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Physics Student Earns PhD at Age 89

brown.edu

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Re: Physics Student Earns PhD at Age 89

#61

Post by genocidicbunny »

ghaff wrote: post #39
genocidicbunny wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you are not familiar with Brown University, the first part of the headline is easily parsed differently. In English, adjectives tend to come in a certain order, with color generally being precedent to origin or qualifier. Therefore it would read as 'Brown' being an adjective describing Manfred Steiner, because the color 'Brown' generally comes before the qualifier 'Physics Student'. I am not suggesting that Brown…

Pretty much any university in the country would have written the headline in exactly the same manner substituting their institution's name. And, yes, anyone who interprets it differently is doing so in bad faith or just is pretty unaware of US university names generally.

What is your point? People interpret things in bad faith all the time, but that doesn't detract from my point about the A/B testing. The test wouldn't care why someone arrived at a given interpretation, its only measuring how many people arrived at which one as a proxy for engagement. The motivations people have are somewhat irrelevant.

And we know this sort of thing happens all the time with less scrupulous media outlets. Media outlets surely test specific headlines with the intention of attracting a certain bias depending on the outlets own leanings.

Re: Physics Student Earns PhD at Age 89

#62

Post by silisili »

bmer wrote: post #51
silisili wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Genuinely, thanks for sharing. I always want to go back, but fear I'll embarrass myself. Or at least realize my age is catching up eith me. Out of curiosity, what did you go back for, and how did it go?

Also, I don't think you ought to consider "when I was 17, I could do basic calculus in my head" as a sign of more ability than you have today. The problems were likely not that hard, since you were 17. Do you practice doing long division every day, without pen and paper? If not, then I think you ought to try that before making the judgement "I can't do it". Practice is very important, especially when it comes to memo…

Man, you guys are very motivational. Thanks for that.

The point I was attempting to make was that I could store these carry numbers in bulk at one point, but now am lucky to remember a single one.

I only know that as I try to teach my own kid math today. It's frustrating to realize you've 'lost your touch.'

But, you're right, it's really not important day to day.

Re: Physics Student Earns PhD at Age 89

#63

Post by soheil »

School-Cotton wrote: post #45
soheil wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Take the top 1% of successful phd students. Does your statement apply equally to them? What about the 0.01%?

If anything those denote even more time to their academic work than the average.

That's my point, can someone in that group instead of devoting more time than the average to their academic work take that extra time and devote it to their job?

Re: Physics Student Earns PhD at Age 89

#64

Post by ghaff »

steve_adams_86 wrote: post #53
ghaff wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Be aware that the meme that any developer with a pulse can make so much money they can retire in their 30s plays out very rarely. (ADDED: And if you're in that top tiny percent of success, will you really just drop out?) That said, you'll almost certainly make more money as an SWE than in academia. I do know someone who got a PhD in their early 40s or so in a pause from tech and is back in tech. I gather they thought…

Yeah, this is important to consider. The barrier to entry is lower than ever, but truly excelling in software development is still non-trivial.

Well, it's not just about excelling. But presumably winning the startup lottery or hitting the fast-track at a handful of companies in specific locations. (Or becoming an exec at a variety of companies but that's presumably not a path that's being contemplated here.) Most competent engineers make respectable salaries relative to the US population as a whole but they're not retiring at 40.

Re: Physics Student Earns PhD at Age 89

#65

Post by tombert »

throaway1990 wrote: post #56
tombert wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which I find weird; are European/British PhDs generally considered less valuable than American? I didn’t think they were but there’s a lot I don’t know about this.

European PhDs have better structure and rigid filters to weed out the unworthy dweebs. And the students take far less courses and generally work harder. US PhD system is slow and often leads to counter-intuitive, interesting or just weird results, which may or mayn't pan out in the long run. US PhD system has to be longer because i) US undergraduate system is absolute trash (like worse than 3rd world 12th grader at t…

I’m reasonably certain that American PhD students work very hard. Do you have any evidence for the claim that they don’t?

Re: Physics Student Earns PhD at Age 89

#66

Post by wheelinsupial »

carrolldunham wrote: post #23

A PhD is research training. Is he doing to do research now, or is this just, like everyone seems to be treating it - a big trophy? Does anyone ever stop to question their credentialist mindset? I heard a character in a video game say indignantly "Excuse me, I have a PhD", and I thought, well, that's not realistic dialog because a PhDs is something you have done, not something that you 'have'. But then people here are…

The title is more accurately described as “Former Brown Professor of Medicine Returns to Brown to earn his Third Doctorate“

He had an MD, received a PhD from MIT, then went on to have a career as a researcher at Brown before taking up physics undergrad classes, and then continuing on to grad school.

He is quoted in the article as saying he will continue to work on physics research.

Re: Physics Student Earns PhD at Age 89

#67

Post by boomboomsubban »

silisili wrote: post #9

This gives me hope. I'm not even half his age, but already worry about my brain going. When I was 17 I could do basic calculus in my head. Today I struggle to carry numbers in long addition problems. It already has me thinking about my career and future - it certainly is downhill from here. Then something like this happens and just makes me feel like a big baby. Hats off Mr Steiner.

As I assume you know how to do it, carrying numbers in long addition is a short term memory thing. I bet you were roughly as bad at it when you were 17 as you are now. Doing basic calculus in your head is way easier, it's simple multiplication.

Re: Physics Student Earns PhD at Age 89

#68

Post by tombert »

unobatbayar wrote: post #59
tombert wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You definitely aren’t too old By "old" I didn't mean actual biological age exactly. I guess the more appropriate word would be something more like "settled". As it stands, I have a mortgage and whatnot to take care of, it's not really realistic for me to quit my job and focus full-time on a PhD for the next 5-6 years. > but I would never take on a PhD student that wants to continue working elsewhere That seems to b…

> I'm 30 right now, > You definitely aren’t too old > By "old" I didn't mean actual biological age exactly. In my opinion, the replier was referring to your chronological age.

Sure but this is a distinction without a difference in this case. My choice of the word “old” wasn’t very good, as explained in the following sentence.

Re: Physics Student Earns PhD at Age 89

#69

Post by tomrod »

soheil wrote: post #63
School-Cotton wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If anything those denote even more time to their academic work than the average.

That's my point, can someone in that group instead of devoting more time than the average to their academic work take that extra time and devote it to their job?

No. If you plan to be successful, there is little to no time outside of being a PhD student. If you want to be in the top 1%, and especially the top 0.01%, you should plan to spend your free time researching to become an expert in your field. But such numerical distinctions are typically meaningless since, by virtue of working towards a dissertation, you should be pushing the boundaries of your field of knowledge and thus have few exact comparables as peers.

Source: me (several years now complete w/ PhD), my cohort in my program, and my PhD-earning friends outside my field.

Re: Physics Student Earns PhD at Age 89

#70

Post by perilunar »

silisili wrote: post #38
genocidicbunny wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you are not familiar with Brown University, the first part of the headline is easily parsed differently. In English, adjectives tend to come in a certain order, with color generally being precedent to origin or qualifier. Therefore it would read as 'Brown' being an adjective describing Manfred Steiner, because the color 'Brown' generally comes before the qualifier 'Physics Student'. I am not suggesting that Brown…

All adjectives precede nouns in English. Brown the university is still an adjective in this sense. There's really nothing to A/B test here. We, especially the media, don't refer to people as Brown the color.

'Attorneys General' and 'Majors General' would indicate otherwise.

Also: president elect, poet laureate, devil incarnate, court martial, etc.

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