101–110 of 145 posts
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Which makes you wonder why a medical doctor is called that?
Because doctor comes from the passive doctus ('having been taught', i.e. learned) rather than the active docens ('teaching, instructing').
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PhD is a license to teach (i.e. doctor) philosophy. Specifically, in "science" fields, natural philosophy. Natural philosophy was the original (and i think better) name for science, especially physics. It was understood to be an important subbranch of philosophy. I think its better name because it elucidates an important epistemological difference: science is a method, not knowledge. I learn science when I learn abou…
Why specifically in science. PhD is the degree you usually get at that level for English, Classics, Economics, Histrory etc.. Some Universities use DPhil (Oxford) for all these but I know of no other degree at that level except for those two (MD is effectively lower and DSc is usually some form of honourary degree and I am not certain what LLD is)
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PhD is a license to teach (i.e. doctor) philosophy. Specifically, in "science" fields, natural philosophy. Natural philosophy was the original (and i think better) name for science, especially physics. It was understood to be an important subbranch of philosophy. I think its better name because it elucidates an important epistemological difference: science is a method, not knowledge. I learn science when I learn abou…
Physics was also philosophy for eons in that theories were on par with hard knowledge about the gods and mermaids. Most early physic had surprisingly little explanatory or experimental connection to the actual physical world. But it often made up for that with a solid grounding in popular mythology and the produce of some extraordinary imaginations. You know, like philosophy!
Anyway, those crazies came up with atomistic theory to explain silly myths.... and ended up explaining phase change as an emergent phenomenon.
This is the first time I've read a detailed account of "generals" in a US math PhD. I'm surprised how broad the topics covered seem. I did my PhD in the UK and the transition to fully fledged PhD candidate after the first couple of years was significantly less traumatic than this seems!
Granted, this is at Princeton and for a child prodigy. Certainly only a few schools in the U.S. will have oral exams like this. Also, there's a potentiality of an unreliable narrator and certainly a modicum of figurative dick measuring on both sides of the examination table.
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PhD is a license to teach (i.e. doctor) philosophy. Specifically, in "science" fields, natural philosophy. Natural philosophy was the original (and i think better) name for science, especially physics. It was understood to be an important subbranch of philosophy. I think its better name because it elucidates an important epistemological difference: science is a method, not knowledge. I learn science when I learn abou…
> Im not learning science when I learn about evolution; rather Im learning a theory, very likely to be true, that is almost impossible to put under scrutiny using the scientific method. the very definition of a "theory" in the scientific sense of the word (e.g. "theory of evolution") includes the ability to test it using the scientific method. the wikipedia page goes into great detail: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S…
And yes, I know about little bugs changing color and bacteria becoming resistant to antibiotics.
But, strictly speaking, that isnt what we're taught is "science" in 10th grade, is it? That's really an observation of what we cannot control fitting nicely into our theories.
The embarrassing thing about evolution is that biologists keep having to tweek it in ways that are bewildering if evolution is (I think better) understood as information theory. For example, why did biologists reject horizontal gene transfer?
Anyway the whole field is sitting atop of an ignored quantity-quality emergent behavior which is also the most interesting question.
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PhD is a license to teach (i.e. doctor) philosophy. Specifically, in "science" fields, natural philosophy. Natural philosophy was the original (and i think better) name for science, especially physics. It was understood to be an important subbranch of philosophy. I think its better name because it elucidates an important epistemological difference: science is a method, not knowledge. I learn science when I learn abou…
> In fluids, Bernoulli devised experiments to demonstrate to his calculus illiterate colleagues what he had already mathematically proven. Maybe I misunderstood you, but I have the feeling you're downplaying the importance of experiments in Physics. Once you mathematically prove something, you proved that a statement is true when given a certain set of axioms. This is enough in Mathematics, like your example of the P…
Im reading Truesdell's (America's greatest 20th century physicist?) book now where he goes through the history of fluid mechanics and the paucity of experiments. If I remember ill send you the reference
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I keep making this mistake. I almost asked "why philosophy, didn't he study physics?" That does make me wonder: why DOES the qualification/position/status name mention only philosophy?
PhD is a license to teach (i.e. doctor) philosophy. Specifically, in "science" fields, natural philosophy. Natural philosophy was the original (and i think better) name for science, especially physics. It was understood to be an important subbranch of philosophy. I think its better name because it elucidates an important epistemological difference: science is a method, not knowledge. I learn science when I learn abou…
Thought this Oppenheimer anecdote may amuse the HN contingent. "Oppenheimer obtained his Doctor of Philosophy degree in March 1927 at age 23, supervised by Max Born.[28][29] After the oral exam, James Franck, the professor administering, reportedly said, "I'm glad that's over. He was on the point of questioning me."[30] " Franck had won the Nobel two years earlier. Sources: [Refs] quoted directly from Wikipedia artic…
I keep making this mistake. I almost asked "why philosophy, didn't he study physics?" That does make me wonder: why DOES the qualification/position/status name mention only philosophy?
> primes of the form 4n - 3. I think they mean 4n + 3 unless this is a joke I'm missing