4 ms·

Also copied from a couple blog posts ago he doesn't self-identify as a physicist either. https://scottaaronson.blog/?p=6457 https://scottaaronson.blog/?p=6457

Also copied from a couple blog posts ago he doesn't self-identify as a physicist either. https://scottaaronson.blog/?p=6457 https://scottaaronson.blog/?p=6457 I also had the following exchange at my birthday dinner: Physicist: So I don’t get this, Scott. Are you a physicist who studied computer science, or a computer scientist who studied physics? Me: I’m a computer scientist who studied computer science. Physicist: But then you… Me: Yeah, at some point I learned what a boson was, in order to invent BosonSampling. Physicist: And your courses in physics… Me: They ended at thermodynamics. I couldn’t handle PDEs. Physicist: What are the units of h-bar? Me: Uhh, well, it’s a conversion factor between energy and time. (*) Physicist: Good. What’s the radius of the hydrogen atom? Me: Uhh … not sure … maybe something like 10-15 meters? Physicist: OK fine, he’s not one of us.

mdp2021 4y ago
> radius of the hydrogen atom [...] maybe something like 10-15 meters? Please fix that into 10^-15 or equivalent expression for 10⁻¹⁵, before somebody gets the idea that "Scott" thought "between 10 and 15".
jks 4y ago
The original doesn't say "10-15 meters" but ten to the power of negative fifteen meters, so his guess was off from the Bohr radius of 5.3E-11 in the other direction but by much fewer orders of magnitude than as rendered above.