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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

#191

Post by fargolime »

mikeash wrote: post #189
fargolime wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Since 1 million light years in 14 years is way faster than the speed of light, and relativity doesn't allow you to exceed the speed of light by acceleration, clearly this is something other than regular old F=ma "acceleration". As the blog notes, the speed of light limit in relativity theory applies only to observers in free fall or observers measuring things passing right by them. The rocket's crew isn't in free f…

"It wouldn't be easy." Nonsense. The mass of galaxies is reasonably well known. Put the numbers in and see how well they match reality. The numbers are uncertain? Then put on appropriate error bars and see if reality falls within them.

We know the mass of each of millions of galaxies? I doubt the galaxies involved have even been counted. But never mind, because ideas aren't proven invalid when they aren't applied in some way you desired.

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

#192

Post by rpedela »

weland wrote: post #188
rpedela wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, you need a degree for most CS jobs. CS is too complicated. You need to know how the computer works on a theoretical level which requires a degree. The CS equivalent to an electrician would be people who do basic IT support (i.e. tell someone to reboot their Windows machine) and easy programming like creating a blog.

Do you? Half of my colleagues who do web development would be utterly unable to tell you what TLB or virtual memory are, probably don't remember Ohm's law, and while they would probably be able to write a sorting function on their own, chances are they'd fail even the most basic exam on data structures and algorithm. And they can do their job just fine. This isn't 1995, when writing dynamic websites was a pioneer's j…

The software industry does not revolve around web development. Yes it is a large percentage but it is not the only type of software, and many web development jobs require understanding data structures and algorithms. As always, it depends.

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

#193

Post by mikeash »

fargolime wrote: post #191
mikeash wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"It wouldn't be easy." Nonsense. The mass of galaxies is reasonably well known. Put the numbers in and see how well they match reality. The numbers are uncertain? Then put on appropriate error bars and see if reality falls within them.

We know the mass of each of millions of galaxies? I doubt the galaxies involved have even been counted. But never mind, because ideas aren't proven invalid when they aren't applied in some way you desired.

No, but when a quantitative theory isn't compared with reality then there is absolutely no reason to pay attention to it until it is.

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

#194

Post by fargolime »

mikeash wrote: post #193
fargolime wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We know the mass of each of millions of galaxies? I doubt the galaxies involved have even been counted. But never mind, because ideas aren't proven invalid when they aren't applied in some way you desired.

No, but when a quantitative theory isn't compared with reality then there is absolutely no reason to pay attention to it until it is.

Special relativity should've been tossed in the bin, then.

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

#195

Post by mikeash »

fargolime wrote: post #194
mikeash wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, but when a quantitative theory isn't compared with reality then there is absolutely no reason to pay attention to it until it is.

Special relativity should've been tossed in the bin, then.

No, because special relativity had plenty of quantitative corroborating evidence for it, gathered both before and after the theory was actually proposed.

Seriously, this is insane. You have a theory that makes quantitative predictions but when I ask whether those predictions line up with reality you protest that it's just too hard to actually come up with any numbers. You loved equations and graphs before, but now, perish the thought of actually looking at quantities, let's just wave hands and pretend that this theory is definitely right even though we can't be bothered to check.

You have a few blog posts with no quantitative reasoning whatsoever even though all of the math is present and straightforward, no actual papers, no evidence, no nothing, and you're sure that this is proof that academia is suppressing new ideas, not, say, proof that the author is a complete crackpot.

Sure.

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

#196

Post by ericrweinstein »

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'?

"In the past, many scientists lived on or even over the edge of respectability with reputations as .... " is what I wrote on Edge.

Actually I don't think von Neumann or Curie had anything wrong with them in chasing the embrace of another. And yes, there is a major double standard in reputations. Curie after all chased love while von Neumann, it appears, chased sexual opportunity. Thanks for pointing it out. But the post was not insensitive. Most of these people are my heroes and I'm proud of all their accomplishments.

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

#197

Post by fargolime »

mikeash wrote: post #195
fargolime wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Special relativity should've been tossed in the bin, then.

No, because special relativity had plenty of quantitative corroborating evidence for it, gathered both before and after the theory was actually proposed. Seriously, this is insane. You have a theory that makes quantitative predictions but when I ask whether those predictions line up with reality you protest that it's just too hard to actually come up with any numbers. You loved equations and graphs before, but now, p…

Special relativity as published included no experimental confirmation. None of its quantitative predictions in the original publication were "lined up with reality" by Einstein. What came after the theory was published, experiments done by others, is obviously irrelevant to the point you're making.

The blog proves that general relativity predicts that sufficiently high-redshift supernovae accelerate away from us, the 1998 observation of which is currently a mystery. The blog offers the same level of corroborating evidence as special relativity did when it was published, both offering solutions to observational mysteries. Neither Einstein nor the blog author lined up anything with reality numerically in their original publications.

Yet you insist (at a minimum) the blog author add up the masses of all the millions (trillions?) of galaxies within a sphere centered on the Earth and whose radius extends to those supernovae, billions of light years from the Earth, to make a numerical prediction of the rate those supernovae are accelerating away from us. You suggest that not doing such a calculation means the blog is hand-waving. Well I say again that's unscientific as hell. Yes by your standard, special relativity as published would be junk and Einstein would be a crackpot.

(I probably won't say anything more because I get tired of this type of discussion. You seem to be done with scientific attempts to discredit the blog.)

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

#198

Post by gscott »

Angostura wrote: post #115
gscott wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My kids come home brainwashed from school all of the time. I have to sit them down and have them think about what is being taught to them so they can look at it objectively and make their own decisions.

Some examples would be useful.

Anything that is not history, math, science, biology, etc.

In the 6-7-8th grade (at least here in California) there are a number of assigned books and lessons that teach (as best as I can describe it) "empathy". Which is great... but some of the books had a very strong viewpoint one way or the other that was persuasive but not always well rounded.

Personally when I was that age the "empathy" lessons were way better in middle school. They lasted a semester or two, we watched a movie called "The Lottery" where a village picked from a lottery to stone one person (I can't remember why, a good harvest I am not sure) but a mother was chosen and it was so ingrained in the children to stone the person her own children looked forward to the stoning and the mother tried to get the children to think "hey this is my own mother". Another lesson was the poem about when you let bad things happen to others, when bad things happen to you there will be no one left to speak up on your behalf (can't remember the title), and the third one was on cultural understanding if someone hundreds of years from now examines your house and get what is inside of it "wrong" (like assuming the toilet is a communication device you yell into, or toothbrushes (with hooks) were ear-rings) not to think badly of those people (and as such you may make the same mistakes when look at the lives of people you're not familiar with).

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

#199

Post by weland »

rpedela wrote: post #192
weland wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you? Half of my colleagues who do web development would be utterly unable to tell you what TLB or virtual memory are, probably don't remember Ohm's law, and while they would probably be able to write a sorting function on their own, chances are they'd fail even the most basic exam on data structures and algorithm. And they can do their job just fine. This isn't 1995, when writing dynamic websites was a pioneer's j…

The software industry does not revolve around web development. Yes it is a large percentage but it is not the only type of software, and many web development jobs require understanding data structures and algorithms. As always, it depends.

I don't see how this contradicts what I said. There are tons of jobs in the software industry that don't require anything so advanced that you'd need a degree for. The JS hipsterisms are a prime example of those, but they aren't necessarily the only ones.

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

#200

Post by mikeash »

fargolime wrote: post #197
mikeash wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, because special relativity had plenty of quantitative corroborating evidence for it, gathered both before and after the theory was actually proposed. Seriously, this is insane. You have a theory that makes quantitative predictions but when I ask whether those predictions line up with reality you protest that it's just too hard to actually come up with any numbers. You loved equations and graphs before, but now, p…

Special relativity as published included no experimental confirmation. None of its quantitative predictions in the original publication were "lined up with reality" by Einstein. What came after the theory was published, experiments done by others, is obviously irrelevant to the point you're making. The blog proves that general relativity predicts that sufficiently high-redshift supernovae accelerate away from us, the…

It doesn't look that way to me: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tests_of_special_relativity

In particular, the Lorentz transformation at the heart of relativity was derived from experiments years before.

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