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Eh—it wouldn't really work. Do you want to hear about a 1mm thick polymer when overlaid on a w-section of a certain size and brought up to a certain temperatur

Eh—it wouldn't really work. Do you want to hear about a 1mm thick polymer when overlaid on a w-section of a certain size and brought up to a certain temperature has certain properties that make it better for loading patterns of structural members of a floating ship? Me neither. HN works partially because almost all of us code and almost all of that code, code at least some of the time with concern for the network. This unites the focus to certain types of companies and subjects. Scientists go down their own, squirrely rabbit holes.

michaericalribo 4y ago
You wouldn't be the target audience. That sounds pretty interesting to me, and I'd be particularly interested in the science that underpins physical engineering — structured and systematic knowledge, rather than ad hoc engineering. Science HN would be for scientists, first and foremost, not hackers
- whatshisface 4y ago
  If you're generally interested you would benefit a lot more from reading about the old stuff that everyone knows.
  - 3pt14159 4y ago
    This is kinda what I'm getting at with my original, downvoted post. It's a giant forest of tiny little details that scientists talk about. There is nothing close to the "we're all on the same(ish) page" that software developers have. The example I went with was one I had some partial familiarity with as a former structural engineer, but ever that I found boring, let alone what type of enzyme a specific frog in the amazon uses to evade the poisons of a given snake. The graph is too large for science to have any sort of meaningful discussion these days.
ISL 4y ago
Yep. Sounds cool, especially if others in nearby fields have read the article and upvoted it. Which polymers do work well for that purpose? If HN had a tagging system for submissions, it'd probably be possible to have a quiet undercurrent of specialized fields working within HN itself. #HN_Science.
phonebucket 4y ago
> Scientists go down their own, squirrely rabbit holes. At the risk of taking the analogy too far: I'd wager that most people go down rabbit holes, but still enjoy general discussion on how to best dig said holes. Also, please do report scientists putting squirrels down rabbit holes to the appropriate animal ethics authority. No one should be making squirrely rabbit holes.

michaericalribo 4y ago

You wouldn't be the target audience. That sounds pretty interesting to me, and I'd be particularly interested in the science that underpins physical engineering — structured and systematic knowledge, rather than ad hoc engineering. Science HN would be for scientists, first and foremost, not hackers

whatshisface 4y ago
If you're generally interested you would benefit a lot more from reading about the old stuff that everyone knows.
- 3pt14159 4y ago
  This is kinda what I'm getting at with my original, downvoted post. It's a giant forest of tiny little details that scientists talk about. There is nothing close to the "we're all on the same(ish) page" that software developers have. The example I went with was one I had some partial familiarity with as a former structural engineer, but ever that I found boring, let alone what type of enzyme a specific frog in the amazon uses to evade the poisons of a given snake. The graph is too large for science to have any sort of meaningful discussion these days.

ISL 4y ago

Yep. Sounds cool, especially if others in nearby fields have read the article and upvoted it. Which polymers do work well for that purpose? If HN had a tagging system for submissions, it'd probably be possible to have a quiet undercurrent of specialized fields working within HN itself. #HN_Science.

phonebucket 4y ago

> Scientists go down their own, squirrely rabbit holes. At the risk of taking the analogy too far: I'd wager that most people go down rabbit holes, but still enjoy general discussion on how to best dig said holes. Also, please do report scientists putting squirrels down rabbit holes to the appropriate animal ethics authority. No one should be making squirrely rabbit holes.