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How to become a bad theoretical physicist (2017)

39 pointsby alokraialmost 4 years ago

8 comments

tired_and_awakealmost 4 years ago
I remember attending a big American Physics Society conference, maybe 4000 physicists attending. They had many parallel tracks for presentations, labeled A through T or something like that. I remember reading through these and it was fascinating the breadth of topics covered, condensed matter through fluid dynamics, chaos, some astrophysics IIRC.<p>So at the end of the program there&#x27;s some special session labeled Z and it was for &quot;special physics&quot;. All of the talks had bizarre names filled with jargon terms &quot;hyper quantum zener matrix dimensions&quot;.<p>I gather it was the APSs solution to quietly enable the quacks to talk amongst themselves instead of denying them any platform.
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MikeDeltaalmost 4 years ago
FYI, Gerard &#x27;t Hooft is a Dutch theoretical physicist who won a Nobel Prize.<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.m.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Gerard_&#x27;t_Hooft" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.m.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Gerard_&#x27;t_Hooft</a>
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lmilcinalmost 4 years ago
It is a little bit like software engineering.<p>It doesn&#x27;t matter a lot what you wrote first. What matters is if you have followed up, cleaned up, refactored and left it without inconsistencies. It matters if you listen to critique and try to understand and learn from it. And then it matters if you maintain it as our understanding of the problem gets better.
tobmltalmost 4 years ago
See also how to become a good theoretical physicist by the same:<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;webspace.science.uu.nl&#x2F;~gadda001&#x2F;goodtheorist&#x2F;index.html" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;webspace.science.uu.nl&#x2F;~gadda001&#x2F;goodtheorist&#x2F;index....</a>
mathgeniusalmost 4 years ago
&quot; The bad theoretical physicist, in anticipation, names his own equations and effects, and even his entire theories, after himself right away. &quot;<p>I never heard of anyone doing this, is there an example of this?<p>The real trick is to <i>not</i> name some important discovery, which then leads <i>others</i> to name it after you. Or, to use a hopelessly unwieldy terminology for the discovery with hopefully the same outcome. If the discoverer comes up with a good name for their discovery then this significantly reduces any chance that the effect will be named after them.
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de6u99eralmost 4 years ago
Most academics are completely useless and wouldn&#x27;t stand a chance if they weren&#x27;t hired by other useless academics.
dave333almost 4 years ago
The page is also a great example of awful web design.
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bruce343434almost 4 years ago
Reader mode to the rescue... This whole article reeks of artificial academic elitism. Not the entire content of it, but just sprinkled in here and there.
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