5 ms·
When you understand a subject well enough, the true basics become fascinating. Without the full round trip from introduction to complexity to revealed simplicit
by ctdonath 14y ago
When you understand a subject well enough, the true basics become fascinating. Without the full round trip from introduction to complexity to revealed simplicity, the basics are nigh unto incomprehensible - yet giving new students an intro thereto at least shows them where they are going. Quantum mechanics is simple, but baffling to beginners; give them a taste and the "aha" moment will come in time.
A = {0|1,...}
A[x] = !(A[y]•A[z])
That's all there is to computing, near as I've been able to simplify it. Cellular automata may do a better job.
- derleth 14y ago> Quantum mechanics is simple, but baffling to beginners Quantum mechanics is weird to us because we're human-sized and quantum effects are mostly gone at our scale. Therefore, the only language we have for actually doing quantum mechanics is mathematics, so it makes sense to get a firm grasp of the math first. Fortunately, the fundamentals of the math aren't that difficult. I like to think of quantum mechanics as being 'mind-bendingly simple' for that reason. Scott Aaronson has a fascinating lecture on quantum mechanics seen as a branch of probability theory: http://www.scottaaronson.com/democritus/lec9.html http://www.scottaaronson.com/democritus/lec9.html > Quantum mechanics is what you would inevitably come up with if you started from probability theory, and then said, let's try to generalize it so that the numbers we used to call "probabilities" can be negative numbers.
- cynicalkane 14y agoAnd imaginary numbers, and four-vectors, and spinors...
- disgruntledphd2 14y agoThat's a wonderful link. I know very little about quantum mechanics (or physics in general) but I do know some linear algebra, and for me that was a wonderful revelation. Thank you for sharing.