The h Bar

bolbteppa

00:00

I think the Higgs does not exist because it cannot be described by high school mathematics, nor do fields because they involve multivariable functions, which are too complex...

The world is a quadratic polynomial basically

0celo7

Haha

I guess it really depends on his definition of "high school mathematics"

Danu

@dmckee I do think a lot of my peers are too "weak" in terms of non-physics skills for sure. It's one of the few reasons I don't regret doing a liberal arts and sciences-inspired degree (which is a really new thing where I'm from)

user54412

I'm always saddened when I try to strike up general conversations with grad students, only to find they don't have much of an education outside their major.

bolbteppa

Imagine being called a babbler by Copernicus lol

I picked up Freud's Civilization and it's Discontents, and 33 studies in psychology today, so I try to get outside of math and physics as much as possible cool smiley face

dmckee

@ChrisWhite This. Thankfully, we have a couple of majors right now who do have significant interests outside of the building. It's refreshing.

bolbteppa

00:10

omg, in Duff's quote he says "every few days I receive an email … promoting their own theories of everything" then later in the article the guy encourages all the readers to e-mail John Baez, now Duff knows why he gets his e-mails, The illogical logic of e-mailing these dudes is right there in black and white basically...

Danu

@dmckee I really wish the faculty cared a bit more at my university

Anyways, I think it's time for me to leave the kitchen and retreat to my good ol' bed

It's been over a month since I slept in it! :D

Time for a good night's rest :)

It's been nice to talk to you @dmckee! Hope you have time to hang around some more

dmckee

00:34

Legend has it that there used to be a class at CalTech that involved attending social functions with the professors and interacting with members of the public on topics other than science and engineering.

I'd sorely like to introduce it here, but so far I've settled for urging the students to attend the function of that kind put on by the campus activity board.

bolbteppa

00:46

I got a response, omg science20.com/alpha_meme/…

0celo7

@bolbteppa Apparently he has a PhD.

bolbteppa

I know, shocking, I cannot believe someone who has studied general relativity could respond telling me to learn how to read...

0celo7

@bolbteppa I want to comment, is an email neccesary to do so?

I'm not sure I want to put a real one.

I need a throwaway email.

bolbteppa

I could have entered anything tbh, I'm sure a fake one will work

"you are actually a good example for somebody who is so afraid and under tension while reading anything that could be just potentially scratching at your held beliefs" his call for me to stick with high school level mathematics really had my belief in the calculus of variations under tension :(

0celo7

01:09

@bolbteppa "You say that all "advanced insights" can be understood using high school mathematics. This makes me wonder three things: 1) Please define "high school mathematics", 2) please define "advanced insights" and 3) please define "understand". "

bolbteppa

Yeah

Can you even write Einstein's field equations with high school mathematics, even after Harvard's Math 55 en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Math_55 I don't think one would be able to

0celo7

@bolbteppa No, linear algebra is not high school.

The notion of tensors requires an understanding of linear algebra.

bolbteppa

I think Apostol's 2 volume calculus books are the most advanced "high school" thing you could grant someone trying to generalize about many high schools, and they wont get you there...

0celo7

01:29

@bolbteppa Let's come up with some insights we think are advanced but use more than high school mathematics

I'm writing a comment about that sentence

I have principle of least action

bolbteppa

Newton's laws, I mean that involves second order ode's already

0celo7

Singularity theorems of GR

@bolbteppa That's too borderline.

A good high school physics teacher will teach that.

bolbteppa

Yeah, how about Maxwell's equations?

0celo7

I'll just call that "Maxwellian electromagnetism"

Although, AP Physics C E&M covers them

Schroedinger equation

bolbteppa

Noether's theorem

Action for the bosonic string

What a fermion is

What a spinor is

0celo7

01:33

Or just spin-statistics theorem

bolbteppa

Path integral

0celo7

Fuck, even spin itself

dmckee

@0celo7 We had matricies and their multiplication and determinants on a monkey-see basis, and more interestingly Gaussian elimination. But it was applied to systems of algebraic equations. Nothing actually important is done with it, though it make cross-products easier when they show up...

0celo7

@dmckee Yes, high school in the 60s (kidding) was more intensive than today

bolbteppa

There is a French linear algebra high school book by Dieudonne that defines determinants in terms of homotheties in multilinear forms, but that's an outlier

0celo7

01:37

@bolbteppa Well I could write a differential geometry book for high schoolers, doesn't make it a high school topic

@bolbteppa Principle of least action
Singularity theorems of GR
Schroedinger equation
Spin-statistics theorem
Noether's theorem
Kallen-Lehmann representation
Penrose process
Wigner's classification
Eightfold way
Black hole thermodynamics

bolbteppa

"this was partially my motivation, to write an article that people can point to in order to defend against dismissal by math fetishists" he'll accuse you of being 'one of them' with that list lol

0celo7

I don't want really vague things like "gauge theory" or "inflation"

bolbteppa

I mean, "math fetishist", unbelievable

It's like saying "English fetishist"

Gauge theory is a good one though

abt

hey

0celo7 I did not even recognize you.

must be the new image.

0celo7

I'll add
Beta decay
Higgs mechanism
Mercury perihelion shift
Birkhoff's theorem

abt

01:44

what is this list about?

0celo7

@abt science20.com/alpha_meme/…

@bolbteppa Done.

@bolbteppa Shit, I can't edit?

abt

why are you making a list?

it won't get anywhere, unless you want to write out every topic in physics.

0celo7

@abt Did you read my comment?

bolbteppa

AP differential topology and geometry is a concept I've never considered before lol

0celo7

@abt I've decided to make my avatar the last really good album I listened to a bunch.

abt

01:49

@bolbteppa no, such a thing cannot happen

as far as I know, high school kids are too dumb.

@0celo7 yes I read your comment, though I don't know why this is even a topic of discussion.

there is a limit to how much can be taught in high school, because you must consider that in order to teach advanced topics, you need better teachers.

0celo7

@abt I think you need to read the blog post to understand our frustration.

abt

i probably should.

bolbteppa

@abt the guy in that article is claiming we don't need anything more than high school mathematics to come up with the next paradigm shift

Also science is like religion

lol

abt

let me read it first.

bolbteppa

I think if I respond again he'll remove my response, I want to keep Copernicus' quote there at all costs

abt

02:06

all i can say is that people these days are really misinterpreting that quote by einstein "if you can't explain it simply enough... "

I'm bored I think I will make a response on the site.

NeuroFuzzy

10 crackpot points for every overanalysis of an article on crackpots

DanielSank

@Danu That conference already happened.

NeuroFuzzy

What's wrong with being a math fetishist?!

DanielSank

@DavidZ Oh. Makes sense.

abt

"not even wrong"

bolbteppa

02:20

I am swimming in overanalysis points right now

NeuroFuzzy

That copernicus quote!!!

bolbteppa

It's such a takedown of his whole article lol

0celo7

@abt Please realize there is a difference between a lack of intelligence and a lack of motivation/interest.

abt

@0celo7 are you saying otherwise then?

0celo7

@abt I know people who are likely more intelligent than I am, but they have no interest in high physics and mathematics.

abt

02:27

of course there is exceptional talent, and lots of it, though it is outnumbered by the rest.

in this context I am referring to exactly those topics.

0celo7

@abt So you'd call Harvard lawyers "dumb" because they don't know what a metric tensor is? C'mon.

abt

heh

no, you are misinterpreting my comments. this isn't a discussion about intelligence.

0celo7

"dumb"

What does that mean besides, well, dumb?

abt

I agree.

bad word choice.

bolbteppa

"I’ve had the chance in the world of mathematics that bid me welcome, to meet quite a number of people, both among my “elders” and among young people in my general age group who were more brilliant, much more ‘gifted’ than I was. I admired the facility with which they picked up, as if at play, new ideas, juggling them as if familiar with them from the cradle–while for myself I felt clumsy, even oafish, wandering painfully up an arduous track, like a dumb ox faced with an amorphous mountain of things I had to learn (so I was assured) things I felt incapable of understanding the essentials or…

abt