4 ms·

PBS space time is the best ressources out there. i have a phd in this kind of things and still learn a lot. but you're right, while nature is fundamentally weir

PBS space time is the best ressources out there. i have a phd in this kind of things and still learn a lot. but you're right, while nature is fundamentally weird to our brains (and often involve very complex maths), physicists (including myself) are typically very bad at explaining things in a simpler language. one of the reason i stopped was the very little (between 10 and 100) people around the world i could talk of my work.

PartiallyTyped 5y ago
I second PBS space time, and would also like to mention the notorious Sabine Hossenfelder, she has a great educational youtube channel and does a good job at explaining things to the lay person.
- immmmmm 5y ago
  i do partially agree. while it was once a very good educational channel, it has often been very opinionated, sometimes in good, but also in somewhat narrow ways. for instance repeating that modified gravity is great and that strings/supersymmetry/etc is bad is a bit weak especially on a science education channel. i have worked with strings and some of her criticism if founded, repeating over the years that people that work in those domains are intellectual fraudsters (i'm barely exaggerating) is wrong and especially damaging on an educational channel. consequently, there a whole mob of youtube commenters that repeat this (with no context) to whoever wants to hear that. the same happened with Smolin and his book, following Green's book. TBH LQG is not yet there (despite recent interesting progress) and Calabi Yau compaction don't yield the universe we observe. Modified gravity doesn't seem to work too well too.. so yes, if you remain critical of what she says :)
  - naasking 5y ago
    > Modified gravity doesn't seem to work too well too.. I mean, it works out basically as well as dark matter. Both are consistent with some observations, and inconsistent with others. Last time this happened we simply postulated wave-particle duality, which is alone the same lines as what Sabine is pursuing.
  - supercheetah 5y ago
    > for instance repeating that modified gravity is great and that strings/supersymmetry/etc is bad is a bit weak especially on a science education channel. I'm not a physicist, but she does point out that she thinks dark matter is a combination of modified gravity, and some new particles, and not just one or the other. Also, she does usually make it clear when she has an opinion and bias towards less supported hypotheses, but it's always on things that don't already have any evidentiary basis, like dark matter.

PartiallyTyped 5y ago

I second PBS space time, and would also like to mention the notorious Sabine Hossenfelder, she has a great educational youtube channel and does a good job at explaining things to the lay person.

immmmmm 5y ago
i do partially agree. while it was once a very good educational channel, it has often been very opinionated, sometimes in good, but also in somewhat narrow ways. for instance repeating that modified gravity is great and that strings/supersymmetry/etc is bad is a bit weak especially on a science education channel. i have worked with strings and some of her criticism if founded, repeating over the years that people that work in those domains are intellectual fraudsters (i'm barely exaggerating) is wrong and especially damaging on an educational channel. consequently, there a whole mob of youtube commenters that repeat this (with no context) to whoever wants to hear that. the same happened with Smolin and his book, following Green's book. TBH LQG is not yet there (despite recent interesting progress) and Calabi Yau compaction don't yield the universe we observe. Modified gravity doesn't seem to work too well too.. so yes, if you remain critical of what she says :)
- naasking 5y ago
  > Modified gravity doesn't seem to work too well too.. I mean, it works out basically as well as dark matter. Both are consistent with some observations, and inconsistent with others. Last time this happened we simply postulated wave-particle duality, which is alone the same lines as what Sabine is pursuing.
- supercheetah 5y ago
  > for instance repeating that modified gravity is great and that strings/supersymmetry/etc is bad is a bit weak especially on a science education channel. I'm not a physicist, but she does point out that she thinks dark matter is a combination of modified gravity, and some new particles, and not just one or the other. Also, she does usually make it clear when she has an opinion and bias towards less supported hypotheses, but it's always on things that don't already have any evidentiary basis, like dark matter.