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The sad story of Heisenberg's doctoral oral exam (1998)

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Re: The sad story of Heisenberg's doctoral oral exam (1998)

#81

Post by ska »

arglebarnacle wrote: post #66
seanhunter wrote: post #65

One of my favourite positive doctoral viva stories was Wittgenstein, who presented "Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus" as his dissertation, which had already been published and was already considered a masterpiece. The report was something like "We consider the work of Mr Wittgenstein to be the work of a genius. Nevertheless, it fulfills the criteria for a Cambridge doctorate". Edit to add: The actual quote (which I jus…

Very funny to me that on the way out of the room Wittgenstein allegedly "clapped the two examiners [Bertrand Russell and G.E. Moore] on the shoulder and said, 'Don't worry, I know you'll never understand it.'"

That seems on-brand, if off-base, for Wittgenstein; so perhaps he did.

Re: The sad story of Heisenberg's doctoral oral exam (1998)

#83

Post by galaxyLogic »

jgerrish wrote: post #69

It's not a sad story. It's a lesson to others. It's interesting how the story switches between reasons. To me, the most salient is: "could not overcome Heisenberg's complete lack of interest and gave up the effort". Attention to detail has been one of my largest issues in mistakes I've made, and this reminds me that sometimes that's what is required. And sometimes what's required is putting a draft on arxiv.org and w…

"could not overcome Heisenberg's complete lack of interest and gave up the effort"

We all want to excel so naturally we pick topics which seem easy to us and thus can expect to excel further in them. If we did not do well in some topic earlier, we are not very interested in it, because the best we can hope is to do ok in that subject.

I did not like "technical drawing" in my first year and so I found a way to pass without taking that course. Now I lament I didn't take it. But I wanted to excel, not be mediocre in something.

I wish this psychological observation was taught to first year students.

Re: The sad story of Heisenberg's doctoral oral exam (1998)

#84

Post by yummypaint »

As a physicist i find this quite comforting. It's good to keep in mind that even the most transformative thinkers in the history of science had reasons to experience impostor syndrome. Einstein famously had a lot of trouble with math as well.

No matter how good you are, physics will regularly present you with problems that you can't solve. Statistically speaking, most of the time spent doing science is spent being wrong. As soon as you figure a system out your work is essentially done and you move on to being wrong about a different problem. The psychology is very different from working problem sets, writing an app, or defending a political position, yet we don't really prepare students for these realities as we probably should.

Re: The sad story of Heisenberg's doctoral oral exam (1998)

#85

Post by bowsamic »

mannykannot wrote: post #47
bowsamic wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well yeah but that is more of a coincidence that he happened to be a specialist in something with wide effects. QM had implications far beyond just those fundamentals, but I would imagine that he would not have known much about those fields that QM ended up having an effect on. For example, did he know much about optics, which was one of the fields most heavily affected by QM? The widespread impact of your field and…

Coincidence?

Meaning that he happened to work on something that had widespread effect, he didn’t plan for it. It was luck that quantum mechanics was so successful

Re: The sad story of Heisenberg's doctoral oral exam (1998)

#86

Post by bowsamic »

psychphysic wrote: post #59
bowsamic wrote: post #2

> In his laboratory work Heisenberg had to use a Fabry-Perot interferometer, a device for observing the interference of light waves, on which Wien had lectured extensively. But Heisenberg had no idea how to derive the resolving power of the interferometer nor, to Wien's surprise, could he derive the resolving power of such common instruments as the telescope and the microscope. When an angry Wien asked how a storage…

I'm not convinced people fail PhD viva all the time. It's only a real fail if they tell you to give up

Indeed in modern times you will know far in advanced whether or not you will pass

Re: The sad story of Heisenberg's doctoral oral exam (1998)

#87

Post by mannykannot »

bowsamic wrote: post #85
mannykannot wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Coincidence?

Meaning that he happened to work on something that had widespread effect, he didn’t plan for it. It was luck that quantum mechanics was so successful

I think it is clear that Heisenberg, Sommerfeld, Born and others at the forefront of theoretical physics at the time were well aware of how important and far-reaching the issues that comprised Heisenberg's real work were.

As explained in the article, his diversion into hydrodynamics was purely to secure a doctorate from a physics establishment which had not yet caught up to this fact, and I would say that, if anything, it is this establishment which suffered a surfeit of narrow specializations.

Re: The sad story of Heisenberg's doctoral oral exam (1998)

#88

Post by yummypaint »

f1shy wrote: post #29
peteradio wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To become a PhD candidate at a non-top-tier Physics university, I had to derive similar trivia over a wide variety of physics topics in a sort of entry exam. I think it is quite normal. What I doubt is typical anymore is for this to be individual and oral. Also, it was quite typical to fail on your first few go rounds.

It is not. Like not at all. I know PhDs who know literally nothing outside the very narrow topic of their thesis. Like PhD in signal processing unable to understand a control system equation. I see that day in day out where I work. Lucky you, that have a decent title.

Physics specifically has a long tradition of expecting a wide breadth of knowledge. For example, in every physics department i know details about, the expectation is that any professor is able to teach any class, and class assignments indeed change very regularly.

I think part of the reason is that the knowledge tends to be "use it or lose it" on a multi-year timescale. If you work with physicists who have been pidgeonholed in industry for decades then this is probably to be expected.

Re: The sad story of Heisenberg's doctoral oral exam (1998)

#89

Post by protastus »

f1shy wrote: post #29
peteradio wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To become a PhD candidate at a non-top-tier Physics university, I had to derive similar trivia over a wide variety of physics topics in a sort of entry exam. I think it is quite normal. What I doubt is typical anymore is for this to be individual and oral. Also, it was quite typical to fail on your first few go rounds.

It is not. Like not at all. I know PhDs who know literally nothing outside the very narrow topic of their thesis. Like PhD in signal processing unable to understand a control system equation. I see that day in day out where I work. Lucky you, that have a decent title.

PhD programs, requirements and exams aren't standardized across institutions. Everyone's experience is different.

PhD graduates are extremely diverse in every possible measure. Some are deep generalists. Others are hyper specialized. Some can walk on water. Others leave you wondering how they managed to graduate.

Re: The sad story of Heisenberg's doctoral oral exam (1998)

#90

Post by jofer »

yummypaint wrote: post #84

As a physicist i find this quite comforting. It's good to keep in mind that even the most transformative thinkers in the history of science had reasons to experience impostor syndrome. Einstein famously had a lot of trouble with math as well. No matter how good you are, physics will regularly present you with problems that you can't solve. Statistically speaking, most of the time spent doing science is spent being wr…

> "Statistically speaking, most of the time spent doing science is spent being wrong. As soon as you figure a system out your work is essentially done and you move on to being wrong about a different problem."

That's a remarkably good quote. Definitely very true.

I would argue that grad students prepare pretty well for that, and it's one of the main mindset shifts you're expected to make in grad school vs undergrad. Regardless, though, it's not something that gets broad appreciation.

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