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==COSMOLOGY==> ‘Uhhh … how sure are we that everything is made of these?’
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Somewhat related, back in highschool I was really enjoying chemistry class. Super fun stuff, definitely a career path. Then when we were doing the math practices, I got a question wrong that I knew I combined correctly.
I asked the teacher and she said “oh yeah that one just doesn’t follow the rules” instantly killed my enjoyment of chemistry.
Aw that’s too bad. That response I’m sure you’re paraphrasing, but “that one doesn’t follow the rules” is the best part of science.
It means our rules aren’t good enough, or we don’t understand that one well enough. Figuring it out can be an entire career of discovery. And the reasons why can be fascinating and inspiring to more discoveries!
In this case, it was probably the teacher not being knowledgeable enough to explain a more advance theory that goes beyond the simple model he was teaching. What’s sad is that the teacher didn’t take the opportunity to dig deeper with the student, it could have been very motivating for the student to feel like he found something that went beyond the normal curriculum.
or it’s ochem
You aren’t following the rules! You’re supposed to nonchalantly get the correct answer and thus discover a new rule that we nowadays know as the Galapagon Principle.
One of my great regrets in high school chemistry was that I was born too late to discover some pattern and have it called Liz 's Formula or whatever.
It’s similar to what I felt learning organic chemistry. That’s why I ended pursuing a career in math.
I never seriously studied physics. A few years back I decided that it was time to push myself a little and start reading up. I started with some articles on string theory and suddenly remembered why I didn’t want to study physics.
Looks like I saved twice as much time as I thought I had.
I started with some articles on string theory
Yeah, that’s a mistake.
Unless you understand the working theories out there, you gain nothing by going deep into speculative ideas.
You could try reading Feynman’s lectures, he was a very passionate teacher, and he used intuition a lot, so you don’t need to grind on equations to follow. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Feynman_Lectures_on_Physics
Thanks.
You can read them for free
Thanks a second time!
String theory is barely a scientific theory, it’s an untestable (experimentally) mathematical framework.
I’m far from an expert on this, but I don’t think this is the best introduction to physics.
If strings are just a theory then how do you explain shoelaces? 😏
There are many kinds of ‘string.’
For example, you just made a second string joke.
What are you gonna do, string me up for it?
According to the article it’s no longer a credible theory
It’s not untestable. It gives predictions and there has been tests for those predictions. The unfortunate part is that the predictions are often not very concrete, and the range of a lot of these predictions lies far beyond our capabilities. But people are looking to measure them indirectly in various ways. So it’s not like it is untestable by design or anything like that.
AFAIK, every single idea from string theory that could be tested was rejected. And the theory was made more complex, less predictive so that it could still work without the testable idea.
These are very broad statements that are not very easy to comment on. “Every single idea”, makes it sound like they are a lot, I would not say they are. “Was rejected”, depends what you mean… " did not show positiv results", “no longer possible to motivate economically”, sure, " refuted as bullshit", not so much. “Was made more complex”, sounds like there is intent, and/or, depending on what you mean by complex, that it would be necessarily a bad thing to using more advanced maths to formulate things you could not before, and hence solve new problems.
I can mention two possible avenues of inquiry that are less than 5 years old that has sprung from string theory as possible support for it: signals of black hole structure in gravitational wave ‘ring downs’ of black hole mergers, and the exclusion of a positive cosmological constant. But if you know that these are untestable or rejected, I’d love to hear about it.
I did a semester of physics in high school and loved it. One of the few classes I actually enjoyed. I joined the nuclear program in the Navy and still loved it. I got to college and brought along all my ACE credits so I got to skip some math, physics, early chemistry, and thermodynamics.
We got to experimental physics and it broke my brain. I barely walked away with my BS and even though I could have made good money I never ended up using the degree because I ended up hating the whole field. It hangs on the wall next to my certificate from a two week bartending school.
I ended up with a long and fruitful IT career where I’ve never had to apply even a little knowledge I gained from that degree.
Thanks for the story.
Nice to know I’m not the only one.
Half-expected to see a wumbo boson in that article as a reason for “that” SpongeBob episode
What is this author for XKCD’s background? He seems to know a lot about a lot of complex subjects. I’m always impressed.
Degree in physics. Worked for NASA as a programmer and roboticist. Full time “cartoonist” since 2006.
Sounds like he’s related to this guy
Just wait until you learn about Johnny Sins
At my work, we meet astronauts fairly often (I met Jonny Kim last year), and it’s amazing how many of them are like this. They’ll usually pass out their headshots that have their bio on the back, and the number of advanced degrees and impressive accomplishments is jaw dropping. Like I feel like I’d think my life was worthwhile if I did one of those things by the end of it, and a lot of the astronauts are hardly more than half my age. And to really rub it in, they all seem incredibly genuine, personable, and well adjusted.
There are a giant number of people who want to be astronauts, and NASA only needs a small number in a given year, so they can pick the very cream of the crop.
Crazy thing is very similar mathematical structures is used to define the behavior of a single particle in QFT and of a huge collection of particles in condensed matter physics
It’s not crazy when you think they are both trying to model the same universe.
When you section off a small part of the universe and try to model it, there’s little reason your model should look like a model for a completely different small part of the universe. Not unless they share fundamental characteristics that you’re trying to model. The math that describes permanent deformation looks nothing like fluid dynamics.
Recursive universe theory strikes again.
They are both describing the same particles.
Quantum field theory really aligns with my fap roulette kink.
