4 ms·
It's a dirty little secret. There are two physics, the public-facing one and the actual one. The public-facing one is the one that builds and maintains public
by jordanpg 12y ago
It's a dirty little secret. There are two physics, the public-facing one and the actual one. The public-facing one is the one that builds and maintains public interest in physics in the name of maintaining the substantial amounts of money needed to conduct experiments and get research grants.
This physics is very loosely based on the actual physics, which can't be understood beyond a superficial level without an appreciable amount of advanced mathematical training (nothing special: advanced undergrad/basic grad, but way, way, way beyond what 99.9% of people are conversant on).
The result is metaphors that are barely, tangentially related to the math. They are evolved, tested talking points: black holes, string theory, warp drives, dark matter. Any one with any physics training at all has been to umpteen cocktail parties where they were pumped for information about the "God particle" or the movie Interstellar, and has bitten the bullet and done their best.
It is a necessary side effect of a democratic society where funding for the sciences is tenuous, granted by scientifically illiterate half-wits, where the public could care less about anything not on BuzzFeed, and where the level of mathematical literacy maxes out somewhere south of Algebra I.
- stolio 12y agoIf you can't talk about Interstellar with somebody who doesn't understand topology, I will gladly do it for you. Maybe they're below you, but they're my favorite people because they're the people who will get as excited as me about how stars form and what happens when they collapse and how friggin awesome it is that the computer simulations in a sci-fi movie were so accurate that Kip Thorne thinks he can publish a few articles about them[0]. This is SO MUCH BETTER than having to talk to people about What the bleep do we know? [0] - http://www.wired.com/2014/10/astrophysics-interstellar-black-hole/ http://www.wired.com/2014/10/astrophysics-interstellar-black...
- jordanpg 12y agoI didn't mean to imply they're below me, but I do stand by the idea that those kinds of conversations are only a shadow of the real big picture. But I definitely raise a glass to preferring Interstellar over What the Bleep. :) Here, here.
- guscost 12y agoThat is a cool movie. I've posted a layperson's review: http://guscost.com/2014/12/23/review-interstellar/ http://guscost.com/2014/12/23/review-interstellar/
- stolio 12y agoI apologize, I was being a bit presumptuous. When it comes to quantum physics I do see your point. For astrophysics I view the math as a stepping stone to understanding those things in the sky that we see at night. In that sense there's a bigger picture behind the big picture of the physics and we can all share in it. In QM, maybe not so much.
- guscost 12y agoWhile I can't say that I'm happy to hear this, it does make sense.