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Manishearth
Manishearth
04:53
I just discovered that gamedev.SE has lots of questions easily answered by physics people. gamedev.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/physics .
Unfortunately, all the easy ones are answered :P. A few hours ago there was an easy question on bouncing off a wall with friction.. Coefficient of restitution ftw!
 
2 hours later…
David Zaslavsky
David Zaslavsky
07:14
@Manishearth Yeah, we've occasionally sent questions from this site to gamedev when they are too computationally-oriented, and I think we've gotten one or two migrations from them too.
Bozostein
Bozostein
07:58
never heard of mathematical ecology --- i'm pretty sure that's called environmental science in usa
David Zaslavsky
David Zaslavsky
08:29
@Bozostein Or it might be population dynamics... I'm not exactly sure what "mathematical ecology" is, but when I hear "environmental science" I think of something much less quantitative, involving more field work.
Arnold Neumaier
Arnold Neumaier
08:39
@Szabolcs: Note that i didn't say it is trivial. Neither mathematicians nor physicistswould be well-paid for doing trivial things. The point is that they apply their methodological knoledge in an area that is not math or physics, respectively.
@Bozostein: Type the subject into books.google.com and you'll see that there are a number og bokks on it, the first published in 1977.
Bozostein
Bozostein
09:33
As someone who is just starting their phd studies in physics, i'm wondering what the value of building a physics.stackexchange account is in terms of career prospects? Has stackoverflow generated real paid coding work for high reputation users? is something similar for physics possible? (obviously there is no comparision in terms of the number 4 hire assignments in coding versus academic physics) but I'm interested in what y'all think?
 
1 hour later…
mbq
mbq
10:54
@Bozostein In fact there is something called SO Careers.
For physics, well... you certainly won't amaze someone unaware of P.SE, so the impact may not be satisfying. But this is still some chance to increase your internet visibility.
Manishearth
Manishearth
11:27
@Bozostein (I'm not in the physics field, so I'm not too sure): I doubt it. Physics.SE doesn't look well-known to me; though SO certainly is.

On a related note, I have heard of interviewers being impressed by Wikipedia adminship. Wikipedia is a tool used by almost everyone, so saying "I'm a WP admin" has a much better impact than saying "I'm a physics.SE high-rep user". Of course, getting a wikipedia adminship is no easy business. RfA's are pretty gruelling.
What physics.SE is useful for is this: In the process of teaching physics to others, your own physics will improve a lot. I've gotten a lot of great insights into physics by clarifying classmates' confusions and questions. I've only been here (P.SE) for a month, but it has helped immensely. Writing answers is a great way to clarify your own knowledge. Knowledge is a sort of abstractish bundle of fluff.
2
You'll never know if you're missing something. But, while writing an answer, it has to be put in clear-cut English+Mathematics. You'll immediately realize it when what you're writing is making no sense. There; you just fixed a hole in your knowledge.

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