It seems prefectly [sic] reasonable that two people sharing the same environment would moderate their conversation to suit that environment better than when only one person in the conversation is in that environment.
Better, yes. But the assumption of linearity is the stupid factor here (twice as better? Hah). It also seems perfectly reasonable to me that with a cellphone, it is easier to simply drop the damn thing onto the passenger seat if things get tense on the road. I'd love to see you ask a loved one to simply STFU as easily. Lot more excuses for "dropping a call" too eh? See my reply to icebike above where I quote from HIS linked study. Again, it all comes down to WHO the passenger is. The casual assumption (based on studies done on nominal adults) that ALL passengers will shut up when they see tense traffic conditions is what galls me.
He's doing no such thing. He's saying that those sensibilities (if that is the right word) added together have a superior effect than just one of them.
Why wouldn't it?
Superior, sure. I claim that the superiority is marginal, hardly proportional.
He has a point though... not all passengers are equal.
THANK YOU! That is all I was going for. The dishonesty in the usual cellphone arguments lies in comparing the worst cellphone behavior with the most saintly passengers, period. So, while I agree that cellphone ARE evil distractions, I have to call bs when those same people claim that the other things THEY like to do (chat, drink coffee, etc.) are NOT for blah blah blah reasons.
If I did, it wouldn't be a rant then would it?:P Still, here goes...
FTA you linked to:
On the practical side, the findings allow predictions about how
contexts can negatively affect dual-task performance. On one
hand, passengers not engaged in the driving task either because
they are not able to direct the attention of the driver toward traffic,
or do not know how to identify important events in the driving
environment (e.g., children in the vehicle) have a potentially
negative impact on driving performance. On the other hand, it is
possible that overengagement can also have a potentially negative
impact. For example a passenger who is too âoesupportiveâ by
constantly commenting and directing attention in an overcontrolling
fashion has a potentially negative impact on performance.
Heh. At least they are honest about their conclusion. Isn't that what I was trying to say? Seems to me that having any children or immature adults (of which there are many in this world - have you never seen a couple arguing in their car irrespective of traffic conditions? Gimme a break!) is just as or more distracting that cellphone conversations.
I still maintain that it is hypocritical to compare a cellphone conversation with a passenger conversation when that passenger is a mature adult capable of understanding road and traffic conditions AND has the presence of mind to, as you so eloquently put it "STFU" at the right times.
Passengers in the vehicle (at least those over 12) STFU where the driver is busy or when a situation develops, and their silence or their warnings actually calls attention to some dangers.
You know, I'm totally on board (and have been since I learned to drive) with the 'no cellphones while driving', to the extent that I don't even answer the phone unless I can safely pull over (usually at a street parking spot). But please, PUHLEEEEZ spare me the bromide about the distinction between cell phone conversations vs. those with passengers. That is simply a disingenuous argument - you're relying on the sensibility of people on the passenger side of the argument (to mind the road hazards) while casually dismissing the sensibility of the cellphone using driver (who clearly cannot be trusted and must be protected from himself). As you said yourself, if you wish to be consistent with the policy of no distractions, you would HAVE to ban all kids, especially infants from cars unless there is someone besides the driver to take care of them. This would inconvenience 99% of the members of say, a rabid organization like MADD now wouldn't it?:P
My point here simple - cellphones are no more or less dangerous than ANY kind of distraction encountered by the driver - be it hot coffee, chatty passengers or crying infants in the back seat. The reason cellphones are banned is ONLY (I repeat, ONLY) because it is the only thing you CAN ban without causing mass riots. I actually sympathize with that but again, please don't try to justify this inconsistency - it can't be justified in any logical way.
Not trying to flamebait here but the whole cellphone-hate from so-called sophisticated people is getting increasingly inconsistent. To give another example of this inconsistency - I've read opinions by Bill Bryson, the renowned travel author, someone I admire greatly (obviously not for this) where he repeatedly (and entirely without humor) rags on people who talk on cellphones in public. Now, as much as that practice bothers me too (and which I again, personally refrain from doing), it is the PUREST form of horseshit to distinguish cellphone conversations from those with fellow passengers. But I've seen several "sophisticates" having heated discussions with no regard for the people around them. Personally, I couldn't give a shit either way (the inventor of earphones deserves a Nobel IMHO:P). But someone please tell me exactly how (for all practical purposes, not because someone APPROVES of one kind of conversation over the other for anachronistic/reactionary reasons) cellphones are any less annoying than... well... most people in public:P.
/end rant (well, just one more thing - next time I see a bunch of high school kids play crap on their designer phone/music player/vibrator/whatever on the bus WITHOUT earphones, I'm gonna shove it up their whatsits:P) //27 and already senile ///get off my lawn *sigh*
After one digs through all the bullshit, this is the stark reality one is left with. I feel your anger and the pain that lies beneath it. The only reassurance I can give you is that the forces of rationality have been fighting the good fight for millennia. Slowly but surely, we have reached a stage where heretics are no longer burned at the stake. Irreligion is simply something that will eventually penetrate the hallowed* halls of politics. And the fact is that for all its faults, humanity is growing up as a species. Unfortunately, most of humanity can never be completely rational. Fortunately, that is not necessary for the rationals to move on to better things once we don't have to waste our time shoveling manure out of our driveways everyday before going to work.
No, it doesn't work like that. You don't get to sit there being a smug little shit demanding that someone prove themselves without actually doing shit to prove YOUR point.
If your so goddamn certain of your factual correctness why dont YOU bring something to the table contradicting him?
Misplaced indignation. He was neither smug nor demanding that GP prove himself. When someone (GP in this instance) makes such a blanket claim that is clearly simplistic if not entirely wrong ("It's old growth forests that go into books") asking politely (linking to XKCD is not the mortal insult some may think it is *sigh*) for a citation is hardly something to get so worked up over.
Being snippy for no reason is rather bad form and goes a long way toward lowering your credibility.
To GP: I would mod rainforests as -1 overrated (good source for exotic diseases though - keeps the biologists on their toes).
The Mythbusters may not always be rigorous about operating in a controlled environment, with a well-designed experiment... but they certainly can get children interested in science and mathematics.
Actually, xkcd sums it up pretty well.
Excellent! I used to sneer at the Mythbusters at one point before I realized this very thing. In fact, I would argue that Hawking, Kaku and Greene (he of the stringy books) are a step below Mythbusters in terms of giving us a glimpse of what it's really like working in these professions (and only in this limited sense - the sense of philosophical wonder about the Universe and our place in it is... not missing exactly but just not the purpose in Mythbusters).
Of course, in experimental physics, we try NOT to blow things up but that's a minor detail:). The point I'm trying to make is that none of the theorists give you even a tiny idea of what it's like to actually work in the field - what they do in a typical day and so on.
In any case, none of what I said above was really on-topic:P. I came here just to re-emphasize parent's post. Bottom like is with bullshit being so ubiquitous today, one should try absolutely anything that works in trying to show kids the infinite wonder of the real mysteries of the universe and give them the tools for them to someday (even in little ways) make a dent in those mysteries:). If Mythbusters works in turning at least a few kids towards science and engineering, it's completely worth it (even though I don't find myself too entertained by the show myself). I would personally add some theory stuff to the mix (NOVA, Cosmos and the like) just to keep the focus on the things that matter.
Just a little nitpicking. Noise randomness doesn't mean that you'll get a good estimation of the signal by averaging.
The mean estimator works all right (it's the MVU, IIRC) when you're getting zero-mean noise, or noise whose PDF is symmetrically distributed around its expected value (in this case, you could correct the bias by extracting the mean of the noise).
But I just flunked an exam on this very topic, so to hell with me:D
You're quite right. I should have been more precise when I said "random". What I meant was zero-mean random so that by repeated averaging (done intelligently), the signal survives while the noise averages out to give a large signal-to-noise. Thanks:)
comparable to measuring from Earth the heat produced by a rabbit sitting on the Moon
Is anyone else dissapointed we don't already have this capability? I can stream Top Gear in HD from youtube in faster than real time but we lag this far behind in (optical? thermal?) imaging? I know the atmosphere creates a lot of optical distortion... but really? Not even a rabbit (which have unusually high body temps if I recall correctly)?
Actually, that's an interesting question. It has been answered in this thread but I'd like to address a deeper issue here. Technical challenges usually come in two flavors, one which can be solved simply by making a device better and better and the other, which has to do with the signal you're trying to measure just not being there (or is otherwise masked by "noise"). I put "noise" in quotes because people always assume the signal can be separated from the noise. Not so. In most cases, you have to know the source of the noise to reliably subtract it out. In other cases, you can be lucky and the noise will be random so that greater averaging of the data filters out the noise automatically. For ALL other cases, people have to resort to making assumptions about the noise, which means that the "filtered signal" you end up with has (sometimes huge) contributions from the person who made the assumption. Is it a rabbit or an artifact of my assumptions?
This particular question you raise is in that final category. There just isn't enough signal there that is distinguishable from the surrounding crap for you to tell with any certainty that you have rabbits on the moon and not a migratory bird flock here in the sky. You could always throw money at the problem (in principle) by having a dozen weather satellites constantly monitoring the patch of atmosphere in direct line of sight between you and the moon and feeding you detailed real-time data of temperature, pressure, index of refraction, chemical composition of air(/dust) in there (affects absorption/reflection/transmission). THEN, you MIGHT stand a good chance of catching a glimpse of your elusive rabbit.
Technology can always be improved. Ambient conditions will always be the ultimate threshold for the actual utility of that technology.
That is not to say that a particular phenomenon always stays of out of reach. One simply realizes that certain constraints stated in the problem are actually ridiculous. For instance, if the goal was really to observe rabbits on the moon, the constraint that the instrument be on the earth is highly artificial. Instead, one would relax that constraint, put a satellite above the atmosphere, satisfy one's rabbit fetish and the problem's solved:).
I know, but there's something about the feel of a physical paper that's so much more pleasant than a bloody screen. I hate not being able to see the whole page in one view without having to scroll.
I agree whole-heartedly! Unfortunately, the print version doesn't give me two VERY important things that I get in the online version: (1) Instant lookup of background I don't know - makes reading an article actually useful instead of a futile exercise in puzzle-solving; and (2) stories and content that I'm actually interested in instead of wading through a collection compiled for the national least common denominator. So, I would gladly trade the (secondary and frivolous) tactile and olfactory stimulation accompanying newspapers for the (primary and important) benefits I've outlined above. I do agree with the whole bird's-eye-view argument by parent and poster printing is the only solution I have for that. Surely, parent will agree that hand-drawing of CAD drawings is annoying beyond belief when it comes to editing said designs? So, I would (and do - I use CAD programs quite extensively) design the damn things on the screen, print it out, look it over for problems, re-edit and be happy:P. I don't see any problem with this hybrid solution - why must we all be philosophical purists? Hybrid != mongrel.
Aside from that, there's the greater portability in the digital version (smartphones/book readers anyone?) I have never been able to read newspapers while having food - just not dextrous enough perhaps. One-handed digital readers increase my available reading time dramatically by virtue of being able to include almost ANY damn 5-minute block where I'm not using both hands and performing an activity that doesn't require my full attention. There are many such short periods in a researcher's routine (waiting for a machine to do something, epoxy being degassed, parts being ultrasonically cleaned, etc.) and it is a pleasure to be able to squeeze some brain-time during these periods.
So, while my romantic side agrees with all the archaists in this (and similar) threads, the pragmatist in me recognizes why print media is essentially marginal as far as I'm concerned (I still like paper books for when I actually have free time - vacations for instance, or during the electronic embargo periods in airplanes). From an environmental point of view, newspapers are teh sux0rz:P and I couldn't be happier about that mode of distribution dying out (of course I feel bad about the lost jobs and such so I wouldn't actively wish for it - but if it happens, fine...)
Again with the opinionated modding. If you don't agree with a poster, say so ffs. Don't abuse your modding privileges. The idea of laptops is quite a valid counterpoint to OP. Even if you think it is not, "troll" is a childish way to lash back. Sheesh, where're my mod points when I need 'em?
I never said it was destroyed by cheap labor. My point was in retort to your implication that things usually work in cycles.
Then why make absurd generalizations from statements that were quite specific on my part? And if you insist on doing so, please do me the courtesy of not misattributing said grand generalizations to me. I never said that "things usually work in cycles". At the most I implied that the phenomenon of outsourcing is very likely cyclical and I predict that eventually it will come back full circle (that is the full extent of my degree of belief in anything - look for idea based fundamentalism elsewhere:P). Besides, the idea that outsourcing can be even a significant factor in the downfall of the United States is disingenuous at best, and FUD at worst. The American laborer (well, actually the labor union - while largely a force for good - it has had a long-term negative effect on the US economy) has been pricing himself out of the global market for decades now.
Soylent Green would probably be better, and at least wouldn't have all the patent problems.
Ha! Optimist:P....
Patent # 17678226: Processing of sapient organics for reintroduction into the ecostream.
Patent # 17678227: Flavoring and coloring of used sapient organics for negation of unpalatability.
Besides, we don't have a lack of farmland to grow crops, so where do you get the idea that we need GMO crops? There's a surplus of food available, not a lack.
[citation needed]
And there you go again putting words in my mouth. Did I say one damn thing about insufficient farmland? Do you really think that's the only factor at play here? What's the use of saying (the following is something I might find plausible even) that given the correct geopolitical situation and full cooperation from every nation in the world, the available farmland (assuming it stays viable and is not in a contested area or battlezone or is otherwise contaminated or used up* in the next N years) might be sufficient to grow enough food for the existing population in the world for M years.
Taking some of the more incorrigible African "countries" as examples, the idea that the ubiquitous farmland currently available there can be used constructively in ways that actually feed those same people is naive to an absurd degree. In such cases, idealism must necessarily take a back seat to pragmatism.
And I really would like citations for your statements that GM crops ("GMO crops" = Gen. Mod. Organism. crops... a bit jarring on the nerves what?) are "not only unhealthy, but have no taste" and "we don't have a lack of farmland to grow crops... There's a surplus of food available, not a lack."
______________
* usually by slash-and-burn agriculture by the native tribes that everyone is sooooo in love with for being "friends of the earth"(TM)
I did give two examples in that post - I can't keep listing things until you find something you care about. The point is that no research groups can afford to outsource high-end tools (take any tool in the nanotech industry for example). ANY tool you find in industrial or academic cleanrooms are manufactured in first world countries (usually Germany for optical based tools or the US or even the UK for plasma etching tools. The UK and centers in Italy are still THE innovators and manufacturers for cryogenic equipment that is used everywhere in the world for cutting edge research into quantum computing.
It IS troubling when microwave ovens aren't made in house anymore, but please don't confuse that with state of the art equipment. As I said before, the only things that are outsourced in hard tech are things that you can completely specify on paper as an algorithm. The reason soft tech feels the pinch is that soft innovation is actually quite possible in non-first world economies. Intelligent people are not very rare. Intelligent people coupled with top notch infrastructure is rarer than rare.
Your introduction of the Roman empire into this discussion can only be afforded a "LOLWUT?" as far as I'm concerned. If I know one piece of history, it's that the Roman empire was not destroyed by outsourcing of cheap labor:P. Talk about stretching analogies like taffy.
And "unhealthy GMO crops"??? Paint with a broad brush much? In the not-too-distant future, improved versions of those GMO crops will be our only alternative to Soylent Green. So, better get off that organic high horse and get used to the GMO idea.
I wonder how long it will be before the Chinese write that same editorial, and bewail the Phillipines, the Koreans, the Elbonians, whatever. Enough of a trend to forecast with, I think.
Look at the bright side - eventually, those jobs will cycle around and come back to the US, which by then will have recovered its work ethos and purged itself of the finance parasites.
On a different topic, I wonder daily about IT narcissism when they keep saying "technology jobs". There is more to technology than the teeny tiny pie slice known as IT. Just look at the enormous rise in the 'hard' tech sector in the US - scientific lab support infrastructure for example. Or tooling technologies. Outsourcing, by definition, is confined to proven and largely automatable technologies. The US, in addition to countries like Germany and Japan, is still on the cutting edge of hard tech (if not soft tech).
I sympathize. I just wish the so-called bibliophiles would realize that for a good book, the content is all that matters. If I can carry around my most precious books on my Centro to read at a moment's notice, it is WORTH the inconvenience of not having the secondary stimuli of the papyral feel or the smell of the non-acid free paper volatilizing in oxygen:P. To people for whom CONTENT and the ability to read more often and multiply (in the sense of having 5-6 books going at once - yeah, I thrive on that) without lugging around a piece of... well... luggage (though if I had one with thousands of feet, I'd go luddite in a sec;)), the digital age has been the advent of biblio-heaven. And I'm not talking about overpriced and unwieldy Kindles either (just a personal opinion/choice). A simple $100 Centro (that I needed for a phone anyway) and my good ol' friends are right there with me, anytime I wish. Hell, if I want portable, I'm getting something TRULY portable.
Most people won't find the following relevant but when I worked in a class 100 cleanroom for a month (14 hours a day with a lot of dead time waiting for processes to finish), no books were allowed (particulate contamination from regular paper). But guess what? Electronics, properly wiped down, were fine:). Since the arrival of inexpensive ebook readers that fit in a pocket, my reading has nearly tripled! This is one instance where the self-styled "bibliophiles" who keep whining endlessly about the feel and smell of paper seem more pretentious than a bunch of wine snobs. Not referring to parent - he/she brought up some really good points in favor of physical books. But y'all have seen the kind of people I'm talking about. What's amusing is that these whiners are getting younger and younger. Sheesh, youth's supposed to be adaptable - you're not old enough to throw kids off your lawn quite yet:P.
Hardcovers especially, are a colossal waste of good paper, not to mention a frakking pain to carry around. I just want sooooo bad for an elegant solution to the math expression problem on handheld readers. That's about the only reason I cannot go all digital (except when I'm actually at a computer screen) - the hard sciences are pretty well screwed when it comes to portabilizing [sic] them:'( Though I guess if I drop my insistence that ereaders be pocketsize, the Kindle may just have the capability to show equations well. Chances are, I'll probably break down and indulge in one a few years down the read *sigh*.
Lastly, and not to sound like an anti-geriatric tool, but old folks just have a lot of time and money on their hands and can afford to indulge in the pleasures (and I have never denied that aren't any) of physical books. It is simply a limiting experience in my opinion. Take the newspaper debates for instance. Isn't it nice for once to be able to just google the disgustingly ubiquitous obscurantist allusions and dime-a-dozen "important" geopolitical figures or countries or the even more pathetic string of abbreviations that pelt you in the news instead of looking at the screen like an idiot? I simply refuse to watch or read any news if it's not on the internet because my curiosity MUST be satisfied - I will not be denied answers and TVs and newspapers have none for me.
SO there! *walks away in a huff waving fisted Centro at crowd*
I browsed your website for about an hour. The visualizations, while pretty, seemed... artificial. Or perhaps I just did not understand the purpose behind them? The explanations accompanying them seem to make what are quite simple subjects into needlessly complicated excursions into quaternions. Again, I am merely an experimentalist and have not played with quaternions in my infancy:) so suggestions on fruitfully using the website are welcome. To be honest, I felt like I was looking at figures and captions in a book but the text was nowhere to be found. Perhaps it's still under construction?
I did find some of your ideas intriguing, but really - at the risk of sounding rude - I must say that the whole "ultra-conservative scientific establishment" rhetoric is a big turnoff to serious scientists who might otherwise be interested in your work. You wouldn't believe the sheer amount of spam most professors get (and even lowly grad students for that matter - I collect such things as a hobby:)) from geniuses who feel they have discovered the secrets of the universe. Again, from what I saw on the site, you are hardly in the same category, but you might as well have painted a big red sign on yourself warning the serous folks off:P. I do hope you take my criticism in the spirit in which it was offered - constructively. I don't know what the whole string theory community is like, but where I work, you bring up ideas, prove them or verify them experimentally, and become rich and famous:). Of course it ain't perfect - there's a$$holes everywhere.
Regardless, this brings me back to your original point - visualizing math may make it more popular. Quite true, but it has to be done right. One of the few successful renditions of this theme has to be Tristan Needham's Visual Complex Analysis. You might enjoy that book.
I strongly disagree with the Adlerian precept. It is especially dangerous in science because knowledge is continually being added to the subject and long-hidden connections are continually being discovered. As a VERY relevant analogy, take complex analysis (square root of -1 and all that follows therefrom:P). If you read any books from the childhood days of this subject, they will seem incredibly complicated.
While I appreciate where you're going with your statement: "the way the discoverer came to understand a principle is often more important to grasp than the principle itself", the hope that this will be clear by reading an original work is just too much to ask for. Science historians labor for years to try to grasp some of those original thought processes. I personally find it much more fruitful to read these histories or a good modern textbook with a historical bent (An imaginary tale and Dr. Euler's fabulous formula - while not textbooks - are excellent examples of this species) to obtain some understanding of how the scientist actually thought of doing this. It just doesn't seem like a good use of one's time to wade through obsolete jargon and obscure (and nearly always annoying) notation just for that one spark of inspiring genius, which can be found readily in modern treatments because modern authors usually worship these ancient masters and provide these little gems at no extra cost:). While this may seem a bit unromantic of me, I simply believe that the content and readability of scientific books is way more important than anything else.
Early notation is almost always ridiculous complicated (when you look at it in hindsight). Take the idea of vector notation that people use as a matter of course in nursery school math. It is remarkably elegant - especially the ideas of dot and cross products and the determinant form for the latter. Look at any old textbook on the subject and you'll get arcane and obfuscatory animals like dyads and triads. Tensor notation (relatively recent) revolutionized the way this subject (and it is used almost everywhere in physics, engineering, hell - even computer graphics, so it is VERY important as a practical matter).
Brilliant (often crazy) people give birth to a new subject - one feels only awe when one considers these people. Wiser people then consolidate the subject over the next N years until it hold together beautifully. Even wiser people then continue to find deeper connections between this new subject and others that have lain around for a while.
In fact, in physics, the only book from the horse's mouth (so to say) that I actually found halfway understandable was Dirac's treatment of Quantum Mechanics. Even so, more modern books (Sakurai for grads or Griffiths for undergrads) is entirely more clear because by then any redundancies and clumsy notations been polished away, things feel right because they are consistent notationally with the rest of physics. I cannot over-emphasize the importance of consistent, clean and meaningful notation in trying to convey scientific knowledge successfully. The Humanities can be wishy washy in this regard but science can never afford the loss the clarity that ensues.
Another example: for a graduate level introduction to General Relativity, one might try to read Einstein's original paper - historically significant no doubt. A better way would be to read the fearsome Landau for field theories (not bad at all but not easy) or Wald (1984) - even better and getting more modern in terms of things we know. Or one might do the wise thing and go straight for Sean Carroll (2003!) for what might the MOST lucid treatment of GR ever written. I have great respect for a man who spends time clarifying (and thereby making laughably simple) the ferocious tensor notation of GR. Indeed, it is so clear, that I wished it had come out before I graduated with my B.S. (coincidentally in 2003:P).
Would you rather he did pot, get drunk and have all sorts of cool stories to tell at parties?
Oh, and you've been watching too many government-funded anti-pot campaigns. A person does not "Do Pot". They smoke it. Or eat it. But they don't "do" pot, just like when someone goes drinking they don't "Do Alcohol", and in the morning when you get up with a headache you don't "Do Aspirin".
*roll* Consider my statement duly amended:
Would you rather he smoked or ate pot, get drunk and have all sorts of cool stories to tell at parties?
I probably shouldn't be responding to AC (probably wanted to mod and post in the same thread:P - but I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you just forgot to login =D) but you raised an interesting point anyway so what the hell. My post did imply that I thought they were mutually exclusive. I do not actually think that so I must not have been very clear there.
My beef is with American society (especially) thinking that it's ok for a person to have just "real world experience" (again, whatever the frak that means), be it ever so stupid and underachieving while not having an iota of intellectual achievement to his/her name because... what is it good for anyway? It is that asymmetry that I object to. I've concluded that it's a deep-seated fetish with "salvation", (perhaps a residue of evangelism?) to the extent that a person from a perfectly normal family can sometimes feel the need to fall... so that he may then save himself and... I dunno, get a chance to write a book about it? And that's really the heart of the point I was trying (but failed) to make: society doesn't give a shit about people who make it because they had opportunities and used them to the fullest (like this kid is trying to do with his ability to not be myopic in his outlook). In fact, said achievements are frequently devalued in favor of much those much inferior simply because the latter had the foresight to first f**k up his/her life to an insane degree and then "rise from the filth", reborn and whatnot:P.
And people are surprised that the steady, hardworking part of the population is being royally screwed in the rear as their taxes are used to subsidize not just the underprivileged (that is perfectly fine, it is our duty as a civilized society after all) but also the deliberate fuckups (which is NOT alright). The last was not an offtopic rant; it is merely symptomatic of this deeper glitch in the American gestalt.
A whole pile of degrees, and zero real-life experience.
School ain't the be-all end-all of a person's career.
Here we go again with the "real world" paradigm. Would you rather he did pot, get drunk and have all sorts of cool stories to tell at parties? Or get a few dozen year-long dead end jobs before settling into his permanent cubicle? Although, you are correct in one respect - he should learn as soon as possible that the real world has too many idiots in it (not referring to parent since I don't know his views on this matter) who will devalue any of his intellectual accomplishments unless it can be made into a Lifetime movie while deifying pseudo-celebrities whose only contribution to society is an entertaining way to dig themselves out of shit holes of their creation.
Much better that he finds something he really likes, work really hard at it and build a career for himself. Just because most kids can't make up their minds until they are old farts who think they are still young doesn't mean that this budding genius should deliberately feign indecisiveness so that his peers feel good about themselves. (this last part was a response to several comments thrown around, NOT to parent).
Didn't your mother ever teach you to not use a $20 word where a $5 word will do?;)
Oh shush:). The only thing I'm pissed at about that comment is that he quit at triple alliteration. Underachieve much?;) Here's an attempt at extending said comment:
"... platitudinous pandering politic precept penguin."
Aight, so 'penguin' is out of place but the rest stands:P.
In every field which was once exclusively male, but is now no longer, it's been claimed first, that no woman can perform alongside men; second, when the first claim is disproven, that hardly any woman can; and third, when the second claim is disproven, that maybe a few women can, but a majority lack the ability or the inclination. And every single time, as the residual sexism fades, the third claim is shown to be false as well. Business, politics, medicine: it's a familiar pattern. Now math is next on the list.
In short, if there's a difference, it's not the sex, it's the sexism. Anyone who can't acknowledge this is a bigot and a twit.
And yet again we see the emergence of the false dichotomy. Why can people never see the third choice? Have you ever considered that maybe some fields of study or professions are simply not desirable to certain classes of people? Is it a cause of concern that men might be so poorly represented in women's studies? Agreed, this might be an extreme example. But in all discussions involving gender (or racial or other) inequality in representation in a certain field, why must people ALWAYS start with the assumption that all fields will always settle into a static equilibrium where all possible classes that humanity can be divided into will be proportionally represented?
Here's an anecdotal example. In the university where I got my undergraduate degree, I was closely involved with both my major department (physics) as well as an allied one (math). The latter was pretty close to gender neutral in terms of representation while the former was staggeringly male dominated. It is now well-known that gender bias DOES exist in hiring practices in physics (way more so than in math) departments. But shouldn't the question be phrased thus:
"What is the ratio of hires (or admissions if grad students) to applicants once you screen out the obviously unqualified [to a strictly objective standard like publications or GPA - screening that a bureaucrat or a computer algorithm can do]?"
Only then can you cancel out the (I suspect LARGE) effect of class X having a simple (non-conspiratorial) lack of interest in field Y. Instead, the question asked is always, "Why the hell don't you have gender equality in your department?" or "Why do you have so few black or hispanic or asian professors in your department?" I'm not claiming that this IS the reason for the discrepancy, just that it is automatically rejected, nay, not even considered as a possible reason, when in fact any reasonable person would put that at the top of his (or her?) list of possible causes.
For the record, I am NOT white (far from it:P). Forced diversity (of any kind) is cheap posturing at best, politically correct a** kissing at worst. One would think that INTELLECTUAL diversity would be more important at a university than the superficial diversity of skin color or funny accents. Personally, I have seen more intellectual diversity (in terms of ways people think, not WHAT They think) WITHIN a group of white males than among a superficially diverse group (at least in academia - no idea how it works in the "real world", whatever that's supposed to mean *roll*).
Slashdot Mirror
It seems prefectly [sic] reasonable that two people sharing the same environment would moderate their conversation to suit that environment better than when only one person in the conversation is in that environment.
Better, yes. But the assumption of linearity is the stupid factor here (twice as better? Hah). It also seems perfectly reasonable to me that with a cellphone, it is easier to simply drop the damn thing onto the passenger seat if things get tense on the road. I'd love to see you ask a loved one to simply STFU as easily. Lot more excuses for "dropping a call" too eh? See my reply to icebike above where I quote from HIS linked study. Again, it all comes down to WHO the passenger is. The casual assumption (based on studies done on nominal adults) that ALL passengers will shut up when they see tense traffic conditions is what galls me.
He's doing no such thing. He's saying that those sensibilities (if that is the right word) added together have a superior effect than just one of them. Why wouldn't it?
Superior, sure. I claim that the superiority is marginal, hardly proportional.
And yes, that is the right word. Sensibility: http://www.thefreedictionary.com/sensibility
He has a point though... not all passengers are equal.
THANK YOU! That is all I was going for. The dishonesty in the usual cellphone arguments lies in comparing the worst cellphone behavior with the most saintly passengers, period. So, while I agree that cellphone ARE evil distractions, I have to call bs when those same people claim that the other things THEY like to do (chat, drink coffee, etc.) are NOT for blah blah blah reasons.
Read this study before you start your rant:
If I did, it wouldn't be a rant then would it? :P Still, here goes ...
FTA you linked to:
On the practical side, the findings allow predictions about how contexts can negatively affect dual-task performance. On one hand, passengers not engaged in the driving task either because they are not able to direct the attention of the driver toward traffic, or do not know how to identify important events in the driving environment (e.g., children in the vehicle) have a potentially negative impact on driving performance. On the other hand, it is possible that overengagement can also have a potentially negative impact. For example a passenger who is too âoesupportiveâ by constantly commenting and directing attention in an overcontrolling fashion has a potentially negative impact on performance.
Heh. At least they are honest about their conclusion. Isn't that what I was trying to say? Seems to me that having any children or immature adults (of which there are many in this world - have you never seen a couple arguing in their car irrespective of traffic conditions? Gimme a break!) is just as or more distracting that cellphone conversations.
I still maintain that it is hypocritical to compare a cellphone conversation with a passenger conversation when that passenger is a mature adult capable of understanding road and traffic conditions AND has the presence of mind to, as you so eloquently put it "STFU" at the right times.
Passengers in the vehicle (at least those over 12) STFU where the driver is busy or when a situation develops, and their silence or their warnings actually calls attention to some dangers.
You know, I'm totally on board (and have been since I learned to drive) with the 'no cellphones while driving', to the extent that I don't even answer the phone unless I can safely pull over (usually at a street parking spot). But please, PUHLEEEEZ spare me the bromide about the distinction between cell phone conversations vs. those with passengers. That is simply a disingenuous argument - you're relying on the sensibility of people on the passenger side of the argument (to mind the road hazards) while casually dismissing the sensibility of the cellphone using driver (who clearly cannot be trusted and must be protected from himself). As you said yourself, if you wish to be consistent with the policy of no distractions, you would HAVE to ban all kids, especially infants from cars unless there is someone besides the driver to take care of them. This would inconvenience 99% of the members of say, a rabid organization like MADD now wouldn't it? :P
:P). But someone please tell me exactly how (for all practical purposes, not because someone APPROVES of one kind of conversation over the other for anachronistic/reactionary reasons) cellphones are any less annoying than ... well ... most people in public :P.
/end rant (well, just one more thing - next time I see a bunch of high school kids play crap on their designer phone/music player/vibrator/whatever on the bus WITHOUT earphones, I'm gonna shove it up their whatsits :P)
//27 and already senile
///get off my lawn *sigh*
My point here simple - cellphones are no more or less dangerous than ANY kind of distraction encountered by the driver - be it hot coffee, chatty passengers or crying infants in the back seat. The reason cellphones are banned is ONLY (I repeat, ONLY) because it is the only thing you CAN ban without causing mass riots. I actually sympathize with that but again, please don't try to justify this inconsistency - it can't be justified in any logical way.
Not trying to flamebait here but the whole cellphone-hate from so-called sophisticated people is getting increasingly inconsistent. To give another example of this inconsistency - I've read opinions by Bill Bryson, the renowned travel author, someone I admire greatly (obviously not for this) where he repeatedly (and entirely without humor) rags on people who talk on cellphones in public. Now, as much as that practice bothers me too (and which I again, personally refrain from doing), it is the PUREST form of horseshit to distinguish cellphone conversations from those with fellow passengers. But I've seen several "sophisticates" having heated discussions with no regard for the people around them. Personally, I couldn't give a shit either way (the inventor of earphones deserves a Nobel IMHO
THIS!
After one digs through all the bullshit, this is the stark reality one is left with. I feel your anger and the pain that lies beneath it. The only reassurance I can give you is that the forces of rationality have been fighting the good fight for millennia. Slowly but surely, we have reached a stage where heretics are no longer burned at the stake. Irreligion is simply something that will eventually penetrate the hallowed* halls of politics. And the fact is that for all its faults, humanity is growing up as a species. Unfortunately, most of humanity can never be completely rational. Fortunately, that is not necessary for the rationals to move on to better things once we don't have to waste our time shoveling manure out of our driveways everyday before going to work.
____ *roflmao, etc...
No, it doesn't work like that. You don't get to sit there being a smug little shit demanding that someone prove themselves without actually doing shit to prove YOUR point.
If your so goddamn certain of your factual correctness why dont YOU bring something to the table contradicting him?
Misplaced indignation. He was neither smug nor demanding that GP prove himself. When someone (GP in this instance) makes such a blanket claim that is clearly simplistic if not entirely wrong ("It's old growth forests that go into books") asking politely (linking to XKCD is not the mortal insult some may think it is *sigh*) for a citation is hardly something to get so worked up over.
Being snippy for no reason is rather bad form and goes a long way toward lowering your credibility.
To GP: I would mod rainforests as -1 overrated (good source for exotic diseases though - keeps the biologists on their toes).
The Mythbusters may not always be rigorous about operating in a controlled environment, with a well-designed experiment ... but they certainly can get children interested in science and mathematics.
Actually, xkcd sums it up pretty well.
Excellent! I used to sneer at the Mythbusters at one point before I realized this very thing. In fact, I would argue that Hawking, Kaku and Greene (he of the stringy books) are a step below Mythbusters in terms of giving us a glimpse of what it's really like working in these professions (and only in this limited sense - the sense of philosophical wonder about the Universe and our place in it is ... not missing exactly but just not the purpose in Mythbusters).
:). The point I'm trying to make is that none of the theorists give you even a tiny idea of what it's like to actually work in the field - what they do in a typical day and so on.
:P. I came here just to re-emphasize parent's post. Bottom like is with bullshit being so ubiquitous today, one should try absolutely anything that works in trying to show kids the infinite wonder of the real mysteries of the universe and give them the tools for them to someday (even in little ways) make a dent in those mysteries :). If Mythbusters works in turning at least a few kids towards science and engineering, it's completely worth it (even though I don't find myself too entertained by the show myself). I would personally add some theory stuff to the mix (NOVA, Cosmos and the like) just to keep the focus on the things that matter.
Of course, in experimental physics, we try NOT to blow things up but that's a minor detail
In any case, none of what I said above was really on-topic
Just a little nitpicking. Noise randomness doesn't mean that you'll get a good estimation of the signal by averaging.
The mean estimator works all right (it's the MVU, IIRC) when you're getting zero-mean noise, or noise whose PDF is symmetrically distributed around its expected value (in this case, you could correct the bias by extracting the mean of the noise).
But I just flunked an exam on this very topic, so to hell with me :D
You're quite right. I should have been more precise when I said "random". What I meant was zero-mean random so that by repeated averaging (done intelligently), the signal survives while the noise averages out to give a large signal-to-noise. Thanks :)
Is anyone else dissapointed we don't already have this capability? I can stream Top Gear in HD from youtube in faster than real time but we lag this far behind in (optical? thermal?) imaging? I know the atmosphere creates a lot of optical distortion... but really? Not even a rabbit (which have unusually high body temps if I recall correctly)?
Actually, that's an interesting question. It has been answered in this thread but I'd like to address a deeper issue here. Technical challenges usually come in two flavors, one which can be solved simply by making a device better and better and the other, which has to do with the signal you're trying to measure just not being there (or is otherwise masked by "noise"). I put "noise" in quotes because people always assume the signal can be separated from the noise. Not so. In most cases, you have to know the source of the noise to reliably subtract it out. In other cases, you can be lucky and the noise will be random so that greater averaging of the data filters out the noise automatically. For ALL other cases, people have to resort to making assumptions about the noise, which means that the "filtered signal" you end up with has (sometimes huge) contributions from the person who made the assumption. Is it a rabbit or an artifact of my assumptions?
:).
This particular question you raise is in that final category. There just isn't enough signal there that is distinguishable from the surrounding crap for you to tell with any certainty that you have rabbits on the moon and not a migratory bird flock here in the sky. You could always throw money at the problem (in principle) by having a dozen weather satellites constantly monitoring the patch of atmosphere in direct line of sight between you and the moon and feeding you detailed real-time data of temperature, pressure, index of refraction, chemical composition of air(/dust) in there (affects absorption/reflection/transmission). THEN, you MIGHT stand a good chance of catching a glimpse of your elusive rabbit.
Technology can always be improved. Ambient conditions will always be the ultimate threshold for the actual utility of that technology.
That is not to say that a particular phenomenon always stays of out of reach. One simply realizes that certain constraints stated in the problem are actually ridiculous. For instance, if the goal was really to observe rabbits on the moon, the constraint that the instrument be on the earth is highly artificial. Instead, one would relax that constraint, put a satellite above the atmosphere, satisfy one's rabbit fetish and the problem's solved
You sir, are hilarious in the extreme :). In the words of the Farkers: I lol'd !
I know, but there's something about the feel of a physical paper that's so much more pleasant than a bloody screen. I hate not being able to see the whole page in one view without having to scroll.
I agree whole-heartedly! Unfortunately, the print version doesn't give me two VERY important things that I get in the online version: (1) Instant lookup of background I don't know - makes reading an article actually useful instead of a futile exercise in puzzle-solving; and (2) stories and content that I'm actually interested in instead of wading through a collection compiled for the national least common denominator. So, I would gladly trade the (secondary and frivolous) tactile and olfactory stimulation accompanying newspapers for the (primary and important) benefits I've outlined above. I do agree with the whole bird's-eye-view argument by parent and poster printing is the only solution I have for that. Surely, parent will agree that hand-drawing of CAD drawings is annoying beyond belief when it comes to editing said designs? So, I would (and do - I use CAD programs quite extensively) design the damn things on the screen, print it out, look it over for problems, re-edit and be happy :P. I don't see any problem with this hybrid solution - why must we all be philosophical purists? Hybrid != mongrel.
:P and I couldn't be happier about that mode of distribution dying out (of course I feel bad about the lost jobs and such so I wouldn't actively wish for it - but if it happens, fine...)
Aside from that, there's the greater portability in the digital version (smartphones/book readers anyone?) I have never been able to read newspapers while having food - just not dextrous enough perhaps. One-handed digital readers increase my available reading time dramatically by virtue of being able to include almost ANY damn 5-minute block where I'm not using both hands and performing an activity that doesn't require my full attention. There are many such short periods in a researcher's routine (waiting for a machine to do something, epoxy being degassed, parts being ultrasonically cleaned, etc.) and it is a pleasure to be able to squeeze some brain-time during these periods.
So, while my romantic side agrees with all the archaists in this (and similar) threads, the pragmatist in me recognizes why print media is essentially marginal as far as I'm concerned (I still like paper books for when I actually have free time - vacations for instance, or during the electronic embargo periods in airplanes). From an environmental point of view, newspapers are teh sux0rz
Again with the opinionated modding. If you don't agree with a poster, say so ffs. Don't abuse your modding privileges. The idea of laptops is quite a valid counterpoint to OP. Even if you think it is not, "troll" is a childish way to lash back. Sheesh, where're my mod points when I need 'em?
Why the devil is this modded flamebait? Sounds like a legitimate question to me. Looks like parent accidentally burned a vinyl fetishist :P.
I never said it was destroyed by cheap labor. My point was in retort to your implication that things usually work in cycles.
Then why make absurd generalizations from statements that were quite specific on my part? And if you insist on doing so, please do me the courtesy of not misattributing said grand generalizations to me. I never said that "things usually work in cycles". At the most I implied that the phenomenon of outsourcing is very likely cyclical and I predict that eventually it will come back full circle (that is the full extent of my degree of belief in anything - look for idea based fundamentalism elsewhere :P). Besides, the idea that outsourcing can be even a significant factor in the downfall of the United States is disingenuous at best, and FUD at worst. The American laborer (well, actually the labor union - while largely a force for good - it has had a long-term negative effect on the US economy) has been pricing himself out of the global market for decades now.
Soylent Green would probably be better, and at least wouldn't have all the patent problems.
Ha! Optimist :P ....
Patent # 17678226: Processing of sapient organics for reintroduction into the ecostream.
Patent # 17678227: Flavoring and coloring of used sapient organics for negation of unpalatability.
Besides, we don't have a lack of farmland to grow crops, so where do you get the idea that we need GMO crops? There's a surplus of food available, not a lack.
[citation needed]
... a bit jarring on the nerves what?) are "not only unhealthy, but have no taste" and "we don't have a lack of farmland to grow crops ... There's a surplus of food available, not a lack."
And there you go again putting words in my mouth. Did I say one damn thing about insufficient farmland? Do you really think that's the only factor at play here? What's the use of saying (the following is something I might find plausible even) that given the correct geopolitical situation and full cooperation from every nation in the world, the available farmland (assuming it stays viable and is not in a contested area or battlezone or is otherwise contaminated or used up* in the next N years) might be sufficient to grow enough food for the existing population in the world for M years.
Taking some of the more incorrigible African "countries" as examples, the idea that the ubiquitous farmland currently available there can be used constructively in ways that actually feed those same people is naive to an absurd degree. In such cases, idealism must necessarily take a back seat to pragmatism.
And I really would like citations for your statements that GM crops ("GMO crops" = Gen. Mod. Organism. crops
______________
* usually by slash-and-burn agriculture by the native tribes that everyone is sooooo in love with for being "friends of the earth"(TM)
Examples, please?
I did give two examples in that post - I can't keep listing things until you find something you care about. The point is that no research groups can afford to outsource high-end tools (take any tool in the nanotech industry for example). ANY tool you find in industrial or academic cleanrooms are manufactured in first world countries (usually Germany for optical based tools or the US or even the UK for plasma etching tools. The UK and centers in Italy are still THE innovators and manufacturers for cryogenic equipment that is used everywhere in the world for cutting edge research into quantum computing.
:P. Talk about stretching analogies like taffy.
It IS troubling when microwave ovens aren't made in house anymore, but please don't confuse that with state of the art equipment. As I said before, the only things that are outsourced in hard tech are things that you can completely specify on paper as an algorithm. The reason soft tech feels the pinch is that soft innovation is actually quite possible in non-first world economies. Intelligent people are not very rare. Intelligent people coupled with top notch infrastructure is rarer than rare.
Your introduction of the Roman empire into this discussion can only be afforded a "LOLWUT?" as far as I'm concerned. If I know one piece of history, it's that the Roman empire was not destroyed by outsourcing of cheap labor
And "unhealthy GMO crops"??? Paint with a broad brush much? In the not-too-distant future, improved versions of those GMO crops will be our only alternative to Soylent Green. So, better get off that organic high horse and get used to the GMO idea.
I wonder how long it will be before the Chinese write that same editorial, and bewail the Phillipines, the Koreans, the Elbonians, whatever. Enough of a trend to forecast with, I think.
Look at the bright side - eventually, those jobs will cycle around and come back to the US, which by then will have recovered its work ethos and purged itself of the finance parasites.
On a different topic, I wonder daily about IT narcissism when they keep saying "technology jobs". There is more to technology than the teeny tiny pie slice known as IT. Just look at the enormous rise in the 'hard' tech sector in the US - scientific lab support infrastructure for example. Or tooling technologies. Outsourcing, by definition, is confined to proven and largely automatable technologies. The US, in addition to countries like Germany and Japan, is still on the cutting edge of hard tech (if not soft tech).
I sympathize. I just wish the so-called bibliophiles would realize that for a good book, the content is all that matters. If I can carry around my most precious books on my Centro to read at a moment's notice, it is WORTH the inconvenience of not having the secondary stimuli of the papyral feel or the smell of the non-acid free paper volatilizing in oxygen :P. To people for whom CONTENT and the ability to read more often and multiply (in the sense of having 5-6 books going at once - yeah, I thrive on that) without lugging around a piece of ... well ... luggage (though if I had one with thousands of feet, I'd go luddite in a sec ;)), the digital age has been the advent of biblio-heaven. And I'm not talking about overpriced and unwieldy Kindles either (just a personal opinion/choice). A simple $100 Centro (that I needed for a phone anyway) and my good ol' friends are right there with me, anytime I wish. Hell, if I want portable, I'm getting something TRULY portable.
:). Since the arrival of inexpensive ebook readers that fit in a pocket, my reading has nearly tripled! This is one instance where the self-styled "bibliophiles" who keep whining endlessly about the feel and smell of paper seem more pretentious than a bunch of wine snobs. Not referring to parent - he/she brought up some really good points in favor of physical books. But y'all have seen the kind of people I'm talking about. What's amusing is that these whiners are getting younger and younger. Sheesh, youth's supposed to be adaptable - you're not old enough to throw kids off your lawn quite yet :P.
:'( Though I guess if I drop my insistence that ereaders be pocketsize, the Kindle may just have the capability to show equations well. Chances are, I'll probably break down and indulge in one a few years down the read *sigh*.
Most people won't find the following relevant but when I worked in a class 100 cleanroom for a month (14 hours a day with a lot of dead time waiting for processes to finish), no books were allowed (particulate contamination from regular paper). But guess what? Electronics, properly wiped down, were fine
Hardcovers especially, are a colossal waste of good paper, not to mention a frakking pain to carry around. I just want sooooo bad for an elegant solution to the math expression problem on handheld readers. That's about the only reason I cannot go all digital (except when I'm actually at a computer screen) - the hard sciences are pretty well screwed when it comes to portabilizing [sic] them
Lastly, and not to sound like an anti-geriatric tool, but old folks just have a lot of time and money on their hands and can afford to indulge in the pleasures (and I have never denied that aren't any) of physical books. It is simply a limiting experience in my opinion. Take the newspaper debates for instance. Isn't it nice for once to be able to just google the disgustingly ubiquitous obscurantist allusions and dime-a-dozen "important" geopolitical figures or countries or the even more pathetic string of abbreviations that pelt you in the news instead of looking at the screen like an idiot? I simply refuse to watch or read any news if it's not on the internet because my curiosity MUST be satisfied - I will not be denied answers and TVs and newspapers have none for me.
SO there! *walks away in a huff waving fisted Centro at crowd*
LMFAO. :)
You sir, owe me a new keyboard! That's satire of a calibre ol' man Ray would be happy to be stung by
Oops, just saw your homepage. Makes things somewhat clear.
Just turn all your math into movie, and the crowds will follow (someday).
Doug VisualPhysics.org
I browsed your website for about an hour. The visualizations, while pretty, seemed ... artificial. Or perhaps I just did not understand the purpose behind them? The explanations accompanying them seem to make what are quite simple subjects into needlessly complicated excursions into quaternions. Again, I am merely an experimentalist and have not played with quaternions in my infancy :) so suggestions on fruitfully using the website are welcome. To be honest, I felt like I was looking at figures and captions in a book but the text was nowhere to be found. Perhaps it's still under construction?
:)) from geniuses who feel they have discovered the secrets of the universe. Again, from what I saw on the site, you are hardly in the same category, but you might as well have painted a big red sign on yourself warning the serous folks off :P. I do hope you take my criticism in the spirit in which it was offered - constructively. I don't know what the whole string theory community is like, but where I work, you bring up ideas, prove them or verify them experimentally, and become rich and famous :). Of course it ain't perfect - there's a$$holes everywhere.
I did find some of your ideas intriguing, but really - at the risk of sounding rude - I must say that the whole "ultra-conservative scientific establishment" rhetoric is a big turnoff to serious scientists who might otherwise be interested in your work. You wouldn't believe the sheer amount of spam most professors get (and even lowly grad students for that matter - I collect such things as a hobby
Regardless, this brings me back to your original point - visualizing math may make it more popular. Quite true, but it has to be done right. One of the few successful renditions of this theme has to be Tristan Needham's Visual Complex Analysis. You might enjoy that book.
I strongly disagree with the Adlerian precept. It is especially dangerous in science because knowledge is continually being added to the subject and long-hidden connections are continually being discovered. As a VERY relevant analogy, take complex analysis (square root of -1 and all that follows therefrom :P). If you read any books from the childhood days of this subject, they will seem incredibly complicated.
:). While this may seem a bit unromantic of me, I simply believe that the content and readability of scientific books is way more important than anything else.
:P).
While I appreciate where you're going with your statement: "the way the discoverer came to understand a principle is often more important to grasp than the principle itself", the hope that this will be clear by reading an original work is just too much to ask for. Science historians labor for years to try to grasp some of those original thought processes. I personally find it much more fruitful to read these histories or a good modern textbook with a historical bent (An imaginary tale and Dr. Euler's fabulous formula - while not textbooks - are excellent examples of this species) to obtain some understanding of how the scientist actually thought of doing this. It just doesn't seem like a good use of one's time to wade through obsolete jargon and obscure (and nearly always annoying) notation just for that one spark of inspiring genius, which can be found readily in modern treatments because modern authors usually worship these ancient masters and provide these little gems at no extra cost
Early notation is almost always ridiculous complicated (when you look at it in hindsight). Take the idea of vector notation that people use as a matter of course in nursery school math. It is remarkably elegant - especially the ideas of dot and cross products and the determinant form for the latter. Look at any old textbook on the subject and you'll get arcane and obfuscatory animals like dyads and triads. Tensor notation (relatively recent) revolutionized the way this subject (and it is used almost everywhere in physics, engineering, hell - even computer graphics, so it is VERY important as a practical matter).
Brilliant (often crazy) people give birth to a new subject - one feels only awe when one considers these people. Wiser people then consolidate the subject over the next N years until it hold together beautifully. Even wiser people then continue to find deeper connections between this new subject and others that have lain around for a while.
In fact, in physics, the only book from the horse's mouth (so to say) that I actually found halfway understandable was Dirac's treatment of Quantum Mechanics. Even so, more modern books (Sakurai for grads or Griffiths for undergrads) is entirely more clear because by then any redundancies and clumsy notations been polished away, things feel right because they are consistent notationally with the rest of physics. I cannot over-emphasize the importance of consistent, clean and meaningful notation in trying to convey scientific knowledge successfully. The Humanities can be wishy washy in this regard but science can never afford the loss the clarity that ensues.
Another example: for a graduate level introduction to General Relativity, one might try to read Einstein's original paper - historically significant no doubt. A better way would be to read the fearsome Landau for field theories (not bad at all but not easy) or Wald (1984) - even better and getting more modern in terms of things we know. Or one might do the wise thing and go straight for Sean Carroll (2003!) for what might the MOST lucid treatment of GR ever written. I have great respect for a man who spends time clarifying (and thereby making laughably simple) the ferocious tensor notation of GR. Indeed, it is so clear, that I wished it had come out before I graduated with my B.S. (coincidentally in 2003
Do you see a pattern here? I do no
Would you rather he did pot, get drunk and have all sorts of cool stories to tell at parties?
Oh, and you've been watching too many government-funded anti-pot campaigns. A person does not "Do Pot". They smoke it. Or eat it. But they don't "do" pot, just like when someone goes drinking they don't "Do Alcohol", and in the morning when you get up with a headache you don't "Do Aspirin".
*roll* Consider my statement duly amended:
Would you rather he smoked or ate pot, get drunk and have all sorts of cool stories to tell at parties?
I probably shouldn't be responding to AC (probably wanted to mod and post in the same thread :P - but I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you just forgot to login =D) but you raised an interesting point anyway so what the hell. My post did imply that I thought they were mutually exclusive. I do not actually think that so I must not have been very clear there.
My beef is with American society (especially) thinking that it's ok for a person to have just "real world experience" (again, whatever the frak that means), be it ever so stupid and underachieving while not having an iota of intellectual achievement to his/her name because ... what is it good for anyway? It is that asymmetry that I object to. I've concluded that it's a deep-seated fetish with "salvation", (perhaps a residue of evangelism?) to the extent that a person from a perfectly normal family can sometimes feel the need to fall ... so that he may then save himself and ... I dunno, get a chance to write a book about it? And that's really the heart of the point I was trying (but failed) to make: society doesn't give a shit about people who make it because they had opportunities and used them to the fullest (like this kid is trying to do with his ability to not be myopic in his outlook). In fact, said achievements are frequently devalued in favor of much those much inferior simply because the latter had the foresight to first f**k up his/her life to an insane degree and then "rise from the filth", reborn and whatnot :P.
And people are surprised that the steady, hardworking part of the population is being royally screwed in the rear as their taxes are used to subsidize not just the underprivileged (that is perfectly fine, it is our duty as a civilized society after all) but also the deliberate fuckups (which is NOT alright). The last was not an offtopic rant; it is merely symptomatic of this deeper glitch in the American gestalt.
A whole pile of degrees, and zero real-life experience.
School ain't the be-all end-all of a person's career.
Here we go again with the "real world" paradigm. Would you rather he did pot, get drunk and have all sorts of cool stories to tell at parties? Or get a few dozen year-long dead end jobs before settling into his permanent cubicle? Although, you are correct in one respect - he should learn as soon as possible that the real world has too many idiots in it (not referring to parent since I don't know his views on this matter) who will devalue any of his intellectual accomplishments unless it can be made into a Lifetime movie while deifying pseudo-celebrities whose only contribution to society is an entertaining way to dig themselves out of shit holes of their creation.
Much better that he finds something he really likes, work really hard at it and build a career for himself. Just because most kids can't make up their minds until they are old farts who think they are still young doesn't mean that this budding genius should deliberately feign indecisiveness so that his peers feel good about themselves. (this last part was a response to several comments thrown around, NOT to parent).
Didn't your mother ever teach you to not use a $20 word where a $5 word will do? ;)
Oh shush :). The only thing I'm pissed at about that comment is that he quit at triple alliteration. Underachieve much? ;) Here's an attempt at extending said comment:
:P.
"... platitudinous pandering politic precept penguin."
Aight, so 'penguin' is out of place but the rest stands
In every field which was once exclusively male, but is now no longer, it's been claimed first, that no woman can perform alongside men; second, when the first claim is disproven, that hardly any woman can; and third, when the second claim is disproven, that maybe a few women can, but a majority lack the ability or the inclination. And every single time, as the residual sexism fades, the third claim is shown to be false as well. Business, politics, medicine: it's a familiar pattern. Now math is next on the list.
In short, if there's a difference, it's not the sex, it's the sexism. Anyone who can't acknowledge this is a bigot and a twit.
And yet again we see the emergence of the false dichotomy. Why can people never see the third choice? Have you ever considered that maybe some fields of study or professions are simply not desirable to certain classes of people? Is it a cause of concern that men might be so poorly represented in women's studies? Agreed, this might be an extreme example. But in all discussions involving gender (or racial or other) inequality in representation in a certain field, why must people ALWAYS start with the assumption that all fields will always settle into a static equilibrium where all possible classes that humanity can be divided into will be proportionally represented?
Here's an anecdotal example. In the university where I got my undergraduate degree, I was closely involved with both my major department (physics) as well as an allied one (math). The latter was pretty close to gender neutral in terms of representation while the former was staggeringly male dominated. It is now well-known that gender bias DOES exist in hiring practices in physics (way more so than in math) departments. But shouldn't the question be phrased thus:
"What is the ratio of hires (or admissions if grad students) to applicants once you screen out the obviously unqualified [to a strictly objective standard like publications or GPA - screening that a bureaucrat or a computer algorithm can do]?"
:P). Forced diversity (of any kind) is cheap posturing at best, politically correct a** kissing at worst. One would think that INTELLECTUAL diversity would be more important at a university than the superficial diversity of skin color or funny accents. Personally, I have seen more intellectual diversity (in terms of ways people think, not WHAT They think) WITHIN a group of white males than among a superficially diverse group (at least in academia - no idea how it works in the "real world", whatever that's supposed to mean *roll*).
Only then can you cancel out the (I suspect LARGE) effect of class X having a simple (non-conspiratorial) lack of interest in field Y. Instead, the question asked is always, "Why the hell don't you have gender equality in your department?" or "Why do you have so few black or hispanic or asian professors in your department?" I'm not claiming that this IS the reason for the discrepancy, just that it is automatically rejected, nay, not even considered as a possible reason, when in fact any reasonable person would put that at the top of his (or her?) list of possible causes.
For the record, I am NOT white (far from it