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And by the time you are ready to get a degree in physics it will no longer be necessary to give you those formulas in a test. You have used them so often and u

by sykh 8y ago

And by the time you are ready to get a degree in physics it will no longer be necessary to give you those formulas in a test. You have used them so often and understand them so well that a formula sheet isn’t necessary. You have missed the point of my comment. Do you think Feynman lacked a vast amount of physics knowledge that he memorized (to use his phrasing)? Part of acquiring expertise in any area is the fact that you end up storing lots of information about that area so that you don’t need to look up every little detail or fact. If you are going to have a serious discussion with biologists about cell processes you need to have lots of knowledge, names, etc. at the ready. Can't go looking up every little thing as you go along. It would be impossible communicate if you did that. Feynman was being a jerk with that comment. His dismissiveness reminds me of comment that a well respected mathematician once made. “Quantumn mechanics is just such and such theory in dimesion 1.” Only ignorance allows one to hold such a belief.

credit_guy 8y ago
In addition to that, I think it’s generally not a good teaching technique to belittle your students, even if they show a bit of immaturity.
danharaj 8y ago
> “Quantumn mechanics is just such and such theory in dimesion 1.” Well, quantum mechanics is "just" 0+1 quantum field theory which is actually a good insight and not at all dismissive.
- sykh 8y ago
  It is dismissive because if it was just that then knowing the mathematics would be sufficient to do research in theoretical quantumn mechanics but it isn't. One needs to know the physics and have physical intuition. To say that theoretical quantumn mechanics is just a small branch of mathematics is ignorance. It is not insightful at all. Is commutative algebra just a branch of set of theory? Are set theorists generally equipped to understand research papers on Galois Cohomology? No. Set theory is used in these areas but to suggest that these areas "are just aspects of set theory" is not all insightful.
  - danharaj 8y ago
    I don't understand the complaint here, Quantum Field Theory is physics just as much as Quantum Mechanics?
    - sykh 8y ago
      The mathematician who made the quote I mentioned said that quantum mechanics was just <some branch of mathematics that I’ve forgotten> in dimension 1. I don’t know what quantumn field theory is. If it is a branch of physics then it’s not the theory the mathematician I referred to mentioned. Some mathematicians view mathematics as superior to physics and are dismissive about physics. They tend to believe that since they mastered mathematics then learning physics is easy.
  - throwaway37585 8y ago
    > It is dismissive because if it was just that then knowing the mathematics would be sufficient to do research in theoretical quantumn mechanics but it isn't. This not at all the same. QM is a special case of QFT. > To say that theoretical quantumn mechanics is just a small branch of mathematics is ignorance. It’s not. That statement is objectively true. > It is not insightful at all. It is. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Unreasonable_Effectiveness_of_Mathematics_in_the_Natural_Sciences https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Unreasonable_Effectivene... > Is commutative algebra just a branch of set of theory? Are set theorists generally equipped to understand research papers on Galois Cohomology? No. Set theory is used in these areas but to suggest that these areas "are just aspects of set theory" is not all insightful. Intersection (overlap) is not the same as containment, so I have no idea why you’re bringing this up.
    - sykh 8y ago
      Isn’t it true that commutative algebra is contained within set theory? Aren’t all the objects sets?
      - throwaway37585 8y ago
        > Isn’t it true that commutative algebra is contained within set theory? Aren’t all the objects sets? Sets are one way (among others) to encode such mathematical structures. This doesn’t mean these structures are sets. For example, is the empty set an element of pi? This question is meaningless because the answer would have to depend on the encoding being used, and not on the properties of pi itself. It’s imposing additional structure above and beyond that of the mathematical structure in question. See here for more discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16080027 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16080027.

by sykh 8y ago

credit_guy 8y ago

In addition to that, I think it’s generally not a good teaching technique to belittle your students, even if they show a bit of immaturity.

danharaj 8y ago

> “Quantumn mechanics is just such and such theory in dimesion 1.” Well, quantum mechanics is "just" 0+1 quantum field theory which is actually a good insight and not at all dismissive.

sykh 8y ago
It is dismissive because if it was just that then knowing the mathematics would be sufficient to do research in theoretical quantumn mechanics but it isn't. One needs to know the physics and have physical intuition. To say that theoretical quantumn mechanics is just a small branch of mathematics is ignorance. It is not insightful at all. Is commutative algebra just a branch of set of theory? Are set theorists generally equipped to understand research papers on Galois Cohomology? No. Set theory is used in these areas but to suggest that these areas "are just aspects of set theory" is not all insightful.
- danharaj 8y ago
  I don't understand the complaint here, Quantum Field Theory is physics just as much as Quantum Mechanics?
  - sykh 8y ago
    The mathematician who made the quote I mentioned said that quantum mechanics was just <some branch of mathematics that I’ve forgotten> in dimension 1. I don’t know what quantumn field theory is. If it is a branch of physics then it’s not the theory the mathematician I referred to mentioned. Some mathematicians view mathematics as superior to physics and are dismissive about physics. They tend to believe that since they mastered mathematics then learning physics is easy.
- throwaway37585 8y ago
  > It is dismissive because if it was just that then knowing the mathematics would be sufficient to do research in theoretical quantumn mechanics but it isn't. This not at all the same. QM is a special case of QFT. > To say that theoretical quantumn mechanics is just a small branch of mathematics is ignorance. It’s not. That statement is objectively true. > It is not insightful at all. It is. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Unreasonable_Effectiveness_of_Mathematics_in_the_Natural_Sciences https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Unreasonable_Effectivene... > Is commutative algebra just a branch of set of theory? Are set theorists generally equipped to understand research papers on Galois Cohomology? No. Set theory is used in these areas but to suggest that these areas "are just aspects of set theory" is not all insightful. Intersection (overlap) is not the same as containment, so I have no idea why you’re bringing this up.
  - sykh 8y ago
    Isn’t it true that commutative algebra is contained within set theory? Aren’t all the objects sets?
    - throwaway37585 8y ago
      > Isn’t it true that commutative algebra is contained within set theory? Aren’t all the objects sets? Sets are one way (among others) to encode such mathematical structures. This doesn’t mean these structures are sets. For example, is the empty set an element of pi? This question is meaningless because the answer would have to depend on the encoding being used, and not on the properties of pi itself. It’s imposing additional structure above and beyond that of the mathematical structure in question. See here for more discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16080027 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16080027.