6 ms·

I get what you're saying. I studied physics in undergrad but decided not to go to grad school. I kept hearing stuff like that well into my junior and senior yea

I get what you're saying. I studied physics in undergrad but decided not to go to grad school. I kept hearing stuff like that well into my junior and senior years. I ended up doing internships on two HEP experiments, one at Brookhaven National Lab and the other at Jefferson Lab. It was enormously frustrating to hear that something was allowed/not allowed because "the Great and Powerful Standard Model says so". If there's one thing I picked up from my program and being on experiment teams, it's that effectively communicating science is extremely hard. It's not fair to characterize it as malicious ("priestly particle physicist class hides sacred knowledge") when it's really just people not knowing how to simplify concepts accurately. I don't know a single physicist who wouldn't dearly have loved to be able to explain this stuff to laypeople more easily. People are scared to use metaphors or other rough answers. In the least bad case they can result in misunderstanding or confusion. In the worst case they can lead to perpetual motion machine people. This is extremely niche knowledge and there's a lot more stuff that should be explained first. I went to grade school in Virginia in the 90s and early 2000s. We were taught that the American Civil War was about states rights, and that it was the War of Northern Aggression. I'd much rather we focus broad educational efforts on making people understand their fellow humans and try to prevent repeating the atrocities of the past than get people to understand quantum flavordynamics or chromodynamics.

dilippkumar 6y ago
> It's not fair to characterize it as malicious ("priestly particle physicist class hides sacred knowledge") when it's really just people not knowing how to simplify concepts accurately. I don't know a single physicist who wouldn't dearly have loved to be able to explain this stuff to laypeople more easily. You are right - I spoke out of frustration. I understand that one of the greatest joys of pure science is being able to share it with the world. I’m sure the Physics community is just as frustrated at how difficult it is to spread this knowledge accurately to a broader audience.
- rimunroe 6y ago
  I appreciate it. You're absolutely right about how exciting it is to be able to share explanations with people. This is a video of Feynman's answer to an interviewer asking about what and why you feel something when you put two magnets together https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MO0r930Sn_8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MO0r930Sn_8. It's a great description of the problems inherent to explaining this sort of thing to people. (Also, if anyone knows a video/essay/talk along these lines by a less sexist person, I'd love a link.)
- knzhou 6y ago
  Explaining the Standard Model clearly and correctly is just really hard! I've tried, a lot. Costless simplification is impossible, because the mathematical form it's usually written in is already the simplest, clearest, and most concise way we know to describe it. (If there were a better way, we'd be using that instead!) Anything simpler necessarily sacrifices correctness. Metaphors are great, but it's clunky to explain when the metaphor stops working or becomes actively harmful to understanding. For example, adding a 4th neutrino that is otherwise identical to the other 3 would break the Standard Model would violate anomaly cancellation, making the model mathematically inconsistent. But explaining from scratch what an anomaly is or why they need to cancel would require a ton of vague, fragile metaphors layered on top of each other, at which point I'm not sure what value it would provide. Imagine explaining how a CPU works on the silicon level to somebody from the 18th century. It's the same problem -- it's hard to say anything that isn't the length of a full textbook, or completely misleading, or bordering on woo. I've written and then thrown away a lot of attempted explanations because of this.
  - jiggawatts 6y ago
    > Anything simpler necessarily sacrifices correctness. But not clarity. This is the crux of the problem. Mathematicians, and by extension, theoretical physicists are under the impression that the most terse, most technical, most "correct" (by some abitrary definition!) definition is the only one that matters, and that nothing else should ever stain their lips. Take a tour of any abstract mathematical topic on Wikipedia. It's a travesty. Nothing at all can ever be understood from those pages by even an extremely intelligent person who doesn't already know the topic. Do you see the issue? You have to already understand to gain understanding... err... of a thing you don't understand, hence the need for a Wikipedia page. If you understood it, then as a "quick reminder reference" the Wikipedia page might be useful, but then the audience is a few hundred people. There is absolutely no difference between this idiotic behaviour of mathematicians, and the insistence of English priests in the middle ages of sticking to Latin for theology. NONE. If you argue this point, first explain to me why physics is done with Greek letters. I bet whatever you say will be indistinguishable from the arguments made by those priests. > Imagine explaining how a CPU works on the silicon level to somebody from the 18th century I could do this, no problem. It would take about 20-30 hours of talking and something to scribble on, but I could do it. I would use analogies with things they already understand, such as the hydraulic control lines of steam-powered machinery, and explain that electronic transistors (called 'valves' back in the day!) are just like the hydraulically or pneumatically controlled valves they use every day in industry. Just more of them, faster, and smaller. See, it's not that hard. > I've written and then thrown away a lot of attempted explanations because of this. Try using geometric algebra instead of the mishmash that is vector algebra. Try avoiding complex numbers. Try to avoid Greek letters. Try to avoid mixing ten branches of mathematics just to shave off a few letters in an equation somewhere. Try using an analogy with things the audience might already be familiar with. Try harder.
- uoylj 6y ago
  Sean Carroll is currently making an attempt to reach a broad audience with these videos: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HI09kat_GeI&list=PLrxfgDEc2NxZJcWcrxH3jyjUUrJlnoyzX https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HI09kat_GeI&list=PLrxfgDEc2N...
sterlind 6y ago
>I don't know a single physicist who wouldn't dearly have loved to be able to explain this stuff to laypeople more easily. People are scared to use metaphors or other rough answers. Feynman managed to do this with quantum electrodynamics, in "QED: The Strange Theory of Light and Matter." That layperson book shows an inefficient yet accurate way to calculate path integrals of Feynman diagrams without any calculus, and uses the exact analogy of a clock spinning for phase. I understood it without any background in the math. There's also four lectures on QED for grad students, which is the "formal" version of pretty much the same content, featuring math. Why can't someone take the QED approach for the whole standard model? Symmetry groups can be explained visually. I think the physicists just can't be bothered, and/or they underestimate the intelligence of uninformed but curious laypeople. Roger Penrose is another example of a physicist who does this right, in Cycles of Time for instance.
- QuesnayJr 6y ago
  I think many people think soft skills are not real -- that if you are good at a hard skill such as theoretical calculations, you are automatically good at soft skills such as explaining it to a lay audience. Feynman had a rare talent for explanation, which few physicists have. This talent is just as real as his talent for physics.
  - cygx 6y ago
    It's also not really part of your job description: You're supposed to advance the state of the art of theoretical physics, not "waste time" trying to come up with better explanations for the layperson.
    - AnimalMuppet 6y ago
      Depends on who you are. There's someone where it is part of their job description.
gibolt 6y ago
This reply deserves HN Gold.
himinlomax 6y ago
Metaphor in popular science usually end up making things less clear.

dilippkumar 6y ago

> It's not fair to characterize it as malicious ("priestly particle physicist class hides sacred knowledge") when it's really just people not knowing how to simplify concepts accurately. I don't know a single physicist who wouldn't dearly have loved to be able to explain this stuff to laypeople more easily. You are right - I spoke out of frustration. I understand that one of the greatest joys of pure science is being able to share it with the world. I’m sure the Physics community is just as frustrated at how difficult it is to spread this knowledge accurately to a broader audience.

rimunroe 6y ago
I appreciate it. You're absolutely right about how exciting it is to be able to share explanations with people. This is a video of Feynman's answer to an interviewer asking about what and why you feel something when you put two magnets together https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MO0r930Sn_8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MO0r930Sn_8. It's a great description of the problems inherent to explaining this sort of thing to people. (Also, if anyone knows a video/essay/talk along these lines by a less sexist person, I'd love a link.)
knzhou 6y ago
Explaining the Standard Model clearly and correctly is just really hard! I've tried, a lot. Costless simplification is impossible, because the mathematical form it's usually written in is already the simplest, clearest, and most concise way we know to describe it. (If there were a better way, we'd be using that instead!) Anything simpler necessarily sacrifices correctness. Metaphors are great, but it's clunky to explain when the metaphor stops working or becomes actively harmful to understanding. For example, adding a 4th neutrino that is otherwise identical to the other 3 would break the Standard Model would violate anomaly cancellation, making the model mathematically inconsistent. But explaining from scratch what an anomaly is or why they need to cancel would require a ton of vague, fragile metaphors layered on top of each other, at which point I'm not sure what value it would provide. Imagine explaining how a CPU works on the silicon level to somebody from the 18th century. It's the same problem -- it's hard to say anything that isn't the length of a full textbook, or completely misleading, or bordering on woo. I've written and then thrown away a lot of attempted explanations because of this.
- jiggawatts 6y ago
  > Anything simpler necessarily sacrifices correctness. But not clarity. This is the crux of the problem. Mathematicians, and by extension, theoretical physicists are under the impression that the most terse, most technical, most "correct" (by some abitrary definition!) definition is the only one that matters, and that nothing else should ever stain their lips. Take a tour of any abstract mathematical topic on Wikipedia. It's a travesty. Nothing at all can ever be understood from those pages by even an extremely intelligent person who doesn't already know the topic. Do you see the issue? You have to already understand to gain understanding... err... of a thing you don't understand, hence the need for a Wikipedia page. If you understood it, then as a "quick reminder reference" the Wikipedia page might be useful, but then the audience is a few hundred people. There is absolutely no difference between this idiotic behaviour of mathematicians, and the insistence of English priests in the middle ages of sticking to Latin for theology. NONE. If you argue this point, first explain to me why physics is done with Greek letters. I bet whatever you say will be indistinguishable from the arguments made by those priests. > Imagine explaining how a CPU works on the silicon level to somebody from the 18th century I could do this, no problem. It would take about 20-30 hours of talking and something to scribble on, but I could do it. I would use analogies with things they already understand, such as the hydraulic control lines of steam-powered machinery, and explain that electronic transistors (called 'valves' back in the day!) are just like the hydraulically or pneumatically controlled valves they use every day in industry. Just more of them, faster, and smaller. See, it's not that hard. > I've written and then thrown away a lot of attempted explanations because of this. Try using geometric algebra instead of the mishmash that is vector algebra. Try avoiding complex numbers. Try to avoid Greek letters. Try to avoid mixing ten branches of mathematics just to shave off a few letters in an equation somewhere. Try using an analogy with things the audience might already be familiar with. Try harder.
uoylj 6y ago
Sean Carroll is currently making an attempt to reach a broad audience with these videos: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HI09kat_GeI&list=PLrxfgDEc2NxZJcWcrxH3jyjUUrJlnoyzX https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HI09kat_GeI&list=PLrxfgDEc2N...

sterlind 6y ago

>I don't know a single physicist who wouldn't dearly have loved to be able to explain this stuff to laypeople more easily. People are scared to use metaphors or other rough answers. Feynman managed to do this with quantum electrodynamics, in "QED: The Strange Theory of Light and Matter." That layperson book shows an inefficient yet accurate way to calculate path integrals of Feynman diagrams without any calculus, and uses the exact analogy of a clock spinning for phase. I understood it without any background in the math. There's also four lectures on QED for grad students, which is the "formal" version of pretty much the same content, featuring math. Why can't someone take the QED approach for the whole standard model? Symmetry groups can be explained visually. I think the physicists just can't be bothered, and/or they underestimate the intelligence of uninformed but curious laypeople. Roger Penrose is another example of a physicist who does this right, in Cycles of Time for instance.

QuesnayJr 6y ago
I think many people think soft skills are not real -- that if you are good at a hard skill such as theoretical calculations, you are automatically good at soft skills such as explaining it to a lay audience. Feynman had a rare talent for explanation, which few physicists have. This talent is just as real as his talent for physics.
- cygx 6y ago
  It's also not really part of your job description: You're supposed to advance the state of the art of theoretical physics, not "waste time" trying to come up with better explanations for the layperson.
  - AnimalMuppet 6y ago
    Depends on who you are. There's someone where it is part of their job description.

gibolt 6y ago

This reply deserves HN Gold.

himinlomax 6y ago

Metaphor in popular science usually end up making things less clear.