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Alexey Petrov, quoted in the article, subbed in to teach one day in my quantum mechanics class :) It was the first day we were being introduced to the theory of
by atty 6y ago
Alexey Petrov, quoted in the article, subbed in to teach one day in my quantum mechanics class :) It was the first day we were being introduced to the theory of scattering, and I will never forget his intro. He asked the class, “what is scattering?”, waited a moment, and then threw a whiteboard marker against the wall, and answered his own question: “that’s scattering”.
Lots of times, physics classes can be so heavy on math that it’s hard to even remember that you’re trying to describe the real world sometimes, and moments like that were always very memorable to me, because it helped remind me I wasn’t just solving equations for the hell of it :)
- kache_ 6y agoAn old professor of mine loved the "Throw something at the blackboard" technique. Great way to get the class potheads to wake up
- forgotmysn 6y agohow many potheads did you have in your quantum mechanics class?
- kache_ 6y agoIt was an algorithms class. But I'm 100% certain there was at least one ;)
- xzel 6y agoHmm probably about a third of my graduate level QED class and considerably less in my undergraduate QM but you'd be surprised at the cross over between potheads and high level physics.
- slenk 6y agoI don't see any reason that would cause them to be mutually exclusive.
- jefft255 6y agoIs this trying to imply that it would be surprising for a pothead to take a quantum mechanics class? Cause, having hung out with plenty of physicists, that wouldn’t surprise me too much... :P
- dplavery92 6y agoPersonally I had grown out of that habit a semester or two before undergrad QM (though "Modern Physics" and "Experimental Physics" were another story...) but there were still some hangers on. Maybe 1-3 in a class of 20-25? Neither the norm nor unheard of. From that point on the statistics were probably about the same in grad school.
- mhh__ 6y agoThe joke I have heard is that Physics students are either shut-ins or party animals, either way they're both microdosing something or other...
- Alkhwarizmi 6y agoDon’t forget pure mathematicians. Some of us have appearently dabbled in harder microdoses, looking at Erdös specifically.
- snissn 6y agothat's super cool! i've always been able to connect the work in physics class to some physical system except for when i studied quantum mechanical density matrices. still have no idea what those are about :)
- geniium 6y agoI love that kind of practical example.
- ISL 6y agoMy favorite example of this was during a lecture on waveguides, when Michael Schick picked up the section of cylindrical metal pipe he was using to motivate the cylindrical-waveguide problem at hand, looked at the class through the pipe, and said, "clearly, it admits higher-order modes." That little episode brought great joy to this experimentalist's heart.
- lifeisstillgood 6y agoI have a theory about how well educated the mass of humans are, could be and should be. Bear with me. Roughly 2000 years ago, the number of people who could do arithmetic and writing was < 1% of the population. By 200 years ago it was maybe what 10%? Now it is 95% of the world population, and 99.9% of 'Western' world. Lets say that Alexey Petrov is about as highly educated and trained as any human so far. (A Physics PhD represents pretty much 25 years of full-time full-on education). But most of us stop earlier, say 20 years, and many have less full-on education, perhaps not doing an hour a day of revision or whatever. But imagine we could build the computing resources, the smaller class sizes, the gamification, whatever, that meant that each child was pushed as far as they could get (maybe some kind of Mastery learning approach ) - not as far as they can get if the teacher is dealing with 30 other unruly kids, but actually as far as their brain will take them. Will Alexey be that much far ahead when we do this? Is Alexey as far ahead as any human can be? Or can we go further - how much further? And if every kid leaving university is as well trained as an Astronaut, is capable of calculus and vector multiplication, will that make a difference in the world today?
- dieortin 6y agoEveryone being as trained as an astronaut would definitely make a difference, if only because they would appreciate the importance of science, technology, innovation... And not believe stupid conspiracy theories about vaccines.
- schoen 6y agoNot all trained astronauts follow scientific consensus about everything. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edgar_Mitchell#Post-NASA_career https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edgar_Mitchell#Post-NASA_caree...
- diegoperini 6y ago> ...will that make a difference in the world today? It will make a huge difference, and no difference at all. It will probably help us solve all of our current problems. And then it will also introduce a whole new brand of problems which will be sources of crises that generation will deal with. What you read on news will change, but the human emotional response to those news will be very similar to today's.
- surfsvammel 6y agoI have the opposite experience. Physics classes where always the most interactive and practical. But then again, I only ever studied up to undergrad level physics.
- dylan604 6y agowould have been even more impressive example with a dusty chalkboard eraser to be able to see the scattering
- dang 6y agoThat article is https://www.bbc.com/news/56643677 https://www.bbc.com/news/56643677. (The comment was posted to https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26726981 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26726981 before we merged the threads.)