department is the main source of financial support for Ph.D. students.  Of course, typically the project itself has no costs other than the student's and advisor's time (maybe some paper and chalk).

Computer Science is generally the same in the US: faculty are expected to fund their students.

In the US and UK, at least, PhD students in he sciences and engineering generally receive funding that covers both tuition and a modest stipend to for living expenses. The exact details of the funding (e.g., taxable or non-taxable, benefits, and whether funding is given for tuition or tuition is waived) vary widely. The funding can come from a number of sources.
The easiest to understand are external grants directly to a student. The grant has a budget and the student is expected to keep the research costs within the budget. Additional costs, potentially including space charges and other overhead type fees, need to either be covered by the student or negotiated directly with the supervisor/department/university.
Grants (both internal and external, and start up funds) to the advisor generally cover a project bigger than a single student. It is the advisor's responsibility to make sure each sub project is appropriately budgeted for and negotiate with the department/university for additional money. While some students will be given an "official" budget by the supervisor, most are required to have the supervisor sign off on all expenses. Budget issues often come up during the design stages of a project.
Departments and universities also fund PhD students. This type of funding is sometimes in the form of Research Assistantships, but more often is for Teaching Assistantships where the student needs to teach in order to get the funding. Research costs can be, but are not always, covered by this type of internal funding. It is left to the student to either cover the research costs themselves or negotiate with supervisor/department/university to make sure the costs are covered.
My experimental research is relatively cheap, but I think in the vast majority of fields, the big cost is staff. Apart from possibly the most expensive types of experimental research, a supervisor with reasonable funding, will likely be able to find the money to cover experimental costs for a PhD student. It might require some limits to be placed on the project (e.g., including some modeling or theoretical work to reduce the costs).

Typically, a PhD is not a job and thus a candidate does not have to have wage. Thus, it is not anyone's responsibility to provide any costs.
Professors, in different grades (but capable to be supervisors to PhDs), accept PhD candidates and conduct with them (as supervisors) novel research in various scientific disciplines. From this research, the candidate proves that he/she is able to hold the title of PhD and this whole process leads to the PhD tite (if the candidate succeeds).
Funding is side effect/project/what_ever. There are various opportunities for the state, country, companies to actually buy/fund novel research results and by this process there is a useful feedback from the scientific domain to the professional one which, in many cases, drives the production of new products and services.
So, if a Professor has a vacant position for a candidate and if the field of the research is close related or exactly at the field of a fund opportunity and if the Professor cares to apply for funding and if the application is approved then money can come for this research.
If the money finally come, then there is a usual division of labor with an appropriate "wage". These may (and is most likely that they do) vary between countries, universities, continents.
Thus, if someone needs to conduct experiments which need some money to spent then either the institution provide them, or he/she provide them, or the Professor has already a funding going on and cares to actually "hire" a PhD candidate to conduct the novel research based on the experiments.

"Typically, a PhD is not a job and thus a candidate does not have to have wage. Thus, it is not anyone's responsibility to provide any costs." A lot of western European countries disagree with that.

It would be helpful to state the field and country from which your experience comes.  As @Moriarty says, your answer is not applicable to all fields and all countries.

@NateEldredge, I do not know how a "country" [sic] can disagree. What I know is that a PhD is just another degree and any candidate is just a student. Post-graduate, but still a student. Also, I know that in most of (if not all) of Western European countries there is NOT a wage for a PhD. This applies to France, England, Swiss, Sweden, Netherlands, Denmark, Italy, Germany etc. IF someone is having an income from his PhD is just because his supervisor has "hired" him for a funding project. NOT for doing PhD. Maybe the project is on the same discipline as the PhD but this just happens.

In what @Moriarty has a slight point is that many PROFESSORS accept PhD candidates only if they do have a funding going on. But this is way too far from accounting PhD as a job with a responsibility for a wage. In other words, no university has in his budget a field that is called "PhD candidates' wage".

@Kostas It depends on the country and the degree.  Why are you being rude to Nate?  As you say, the European model does not guarantee funding/a job. In the US, however, most of the science/computer fields guarantee funding for all PhD students as long as they are in good standing.  Our students get their tuition covered, and receive a stipend each month.  In the humanities, on the other hand, there may not be such guarantees.  Nate's point is reasonable and accurate: it varies by country and field.  Arguing about it without knowing those is pointless.

@Kostas This most definitely does not apply to the Netherlands. And it's also highly misleading for France, Germany, Switzerland and probably all your other other examples. It's true that in many cases you can technically be hired for some related project/teaching. But as you conceded already, in many places/disciplines, you just cannot do a PhD if there are no funds and no position for you. In this context, it makes no sense to write that “It is not anyone's responsibility to provide any costs”…

Incidentally, I don't think that it's what the question is about at all. It's not PhD candidates wages, it's about the costs of running (expensive) experiments, which you only briefly allude to in one sentence at the end without providing any concrete info.

@Kostas In Sweden you have to have funding to do a PhD. Anti slavery laws forbid doing otherwise. Supervisors get funding specifically to hire PhD students, as is stated literally in their funding applications. Also, my official status with the university is of full time employee (but with rights to student discounts).


text:
Why is novelty mandatory for a Ph.D. degree?
The institute I am studying at has added the following requirement recently:

A PhD scholar must publish two papers in his/her corresponding field
  in SCI journals.

This means that a student cannot get PhD without two SCI rated papers. To the best of my knowledge, novelty is a mandate for such journals; hence, novelty has became mandatory for a student to get PhD in my institute.
In this context, I have the following query: Why is novelty mandatory for a PhD degree?
Consider a scenario in which a student is ambitious and wants to do research on an open problem or famous unsolved problem in his/her field. The student cannot attempt to research such a topic since research may be locally saturated, and he/she cannot come up with a novel idea. Does the rule not restrict the research on such problems? I can see the alternatives like tutorial papers, survey papers, etc., but some of these require only highly experienced geeks.
Note: Assume that neither the PhD student nor the PhD supervisor is an extraordinary person in that particular field.

Before the requirement about two papers in SCI journals, did your institute award Ph.D.degrees without any requirement of novelty? In my opinion, that would be very strange and not consistent with what a Ph.D. should mean.

Before that, there is no such explicit rule and solely depends on mentor and doctoral review committee and any papers got priority I.e., not only SCI papers.

I don’t understand the last paragraph of your question. Why should a requirement for novelty be a problem for ambitious students?

Suppose a person selects Riemann hypothesis as his PhD topic. The research is happening on it all over the mathematics community and it is very rare that a PhD student can contribute to it. @Thomas

That's my point: Then the research what the student is doing is mostly for publishing the SCI papers. @corey979

@hanugm that's a side effect - if the student is doing good work then she will end up publishing SCI papers. The motivation you describe is vague and hard to pin down as well, e.g. is the student doing research so she can be awarded a PhD?

One of the first lessons of PhD studies is that you’re likely not as smart as you think and that you’re likely to fail if working on famous unsolved problems.

@Thomas: "Why should a requirement for novelty be a problem for ambitious students?" - if I interpret the question correctly: Even the most ambitious student has zero influence on whether there still is anything novel to discover. Thus, in a (globally, far; for individual subfields maybe not so far at all) future, once all relevant knowledge has been discovered, no more PhD degrees can be granted even to the most brilliant of people. This is a fundamental difference to e.g. Bachelor degrees, which are typically meant to certify professional skills and can keep being granted forever.

See illustrated guide to a PhD: http://matt.might.net/articles/phd-school-in-pictures/

Novelty does not require being an extraordinary person in your field.

@O.R.Mapper Even the most ambitious student has zero influence on whether there still is anything novel to discover. — This is true, but vacuously so.  There is always more to discover!

Consider one to say "Make me a discoverer of things", and the reply should be "Discover something, and we'll talk."

Novelty or originality is already a requirement of PhD courses, even those without a publishing requirement. The work is expected to of publishable quality, whether or not is has been yet. Examiners will assess your thesis based on this and other criteria that you can find publicly available. They should conform to international standards. This does not have to be radically novel, a new approach to an existing problem or a new application of an existing technique is acceptable (even if it is then scooped). Any advisor should be able to support this.

Novelty is a basic requirement in research because without novel results, the work is of at best limited usefulness. It's not useless - review papers are useful - but it's less interesting to the people at the frontier. In the case of a PhD, it is supposed to signify a student is now capable of doing research. Research (as opposed to literature review) necessarily involves new and novel results. Therefore novelty is a requirement.
If I understand your last paragraph right, you're wondering about open problems which might be too complex to solve in one go. But in that case, you still get new and novel results - they might be partial results, but they're still results. The same goes for research using new methods that turn out not to work: knowing where not to look is not as useful as knowing where to look, but by narrowing the parameter space, it's still useful.

But in that case, you still get new and novel results*... but it is very rare that a PhD student with a normal supervisor can get such results.

@hanugm certainly not, most PhD students get such results. How else did your predecessors at your institution get awarded PhDs? They discovered enough new things to publish two SCI-indexed papers. See also corey979's comment.

@hanugm at my institution every single PhD student has new and novel results. The importance of the results vary, with some having papers at Nature/Science and others publishing at very insignificant local journals, but they always have results. That's what you do in your PhD. You do stuff no one did before. Whether someone cares about it is another thing, but it's still new.

@Gimelist in that case, the importance of novelty may be less also...

@hanugm That may be true, but the single most important criterion for awarding a PhD is whether the student was able to obtain (publishable) original results. The importance of these results will be the largest factor in determining the grade of the PhD. Writing an excellent review of the literature is usually not enough for a PhD, although it is a popular format for Master's theses.

Also note that there are doctoral degrees that do not require original research, or at least not anything close to the levels of originality and substantiality required for a PhD. Examples include the DA (Doctor of Arts) degree, as well as many professional degrees such as MD, JD, PharmD, and DDS. A PhD is a research doctorate.

To improve this answer: "novelty" suggests it has to be a new concept. It might be better phrased as "new information". An essential part of science is reproducing and testing concepts from other teams. This is not creating a novel idea yourself; but documenting whether the new concept also works for you or not, and the ways your results differ from the original team's, is essential for good science. And that's absolutely PhD paper material because it's new information, even if it isn't novel.

This answer will be a bit different and not limited to the sciences as the other current answers seem to be. It will also apply to many similar degrees not designated PhD. I'll use the term "doctorate" as an abbreviation for "research doctorate" to distinguish it from other degrees such as those that are clinically focused, for example.
Study for a doctorate (PhD and similar degrees) in a field is intended to teach you how to carry out scholarship in that field, whatever it is. Scholarship is always intended to be the extension of knowledge. A successful scholar extends what is known in the field of interest. In literature, for example, you can study Dr. Faustus by Goethe and give a perspective never considered before. This would be, as are many (most?) studies, very narrow. But it can also be very deep. If someone says that your thoughts aren't actually novel, but a simple extension of things written a few (or a lot of) years ago, then those thoughts don't really extend knowledge. So, if all you can accomplish are derivative works, without novelty, then you haven't reached the point of being able to extend knowledge in your field.
The actual accomplishment need not be earth shattering in its implications. Most are not - even in mathematics and the sciences. But you have to be able to say something that is interesting to other scholars, preferably something that will permit them to extend their own work in new ways not yet considered.
There are a lot of ways to demonstrate that you are, indeed, able to extend knowledge in your field. A requirement of publication in a good journal is just one way and it is easy for the faculty to judge, since the reviewers and editors of the journal help them in their judgement task. Not so many years ago, in mathematics, there was no requirement to publish before obtaining the doctorate and your "proof of ability" was measured only in your dissertation as evaluated by the local faculty, perhaps with some supplementing.
Research in any field is directed at extending the "known world". You need to demonstrate the ability to do that to earn a doctorate and to be known as a "doctor" of the field. Only "novelty" will do.

The notion of scholarship is really enlightening. Thank you!

A PhD thesis demonstrates the candidate's ability to perform research. Research, by definition, adds something novel to the body of knowledge.

Research: The systematic investigation into and study of materials  and sources
  in order to establish facts and reach new conclusions
  (Oxford English Dictionary)

Axiom
My answer derive from following definition of the PhD and its thesis.

The purpose of a PhD is to train a research student as an autonomous scientist
  and a good researcher — i.e., as someone deserving the grade of Doctor.
The objective of a PhD thesis is hence to demonstrate to one’s peers that its author can be considered in this way by reporting the successful* completion of a high-quality piece of research.

Depending on one's field, the monograph-style thesis can be replaced by a set of published peer-reviewed paper. The objective remains the same.
Question
The question is then "What is an autonomous scientist and a good researcher?"

Being a good researcher means first to do science well, second to do good
  science, and third to do a lot of science.
Doing science well means following its ethical rules, being thorough, honestly and appropriately reporting one’s results, crediting one’s peers for their work and acknowledging one’s work limitations, using the adequate tools and methods to solve a problem, and doing research that is reproducible.
Doing good science means addressing a relevant scientific gap, an issue that is influential, a research problem that matters for science, the society, and the industry.
Doing a lot of science means to tackle a large-scale problem, to address subsequent research gaps, to contribute to multiple issues of a coherent sub-field.
One must, however, note that these criteria are conditional to one another. Doing a lot of science serves no purpose if one does not do good science. And more importantly, doing good science serves no purpose if one does not do science well.

To this, I would add that (it is my opinion, and one may disagree) the job of a researcher is to do science.
And doing science means reporting new knowledge that is as truthful as possible.
This is achievable using the scientific method that is commonly acknowledged as the best method for creating/unveiling (depending on your ontological positioning) reliable new knowledge.
Answer
So, to pragmatically answer your question:

the purpose a a PhD is to train you as a scientist,
producing new (and highly reliable) knowledge is quintessentially the role of a scientist.

Hence, you cannot be recognized by your peers as a scientist (i.e., being awarded the _Doctor_ title) if you don't prove that you can produce new reliable knowledge by yourself.
The confusion might come from the fact that — as it has been highlighted in comments — scientists do literature review, and literature review are useful and valuable. However, they are not the core of what is a scientist.
Post-scriptum
It it worth highlighting again the last quoted paragraph:

These criteria are conditional to one another. Doing a lot of science serves no purpose if one does not do good science. And more importantly, doing good science serves no purpose if one does not do science well.

Thus, I think that, when doing a PhD, one should mainly focus of the quality of one's contribution, rather than breadth or scale.
In other words: what matters is not that much what you have proven, but how you have proven it.
Of course I had the dream of a breakthrough thesis.
Yet I think that, during a PhD, it is more important to produce only a few robust, well designed experiment and well reported results on a minor "research gap"; rather than aiming to tackle a large scale issue without being able to produce robust results or reliable conclusions.
It's only once you'll have proven that you are a good researcher and autonomous scientist, that you'll be able to secure a job as a scientist/researcher.
And then you'll have time (and money, and support, and experience, …) to shoot for the stars.
Yet this is not the objective of a PhD. Everything in its own time.

Citations are excerpt of… the preface of my PhD thesis.
* Note that "successful" is to be understood as "We have completed each step of the scientific method". I.e., it does not consider whether results are positive or negative.

This answer has some excellent points — e.g. the core answer that a PhD thesis must demonstrate the candidate’s capability as a scientist, and that’s why it needs novelty — mixed in with some very tendentious and field-dependent claims, like the idea ‘“successful” is to be understood as “We have been able to demonstrate with certainty that” rather than “there is a correlation/impact/link between A and B”.’ — there are whole fields of science where this is a complete category error as to the nature of research.  It would benefit from focusing more on the uncontroversial key points.

@PLL PS: Out of curiosity/interest, could you please elaborate on your point ("there are whole fields of science where this is a complete category error as to the nature of research.") — e.g., with some examples?

Also interestingly enough is doesn't provide insight to the behind the scenes workings of the publication and review process which are machines which need much maintenance akin to the legal systems in some sense of the terms.

"...you cannot be recognized by your peers as a scientist if you don't prove that you can produce new reliable knowledge by yourself." That might be an example of jumping to conclusions. I could recognize someone as a scientist even without that proof, for example by having enough trust that anyone could be a scientist in principle.


text:
How do U.S. research institutions typically reimburse a faculty candidate's airfare costs for multi-city trips?
I am interviewing at several research institutions in the U.S. for a tenure-track faculty position all around the same time. I booked a multi-city flight to avoid having to fly back to my current hometown between each interview because that would be lame. I plan on asking the institutions for guidance on how to get reimbursed, but figured I would ask here about what I should expect or what is commonly done for this situation. As an example, say for three interviews, ideally each institution would pay a third of the cost, but each institution has its own rules and they are not bound to do what other institutions would in any case.
So, how do U.S. research institutions typically reimburse a faculty candidate's airfare costs for multi-city trips?
Related: How to buy plane tickets for job interviews?

have you asked them ?

@Suresh The answer to your question has already been given. I just want to know what to expect.

I've usually found that places are happy to pay an appropriate fraction of the cost, but as you say, it probably depends on the institution's policies and there might not be a general answer.

@MattReece Thanks. I'm also curious if folks have any examples of difficulties they've encountered when attempting to get reimbursed for multi-city trips.

When looking for a postdoc and visiting multiple labs, I was asked to split the reimbursement for travel costs between the institutions. The exact details of how to split were left to me.
Most institutions expect to fund the entire trip for faculty candidates, so I don't foresee any problems with you asking them to pay less than what they expected.

I once visited an institution where they asked me to get an itemized receipt from the airline that broke down the fare by leg. (This information wasn't on my original ticket so I had to ask the ticket agent at the airport.) They then reimbursed me for only the legs going to and from their institution.
Of course, when multiple institutions are involved, you will still have to split intermediate legs somehow.