Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

So You Want to Learn Physics (2016)

susanjfowler.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

91–100 of 126 posts

Re: So You Want to Learn Physics (2016)

#91

Post by ellius »

derangedHorse wrote: post #61
ellius wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a model with two kinds of knowledge: sexy knowledge and homely knowledge. I think the internet and mass media era in general have massively endorsed and empowered the projects and acquisition of sexy knowledge. If it doesn't garner attention rapidly on a large scale, then it doesn't go on TV. The problem is that most of the real projects of science and industry are about homely knowledge. It's the little borin…

I would argue that most scientists in general pursue their field of study in the pursuit of sexy knowledge itself. If there's no wonder to motivate, what are people working towards? I also would like to argue that it doesn't have to "garner attention rapidly on a large scale" to be recognized by the masses, but rather just spark their imaginations in general.

For the record I'm not saying that sexy knowledge is bad. I'm saying that it has the potential to devalue homely knowledge and crowd it out of mindshare. That isn't to say that fascinating and flashy theories aren't valuable, just that they may have an adverse effect because we overvalue it.

Re: So You Want to Learn Physics (2016)

#92

Post by anonytrary »

cygx wrote: post #10
anonytrary wrote: post #8

The author recommends some interesting popular books: 1. The Feynman Lectures on Physics 2. The Character of Physical Law by Richard Feynman 3. Deep Down Things: The Breathtaking Beauty of Particle Physics by Bruce Schumm 4. The Particle Odyssey by Frank Close 5. Weinberg's The First Three Minutes IMO someone who seriously wants to learn physics should read these books after they have gone through the typical undergr…

The Feynman Lectures are not pop science, but a textbook series based on his undergraduate courses.

I didn't mean to imply that The Feynman Lectures in particular were "pop science". They are more akin to a very condensed overview of an undergraduate curriculum with interesting motivating examples hand picked by Feynman. They are not a substitute for undergraduate courses, and I'd advise most students to read them after they finish their core undergraduate courses.

Re: So You Want to Learn Physics (2016)

#93

Post by projectileboy »

cyrusmith wrote: post #81

Recommending Griffith to study quantum mechanics is just plain wrong. It's inconsistent, have many gaps in the material. There's a book superior in many regards to Griffith - the "Quantum Mechanics: Concepts and Applications" by Zettili.

On the other hand, all of Griffith's works are very approachable - he's a gifted writer, and he seems to have an incredible knack for helping you find the core idea in something. I think all of his books should be the first word on their respective subjects - but not the last word.

Re: So You Want to Learn Physics (2016)

#94

Post by eigenspace »

nyc111 wrote: post #5

> ...the pure joy of understanding the universe around us is one of the most beautiful experiences you can ever have in life. But you do not need to study physics for 25 years in order to understand how the world works. Academic physics that she wants us to learn to undersdand the world is just a new academic subject invented or formalized in the 19. century. Archimedes knew 0 (zero) physics and made huge discoveries…

> The opposite of scholasticism is just-in-time knowledge. Whatever I need I can look it up.

I understand the temptation to think this way but I really disagree. Scholasticism has serious problems but the solution is not 'just-in-time knowledge'.

Scholastacism has been such a successfull approach for physicists exactly because the human mind is simply not equipped to approach much of modern physics. The scholastic traditions are in place to augment and fix our inherent mental deficiencies and prepare us to be able to understand physics.

Approaching physics is not a knowledge problem. Its an understanding problem and true understanding takes work, not informaation delivery.

Re: So You Want to Learn Physics (2016)

#95

Post by naasking »

sleavey wrote: post #4

I went to university intending to study computing science, but switched to physics half way through under the assumption that you could teach yourself computing science more easily than physics. I wouldn't change what I learned for the world, and I'm now in physics academia, but it's funny how my job these days involves using some of the algorithms, mathematics and data structures that I was just about to start learn…

> I think computing science (not just software engineering) is slowly but surely becoming an essential part of many areas of modern physics research.

I like to say that physics, mathematics, and computer science are the three pillars of human knowledge. There's some overlap between each pillar, and we don't yet fully understand how each of them fully relate to the others, but each is essential to gathering a full picture of any phenomenon.

Re: So You Want to Learn Physics (2016)

#96

Post by tobmlt »

amelius wrote: post #50

I'll just drop a link to Susskind's "Theoretical Minimum" course: https://theoreticalminimum.com/courses

Gerard ’t Hooft goes here too I think: http://www.goodtheorist.science/

Though I think Susskind's lectures and books are truly the best starting point for say, an engineer who wants to go back and do physics from the ground up.

Re: So You Want to Learn Physics (2016)

#97

Post by agumonkey »

sleavey wrote: post #4

I went to university intending to study computing science, but switched to physics half way through under the assumption that you could teach yourself computing science more easily than physics. I wouldn't change what I learned for the world, and I'm now in physics academia, but it's funny how my job these days involves using some of the algorithms, mathematics and data structures that I was just about to start learn…

Wait a bit, in a few years physical and computing models will merge. #my2ctsbet

Re: So You Want to Learn Physics (2016)

#98

Post by ArtWomb »

Caught this video the other day on Youtube. It's a archival 1959 lecture from MIT demonstrating light's wave particle duality. Using only a visible light source, photo-multiplier, and oscilloscope. Just remarkably clear and simple. It's amazing how much more the memory retains with a demo. And I can't help but think quantum computing could be made accessible to a wide audience in this way.

The Physics of Light (1959) John King-MIT-Electromagnetic Radiation

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bnSH6YDFXfk

Re: So You Want to Learn Physics (2016)

#99

Post by Engineering-MD »

naasking wrote: post #95
sleavey wrote: post #4

I went to university intending to study computing science, but switched to physics half way through under the assumption that you could teach yourself computing science more easily than physics. I wouldn't change what I learned for the world, and I'm now in physics academia, but it's funny how my job these days involves using some of the algorithms, mathematics and data structures that I was just about to start learn…

> I think computing science (not just software engineering) is slowly but surely becoming an essential part of many areas of modern physics research. I like to say that physics, mathematics, and computer science are the three pillars of human knowledge. There's some overlap between each pillar, and we don't yet fully understand how each of them fully relate to the others, but each is essential to gathering a full pic…

I think there must be more pillars than that. Biology and chemistry while related to physics are distinct (in the same way physics is not maths). More broadly, humanities and the arts are still valid areas of knowledge. Hacker news has a bias towards your three pillars, but I think it is important to acknowledge that human knowledge does go beyond CS, maths and physics.

Re: So You Want to Learn Physics (2016)

#100

Post by naasking »

Engineering-MD wrote: post #99
naasking wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think computing science (not just software engineering) is slowly but surely becoming an essential part of many areas of modern physics research. I like to say that physics, mathematics, and computer science are the three pillars of human knowledge. There's some overlap between each pillar, and we don't yet fully understand how each of them fully relate to the others, but each is essential to gathering a full pic…

I think there must be more pillars than that. Biology and chemistry while related to physics are distinct (in the same way physics is not maths). More broadly, humanities and the arts are still valid areas of knowledge. Hacker news has a bias towards your three pillars, but I think it is important to acknowledge that human knowledge does go beyond CS, maths and physics.

I disagree re: biology and chemistry. Certainly they are epistemically useful simplifications of the other pillars, but they are not foundational or fundamental.

Physics is not math because it's an empirical rather than a priori exploration. We are trying to reproduce the function governing natural laws, where in mathematics we are exploring the properties of functions. Computer science in turn is concerned with the construction of mathematical structures via algorithms, and so physics will be one such construction.

I think trying to place humanities and the arts under "knowledge" is a category error. These fields don't produce knowledge as its commonly understood, as a corpus of mind-independent facts and their relationships. Certainly facts appear in these fields, such as historical facts and authorship, but I don't think building a corpus of facts is not the main purpose.

Post reply on HN