At 04:54 pm 10/01/2006 -0000, Remi wrote: >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...
Yep. That sums up the British scene pretty well, Remi. Them's my sentiments too. 8-) But as I said to my kids - if you can't beat 'em, join 'em. The only trouble with badmouthing hairdressing and golf is that it does rather remind one of the Two Ronnies sketch - you know - the one that goes, "I look up to him - but I look down on him." ;-) I seem to remember that before the war there were a lot of Universities that took external degrees of the University of London, Exeter must have been one, cos my brother was rusticated and went off to bomb the Germans. I think there were only 4 colleges that set their own internal London degrees, UCL (the Godless Building in Gower street), KCL (the seminary in the strand) Imperial and QMC. After the war the Polytechnics also took the external London degrees. One was well advised to strive one's hardest to get into an internal college though, since once in, one's degree was effectively guaranteed. Any lecturer who was completely hopeless and couldn't teach for toffee virtually told you the questions in the lecture immediately prior to the exam so that his deficiencies would not become apparent. Funnily enough the best lecturer I ever had at Uni was one from Northampton Polytechnic (which, in spite of its name, is near the Angel, Islington in London). His lectures were an absolute model of clarity. Presumably they had to be or his Poly students would have all failed the external exam. His name was Mr Wilkins and he used to ride a bicycle. He died quite young of a heart attack - so much for the virtues of exercise. 8-( Eventually the Polys were rebadged as Unis. Northampton Poly became City University, Chelsea became Surrey, Acton Tech became Brunel and so on and so forth. I always remember going down to West Sussex University to visit Professor Laithwaite and see his gyro experiments. WSU were very pissed off that Brighton what's-its-name had stolen a march on them and transmogrified itself into Brighton University thus apparently upturning the prestige rankings in the eyes of those unfamiliar with the arcane nature of the British university system. I always think the most egregious example of this was Harrow Technical College which became Westminster University - the very dregs according to the rankings. However, anyone from abroad might easily get confused between Westminster School, a top flight public school (for the benefit of US readers "public" means private and very expensive.) Westminster Parliament, the seat of British Government, and Westminster University, which is the pits. Which one did you go to Remi? I do hope it wasn't Westminster or I shall feel terribly embarrassed. ;-) Frank
