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Disclaimer: I'm a physicist who didn't finish the Phd and went to work in the tech field instead. I wish physicists would stop writing these bullshitty popular

by Maro 8y ago

Disclaimer: I'm a physicist who didn't finish the Phd and went to work in the tech field instead. I wish physicists would stop writing these bullshitty popular science books. A lot of the books are popularizing unverified / unverifiable things like String Theory or Multiverse or Arrow of Time. And when they're talking about more plain things like Special Relativity, then I still cringe, because it's not something that's worth explaining to lay people: there is no situation in which some high-level bullshitty understanding of GR or SR or QM will be helpful or relevant in life, at best it will confuse you. It is a good and necessary thing to tell students about this, so some of them become physicists, but you don't need popular science books for that, it should happen in schools, for free. If you're going to speak about Physics to lay people, at least do it it in a way that's relevant to them, eg. look at how Feynman taught Physics. Explain how a boomerang works, or how thermodynamics relates to photosynthesis.

boffinism 8y ago
> it's not something that's worth explaining to lay people Lay person here. I'd just like you to know that we experience curiosity too. Also, having read some Rovelli, I should point out that he's pretty good at highlighting when and how he's simplifying, and flagging up when he strays beyond the scientific consensus into the unverified.
jpmoral 8y ago
> there is no situation in which some high-level bullshitty understanding of GR or SR or QM will be helpful or relevant in life, at best it will confuse you. If I only learned and experienced things that would be 'helpful' or 'relevant' it would be a very dull life.
- hansen 8y ago
  Yeah, science isn’t about being useful and relevant in day to day life. It’s an important part of human culture and scientist should at least try to communicate their findings to general public (which is paying for it!). I partially agree with the first comment that it isn’t really helpful to popularize highly speculative – and thus probably false – ideas. But well established but still “weird” discoveries like GR & QM are interesting on their own and have huge implications on our understanding of nature. You don’t need a science degree to be fascinated by black holes, the big bang and quantum weirdness.
  - Maro 8y ago
    I respect your point of view, but I don't really agree. A popular science understanding of BHs, BB, QM is not really an understanding. It's just some fairy tale level understanding. To be clear, I'm not being elitist, using QM as an example, I think it was Feynman who said nobody really understands it, at best we can make calculations/predictions ("shut up and calculate"). For example, ask a lay person about BB and they will tell you it's an explosion, in the classical sense (it's not). Or, I don't think you can "understand" QM without understanding the significance of unitary linear operators for time evolution, or self-adjoint linear operators for measurements. If you would "allow" non-linearities, the world would be different.
    - dempseye 8y ago
      > It's just some fairy tale level understanding. This has value in itself, as the first step towards greater understanding. I bet most people who study physics had their interest piqued by such fairytales. Maybe you did too.
      - Maro 8y ago
        > I bet most people who study physics had their interest piqued by such fairytales. Okay, but that's the education use-case for young people. For them, a 300+ page book that talks about the arrow of time and costs $25 is not the right thing, in my opinion. If you look at Feynman's stuff, those are good examples, that's what got me hooked as a student. I pirated the Feynman Lectures on Physics mp3s and pdfs and chewed through it, after being initially inspired by Surely You're Joking.
    - hansen 8y ago
      > For example, ask a lay person about BB and they will tell you it's an explosion, in the classical sense Give her Weinberg’s book to read and she’ll come to a different conclusion. Of course those books won’t give you a deep understanding of cosmology but that doesn’t mean they have to be completely wrong. Stephen Weinberg’s The First Three Minutes is my favorite example of pop-sci done right.
rufugee 8y ago
I Feynman is the right approach to teaching physics to the lay person...which book is the place to start?
- tim333 8y ago
  QED is kind of fun.
- Maro 8y ago
  Surely you're joking: not a physics book, it's about Feynman's life, it's a way to get you inspired and into the mindset. Feynman Lectures on Physics: freshman level course that Feynman taught at MIT. Lots of material, will last you year(s). Six easy pieces: 6 easy lectures from Feynman. Six not so easy pieces: 6 not-so-easy lectures from Feynman. Feynman lectures on computation.

by Maro 8y ago

boffinism 8y ago

> it's not something that's worth explaining to lay people Lay person here. I'd just like you to know that we experience curiosity too. Also, having read some Rovelli, I should point out that he's pretty good at highlighting when and how he's simplifying, and flagging up when he strays beyond the scientific consensus into the unverified.

jpmoral 8y ago

> there is no situation in which some high-level bullshitty understanding of GR or SR or QM will be helpful or relevant in life, at best it will confuse you. If I only learned and experienced things that would be 'helpful' or 'relevant' it would be a very dull life.

hansen 8y ago
Yeah, science isn’t about being useful and relevant in day to day life. It’s an important part of human culture and scientist should at least try to communicate their findings to general public (which is paying for it!). I partially agree with the first comment that it isn’t really helpful to popularize highly speculative – and thus probably false – ideas. But well established but still “weird” discoveries like GR & QM are interesting on their own and have huge implications on our understanding of nature. You don’t need a science degree to be fascinated by black holes, the big bang and quantum weirdness.
- Maro 8y ago
  I respect your point of view, but I don't really agree. A popular science understanding of BHs, BB, QM is not really an understanding. It's just some fairy tale level understanding. To be clear, I'm not being elitist, using QM as an example, I think it was Feynman who said nobody really understands it, at best we can make calculations/predictions ("shut up and calculate"). For example, ask a lay person about BB and they will tell you it's an explosion, in the classical sense (it's not). Or, I don't think you can "understand" QM without understanding the significance of unitary linear operators for time evolution, or self-adjoint linear operators for measurements. If you would "allow" non-linearities, the world would be different.
  - dempseye 8y ago
    > It's just some fairy tale level understanding. This has value in itself, as the first step towards greater understanding. I bet most people who study physics had their interest piqued by such fairytales. Maybe you did too.
    - Maro 8y ago
      > I bet most people who study physics had their interest piqued by such fairytales. Okay, but that's the education use-case for young people. For them, a 300+ page book that talks about the arrow of time and costs $25 is not the right thing, in my opinion. If you look at Feynman's stuff, those are good examples, that's what got me hooked as a student. I pirated the Feynman Lectures on Physics mp3s and pdfs and chewed through it, after being initially inspired by Surely You're Joking.
  - hansen 8y ago
    > For example, ask a lay person about BB and they will tell you it's an explosion, in the classical sense Give her Weinberg’s book to read and she’ll come to a different conclusion. Of course those books won’t give you a deep understanding of cosmology but that doesn’t mean they have to be completely wrong. Stephen Weinberg’s The First Three Minutes is my favorite example of pop-sci done right.

rufugee 8y ago

I Feynman is the right approach to teaching physics to the lay person...which book is the place to start?

tim333 8y ago
QED is kind of fun.
Maro 8y ago
Surely you're joking: not a physics book, it's about Feynman's life, it's a way to get you inspired and into the mindset. Feynman Lectures on Physics: freshman level course that Feynman taught at MIT. Lots of material, will last you year(s). Six easy pieces: 6 easy lectures from Feynman. Six not so easy pieces: 6 not-so-easy lectures from Feynman. Feynman lectures on computation.