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Physics is unreasonably good at creating new math

nautil.us

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Re: Physics is unreasonably good at creating new math

#151

Post by saagarjha »

lilyball wrote: post #121
dxbydt wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have zero issues with your logical reasoning - its the same reasoning aops gives. I'm simply asking - how do you know for sure that this actually happens in practice ? Like, have we observed such a thing ? I'm genuinely curious, no snark. If all we have is reasoning, with zero observation, then its equivalent to what JFK says in Oliver Stone's picture - "Theoretical physics can prove that an elephant can hang from…

I have no idea if we've observed it. Galaxy collisions take a very long time, I'm not sure how we'd ever be in a position to observe both the starting state and result. That said, the point of the law of conservation of momentum is we don't need to observe it to know that it happens. Momentum is conserved, that's a fact. So the question becomes, what is it that makes this law not produce a good prediction about a sce…

That is, until gravitation waves carry away the energy :)

Re: Physics is unreasonably good at creating new math

#152

Post by saagarjha »

dxbydt wrote: post #92
selectodude wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To some extent, observation has taken a back seat because we're at the point in our physics journey where we pontificate about things that are too small or too dark and far away to see. We simply can't observe this stuff anymore.

> pontificate about things that are too small or too dark and far away to see I was bitten by this last week. I am enrolled in an aops physics course, titled Mechanics. So the last time I took any Mechanics was 40 years ago as a high school student in India. Most of the curriculum then was about stuff banging into each other aka collisions, & asking what happens to the result. Like some golf ball rolls down an inclin…

TIL AoPS has physics classes now

Re: Physics is unreasonably good at creating new math

#153

Post by thruway516 »

jjgreen wrote: post #127

A physicist, walking home at night, spots a mathematician colleague under a street lamp staring at the ground, "something wrong?" he asks; "I've dropped my keys" he replies, "whereabouts?" asks the physicist, keen to help. "Over there" says the mathematician pointing; "So why don't you look over there?" retorts the physicist, "the light is better here" says the mathematician. Disclosure, I'm a mathematician.

Software developer: It is more important to find out how the keys were dropped in the first place. And after I do that it will be more efficient to just generate new keys.

Disclosure, I'm a software developer

Re: Physics is unreasonably good at creating new math

#154

Post by wrp »

jjgreen wrote: post #127

A physicist, walking home at night, spots a mathematician colleague under a street lamp staring at the ground, "something wrong?" he asks; "I've dropped my keys" he replies, "whereabouts?" asks the physicist, keen to help. "Over there" says the mathematician pointing; "So why don't you look over there?" retorts the physicist, "the light is better here" says the mathematician. Disclosure, I'm a mathematician.

Another mathematician joke:

Interviewer -- "Consider a situation where you are in your office and there is a fire outside in the hall. There is a fire escape outside your window but you can't reach it because the window is stuck. However, there is a hammer on the table. What do you do?"

Physicist -- "I use the hammer to break the window, allowing me to get out to the fire escape."

Interviewer -- "Now consider the same situation except that the hammer is on the floor. What do you do?"

Mathematician -- "I move the hammer from the floor to the table, thereby reducing it to the previously solved problem."

Re: Physics is unreasonably good at creating new math

#155

Post by leptons »

Hasu wrote: post #140
leptons wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

It is a common (but not universal[0]) practice in English writing to use either "he" or "she" as a pronoun for a person of unspecified gender to avoid the awkwardness of "they" or "one" or constructions like "he or she". No gender has been specified here, this is a neutral use of "she". [0] Very few practices in English writing are universal.

I think your entire reasoning is in reverse. Using "she" where no gender needs to be specified is the awkward thing to do, and it's not neutral, it's explicitly designating a female gender. Using "they/them" is far less awkward, the reader doesn't have to have any kind of opinion about the text based on gender associations, making it less awkward.

Re: Physics is unreasonably good at creating new math

#156

Post by bryanrasmussen »

bryanrasmussen wrote: post #143
jjgreen wrote: post #127

A physicist, walking home at night, spots a mathematician colleague under a street lamp staring at the ground, "something wrong?" he asks; "I've dropped my keys" he replies, "whereabouts?" asks the physicist, keen to help. "Over there" says the mathematician pointing; "So why don't you look over there?" retorts the physicist, "the light is better here" says the mathematician. Disclosure, I'm a mathematician.

Physicist: but that doesn't get you any closer to a solution. Mathematician: not yet, but if I wait here long enough someone will come by and drop their keys, which will then be retrieved, proving the possibility of retrieving lost keys when light conditions are optimal. Physicist drops keys. Mathematician: Eureka!

I guess it should really be proving the general proposition that dropped keys are discoverable.

Re: Physics is unreasonably good at creating new math

#157

Post by 8n4vidtmkvmk »

bryanrasmussen wrote: post #156
bryanrasmussen wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Physicist: but that doesn't get you any closer to a solution. Mathematician: not yet, but if I wait here long enough someone will come by and drop their keys, which will then be retrieved, proving the possibility of retrieving lost keys when light conditions are optimal. Physicist drops keys. Mathematician: Eureka!

I guess it should really be proving the general proposition that dropped keys are discoverable.

Great, it's been proven. Should we go pick up our keys now or just move onto another math problem?

Re: Physics is unreasonably good at creating new math

#158

Post by 8n4vidtmkvmk »

thruway516 wrote: post #153
jjgreen wrote: post #127

A physicist, walking home at night, spots a mathematician colleague under a street lamp staring at the ground, "something wrong?" he asks; "I've dropped my keys" he replies, "whereabouts?" asks the physicist, keen to help. "Over there" says the mathematician pointing; "So why don't you look over there?" retorts the physicist, "the light is better here" says the mathematician. Disclosure, I'm a mathematician.

Software developer: It is more important to find out how the keys were dropped in the first place. And after I do that it will be more efficient to just generate new keys. Disclosure, I'm a software developer

Write a unit test to prevent future key droppings.

Re: Physics is unreasonably good at creating new math

#159

Post by 8n4vidtmkvmk »

hirvi74 wrote: post #144
Ankaios wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Non-software-developer humans often use things called "lamps" to illuminate spaces at night. Unfortunately, illumination inhibits effective nighttime coding.

> humans often use things called "lamps" to illuminate spaces at night I call those "monitors."

That's a bug. We should fix that.

Re: Physics is unreasonably good at creating new math

#160

Post by Dylan16807 »

leptons wrote: post #155
Hasu wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is a common (but not universal[0]) practice in English writing to use either "he" or "she" as a pronoun for a person of unspecified gender to avoid the awkwardness of "they" or "one" or constructions like "he or she". No gender has been specified here, this is a neutral use of "she". [0] Very few practices in English writing are universal.

I think your entire reasoning is in reverse. Using "she" where no gender needs to be specified is the awkward thing to do, and it's not neutral, it's explicitly designating a female gender . Using "they/them" is far less awkward, the reader doesn't have to have any kind of opinion about the text based on gender associations, making it less awkward .

It's pretty neutral, and the more people do it the more neutral it becomes.

And annoying certain kinds of pedant is a bonus more than anything.

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