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Saying that most quantum physics courses are taught from the historical point of view rather than starting with the math seems like a bit of a straw man. My ex
by carlob 12y ago
Saying that most quantum physics courses are taught from the historical point of view rather than starting with the math seems like a bit of a straw man.
My experience (Rome University) was that first we were taught the basic mathematics (Hilbert spaces, functional analysis) for almost a year, before being introduced to the physics which followed a rather axiomatic (not dissimilar to this).
Sometimes our professor would casually drop bombs like the title of this article or things like: "you know in the end quantum mechanics is just Markov chains in imaginary time", but even those made sense in time (Wick rotation).
- coliveira 12y agoThe author probably has no experience with modern physics education. He probably met somebody who learned these things 50 years ago and keeps repeating this unfounded notion.
- wetmore 12y agoScott Aaronson teaches at MIT... I'm sure he has some experience with modern physics education.
- coliveira 12y agoHe teaches CS, not Physics. What they are teaching in the CS department has nothing to do with what physicists learn.
- TeMPOraL 12y ago> What they are teaching in the CS department has nothing to do with what physicists learn. This line of thinking is a huge problem in science and the reason Scott has to write articles like the one discussed. "Yeah, so those computer guys are so full of themselves that they dare say they know something about how the universe works". Well, the thing is, they actually do.
- mef51 12y agoI'm a physics undergrad: his notion is correct :P
- _delirium 12y agoThe author of the post might just be familiar with typical American freshman "physics for non-physics majors" classes, rather than regular physics curricula for majors. The general freshman science courses often do have a heavy historical aspect to them. But that's in part because that's a sub-goal of the general-ed part of the science curriculum: to teach basic history of science as well as some basic science.