| Topic: |
Science > Physics |
| User: |
"" |
| Date: |
23 Oct 2006 08:03:20 PM |
| Object: |
oh, my god, physicist are really A-holes. |
oh, my god, physicist are really A-holes.
They tell you that there are this and that particle, photons,
electrons, and other interesting corner cases.
While they could have told you, there was just this one equation,
derived from the second derivative of Maxwell's equations, that they
regularly do math tricks with. No wonder no one will give a straight
face explanation where that quantum wave function came from. Every
introductory textbook either fudge the argument to unimpenetrable depth
to tell you how you must accept the wave function as a postulate. Of
course no one understands it, because there was no argument, no
insight, just an empty framework for people to do experiments to fill
in the corner cases. Now, that's a good strategy.
.
|
|
| User: "Anabaena Microcystis" |
|
| Title: Re: oh, my god, physicist are really A-holes. |
23 Oct 2006 08:38:19 PM |
|
|
<mainargv@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:1161651800.088343.78310@h48g2000cwc.googlegroups.com...
oh, my god, physicist are really A-holes.
They tell you that there are this and that particle, photons,
electrons, and other interesting corner cases.
While they could have told you, there was just this one equation,
derived from the second derivative of Maxwell's equations, that they
regularly do math tricks with. No wonder no one will give a straight
face explanation where that quantum wave function came from. Every
introductory textbook either fudge the argument to unimpenetrable depth
to tell you how you must accept the wave function as a postulate. Of
course no one understands it, because there was no argument, no
insight, just an empty framework for people to do experiments to fill
in the corner cases. Now, that's a good strategy.
wrong. Try again.
.
|
|
|
|
| User: "mike3" |
|
| Title: Re: oh, my god, physicist are really A-holes. |
24 Oct 2006 10:22:43 PM |
|
|
wrote:
oh, my god, physicist are really A-holes.
They tell you that there are this and that particle, photons,
electrons, and other interesting corner cases.
While they could have told you, there was just this one equation,
derived from the second derivative of Maxwell's equations, that they
regularly do math tricks with. No wonder no one will give a straight
face explanation where that quantum wave function came from. Every
introductory textbook either fudge the argument to unimpenetrable depth
to tell you how you must accept the wave function as a postulate. Of
course no one understands it, because there was no argument, no
insight, just an empty framework for people to do experiments to fill
in the corner cases. Now, that's a good strategy.
I wondered this once, and I got a fairly decent response. Look up
"where
does the schrodinger equation come from?" on Google Groups.
The Schrodinger equation is a postulate, yes, but it is not just a
blind guess.
It was derived from sound experimental evidence. That's (ideally) how
science works.
.
|
|
|
|
| User: "Eric Gisse" |
|
| Title: Re: oh, my god, physicist are really A-holes. |
23 Oct 2006 09:45:09 PM |
|
|
wrote:
oh, my god, physicist are really A-holes.
They tell you that there are this and that particle, photons,
electrons, and other interesting corner cases.
While they could have told you, there was just this one equation,
derived from the second derivative of Maxwell's equations, that they
regularly do math tricks with. No wonder no one will give a straight
face explanation where that quantum wave function came from. Every
introductory textbook either fudge the argument to unimpenetrable depth
to tell you how you must accept the wave function as a postulate. Of
course no one understands it, because there was no argument, no
insight, just an empty framework for people to do experiments to fill
in the corner cases. Now, that's a good strategy.
If you think introductory textbooks "fudge the argument to
unimpenetrable depth", I suggest you stay away from physics. I promise
you that if you consider the easy books to be hard, you will suffer
greatly if you even look at an upper level textbook or god help you, a
graduate level textbook.
.
|
|
|
| User: "Proctologically Violated©®" |
|
| Title: Re: oh, my god, physicist are really A-holes. |
24 Oct 2006 02:11:23 AM |
|
|
The true test of these nay-saying assholes is to give them *standard
problems* in class. mechanics, E&M, optics, QM, ODE, or even engineering
statics problems, etc., and see if they can solve them.
Dollars to donuts they can't. Proly couldn't select the right equations to
use even if you wrote out a selection on the page.
--
Mr. P.V.'d
formerly Droll Troll
Party Nominee, IPPVM
Independent Party of the Proctologically Violated®© (M)asses
"That's proly not a hemorrhoid you're feeling.... "
entropic3.14decay at optonline2.718 dot net
remove pi and e to reply--ie, all d'numbuhs
"Eric Gisse" <jowr.pi@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:1161657909.025260.188730@i3g2000cwc.googlegroups.com...
mainargv@yahoo.com wrote:
oh, my god, physicist are really A-holes.
They tell you that there are this and that particle, photons,
electrons, and other interesting corner cases.
While they could have told you, there was just this one equation,
derived from the second derivative of Maxwell's equations, that they
regularly do math tricks with. No wonder no one will give a straight
face explanation where that quantum wave function came from. Every
introductory textbook either fudge the argument to unimpenetrable depth
to tell you how you must accept the wave function as a postulate. Of
course no one understands it, because there was no argument, no
insight, just an empty framework for people to do experiments to fill
in the corner cases. Now, that's a good strategy.
If you think introductory textbooks "fudge the argument to
unimpenetrable depth", I suggest you stay away from physics. I promise
you that if you consider the easy books to be hard, you will suffer
greatly if you even look at an upper level textbook or god help you, a
graduate level textbook.
.
|
|
|
| User: "Y.Porat" |
|
| Title: Re: oh, my god, physicist are really A-holes. |
24 Oct 2006 02:31:06 AM |
|
|
Proctologically Violated=A9=AE wrote:
The true test of these nay-saying assholes is to give them *standard
problems* in class. mechanics, E&M, optics, QM, ODE, or even engineering
statics problems, etc., and see if they can solve them.
Dollars to donuts they can't. Proly couldn't select the right equations =
to
use even if you wrote out a selection on the page.
---------------------
Hi Mr pompous
i will give you a standard problem:
let us see if you take all your formulas and equations
and solve completely the structre and behaviour of a heavy nucleus as
say
the lead nuc
(NOT TO SPEAK ABOUT PREDICTIONS !!!)
ps
th e problem with you pompousers
THAT YOU ARE EVEN NOT AWARE ABOUT HOW MUCH YOU DONT KNOW !!!
and about the amount of damage you do to the adavnce of science
by wrong paradigms !!
TIA
Y=2EPorat
----------------------
.
|
|
|
| User: "Proctologically Violated©®" |
|
| Title: Re: oh, my god, physicist are really A-holes. |
24 Oct 2006 06:50:08 PM |
|
|
Can you solve even basic problems in mechanics and E&M?
For example:
A vertical ladder, height h, mass m, is pivoted at the bottom and falls.
How long does it take to fall, and what is the final velocity of the cog?
Hint: it's not s=1/2 at^2.
Or tensor analysis of moment of inertia/rotation problems.
Or even the Coriolis effect.
You just fukn ***** about abstractions that you yourself don't
understand.
--
Mr. P.V.'d
formerly Droll Troll
Party Nominee, IPPVM
Independent Party of the Proctologically Violated®© (M)asses
"That's proly not a hemorrhoid you're feeling.... "
entropic3.14decay at optonline2.718 dot net
remove pi and e to reply--ie, all d'numbuhs
"Y.Porat" <maporat@012.net.il> wrote in message
news:1161675066.097475.265210@f16g2000cwb.googlegroups.com...
Proctologically Violated©® wrote:
The true test of these nay-saying assholes is to give them *standard
problems* in class. mechanics, E&M, optics, QM, ODE, or even engineering
statics problems, etc., and see if they can solve them.
Dollars to donuts they can't. Proly couldn't select the right equations
to
use even if you wrote out a selection on the page.
---------------------
Hi Mr pompous
i will give you a standard problem:
let us see if you take all your formulas and equations
and solve completely the structre and behaviour of a heavy nucleus as
say
the lead nuc
(NOT TO SPEAK ABOUT PREDICTIONS !!!)
ps
th e problem with you pompousers
THAT YOU ARE EVEN NOT AWARE ABOUT HOW MUCH YOU DONT KNOW !!!
and about the amount of damage you do to the adavnce of science
by wrong paradigms !!
TIA
Y.Porat
----------------------
.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| User: "Igor" |
|
| Title: Re: oh, my god, physicist are really A-holes. |
24 Oct 2006 11:47:54 AM |
|
|
wrote:
oh, my god, physicist are really A-holes.
They tell you that there are this and that particle, photons,
electrons, and other interesting corner cases.
While they could have told you, there was just this one equation,
derived from the second derivative of Maxwell's equations, that they
regularly do math tricks with. No wonder no one will give a straight
face explanation where that quantum wave function came from. Every
introductory textbook either fudge the argument to unimpenetrable depth
to tell you how you must accept the wave function as a postulate. Of
course no one understands it, because there was no argument, no
insight, just an empty framework for people to do experiments to fill
in the corner cases. Now, that's a good strategy.
QM is axiomatic. But so are many other physics theories. They start
with certain assumptions and then derive further results. And I must
add that QM is the most successful physical theory ever devised. The
bottom line holds. But if you think that there is something wrong with
one of it's fundamental axioms, just say so and explain why, instead of
implying they're all nonsense, which is pretty stupid.
.
|
|
|
| User: "Androcles" |
|
| Title: Re: oh, my god, physicist are really A-holes. |
24 Oct 2006 12:09:27 PM |
|
|
"Igor" <thoovler@excite.com> wrote in message
news:1161708474.661884.307580@f16g2000cwb.googlegroups.com...
|
| wrote:
| > oh, my god, physicist are really A-holes.
| > They tell you that there are this and that particle, photons,
| > electrons, and other interesting corner cases.
| > While they could have told you, there was just this one equation,
| > derived from the second derivative of Maxwell's equations, that they
| > regularly do math tricks with. No wonder no one will give a straight
| > face explanation where that quantum wave function came from. Every
| > introductory textbook either fudge the argument to unimpenetrable depth
| > to tell you how you must accept the wave function as a postulate. Of
| > course no one understands it, because there was no argument, no
| > insight, just an empty framework for people to do experiments to fill
| > in the corner cases. Now, that's a good strategy.
|
| QM is axiomatic. But so are many other physics theories. They start
| with certain assumptions and then derive further results. And I must
| add that QM is the most successful physical theory ever devised. The
| bottom line holds. But if you think that there is something wrong with
| one of it's fundamental axioms, just say so and explain why, instead of
| implying they're all nonsense, which is pretty stupid.
Mass is not a fundamental axiom. Force is a fundamental axiom.
.
|
|
|
|
| User: "" |
|
| Title: Re: oh, my god, physicist are really A-holes. |
24 Oct 2006 08:04:04 PM |
|
|
Igor wrote:
mainargv@yahoo.com wrote:
oh, my god, physicist are really A-holes.
They tell you that there are this and that particle, photons,
electrons, and other interesting corner cases.
While they could have told you, there was just this one equation,
derived from the second derivative of Maxwell's equations, that they
regularly do math tricks with. No wonder no one will give a straight
face explanation where that quantum wave function came from. Every
introductory textbook either fudge the argument to unimpenetrable depth
to tell you how you must accept the wave function as a postulate. Of
course no one understands it, because there was no argument, no
insight, just an empty framework for people to do experiments to fill
in the corner cases. Now, that's a good strategy.
QM is axiomatic. But so are many other physics theories. They start
with certain assumptions and then derive further results. And I must
add that QM is the most successful physical theory ever devised. The
bottom line holds. But if you think that there is something wrong with
one of it's fundamental axioms, just say so and explain why, instead of
implying they're all nonsense, which is pretty stupid.
All the textbooks and web resources I can find, started to fudge after
hydrogen, saying how difficult or complacated things are. You have to
make three simplications just to write down the equation for Helium,
not to mention figuring out suitable boundary conditions. I guess It's
impractical to solve for Helium by hand. Now if all the indrotductory
resources sound like this, what would you think? Would you have
confidence in the theory?
.
|
|
|
| User: "Eric Gisse" |
|
| Title: Re: oh, my god, physicist are really A-holes. |
24 Oct 2006 08:23:14 PM |
|
|
wrote:
Igor wrote:
wrote:
oh, my god, physicist are really A-holes.
They tell you that there are this and that particle, photons,
electrons, and other interesting corner cases.
While they could have told you, there was just this one equation,
derived from the second derivative of Maxwell's equations, that they
regularly do math tricks with. No wonder no one will give a straight
face explanation where that quantum wave function came from. Every
introductory textbook either fudge the argument to unimpenetrable depth
to tell you how you must accept the wave function as a postulate. Of
course no one understands it, because there was no argument, no
insight, just an empty framework for people to do experiments to fill
in the corner cases. Now, that's a good strategy.
QM is axiomatic. But so are many other physics theories. They start
with certain assumptions and then derive further results. And I must
add that QM is the most successful physical theory ever devised. The
bottom line holds. But if you think that there is something wrong with
one of it's fundamental axioms, just say so and explain why, instead of
implying they're all nonsense, which is pretty stupid.
All the textbooks and web resources I can find, started to fudge after
hydrogen, saying how difficult or complacated things are. You have to
make three simplications just to write down the equation for Helium,
not to mention figuring out suitable boundary conditions. I guess It's
impractical to solve for Helium by hand. Now if all the indrotductory
resources sound like this, what would you think? Would you have
confidence in the theory?
First you were whining that the book was fudging. Now your whining that
the book is telling you too much.
.
|
|
|
| User: "" |
|
| Title: Re: oh, my god, physicist are really A-holes. |
24 Oct 2006 08:41:55 PM |
|
|
Eric Gisse wrote:
mainargv@yahoo.com wrote:
Igor wrote:
mainargv@yahoo.com wrote:
oh, my god, physicist are really A-holes.
They tell you that there are this and that particle, photons,
electrons, and other interesting corner cases.
While they could have told you, there was just this one equation,
derived from the second derivative of Maxwell's equations, that they
regularly do math tricks with. No wonder no one will give a straight
face explanation where that quantum wave function came from. Every
introductory textbook either fudge the argument to unimpenetrable depth
to tell you how you must accept the wave function as a postulate. Of
course no one understands it, because there was no argument, no
insight, just an empty framework for people to do experiments to fill
in the corner cases. Now, that's a good strategy.
QM is axiomatic. But so are many other physics theories. They start
with certain assumptions and then derive further results. And I must
add that QM is the most successful physical theory ever devised. The
bottom line holds. But if you think that there is something wrong with
one of it's fundamental axioms, just say so and explain why, instead of
implying they're all nonsense, which is pretty stupid.
All the textbooks and web resources I can find, started to fudge after
hydrogen, saying how difficult or complacated things are. You have to
make three simplications just to write down the equation for Helium,
not to mention figuring out suitable boundary conditions. I guess It's
impractical to solve for Helium by hand. Now if all the indrotductory
resources sound like this, what would you think? Would you have
confidence in the theory?
First you were whining that the book was fudging. Now your whining that
the book is telling you too much.
Carman: Mr Garison, how would like to suck on my balls.
If you like entertainment so much, just go watch TV.
.
|
|
|
|
|
| User: "Igor" |
|
| Title: Re: oh, my god, physicist are really A-holes. |
25 Oct 2006 12:37:51 PM |
|
|
wrote:
Igor wrote:
wrote:
oh, my god, physicist are really A-holes.
They tell you that there are this and that particle, photons,
electrons, and other interesting corner cases.
While they could have told you, there was just this one equation,
derived from the second derivative of Maxwell's equations, that they
regularly do math tricks with. No wonder no one will give a straight
face explanation where that quantum wave function came from. Every
introductory textbook either fudge the argument to unimpenetrable depth
to tell you how you must accept the wave function as a postulate. Of
course no one understands it, because there was no argument, no
insight, just an empty framework for people to do experiments to fill
in the corner cases. Now, that's a good strategy.
QM is axiomatic. But so are many other physics theories. They start
with certain assumptions and then derive further results. And I must
add that QM is the most successful physical theory ever devised. The
bottom line holds. But if you think that there is something wrong with
one of it's fundamental axioms, just say so and explain why, instead of
implying they're all nonsense, which is pretty stupid.
All the textbooks and web resources I can find, started to fudge after
hydrogen, saying how difficult or complacated things are. You have to
make three simplications just to write down the equation for Helium,
not to mention figuring out suitable boundary conditions. I guess It's
impractical to solve for Helium by hand. Now if all the indrotductory
resources sound like this, what would you think? Would you have
confidence in the theory?
It's called perturbation theory. And a version exists for all levels
of mechanics, not just QM. Not all physical systems exhibit
mathematical elegence That's where suitable approximations come into
play. But you'll find that it tends to be the rule in physics, where
only a handful of systems can be solved exactly.
.
|
|
|
|
| User: "Timo Nieminen" |
|
| Title: Re: oh, my god, physicist are really A-holes. |
24 Oct 2006 09:20:27 PM |
|
|
On Wed, 24 Oct 2006 wrote:
Igor wrote:
wrote:
oh, my god, physicist are really A-holes.
They tell you that there are this and that particle, photons,
electrons, and other interesting corner cases.
While they could have told you, there was just this one equation,
derived from the second derivative of Maxwell's equations, that they
regularly do math tricks with. No wonder no one will give a straight
face explanation where that quantum wave function came from. Every
introductory textbook either fudge the argument to unimpenetrable depth
to tell you how you must accept the wave function as a postulate. Of
course no one understands it, because there was no argument, no
insight, just an empty framework for people to do experiments to fill
in the corner cases. Now, that's a good strategy.
QM is axiomatic. But so are many other physics theories. They start
with certain assumptions and then derive further results. And I must
add that QM is the most successful physical theory ever devised. The
bottom line holds. But if you think that there is something wrong with
one of it's fundamental axioms, just say so and explain why, instead of
implying they're all nonsense, which is pretty stupid.
All the textbooks and web resources I can find, started to fudge after
hydrogen, saying how difficult or complacated things are. You have to
make three simplications just to write down the equation for Helium,
not to mention figuring out suitable boundary conditions. I guess It's
impractical to solve for Helium by hand. Now if all the indrotductory
resources sound like this, what would you think? Would you have
confidence in the theory?
Why not? Helium is an N-body system; if you read a book on celestial
mechanics, and find out that N-body systems are very hard to solve for
N>2, would that cause you to lose confidence in classical mechanics and
Newtonian gravitation? If you read a book on classical electrodynamics,
and find that there only three analytical solutions [1], would that cause
you to lose confidence in classical electrodynamics?
Basically, why would you think that "difficult" must mean "wrong"? If the
theory is wrong, at least one of the axioms of the theory must be wrong.
Also note that while atomic theory is what quantum mechanics grew out
from, quantum mechanics is far more than atomic theory.
[1] Well, there are more solutions than this, but they're essentially
the general solutions in Cartesian, cylindrical, or spherical coordinates
applied to a particular case. Also, yes, general solutions exist in other
coordinate systems for both the Laplace and Helmholtz equation, but I
think they're a bit to traumatic for introductory texts.
--
Timo Nieminen - Home page: http://www.physics.uq.edu.au/people/nieminen/
E-prints: http://eprint.uq.edu.au/view/person/Nieminen,_Timo_A..html
Shrine to Spirits: http://www.users.bigpond.com/timo_nieminen/spirits.html
.
|
|
|
| User: "Eric Gisse" |
|
| Title: Re: oh, my god, physicist are really A-holes. |
24 Oct 2006 09:46:43 PM |
|
|
Timo Nieminen wrote:
On Wed, 24 Oct 2006 wrote:
Igor wrote:
wrote:
oh, my god, physicist are really A-holes.
They tell you that there are this and that particle, photons,
electrons, and other interesting corner cases.
While they could have told you, there was just this one equation,
derived from the second derivative of Maxwell's equations, that they
regularly do math tricks with. No wonder no one will give a straight
face explanation where that quantum wave function came from. Every
introductory textbook either fudge the argument to unimpenetrable depth
to tell you how you must accept the wave function as a postulate. Of
course no one understands it, because there was no argument, no
insight, just an empty framework for people to do experiments to fill
in the corner cases. Now, that's a good strategy.
QM is axiomatic. But so are many other physics theories. They start
with certain assumptions and then derive further results. And I must
add that QM is the most successful physical theory ever devised. The
bottom line holds. But if you think that there is something wrong with
one of it's fundamental axioms, just say so and explain why, instead of
implying they're all nonsense, which is pretty stupid.
All the textbooks and web resources I can find, started to fudge after
hydrogen, saying how difficult or complacated things are. You have to
make three simplications just to write down the equation for Helium,
not to mention figuring out suitable boundary conditions. I guess It's
impractical to solve for Helium by hand. Now if all the indrotductory
resources sound like this, what would you think? Would you have
confidence in the theory?
Why not? Helium is an N-body system; if you read a book on celestial
mechanics, and find out that N-body systems are very hard to solve for
N>2, would that cause you to lose confidence in classical mechanics and
Newtonian gravitation? If you read a book on classical electrodynamics,
and find that there only three analytical solutions [1], would that cause
you to lose confidence in classical electrodynamics?
I had an interesting conversation with one of my professors.
Solving quantum systems exactly came up, and I mentioned that I thought
Helium could be solved exactly. He explained that we can't solve Helium
exactly. The reasoning seemed to come down to the fact that it is a
multibody problem, which is just as unsolvable in QM as it is in
classical mechanics.
It was topical because I'm wondering *how* multi-body systems are
represented in QM.
[...]
.
|
|
|
| User: "Igor" |
|
| Title: Re: oh, my god, physicist are really A-holes. |
25 Oct 2006 12:51:12 PM |
|
|
Eric Gisse wrote:
Timo Nieminen wrote:
On Wed, 24 Oct 2006 wrote:
Igor wrote:
wrote:
oh, my god, physicist are really A-holes.
They tell you that there are this and that particle, photons,
electrons, and other interesting corner cases.
While they could have told you, there was just this one equation,
derived from the second derivative of Maxwell's equations, that they
regularly do math tricks with. No wonder no one will give a straight
face explanation where that quantum wave function came from. Every
introductory textbook either fudge the argument to unimpenetrable depth
to tell you how you must accept the wave function as a postulate. Of
course no one understands it, because there was no argument, no
insight, just an empty framework for people to do experiments to fill
in the corner cases. Now, that's a good strategy.
QM is axiomatic. But so are many other physics theories. They start
with certain assumptions and then derive further results. And I must
add that QM is the most successful physical theory ever devised. The
bottom line holds. But if you think that there is something wrong with
one of it's fundamental axioms, just say so and explain why, instead of
implying they're all nonsense, which is pretty stupid.
All the textbooks and web resources I can find, started to fudge after
hydrogen, saying how difficult or complacated things are. You have to
make three simplications just to write down the equation for Helium,
not to mention figuring out suitable boundary conditions. I guess It's
impractical to solve for Helium by hand. Now if all the indrotductory
resources sound like this, what would you think? Would you have
confidence in the theory?
Why not? Helium is an N-body system; if you read a book on celestial
mechanics, and find out that N-body systems are very hard to solve for
N>2, would that cause you to lose confidence in classical mechanics and
Newtonian gravitation? If you read a book on classical electrodynamics,
and find that there only three analytical solutions [1], would that cause
you to lose confidence in classical electrodynamics?
I had an interesting conversation with one of my professors.
Solving quantum systems exactly came up, and I mentioned that I thought
Helium could be solved exactly. He explained that we can't solve Helium
exactly. The reasoning seemed to come down to the fact that it is a
multibody problem, which is just as unsolvable in QM as it is in
classical mechanics.
It was topical because I'm wondering *how* multi-body systems are
represented in QM.
Actually an exact solution to the three body case was found in 1912,
and an exact solution to the N body case in general was obtained in the
1990's. The main problem with both of these solutions is that they are
extremely slowly converging power series that are totally useless for
any realistic calculations. More can be found here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/N-body_problem
.
|
|
|
| User: "Timo Nieminen" |
|
| Title: Re: oh, my god, physicist are really A-holes. |
25 Oct 2006 09:47:21 PM |
|
|
On Thu, 25 Oct 2006, Igor wrote:
Eric Gisse wrote:
Timo Nieminen wrote:
On Wed, 24 Oct 2006 wrote:
All the textbooks and web resources I can find, started to fudge after
hydrogen, saying how difficult or complacated things are. You have to
make three simplications just to write down the equation for Helium,
not to mention figuring out suitable boundary conditions. I guess It's
impractical to solve for Helium by hand. Now if all the indrotductory
resources sound like this, what would you think? Would you have
confidence in the theory?
Why not? Helium is an N-body system; if you read a book on celestial
mechanics, and find out that N-body systems are very hard to solve for
N>2, would that cause you to lose confidence in classical mechanics and
Newtonian gravitation? If you read a book on classical electrodynamics,
and find that there only three analytical solutions [1], would that cause
you to lose confidence in classical electrodynamics?
I had an interesting conversation with one of my professors.
Solving quantum systems exactly came up, and I mentioned that I thought
Helium could be solved exactly. He explained that we can't solve Helium
exactly. The reasoning seemed to come down to the fact that it is a
multibody problem, which is just as unsolvable in QM as it is in
classical mechanics.
It was topical because I'm wondering *how* multi-body systems are
represented in QM.
Actually an exact solution to the three body case was found in 1912,
and an exact solution to the N body case in general was obtained in the
1990's. The main problem with both of these solutions is that they are
extremely slowly converging power series that are totally useless for
any realistic calculations. More can be found here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/N-body_problem
Just so. There's a reason why I wrote "very hard". But then, I do
computational physics, and I also call a computational solution a
"solution", and tend not to call an analytical series solution that
defies computation (eg, impractical convergence) a "solution". A
mathematician might disagree, but that's just a matter of "solution"
having two distinct meanings.
--
Timo Nieminen - Home page: http://www.physics.uq.edu.au/people/nieminen/
E-prints: http://eprint.uq.edu.au/view/person/Nieminen,_Timo_A..html
Shrine to Spirits: http://www.users.bigpond.com/timo_nieminen/spirits.html
.
|
|
|
|
|
| User: "Timo Nieminen" |
|
| Title: Re: oh, my god, physicist are really A-holes. |
24 Oct 2006 10:54:09 PM |
|
|
On Wed, 24 Oct 2006, Eric Gisse wrote:
I had an interesting conversation with one of my professors.
Solving quantum systems exactly came up, and I mentioned that I thought
Helium could be solved exactly. He explained that we can't solve Helium
exactly. The reasoning seemed to come down to the fact that it is a
multibody problem, which is just as unsolvable in QM as it is in
classical mechanics.
It was topical because I'm wondering *how* multi-body systems are
represented in QM.
Make it sufficiently multi-body, and you get classical mechanics :)
I believe some undergrad courses do the helium atom, using either a
perturbational or a variational method. I don't recall doing helium, but
that was some time ago.
For probably more on it than you ever wanted to know:
http://arxiv.org/abs/hep-ph/9612330
--
Timo Nieminen - Home page: http://www.physics.uq.edu.au/people/nieminen/
E-prints: http://eprint.uq.edu.au/view/person/Nieminen,_Timo_A..html
Shrine to Spirits: http://www.users.bigpond.com/timo_nieminen/spirits.html
.
|
|
|
|
|
| User: "" |
|
| Title: Re: oh, my god, physicist are really A-holes. |
24 Oct 2006 09:47:09 PM |
|
|
Timo Nieminen wrote:
On Wed, 24 Oct 2006 wrote:
Igor wrote:
wrote:
oh, my god, physicist are really A-holes.
They tell you that there are this and that particle, photons,
electrons, and other interesting corner cases.
While they could have told you, there was just this one equation,
derived from the second derivative of Maxwell's equations, that they
regularly do math tricks with. No wonder no one will give a straight
face explanation where that quantum wave function came from. Every
introductory textbook either fudge the argument to unimpenetrable depth
to tell you how you must accept the wave function as a postulate. Of
course no one understands it, because there was no argument, no
insight, just an empty framework for people to do experiments to fill
in the corner cases. Now, that's a good strategy.
QM is axiomatic. But so are many other physics theories. They start
with certain assumptions and then derive further results. And I must
add that QM is the most successful physical theory ever devised. The
bottom line holds. But if you think that there is something wrong with
one of it's fundamental axioms, just say so and explain why, instead of
implying they're all nonsense, which is pretty stupid.
All the textbooks and web resources I can find, started to fudge after
hydrogen, saying how difficult or complacated things are. You have to
make three simplications just to write down the equation for Helium,
not to mention figuring out suitable boundary conditions. I guess It's
impractical to solve for Helium by hand. Now if all the indrotductory
resources sound like this, what would you think? Would you have
confidence in the theory?
Why not? Helium is an N-body system; if you read a book on celestial
mechanics, and find out that N-body systems are very hard to solve for
N>2, would that cause you to lose confidence in classical mechanics and
Newtonian gravitation? If you read a book on classical electrodynamics,
and find that there only three analytical solutions [1], would that cause
you to lose confidence in classical electrodynamics?
You are comparing different things. With classical mechanics, you can
measure position and mass, with QM, you can only measure energy, that's
a a big difference. Would you like to memorize different properties for
different atoms like chemists do?
Basically, why would you think that "difficult" must mean "wrong"? If the
theory is wrong, at least one of the axioms of the theory must be wrong.
Maybe, the axioms or principles should be somehow tested first? (if
possible)
What if the principles weren't testable?
Also note that while atomic theory is what quantum mechanics grew out
from, quantum mechanics is far more than atomic theory.
[1] Well, there are more solutions than this, but they're essentially
the general solutions in Cartesian, cylindrical, or spherical coordinates
applied to a particular case. Also, yes, general solutions exist in other
coordinate systems for both the Laplace and Helmholtz equation, but I
think they're a bit to traumatic for introductory texts.
--
Timo Nieminen - Home page: http://www.physics.uq.edu.au/people/nieminen/
E-prints: http://eprint.uq.edu.au/view/person/Nieminen,_Timo_A..html
Shrine to Spirits: http://www.users.bigpond.com/timo_nieminen/spirits.html
.
|
|
|
| User: "Eric Gisse" |
|
| Title: Re: oh, my god, physicist are really A-holes. |
24 Oct 2006 10:06:52 PM |
|
|
wrote:
Timo Nieminen wrote:
On Wed, 24 Oct 2006 wrote:
Igor wrote:
wrote:
oh, my god, physicist are really A-holes.
They tell you that there are this and that particle, photons,
electrons, and other interesting corner cases.
While they could have told you, there was just this one equation,
derived from the second derivative of Maxwell's equations, that they
regularly do math tricks with. No wonder no one will give a straight
face explanation where that quantum wave function came from. Every
introductory textbook either fudge the argument to unimpenetrable depth
to tell you how you must accept the wave function as a postulate. Of
course no one understands it, because there was no argument, no
insight, just an empty framework for people to do experiments to fill
in the corner cases. Now, that's a good strategy.
QM is axiomatic. But so are many other physics theories. They start
with certain assumptions and then derive further results. And I must
add that QM is the most successful physical theory ever devised. The
bottom line holds. But if you think that there is something wrong with
one of it's fundamental axioms, just say so and explain why, instead of
implying they're all nonsense, which is pretty stupid.
All the textbooks and web resources I can find, started to fudge after
hydrogen, saying how difficult or complacated things are. You have to
make three simplications just to write down the equation for Helium,
not to mention figuring out suitable boundary conditions. I guess It's
impractical to solve for Helium by hand. Now if all the indrotductory
resources sound like this, what would you think? Would you have
confidence in the theory?
Why not? Helium is an N-body system; if you read a book on celestial
mechanics, and find out that N-body systems are very hard to solve for
N>2, would that cause you to lose confidence in classical mechanics and
Newtonian gravitation? If you read a book on classical electrodynamics,
and find that there only three analytical solutions [1], would that cause
you to lose confidence in classical electrodynamics?
You are comparing different things. With classical mechanics, you can
measure position and mass, with QM, you can only measure energy, that's
a a big difference. Would you like to memorize different properties for
different atoms like chemists do?
Uhhhh...you can measure more than just energy in QM.
Basically, why would you think that "difficult" must mean "wrong"? If the
theory is wrong, at least one of the axioms of the theory must be wrong.
Maybe, the axioms or principles should be somehow tested first? (if
possible)
What if the principles weren't testable?
Also note that while atomic theory is what quantum mechanics grew out
from, quantum mechanics is far more than atomic theory.
[1] Well, there are more solutions than this, but they're essentially
the general solutions in Cartesian, cylindrical, or spherical coordinates
applied to a particular case. Also, yes, general solutions exist in other
coordinate systems for both the Laplace and Helmholtz equation, but I
think they're a bit to traumatic for introductory texts.
--
Timo Nieminen - Home page: http://www.physics.uq.edu.au/people/nieminen/
E-prints: http://eprint.uq.edu.au/view/person/Nieminen,_Timo_A..html
Shrine to Spirits: http://www.users.bigpond.com/timo_nieminen/spirits.html
.
|
|
|
|
| User: "Igor" |
|
| Title: Re: oh, my god, physicist are really A-holes. |
25 Oct 2006 01:04:51 PM |
|
|
wrote:
Timo Nieminen wrote:
On Wed, 24 Oct 2006 wrote:
Igor wrote:
wrote:
oh, my god, physicist are really A-holes.
They tell you that there are this and that particle, photons,
electrons, and other interesting corner cases.
While they could have told you, there was just this one equation,
derived from the second derivative of Maxwell's equations, that they
regularly do math tricks with. No wonder no one will give a straight
face explanation where that quantum wave function came from. Every
introductory textbook either fudge the argument to unimpenetrable depth
to tell you how you must accept the wave function as a postulate. Of
course no one understands it, because there was no argument, no
insight, just an empty framework for people to do experiments to fill
in the corner cases. Now, that's a good strategy.
QM is axiomatic. But so are many other physics theories. They start
with certain assumptions and then derive further results. And I must
add that QM is the most successful physical theory ever devised. The
bottom line holds. But if you think that there is something wrong with
one of it's fundamental axioms, just say so and explain why, instead of
implying they're all nonsense, which is pretty stupid.
All the textbooks and web resources I can find, started to fudge after
hydrogen, saying how difficult or complacated things are. You have to
make three simplications just to write down the equation for Helium,
not to mention figuring out suitable boundary conditions. I guess It's
impractical to solve for Helium by hand. Now if all the indrotductory
resources sound like this, what would you think? Would you have
confidence in the theory?
Why not? Helium is an N-body system; if you read a book on celestial
mechanics, and find out that N-body systems are very hard to solve for
N>2, would that cause you to lose confidence in classical mechanics and
Newtonian gravitation? If you read a book on classical electrodynamics,
and find that there only three analytical solutions [1], would that cause
you to lose confidence in classical electrodynamics?
You are comparing different things. With classical mechanics, you can
measure position and mass, with QM, you can only measure energy, that's
a a big difference. Would you like to memorize different properties for
different atoms like chemists do?
Where do you get that QM only is concerned with measuring energ?. All
the "good" quantum numbers have operators that commute with the
Hamiltonian. Some examples are orbital angular momentum and any
component of angular momentum. Same goes for spin. Why do you think
the electron in the H atom has four well defined quantum numbers?
Basically, why would you think that "difficult" must mean "wrong"? If the
theory is wrong, at least one of the axioms of the theory must be wrong.
Maybe, the axioms or principles should be somehow tested first? (if
possible)
What if the principles weren't testable?
As a rule, axioms usually don't test well. That's why they're called
axioms. It most often occurs that only derived consequences of the
axioms are testable.
.
|
|
|
|
| User: "Timo Nieminen" |
|
| Title: Re: oh, my god, physicist are really A-holes. |
24 Oct 2006 10:42:00 PM |
|
|
On Wed, 24 Oct 2006 wrote:
Timo Nieminen wrote:
On Wed, 24 Oct 2006 wrote:
All the textbooks and web resources I can find, started to fudge after
hydrogen, saying how difficult or complacated things are. You have to
make three simplications just to write down the equation for Helium,
not to mention figuring out suitable boundary conditions. I guess It's
impractical to solve for Helium by hand. Now if all the indrotductory
resources sound like this, what would you think? Would you have
confidence in the theory?
Why not? Helium is an N-body system; if you read a book on celestial
mechanics, and find out that N-body systems are very hard to solve for
N>2, would that cause you to lose confidence in classical mechanics and
Newtonian gravitation? If you read a book on classical electrodynamics,
and find that there only three analytical solutions [1], would that cause
you to lose confidence in classical electrodynamics?
You are comparing different things.
Not at all. The only argument you gave for why quantum mechanics might be
wrong was that it's difficult. Exactly the same argument applies to
classical mechanics and classical electrodynamics. If you meant to give a
different reason for why QM is wrong, perhaps you should have given it.
With classical mechanics, you can
measure position and mass, with QM, you can only measure energy, that's
a a big difference.
That's just plain wrong. You can measure many things other than energy in
the context of QM. As you might or might be aware, one reason why people
have confidence in QM is that in the appropriate limit it gives you
classical mechanics - you can measure position and mass in classical
mechanics because you can measure them in quantum mechanics.
Would you like to memorize different properties for
different atoms like chemists do?
If it's easier to do so than to calculate the properties ab initio, it's a
wise choice (though it would be more normal to store the properties in a
database). For example:
http://physics.nist.gov/PhysRefData/ASD/index.html
Whether the properties are experimentally measured or calculate ab initio
doesn't matter - it's often easiest to use somebody else's results than
repeating difficult calculations or experiments.
Basically, why would you think that "difficult" must mean "wrong"? If the
theory is wrong, at least one of the axioms of the theory must be wrong.
Maybe, the axioms or principles should be somehow tested first? (if
possible)
Maybe they somehow were tested first? Theory doesn't usually come from
nowhere - it's generally existing experimental results that show that
existing theory is wrong that motivates new theory.
What if the principles weren't testable?
You test prediction based on the principles. If the principles aren't
testable at all, then it's because they have no measurable effects.
Whether right or wrong will have no impact on the usefulness of the
theory.
--
Timo Nieminen - Home page: http://www.physics.uq.edu.au/people/nieminen/
E-prints: http://eprint.uq.edu.au/view/person/Nieminen,_Timo_A..html
Shrine to Spirits: http://www.users.bigpond.com/timo_nieminen/spirits.html
.
|
|
|
| User: "" |
|
| Title: Re: oh, my god, physicist are really A-holes. |
24 Oct 2006 11:37:46 PM |
|
|
Timo Nieminen wrote:
On Wed, 24 Oct 2006 wrote:
Timo Nieminen wrote:
On Wed, 24 Oct 2006 wrote:
All the textbooks and web resources I can find, started to fudge after
hydrogen, saying how difficult or complacated things are. You have to
make three simplications just to write down the equation for Helium,
not to mention figuring out suitable boundary conditions. I guess It's
impractical to solve for Helium by hand. Now if all the indrotductory
resources sound like this, what would you think? Would you have
confidence in the theory?
Why not? Helium is an N-body system; if you read a book on celestial
mechanics, and find out that N-body systems are very hard to solve for
N>2, would that cause you to lose confidence in classical mechanics and
Newtonian gravitation? If you read a book on classical electrodynamics,
and find that there only three analytical solutions [1], would that cause
you to lose confidence in classical electrodynamics?
You are comparing different things.
Not at all. The only argument you gave for why quantum mechanics might be
wrong was that it's difficult. Exactly the same argument applies to
classical mechanics and classical electrodynamics. If you meant to give a
different reason for why QM is wrong, perhaps you should have given it.
With classical mechanics, you can
measure position and mass, with QM, you can only measure energy, that's
a a big difference.
That's just plain wrong. You can measure many things other than energy in
the context of QM. As you might or might be aware, one reason why people
have confidence in QM is that in the appropriate limit it gives you
classical mechanics - you can measure position and mass in classical
mechanics because you can measure them in quantum mechanics.
When you generalize so much, sure it would work. You just couple the
effect without knowing the details.
The principles you apply started to make no physical sense. Sometimes,
It boils down to how do you interpret a generalized "summation" and how
to you interpret "the sum being equal"?
How would your apply Pauli's exclusion principle and aufbau principle
and probability interpretation at the same time? You don't think that
those principles contradict each other? It's like you want me to
interpret position as probability and at the same time saying they
can't occupy the same state. This sounds very contradictory.
BTW, what's the physical meaning of local gauge invariant? How do you
test it?
Would you like to memorize different properties for
different atoms like chemists do?
If it's easier to do so than to calculate the properties ab initio, it's a
wise choice (though it would be more normal to store the properties in a
database). For example:
http://physics.nist.gov/PhysRefData/ASD/index.html
Whether the properties are experimentally measured or calculate ab initio
doesn't matter - it's often easiest to use somebody else's results than
repeating difficult calculations or experiments.
Basically, why would you think that "difficult" must mean "wrong"? If the
theory is wrong, at least one of the axioms of the theory must be wrong.
Maybe, the axioms or principles should be somehow tested first? (if
possible)
Maybe they somehow were tested first? Theory doesn't usually come from
nowhere - it's generally existing experimental results that show that
existing theory is wrong that motivates new theory.
What if the principles weren't testable?
You test prediction based on the principles. If the principles aren't
testable at all, then it's because they have no measurable effects.
Whether right or wrong will have no impact on the usefulness of the
theory.
It's like coupling the effect without know the details...
--
Timo Nieminen - Home page: http://www.physics.uq.edu.au/people/nieminen/
E-prints: http://eprint.uq.edu.au/view/person/Nieminen,_Timo_A..html
Shrine to Spirits: http://www.users.bigpond.com/timo_nieminen/spirits.html
.
|
|
|
| User: "tj Frazir" |
|
| Title: Re: oh, my god, physicist are really A-holes. |
25 Oct 2006 09:41:03 PM |
|
|
One equasion per part .
OK idiot..
ALL the parts , electr,,neutr, protr, are the same thing and just in
another amount.
( energy exchanged )
The mass of these parts is never constant but veries with the energy
of the body.
mass and enegry are interchangable .
Mass is conveted to energy and energy to mass. With nothing left over.
.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| User: "PD" |
|
| Title: Re: oh, my god, physicist are really A-holes. |
24 Oct 2006 05:51:28 PM |
|
|
wrote:
oh, my god, physicist are really A-holes.
They tell you that there are this and that particle, photons,
electrons, and other interesting corner cases.
While they could have told you, there was just this one equation,
derived from the second derivative of Maxwell's equations, that they
regularly do math tricks with. No wonder no one will give a straight
face explanation where that quantum wave function came from. Every
introductory textbook either fudge the argument to unimpenetrable depth
to tell you how you must accept the wave function as a postulate. Of
course no one understands it, because there was no argument, no
insight, just an empty framework for people to do experiments to fill
in the corner cases. Now, that's a good strategy.
Um...
You find it irritating that understanding physical theories require
math to develop the concepts, and that there isn't a comprehensive
explanation of what's going on in just plain English.
Have I got that about right?
PD
.
|
|
|
| User: "" |
|
| Title: Re: oh, my god, physicist are really A-holes. |
25 Oct 2006 12:23:02 AM |
|
|
PD wrote:
mainargv@yahoo.com wrote:
oh, my god, physicist are really A-holes.
They tell you that there are this and that particle, photons,
electrons, and other interesting corner cases.
While they could have told you, there was just this one equation,
derived from the second derivative of Maxwell's equations, that they
regularly do math tricks with. No wonder no one will give a straight
face explanation where that quantum wave function came from. Every
introductory textbook either fudge the argument to unimpenetrable depth
to tell you how you must accept the wave function as a postulate. Of
course no one understands it, because there was no argument, no
insight, just an empty framework for people to do experiments to fill
in the corner cases. Now, that's a good strategy.
Um...
You find it irritating that understanding physical theories require
math to develop the concepts, and that there isn't a comprehensive
explanation of what's going on in just plain English.
Have I got that about right?
Up to vector calculus, everything was peachy. It was generalizations
that kill.
It starts to make no sense what's being added, subtracted, multiplied,
divided, or what's being equal...
Matrices became transformations. Banana became sausage. They can
generalize so much that make everything equal. operators got so
"overloaded" in the different contexts you can't believe it's not
butter any more. Don't mention math, it hertz. Only the person who
invented it has any idea how it works.
You know it takes school systems, three grade years to instill addition
and mutiplication, I wonder how much generalized math one person can
suck down in 4 years of univeristy study.
PD
.
|
|
|
| User: "Greg Hansen" |
|
| Title: Re: oh, my god, physicist are really A-holes. |
25 Oct 2006 08:24:02 AM |
|
|
wrote:
PD wrote:
wrote:
oh, my god, physicist are really A-holes.
They tell you that there are this and that particle, photons,
electrons, and other interesting corner cases.
While they could have told you, there was just this one equation,
derived from the second derivative of Maxwell's equations, that they
regularly do math tricks with. No wonder no one will give a straight
face explanation where that quantum wave function came from. Every
introductory textbook either fudge the argument to unimpenetrable depth
to tell you how you must accept the wave function as a postulate. Of
course no one understands it, because there was no argument, no
insight, just an empty framework for people to do experiments to fill
in the corner cases. Now, that's a good strategy.
Um...
You find it irritating that understanding physical theories require
math to develop the concepts, and that there isn't a comprehensive
explanation of what's going on in just plain English.
Have I got that about right?
Up to vector calculus, everything was peachy. It was generalizations
that kill.
It starts to make no sense what's being added, subtracted, multiplied,
divided, or what's being equal...
Matrices became transformations. Banana became sausage. They can
generalize so much that make everything equal. operators got so
"overloaded" in the different contexts you can't believe it's not
butter any more. Don't mention math, it hertz. Only the person who
invented it has any idea how it works.
You know it takes school systems, three grade years to instill addition
and mutiplication, I wonder how much generalized math one person can
suck down in 4 years of univeristy study.
There's only so much you can learn in four years. That's why a PhD is
the standard for a research position.
I suggest you find a new major before you're faced with graduation.
Physicists are not highly employable in the first place. The only
reason to pursue the degree is because you love it. But you don't seem
to love it.
.
|
|
|
| User: "" |
|
| Title: Re: oh, my god, physicist are really A-holes. |
26 Oct 2006 08:13:50 AM |
|
|
In article <ehnofu09m3@enews4.newsguy.com>,
Greg Hansen <glhansen@tcq.net> wrote:
mainargv@yahoo.com wrote:
PD wrote:
mainargv@yahoo.com wrote:
oh, my god, physicist are really A-holes.
They tell you that there are this and that particle, photons,
electrons, and other interesting corner cases.
While they could have told you, there was just this one equation,
derived from the second derivative of Maxwell's equations, that they
regularly do math tricks with. No wonder no one will give a straight
face explanation where that quantum wave function came from. Every
introductory textbook either fudge the argument to unimpenetrable depth
to tell you how you must accept the wave function as a postulate. Of
course no one understands it, because there was no argument, no
insight, just an empty framework for people to do experiments to fill
in the corner cases. Now, that's a good strategy.
Um...
You find it irritating that understanding physical theories require
math to develop the concepts, and that there isn't a comprehensive
explanation of what's going on in just plain English.
Have I got that about right?
Up to vector calculus, everything was peachy. It was generalizations
that kill.
It starts to make no sense what's being added, subtracted, multiplied,
divided, or what's being equal...
Matrices became transformations. Banana became sausage. They can
generalize so much that make everything equal. operators got so
"overloaded" in the different contexts you can't believe it's not
butter any more. Don't mention math, it hertz. Only the person who
invented it has any idea how it works.
You know it takes school systems, three grade years to instill addition
and mutiplication, I wonder how much generalized math one person can
suck down in 4 years of univeristy study.
There's only so much you can learn in four years. That's why a PhD is
the standard for a research position.
I suggest you find a new major before you're faced with graduation.
Physicists are not highly employable in the first place. The only
reason to pursue the degree is because you love it. But you don't seem
to love it.
Is sounds more like the kid should be signing up for the labs
that go with those classes.
/BAH
.
|
|
|
|
|
| User: "Eric Gisse" |
|
| Title: Re: oh, my god, physicist are really A-holes. |
25 Oct 2006 03:09:11 AM |
|
|
wrote:
PD wrote:
wrote:
oh, my god, physicist are really A-holes.
They tell you that there are this and that particle, photons,
electrons, and other interesting corner cases.
While they could have told you, there was just this one equation,
derived from the second derivative of Maxwell's equations, that they
regularly do math tricks with. No wonder no one will give a straight
face explanation where that quantum wave function came from. Every
introductory textbook either fudge the argument to unimpenetrable depth
to tell you how you must accept the wave function as a postulate. Of
course no one understands it, because there was no argument, no
insight, just an empty framework for people to do experiments to fill
in the corner cases. Now, that's a good strategy.
Um...
You find it irritating that understanding physical theories require
math to develop the concepts, and that there isn't a comprehensive
explanation of what's going on in just plain English.
Have I got that about right?
Up to vector calculus, everything was peachy. It was generalizations
that kill.
I take it you are not on good terms with Stokes/divergence/gradient
theorems, then?
It starts to make no sense what's being added, subtracted, multiplied,
divided, or what's being equal...
Matrices became transformations. Banana became sausage. They can
generalize so much that make everything equal. operators got so
"overloaded" in the different contexts you can't believe it's not
butter any more. Don't mention math, it hertz. Only the person who
invented it has any idea how it works.
Or those who have taken the time to understand how it works.
You know it takes school systems, three grade years to instill addition
and mutiplication, I wonder how much generalized math one person can
suck down in 4 years of univeristy study.
For me it has been 3 actual years of studying mathematics and so far I
have accumulated:
Single and multi-variable calculus.
Vector calculus [Included are the various vector calculus theorems like
Stokes theorem and divergence theorem]
Complex analysis [oh god it is useful if only for being able to derive
trig identities at will]
An understanding of partial differential equations that allows me to
solve Laplace's equation, Poisson's equation, and Shroedinger's
equation at will. I can only state those confidently, because PDEs are
hard. Included in this are ODEs...
From that rough PDE understanding comes an understanding of Fourier
analysis.
From the ODE learning, along with a fair bit of self studying, comes a
fair knowledge of integral transforms.
Linear algebra. [Have fun understanding transformations when you don't
know what an eigenvalue is!]
Plus some other stuff like proofs, which I don't honestly give a *****
about.
The list is by no means complete, but this is roughly what is expected
of me at this point.
In another year, I expect to even out the rough edges and blind spots
from that list.
The only other thing I would assume you would be expected to learn is
something about numerically solving integrals, ordinary differential
equations, and partial differential equations.
Believe it or not, math is hard. Whining about how you don't understand
where it comes from makes you look stupid, not intelligent. The
material is out there - it is up to you to find it.
PD
.
|
|
|
| User: "" |
|
| Title: Re: oh, my god, physicist are really A-holes. |
25 Oct 2006 03:39:28 AM |
|
|
Eric Gisse wrote:
mainargv@yahoo.com wrote:
PD wrote:
mainargv@yahoo.com wrote:
oh, my god, physicist are really A-holes.
They tell you that there are this and that particle, photons,
electrons, and other interesting corner cases.
While they could have told you, there was just this one equation,
derived from the second derivative of Maxwell's equations, that they
regularly do math tricks with. No wonder no one will give a straight
face explanation where that quantum wave function came from. Every
introductory textbook either fudge the argument to unimpenetrable depth
to tell you how you must accept the wave function as a postulate. Of
course no one understands it, because there was no argument, no
insight, just an empty framework for people to do experiments to fill
in the corner cases. Now, that's a good strategy.
Um...
You find it irritating that understanding physical theories require
math to develop the concepts, and that there isn't a comprehensive
explanation of what's going on in just plain English.
Have I got that about right?
Up to vector calculus, everything was peachy. It was generalizations
that kill.
I take it you are not on good terms with Stokes/divergence/gradient
theorems, then?
It starts to make no sense what's being added, subtracted, multiplied,
divided, or what's being equal...
Matrices became transformations. Banana became sausage. They can
generalize so much that make everything equal. operators got so
"overloaded" in the different contexts you can't believe it's not
butter any more. Don't mention math, it hertz. Only the person who
invented it has any idea how it works.
Or those who have taken the time to understand how it works.
You know it takes school systems, three grade years to instill addition
and mutiplication, I wonder how much generalized math one person can
suck down in 4 years of univeristy study.
For me it has been 3 actual years of studying mathematics and so far I
have accumulated:
Single and multi-variable calculus.
Vector calculus [Included are the various vector calculus theorems like
Stokes theorem and divergence theorem]
Complex analysis [oh god it is useful if only for being able to derive
trig identities at will]
An understanding of partial differential equations that allows me to
solve Laplace's equation, Poisson's equation, and Shroedinger's
equation at will. I can only state those confidently, because PDEs are
hard. Included in this are ODEs...
From that rough PDE understanding comes an understanding of Fourier
analysis.
From the ODE learning, along with a fair bit of self studying, comes a
fair knowledge of integral transforms.
Linear algebra. [Have fun understanding transformations when you don't
know what an eigenvalue is!]
Plus some other stuff like proofs, which I don't honestly give a *****
about.
The list is by no means complete, but this is roughly what is expected
of me at this point.
In another year, I expect to even out the rough edges and blind spots
from that list.
The only other thing I would assume you would be expected to learn is
something about numerically solving integrals, ordinary differential
equations, and partial differential equations.
Believe it or not, math is hard. Whining about how you don't understand
where it comes from makes you look stupid, not intelligent. The
material is out there - it is up to you to find it.
You are obviously not knowing what I'm talking about :)
You have no clue did you :)
PD
.
|
|
|
|
|
| User: "PD" |
|
| Title: Re: oh, my god, physicist are really A-holes. |
25 Oct 2006 08:25:23 AM |
|
|
On Oct 25, 12:23 am, wrote:
PD wrote:
wrote:
oh, my god, physicist are really A-holes.
They tell you that there are this and that particle, photons,
electrons, and other interesting corner cases.
While they could have told you, there was just this one equation,
derived from the second derivative of Maxwell's equations, that they
regularly do math tricks with. No wonder no one will give a straight
face explanation where that quantum wave function came from. Every
introductory textbook either fudge the argument to unimpenetrable depth
to tell you how you must accept the wave function as a postulate. Of
course no one understands it, because there was no argument, no
insight, just an empty framework for people to do experiments to fill
in the corner cases. Now, that's a good strategy.
Um...
You find it irritating that understanding physical theories require
math to develop the concepts, and that there isn't a comprehensive
explanation of what's going on in just plain English.
Have I got that about right?
Up to vector calculus, everything was peachy. It was generalizations
that kill.
It starts to make no sense what's being added, subtracted, multiplied,
divided, or what's being equal...
Matrices became transformations. Banana became sausage. They can
generalize so much that make everything equal. operators got so
"overloaded" in the different contexts you can't believe it's not
butter any more. Don't mention math, it hertz. Only the person who
invented it has any idea how it works.
You know it takes school systems, three grade years to instill addition
and mutiplication, I wonder how much generalized math one person can
suck down in 4 years of univeristy study.
All this indicates is that physics is not going to be your bag, and you
should move on to something else without regret. Mathematics is a tool
for physics, just like reading MRIs and memorizing the names of 300
blood vessels in the human body are tools for surgeons. Those who are
meant to be physicists laboriously learn their tools, including all the
pain and drudgery that goes along with that, so that they can do
physics. To those who are meant to be physicists, it's worth it. For
those who aren't, it isn't. It's pretty simple, really. Don't let it
get you down.
PD
PD- Hide quoted text -- Show quoted text -- Hide quoted text -- Show quoted text -
.
|
|
|
|
|
|
| User: "Researcher" |
|
| Title: Re: oh, my god, physicist are really A-holes. |
24 Oct 2006 01:36:38 AM |
|
|
Good show.
Keep it up.
I am with you [But not for any abusive language]
Researcher
<mainargv@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:1161651800.088343.78310@h48g2000cwc.googlegroups.com...
oh, my god, physicist are really A-holes.
They tell you that there are this and that particle, photons,
electrons, and other interesting corner cases.
While they could have told you, there was just this one equation,
derived from the second derivative of Maxwell's equations, that they
regularly do math tricks with. No wonder no one will give a straight
face explanation where that quantum wave function came from. Every
introductory textbook either fudge the argument to unimpenetrable depth
to tell you how you must accept the wave function as a postulate. Of
course no one understands it, because there was no argument, no
insight, just an empty framework for people to do experiments to fill
in the corner cases. Now, that's a good strategy.
--
Posted via a free Usenet account from http://www.teranews.com
.
|
|
|
|
|
Related Articles |
|
