There is a gift to doing physics. The best people at present are those trained in electrical engineering and cross over (Dirac, Feynman?) or the applied physicists.
Farooq Abdullah who used to teach me taught his daughter electromagnetism as she studied for her maths degree. I remember what he said to me was the impression she gave of, "is that it" when she saw Maxwell's equations. Too many mathematicians work this way, ok pure maths I can't do so I'll do applied which makes me a physicist. (The physicists then want to become engineers and the engineers get relegated to lowly technicians). The truth of the matter is that the composition of a physicist is: Part Experimenter/Engineer/Inventor Part Mathematician Part Philosopher Part Artist (a sense of beauty and economy which applies to the other three) People have a different make up but the current fashion is the mathematical physicist, hence the vogue for talking any nonsense (11 dimensional space, imaginary time, negative mass/energy). Faraday: Experimenter/Philosopher Gauss: Mathematician/Experimenter? Einstein: Philosopher/Mathematician Fermi: Mathematician/Experimenter equal measure And loads more. I was talking to colleagues at lunch a week ago and we reckon its all part of middle class snobbery. Oxbridge didn't consider the natural sciences worthy of study until about 500 years ago, I think and they still award BA, MAs. Engineering was frowned upon up to about 150 years ago as not being worthy of academic status hence all the 'stone' technical institutes that are now well "traditional" universities. So in this country we have a kind of food chain of unis. Oxbridge Ivy League 'Stone buildings': Imperial, UMIST charter around turn of last century or before 'Redbrick or cast concrete' unis: late 50s, 60s 'White tile': Polys cum unis created by Prime-minister Major (remember him?). (Trouble is all the b.llsh.t 'degree' courses such as hairdressing (BTrim), golf management (BSwing). They need to stamp this out.) You see the more refined the appearance of a subject, the more mathematical, philosophical and high faluting the posher it is. And then you get to have posh dinners with influential upper middle class people going and ah yeah, ah yeah, lah di dah I read Kant and he said such and such and I read a treatise on post modernism and we are all doomed... ________________________________________ From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of leaking pen Sent: 10 January 2006 16:08 To: [email protected] Subject: Re: Has Physics Gone Nuts? i think leon lederman put it best. In The God Particle, he outlined the two distinct schools that have developed, the theorist and the experimenter. there are those that come up with the math, the theory, and then those that get up and actually do it. it used to be one and the same, but its become a split breed. and it seems to me we have WAY too many theorists and not enough experimenters. On 1/10/06, Zell, Chris <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: Forgive this rant, but I couldn't resist. I came across a paper called "Alteration of Nuclear Beta Decay by Non-Nuclear Strong Fields" ( Laser Physics Vol. 9 No.1 1999 pp. 92-97) It asserts that beta decay in radioactive elements could be triggered by external applied EMF - and that this could be a powerful new energy source! "Were it possible, accelerated decay of highly forbidden beta decay materials would be the ideal long-term energy source" The study is one of many that have appeared over the years, done by H.R. Reiss of the American University. It uses arcane and complex mathematics to make it's point. So, lemme get this straight, as an outside observer: The year is 1999 and the issue of the radioactive constant, independent of all outside influences STILL HASN'T BEEN SETTLED? You mean that there is no body of experimental results as yet to settle the issue? ( "Yup, I got my Tesla Coil and diathermy machine and some radium needles and put this theory to bed") Is physical reality solely determined by mathematics? Is that the sole determinant of truth these days? Is this reasonable especially if such beta decay Is triggered by events in the quantum realm - which could be purely arbitrary? Yes, statistical analysis works - but the quantum arena ultimately "just is" as argued by Victor Stenger in Decoherence theory ( a skeptics answer to non locality). Who knows - until somebody actually DOES THE EXPERIMENTS and STOPS ARGUING ABOUT MATH ACROSS DECADES OF TIME! If I was a Creationist, I'd jump on this like a hungry lion on a gazelle. Whether it works or not is hardly the point ( although it would be wonderful if it did!) - what's happened to physics these days? Has it gone nuts? OK, I feel better now. Rant over. -- "Monsieur l'abbé, I detest what you write, but I would give my life to make it possible for you to continue to write" Voltaire
