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I’m doing a PhD in quantitative field, not stupid by any means. But people doing physics seem out of this world to me. I feel like they’re just orders of magnit

by f6v 3y ago

I’m doing a PhD in quantitative field, not stupid by any means. But people doing physics seem out of this world to me. I feel like they’re just orders of magnitude smarter. It’s a shame the field seems a bit stagnant now. I hope they find a way to advance the knowledge without planet-scale accelerators. There should be a feasible and elegant compact solution.

whatever1 3y ago
They do have insane pattern recognition skills when it comes to models. Good mathematicians also have this. But the good ones are very hard working too, in order to build a big enough library of building blocks.
- Jensson 3y ago
  > They do have insane pattern recognition skills when it comes to models. Good mathematicians also have this. The skills physicists and mathematicians build aren't very comparable. Physicists has the more complex equations and models, probably most complex of any field since physicists often invent new math to model things. Quantum field theory is insanely complicated math wise with infinite number of infinite integrals, mathematicians has still not figured out how to formalize that. Mathematicians focuses much less on modeling and equations so they aren't as good at that, instead they are much better at formal proofs and theorems. The skills are very different and doesn't translate well. Or in other words, physicists are experts at making complex math tools to model things. Mathematicians are experts at verifying tools that exists. Those two skills has less overlap than you might think.
  - vcxy 3y ago
    Interesting way to look at it. Your description of what physicists are experts at matches my math PhD pretty closely. I focused on mathematical modeling. I now work with a bunch of physicists, so I guess that checks out.
    - Jensson 3y ago
      Yeah, if you work on the applied side of math it can be very similar to what people do in physics. But I was thinking more about pure math. Edit: I think the main difference there is that in applied math they still prove that the models are mathematically correct. In physics they just show that the model align with experiments and skip math formalism.
      - vcxy 3y ago
        Yeah, that seems true and it's basically the value proposition I bring to my work.
      - lokimedes 3y ago
        I was with you on the generalities, but oh do theoretical physics suffer from math envy when it comes to formalism. Basically since the invention of quantum mechanics, has physics been dominated by “proofs” and “theorems” like the physical world is assumed to be axiomatically defined by Heisenberg’s and Pauli’s principles, and everything else is just maths. No small part of the stagnation I sense in physics today stems from too deep a faith in the ultimate truth of the mathematical models we call theories. It doesn’t help the fact that we rely on Taylor expansions and perturbation methods for most experimental predictions. The Higgs hunt and the passivity of the (experimental) physicists in challenging this stupid theory-driven search for new physics is emblematic of this era. If only math was seen as a modeling language and not somehow truth/consistency itself, physics would be much better off. (Disgruntled particle physicist, declaring colors)
        Jensson 3y ago
        Yeah, I saw that as well, met some professors in grad school that started talking about physics in terms of axioms and proofs instead of experimental results and models. At that point I lost interest and just went with math instead, if it is going to be math anyway why not go with the real thing.
  - ants_everywhere 3y ago
    > Physicists has the more complex equations and models This isn't really the case. In general in any class of mathematical objects, the physically realizable ones are the most tame. Physical realizability is a huge constraint that typically dramatically simplifies problems. > Quantum field theory is insanely complicated math wise with infinite number of infinite integrals, mathematicians has still not figured out how to formalize that. My understanding was that the issue is that QFT as used by physicists is known to be mathematically inconsistent. For example, see Haag's theorem [0]. As Wikipedia puts it "there does not exist a well-defined interaction picture for QFT, which implies that perturbation theory of QFT, which underlies the entire Feynman diagram method, is fundamentally ill-defined." So the problem is not that we don't know how to formalize it, it's that what physicists are doing is known to be wrong. So we need some better argument for why it sometimes seems to work under the conditions it does. And that's arguably more about getting the physics right than it is about math. This is something that happens in general: physicists will often use tools or arguments that are known not to be correct despite the fact that they work well in practice. I think in general, that's a good thing. Physicists need to be able to brainstorm ideas in a way that is unconstrained by needing to formally prove them. In this process they might find something that works 60% of the time. Then someone will refine it to work 80% of the time, etc. But at the end of the day, the tools do have to be mathematically consistent for them to actually describe the physics, unless we live in a mathematically inconsistent universe. So the characterization I'd give is that physicists are generally better at modeling, but also less constrained by the need to be correct. > Mathematicians are experts at verifying tools that exists. Those two skills has less overlap than you might think. This part is reversed IMO. Mathematicians created nearly every major tool used by physics since the history of humanity. Occasionally physicists will run ahead and come up with an idea that is lacking in tools, and they'll turn to mathematicians as the tool experts for help. Like, for example, Einstein did when trying to formulate relativity. More rarely, they'll come up with a novel tool like Feynman diagrams without knowing why they work, and then the mathematicians will be called in as the experts to sort things out. And of course it is true that physicists will come up with ideas like the Ads/CFT correspondence that arise from physical considerations. It's also true that the problems of physics can inspire new mathematics simply because they're new and interesting problems. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haag%27s_theorem https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haag%27s_theorem
  - jasonwatkinspdx 3y ago
    I wouldn't be so dismissive of the overlap. A friend of mine has a math PhD and got a 32 on the Putnam each time he took it, which if you're familiar is proof he's no joke when it comes to math skills. He spent his career as a quant on wall street modeling economic relationships because it paid a lot more than staying pure math.
pinko 3y ago
not all physics is particle physics! gravitational-wave physics, for just one example, is not the least bit stagnant! and soft matter physics is amazingly fertile ground right now...
- wholinator2 3y ago
  Yes, there's quantum computers and information with fundamental tests of quantum mechanics, condensed matter with superconductors, soft Condensed matter in Biophysics with dna and protein folding, computational physics that underpins huge swaths of theoretical chemistry. There's many many other fields of physics, each with dozens of exciting projects going on right now. Particle physics/cosmology is closest in some sense to "fundamental physics". Its also, as i understand, the most competitive field in physics right now with the highest achieving theoretical mathematician people (i.e. the super geniuses) but that's also an effect of the slowly drying funding making the field more selective. It's by no means the only field in physics and there are extremely intelligent and hard working people in all fields of physics doing high impact, world changing research because they love it.
drowsspa 3y ago
I did a Master's in Condensed Matter Physics and I still agree with you. (edit: obviously I'm not including myself there)
pinko 3y ago
I will also add, as an academic who works closely with hundreds of physicists, that although they are indeed typically smarter in one dimension, they are also considerably dumber than your average person in others. It turns out life is all about tradeoffs!
- whamlastxmas 3y ago
  My partner with a PhD in particle physics says this all the time about herself
- naasking 3y ago
  I don't think it has anything to do with "smart/dumb", so much as how much time you think about those problems. Academics in esoteric disciplines are just far removed from many common, every day problems that they seem to lack common sense. They wouldn't have an issue acquiring that understanding if they had comparable experiences as others.
jasonwatkinspdx 3y ago
Sean Carroll has some good talks on this. Basically there's two frontiers: intensity and sensitivity. With intensity going past LHC is looking very difficult but not necessarily impossible. There's been advances in compact linear accelerators that look promising. With sensitivity we're got a lot of untapped potential to observe high energy particles/physics produced by nature. I don't mean to trivialize the difficulties but there's reasons to be optimistic about us learning new physics in the coming decades.

by f6v 3y ago

whatever1 3y ago

They do have insane pattern recognition skills when it comes to models. Good mathematicians also have this. But the good ones are very hard working too, in order to build a big enough library of building blocks.

Jensson 3y ago
> They do have insane pattern recognition skills when it comes to models. Good mathematicians also have this. The skills physicists and mathematicians build aren't very comparable. Physicists has the more complex equations and models, probably most complex of any field since physicists often invent new math to model things. Quantum field theory is insanely complicated math wise with infinite number of infinite integrals, mathematicians has still not figured out how to formalize that. Mathematicians focuses much less on modeling and equations so they aren't as good at that, instead they are much better at formal proofs and theorems. The skills are very different and doesn't translate well. Or in other words, physicists are experts at making complex math tools to model things. Mathematicians are experts at verifying tools that exists. Those two skills has less overlap than you might think.
- vcxy 3y ago
  Interesting way to look at it. Your description of what physicists are experts at matches my math PhD pretty closely. I focused on mathematical modeling. I now work with a bunch of physicists, so I guess that checks out.
  - Jensson 3y ago
    Yeah, if you work on the applied side of math it can be very similar to what people do in physics. But I was thinking more about pure math. Edit: I think the main difference there is that in applied math they still prove that the models are mathematically correct. In physics they just show that the model align with experiments and skip math formalism.
    - vcxy 3y ago
      Yeah, that seems true and it's basically the value proposition I bring to my work.
    - lokimedes 3y ago
      I was with you on the generalities, but oh do theoretical physics suffer from math envy when it comes to formalism. Basically since the invention of quantum mechanics, has physics been dominated by “proofs” and “theorems” like the physical world is assumed to be axiomatically defined by Heisenberg’s and Pauli’s principles, and everything else is just maths. No small part of the stagnation I sense in physics today stems from too deep a faith in the ultimate truth of the mathematical models we call theories. It doesn’t help the fact that we rely on Taylor expansions and perturbation methods for most experimental predictions. The Higgs hunt and the passivity of the (experimental) physicists in challenging this stupid theory-driven search for new physics is emblematic of this era. If only math was seen as a modeling language and not somehow truth/consistency itself, physics would be much better off. (Disgruntled particle physicist, declaring colors)
      - Jensson 3y ago
        Yeah, I saw that as well, met some professors in grad school that started talking about physics in terms of axioms and proofs instead of experimental results and models. At that point I lost interest and just went with math instead, if it is going to be math anyway why not go with the real thing.
- ants_everywhere 3y ago
  > Physicists has the more complex equations and models This isn't really the case. In general in any class of mathematical objects, the physically realizable ones are the most tame. Physical realizability is a huge constraint that typically dramatically simplifies problems. > Quantum field theory is insanely complicated math wise with infinite number of infinite integrals, mathematicians has still not figured out how to formalize that. My understanding was that the issue is that QFT as used by physicists is known to be mathematically inconsistent. For example, see Haag's theorem [0]. As Wikipedia puts it "there does not exist a well-defined interaction picture for QFT, which implies that perturbation theory of QFT, which underlies the entire Feynman diagram method, is fundamentally ill-defined." So the problem is not that we don't know how to formalize it, it's that what physicists are doing is known to be wrong. So we need some better argument for why it sometimes seems to work under the conditions it does. And that's arguably more about getting the physics right than it is about math. This is something that happens in general: physicists will often use tools or arguments that are known not to be correct despite the fact that they work well in practice. I think in general, that's a good thing. Physicists need to be able to brainstorm ideas in a way that is unconstrained by needing to formally prove them. In this process they might find something that works 60% of the time. Then someone will refine it to work 80% of the time, etc. But at the end of the day, the tools do have to be mathematically consistent for them to actually describe the physics, unless we live in a mathematically inconsistent universe. So the characterization I'd give is that physicists are generally better at modeling, but also less constrained by the need to be correct. > Mathematicians are experts at verifying tools that exists. Those two skills has less overlap than you might think. This part is reversed IMO. Mathematicians created nearly every major tool used by physics since the history of humanity. Occasionally physicists will run ahead and come up with an idea that is lacking in tools, and they'll turn to mathematicians as the tool experts for help. Like, for example, Einstein did when trying to formulate relativity. More rarely, they'll come up with a novel tool like Feynman diagrams without knowing why they work, and then the mathematicians will be called in as the experts to sort things out. And of course it is true that physicists will come up with ideas like the Ads/CFT correspondence that arise from physical considerations. It's also true that the problems of physics can inspire new mathematics simply because they're new and interesting problems. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haag%27s_theorem https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haag%27s_theorem
- jasonwatkinspdx 3y ago
  I wouldn't be so dismissive of the overlap. A friend of mine has a math PhD and got a 32 on the Putnam each time he took it, which if you're familiar is proof he's no joke when it comes to math skills. He spent his career as a quant on wall street modeling economic relationships because it paid a lot more than staying pure math.

pinko 3y ago

not all physics is particle physics! gravitational-wave physics, for just one example, is not the least bit stagnant! and soft matter physics is amazingly fertile ground right now...

wholinator2 3y ago
Yes, there's quantum computers and information with fundamental tests of quantum mechanics, condensed matter with superconductors, soft Condensed matter in Biophysics with dna and protein folding, computational physics that underpins huge swaths of theoretical chemistry. There's many many other fields of physics, each with dozens of exciting projects going on right now. Particle physics/cosmology is closest in some sense to "fundamental physics". Its also, as i understand, the most competitive field in physics right now with the highest achieving theoretical mathematician people (i.e. the super geniuses) but that's also an effect of the slowly drying funding making the field more selective. It's by no means the only field in physics and there are extremely intelligent and hard working people in all fields of physics doing high impact, world changing research because they love it.

drowsspa 3y ago

I did a Master's in Condensed Matter Physics and I still agree with you. (edit: obviously I'm not including myself there)

pinko 3y ago

I will also add, as an academic who works closely with hundreds of physicists, that although they are indeed typically smarter in one dimension, they are also considerably dumber than your average person in others. It turns out life is all about tradeoffs!

whamlastxmas 3y ago
My partner with a PhD in particle physics says this all the time about herself
naasking 3y ago
I don't think it has anything to do with "smart/dumb", so much as how much time you think about those problems. Academics in esoteric disciplines are just far removed from many common, every day problems that they seem to lack common sense. They wouldn't have an issue acquiring that understanding if they had comparable experiences as others.

jasonwatkinspdx 3y ago

Sean Carroll has some good talks on this. Basically there's two frontiers: intensity and sensitivity. With intensity going past LHC is looking very difficult but not necessarily impossible. There's been advances in compact linear accelerators that look promising. With sensitivity we're got a lot of untapped potential to observe high energy particles/physics produced by nature. I don't mean to trivialize the difficulties but there's reasons to be optimistic about us learning new physics in the coming decades.