But, of course, it is not top paid profession.

Average PhD in research is making (in USA) somewhere in $50-$70K/year range, and this also is the range of engineer's salaries, by the way. Yanger - may be even less, order - more. In computers you can make $100K or more, being a doctor or a lawyer - $150-200, being successfull businessman -even much more than that.

So, if you like money more than having interesting job - then science is not for you.

But if you like to be among intellectual people, discussing various exciting topics, writing and solving equations, modelling math on computer, teaching students and others, travel the world for conferences, workshops, simposiums and collaborations as well as to work on exotic facilities like telescopes, accelerators, plasma machines, supercomputers, etc - then science could be your profession.

I personally enjoy science with all its above amendities and with freedom of time and freedom of having no pressure from above (about what to do and when to report results, or how to teach students, etc) and with firm understanding that my salary can be probably 1.5-2 times higher if I cross the street and be a software developer (say, C++ programmer) or so. By the way, you can always walk from research into computing or engineering (but not vice versa). Money were never a first priority for me (but somehow I always had more than I need, including oversize 4-bdrm apartment in russia and 2 oversize houses in US). Interesting occupation was always much more important - I simply can not do what I do not like.