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Peter Higgs: I wouldn't be productive enough for today's academic system

theguardian.com

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Re: Peter Higgs: I wouldn't be productive enough for today's academic system

#141

Post by dekhn »

dominotw wrote: post #139
dekhn wrote: post #119

I attended grad school at one of the most prestigious institutions that exists. After I finished my PhD, I mentioned to somebody I had attended there and it had taught me to do science well. THe person I was speaking to looked at me funny and said, "Oh no. You went there to learn how to write grants that get funded, so that you can manage a lab that carries out the next set of experiments, so you can write grants tha…

>i still collaborate with academia, and write papers and do research May I ask what you do for living?

software engineer for google. I built Exacycle: http://googleresearch.blogspot.com/2012/12/millions-of-core-... http://googleresearch.blogspot.com/2011/04/1-billion-core-ho...

some of those projects have papers on their way to print.

Re: Peter Higgs: I wouldn't be productive enough for today's academic system

#142

Post by no_wave »

blister wrote: post #136
judk wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

AD is a string of junior high puns and callbacks/inside-jokes. Smart jokes on a teenager scale, I suppose.

What show has smart jokes for adults?

Mad Men; Yes, Minister; Louie (S2)

Re: Peter Higgs: I wouldn't be productive enough for today's academic system

#143

Post by EpicEng »

TheZenPsycho wrote: post #116
EpicEng wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess you failed to read the comment I replied to then? Comments sometimes spin off into subjects which are not relevant to the original topic. Welcome to the internet, lighten up.

I did read it. My point is, you contributed nothing. And you are still contributing nothing. And I shouldn't have to point this out. You should be self conscious enough to know that your comment contained nothing.

Seems like your ok with "contributing nothing" yourself though eh? I can keep this up all day.

I suppose I am also confused as to what your definition of meaningful content is. Is this meaningful?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6865612

How about this? I guess comments meant purely to attack another member is meaningful content:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6842750

Seems like you have a double standard here. You've posted more than one comment which adds nothing to the value (per your secret definition) of a given thread. You should at least be consistent if you're going to call other people out.

Re: Peter Higgs: I wouldn't be productive enough for today's academic system

#144

Post by moggie »

weland wrote: post #114
ChristianMarks wrote: post #67

Higgs isn't alone in remarking that he would not have had the time today to conduct the kind of work he did in the 1960s. Brian Greene has remarked that today’s grant-driven academia would not have allowed Einstein the luxury of a decade in which to develop his General Theory of Relativity. Eric Weinstein wrote that, "We have spent the last decades inhibiting such socially marginal individuals or chasing them to drop…

> So what is really needed is a startup culture that provides for years of uninterrupted development and focus. Just a few wild ideas, what do you think about these alternatives: 1. A more socially-responsible business environment, so that startups aren't the only icon to pray to? 2. Different funding schemes for research on high-arcing topics? 3. Reducing the "everyone NEEDS to get a degree" hype? A lot of the insta…

What are those issues?

Re: Peter Higgs: I wouldn't be productive enough for today's academic system

#145

Post by fsck--off »

xorbyte wrote: post #140
ChristianMarks wrote: post #67

Higgs isn't alone in remarking that he would not have had the time today to conduct the kind of work he did in the 1960s. Brian Greene has remarked that today’s grant-driven academia would not have allowed Einstein the luxury of a decade in which to develop his General Theory of Relativity. Eric Weinstein wrote that, "We have spent the last decades inhibiting such socially marginal individuals or chasing them to drop…

von Neumann is 'skirt chasing' but Curie is 'slutty'?

Pierre was killed in an accident in 1906. In 1910-11 she had an affair with one of Pierre's former students, Paul Langevin, who was estranged from his wife but still technically married. The Wikipedia entry links to this page:

http://www.aip.org/history/curie/scandal1.htm

Re: Peter Higgs: I wouldn't be productive enough for today's academic system

#146

Post by ahomescu1 »

purringmeow wrote: post #57
amerika_blog wrote: post #48

School is an obedience/memorization test, the exact opposite of the real-world applied thinking skills that are needed. Private schooling is bad; public schooling is even worse. That's where ideology substitutes for academics as well. Memorizing 20 ways to do something, and then finding a way to cram in each one on a test in an "applied" situation, leads to indiscriminate use of technique and poor debugging skills.

I am interested in what kind of alternative are you offering? How do you give basic knowledge to the majority of people?

Here's what I always thought it would work best: free education up to 4th grade (reading, writing, arithmetics, AKA the basics), then free libraries everywhere. It's sad that we already have a lot of public libraries, but few people visit them voluntarily.

Re: Peter Higgs: I wouldn't be productive enough for today's academic system

#147

Post by eli_gottlieb »

ChristianMarks wrote: post #67

Higgs isn't alone in remarking that he would not have had the time today to conduct the kind of work he did in the 1960s. Brian Greene has remarked that today’s grant-driven academia would not have allowed Einstein the luxury of a decade in which to develop his General Theory of Relativity. Eric Weinstein wrote that, "We have spent the last decades inhibiting such socially marginal individuals or chasing them to drop…

>Weinstein's "deviants and delinquents" include "von Neumann [skirt chasing], Gamow [hard drinking], Shockley [bigoted], Watson [misogynistic], Einstein [childish], Curie [slutty], Smale [lazy], Oppenheimer [politically treacherous], Crick [incompetent], Ehrenfest [murderous], Lang [meddlesome], Teller [monstrous] and Grothendieck [mentally unstable]."

You know what? You just made me feel a whole lot better about my life. Thank you.

Gottlieb/Sennesh [childish, mentally unstable, anime]

Re: Peter Higgs: I wouldn't be productive enough for today's academic system

#148

Post by PeterisP »

hyp0 wrote: post #47
sampo wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This will not answer your question, but at the end of his CV here, there is his list of publications. http://www.ph.ed.ac.uk/higgs/peter-higgs

aha! just as I suspected ... during 1951-1964, he published 16 papers, better than one per year. But, after his breakthrough, he eased back to 9, over 1965-2013... and only the first 3 look to be research papers (the remaining 6 seem to be historical recountings). Now, I don't blame him - do something incredible, why not slack off? He's way more accomplished than I could ever hope to be. But if you want an exemplar o…

Nowadays his 'prime year' 1 paper per year would be considered an unacceptably low rate and result in him being thrown off long before his breakthrough.

Re: Peter Higgs: I wouldn't be productive enough for today's academic system

#149

Post by eli_gottlieb »

moggie wrote: post #144
weland wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So what is really needed is a startup culture that provides for years of uninterrupted development and focus. Just a few wild ideas, what do you think about these alternatives: 1. A more socially-responsible business environment, so that startups aren't the only icon to pray to? 2. Different funding schemes for research on high-arcing topics? 3. Reducing the "everyone NEEDS to get a degree" hype? A lot of the insta…

What are those issues?

Largely a focus on maximizing short-term and near-term "productivity" - as we understand it here and now - rather than allowing the leisure for both basic sanity and for larger thoughts.

Re: Peter Higgs: I wouldn't be productive enough for today's academic system

#150

Post by ChristianMarks »

xorbyte wrote: post #140
ChristianMarks wrote: post #67

Higgs isn't alone in remarking that he would not have had the time today to conduct the kind of work he did in the 1960s. Brian Greene has remarked that today’s grant-driven academia would not have allowed Einstein the luxury of a decade in which to develop his General Theory of Relativity. Eric Weinstein wrote that, "We have spent the last decades inhibiting such socially marginal individuals or chasing them to drop…

von Neumann is 'skirt chasing' but Curie is 'slutty'?

I'm paraphrasing Weinstein [insensitive!] from his answer to the Edge 2013 question. The wording of Weinstein's original requires more cognitive load (to associate the individual with the adjective he assigns) than necessary. My paraphrase closely follows Weinstein and attempts to reduce the reader's cognitive load, without endorsing Weinstein's choice of adjectives--which I do not endorse.
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