3 ms·

>The result is that I can’t read a paragraph without looking things up.... And hell, you’ve managed to do that yourself. Homology groups? Simplicial complex? Th

>The result is that I can’t read a paragraph without looking things up.... And hell, you’ve managed to do that yourself. Homology groups? Simplicial complex? This is sounding more and more like botany to me. I'm sorry but what do you expect from an area of research that hasn't entered the vernacular yet? Like if I go try to read a blog post on cond-mat theory how many mentions of "loop calculations" and "fermions" and "renormalization group" and "analytic continuation" and blah blah blah. Does it make sense for me to complain that the article doesn't speak to me in my vernacular? No of course not - because even if it's an intro article the expectation is that I'm willing to put in some work. If it's too much work for you, ie if you don't know math, then shrug don't try to understand mathematical things I guess. >I’m not one for words, but concepts I can handle. How did you manage to get a PhD in theory then?

i-use-nixos-btw 3y ago
> I’m sorry but what do you expect Introductions to be introductions. > How did you manage to get a PhD in theory then? Certainly not by being a walking glossary. If that was involved, I’d not have done it. Same way that everyone does. I gravitated towards a niche, found a new method to analysing it, generalising that method to many more applications and spending the final year trying to ride the metaphorical unicycle on a tightrope hanging high above a cavern of nervous breakdown. The usual. Now, the way you talk sounds very familiar - I know mathematical physicists who are very much used to throwing mathematical terminology around. But on the theory side, it’s quite rare to generalise that far so early on in an academic career. It’s far more about the concrete application than the abstract viewpoint, unless it’s somewhere where the abstract viewpoint makes a lot of sense.

i-use-nixos-btw 3y ago

> I’m sorry but what do you expect Introductions to be introductions. > How did you manage to get a PhD in theory then? Certainly not by being a walking glossary. If that was involved, I’d not have done it. Same way that everyone does. I gravitated towards a niche, found a new method to analysing it, generalising that method to many more applications and spending the final year trying to ride the metaphorical unicycle on a tightrope hanging high above a cavern of nervous breakdown. The usual. Now, the way you talk sounds very familiar - I know mathematical physicists who are very much used to throwing mathematical terminology around. But on the theory side, it’s quite rare to generalise that far so early on in an academic career. It’s far more about the concrete application than the abstract viewpoint, unless it’s somewhere where the abstract viewpoint makes a lot of sense.