Comments on: Nuts and Bolts http://asymptotia.com/2007/06/17/nuts-and-bolts/ Sun, 20 Jul 2008 23:39:57 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.5.1 By: Philosophia Naturalis #11: Powers of 11 [Highly Allochthonous] · New York Articles http://asymptotia.com/2007/06/17/nuts-and-bolts/#comment-61431 Philosophia Naturalis #11: Powers of 11 [Highly Allochthonous] · New York Articles Fri, 06 Jul 2007 23:07:55 +0000 http://asymptotia.com/2007/06/17/nuts-and-bolts/#comment-61431 [...] Clifford explains how theoretical theorists really theorize. [...] [...] Clifford explains how theoretical theorists really theorize. [...]

]]> By: Philosophia Naturalis #11: Powers of 11 [Highly Allochthonous] · Articles http://asymptotia.com/2007/06/17/nuts-and-bolts/#comment-60647 Philosophia Naturalis #11: Powers of 11 [Highly Allochthonous] · Articles Tue, 03 Jul 2007 17:33:28 +0000 http://asymptotia.com/2007/06/17/nuts-and-bolts/#comment-60647 [...] Clifford explains how theoretical theorists really theorize. [...] [...] Clifford explains how theoretical theorists really theorize. [...]

]]> By: Philosophia Naturalis - Asymptotia http://asymptotia.com/2007/06/17/nuts-and-bolts/#comment-59479 Philosophia Naturalis - Asymptotia Fri, 29 Jun 2007 04:42:06 +0000 http://asymptotia.com/2007/06/17/nuts-and-bolts/#comment-59479 [...] *I see that my post describing my internal struggling with factors of two was selected - I have noticed that a lot of people related to that. It is nice to know that I’m not alone in such practices… [...] [...] *I see that my post describing my internal struggling with factors of two was selected - I have noticed that a lot of people related to that. It is nice to know that I’m not alone in such practices… [...]

]]> By: Philosophia Naturalis #11: Powers of 11 [Highly Allochthonous] · Kokorec http://asymptotia.com/2007/06/17/nuts-and-bolts/#comment-59377 Philosophia Naturalis #11: Powers of 11 [Highly Allochthonous] · Kokorec Thu, 28 Jun 2007 16:06:53 +0000 http://asymptotia.com/2007/06/17/nuts-and-bolts/#comment-59377 [...] Clifford explains how theoretical theorists really theorize. [...] [...] Clifford explains how theoretical theorists really theorize. [...]

]]> By: Morning Computations - Asymptotia http://asymptotia.com/2007/06/17/nuts-and-bolts/#comment-57745 Morning Computations - Asymptotia Sun, 24 Jun 2007 04:59:19 +0000 http://asymptotia.com/2007/06/17/nuts-and-bolts/#comment-57745 [...] …and then you have days when nothing works. At all. This was not like last Saturday. Despite starting out nice and early with a cup of tea in the sunshine and scribbling away while wrinkling one’s brow. Things got worse and worse through the morning, as I realized that many things I so wanted to be right about the next stage of my computation (which perhaps I’ll tell you about one day) were in fact not going to work. Not even close. [...] [...] …and then you have days when nothing works. At all. This was not like last Saturday. Despite starting out nice and early with a cup of tea in the sunshine and scribbling away while wrinkling one’s brow. Things got worse and worse through the morning, as I realized that many things I so wanted to be right about the next stage of my computation (which perhaps I’ll tell you about one day) were in fact not going to work. Not even close. [...]

]]> By: pedant http://asymptotia.com/2007/06/17/nuts-and-bolts/#comment-56234 pedant Wed, 20 Jun 2007 05:55:57 +0000 http://asymptotia.com/2007/06/17/nuts-and-bolts/#comment-56234 An entertaining tale, that reassures me that it can happen to anyone. I recall, years ago, doing some calculations with a colleague - two very different fomulations, expected to lead to the same answers. Which they did, reproducing results in the literature. Application to the uncharted problem in hand gave, after a lot of paper had been scribbled on, answers that were identical, save for one term. This plagued us all week. Come Saturday my colleague was left to man the fort while his wife went shopping (perhaps he should have gone in her stead, given your experiences). She returned to find him locked away, as the kids rummaged round the house, moaning and bellowing like wounded beasts. "And what do you think you're doing?" "Helping Daddy look for his factor of two". Which he found in the end, of course. An entertaining tale, that reassures me that it can happen to anyone. I recall, years ago, doing some calculations with a colleague - two very different fomulations, expected to lead to the same answers. Which they did, reproducing results in the literature. Application to the uncharted problem in hand gave, after a lot of paper had been scribbled on, answers that were identical, save for one term. This plagued us all week. Come Saturday my colleague was left to man the fort while his wife went shopping (perhaps he should have gone in her stead, given your experiences). She returned to find him locked away, as the kids rummaged round the house, moaning and bellowing like wounded beasts. “And what do you think you’re doing?” “Helping Daddy look for his factor of two”. Which he found in the end, of course.

]]> By: Clifford http://asymptotia.com/2007/06/17/nuts-and-bolts/#comment-56195 Clifford Wed, 20 Jun 2007 04:24:18 +0000 http://asymptotia.com/2007/06/17/nuts-and-bolts/#comment-56195 Sorry... just kidding. I have my "third arm"..... a thing I can mount a camera on that can clamp onto things, like a kitchen cabinet door, etc. -cvj Sorry… just kidding. I have my “third arm”….. a thing I can mount a camera on that can clamp onto things, like a kitchen cabinet door, etc.

-cvj

]]> By: Clifford http://asymptotia.com/2007/06/17/nuts-and-bolts/#comment-56194 Clifford Wed, 20 Jun 2007 04:22:46 +0000 http://asymptotia.com/2007/06/17/nuts-and-bolts/#comment-56194 No... it's all me. Usually I just use the free hand, like in the one here. In the past, there've been some cooking posts where you've seen both hands. In those cases, I've done a detailed photo-realistic painting of the scene from memory later on. Thanks for asking. -cvj No… it’s all me.

Usually I just use the free hand, like in the one here.

In the past, there’ve been some cooking posts where you’ve seen both hands. In those cases, I’ve done a detailed photo-realistic painting of the scene from memory later on.

Thanks for asking.

-cvj

]]> By: Pyracantha http://asymptotia.com/2007/06/17/nuts-and-bolts/#comment-56192 Pyracantha Wed, 20 Jun 2007 04:18:06 +0000 http://asymptotia.com/2007/06/17/nuts-and-bolts/#comment-56192 I've always wanted to know how you get the pictures of your hand (sometimes both of them) doing something. Do you mount your camera on a headlamp and use an auto-timer? Or do you simply have another person photograph you? I’ve always wanted to know how you get the pictures of your hand (sometimes both of them) doing something. Do you mount your camera on a headlamp and use an auto-timer? Or do you simply have another person photograph you?

]]> By: Testing String Theory - Asymptotia http://asymptotia.com/2007/06/17/nuts-and-bolts/#comment-56029 Testing String Theory - Asymptotia Tue, 19 Jun 2007 16:31:48 +0000 http://asymptotia.com/2007/06/17/nuts-and-bolts/#comment-56029 [...] (*Thanks Blake Stacey.) [...] [...] (*Thanks Blake Stacey.) [...]

]]> By: Blake Stacey http://asymptotia.com/2007/06/17/nuts-and-bolts/#comment-55735 Blake Stacey Tue, 19 Jun 2007 01:41:17 +0000 http://asymptotia.com/2007/06/17/nuts-and-bolts/#comment-55735 <blockquote>And yes, teaching is a big part of the measure of success too. (I missed that part of your question on first reading) …It is a vital part of academia, and a major means by which society ensures continuity, and ultimately learns how to feed and support itself better.</blockquote> Having just spent the evening teaching a motley assortment of academics from different fields how to model cellular automata and simulate network growth by preferential attachment, I was very happy to read this! <blockquote>If that body of work turns out to not be the best for describing nature, that’s fine too. The work needed to be done in order to establish that one way or another, so the endeavour was worthwhile. Furthermore, the history of science has taught us that time and again, well defined and rich theoretical tool often end up having useful applications in unexpected domains.</blockquote> I think this is a difficult point to appreciate if you haven't had some experience actually doing math. That's unfortunate, because it really is an important point. (By the way, <a href="http://www.sunclipse.org/?p=160" rel="nofollow">who says string theory isn't falsifiable</a>?)

And yes, teaching is a big part of the measure of success too. (I missed that part of your question on first reading) …It is a vital part of academia, and a major means by which society ensures continuity, and ultimately learns how to feed and support itself better.

Having just spent the evening teaching a motley assortment of academics from different fields how to model cellular automata and simulate network growth by preferential attachment, I was very happy to read this!

If that body of work turns out to not be the best for describing nature, that’s fine too. The work needed to be done in order to establish that one way or another, so the endeavour was worthwhile. Furthermore, the history of science has taught us that time and again, well defined and rich theoretical tool often end up having useful applications in unexpected domains.

I think this is a difficult point to appreciate if you haven’t had some experience actually doing math. That’s unfortunate, because it really is an important point.

(By the way, who says string theory isn’t falsifiable?)

]]> By: Carl Brannen http://asymptotia.com/2007/06/17/nuts-and-bolts/#comment-55292 Carl Brannen Mon, 18 Jun 2007 05:12:49 +0000 http://asymptotia.com/2007/06/17/nuts-and-bolts/#comment-55292 When I took a QFT class at U. Cal., Irvine, a homework assignment was to calculate the lifetime of the neutron, a "simple calculation". For me it needed about 10 pages of tedious calculation, far more than I ever would have guessed. I slaved over it but could not get rid of some factors of 2 pi. When I got my homework back, I was shocked to get a grade of "A", and a note from the instructor that it was normal to lose factors of 2 pi. It's been 25 years and it's not at all unlikely that my memory of this event has diverged from reality somewhat. The reason the calculation was difficult for me, was the integration over phase space. My suspicion is that the foundations of QFT, (the calculations in God's notebook that derive the angles and coupling constants), should be simpler than this. Now that I'm interested in density matrices, I'm sort of tempted to redo the calculation in that formalism. It turns out that the propagators for virtual particles are natural in density matrix theory. When I took a QFT class at U. Cal., Irvine, a homework assignment was to calculate the lifetime of the neutron, a “simple calculation”. For me it needed about 10 pages of tedious calculation, far more than I ever would have guessed. I slaved over it but could not get rid of some factors of 2 pi. When I got my homework back, I was shocked to get a grade of “A”, and a note from the instructor that it was normal to lose factors of 2 pi. It’s been 25 years and it’s not at all unlikely that my memory of this event has diverged from reality somewhat.

The reason the calculation was difficult for me, was the integration over phase space. My suspicion is that the foundations of QFT, (the calculations in God’s notebook that derive the angles and coupling constants), should be simpler than this.

Now that I’m interested in density matrices, I’m sort of tempted to redo the calculation in that formalism. It turns out that the propagators for virtual particles are natural in density matrix theory.

]]> By: Clifford http://asymptotia.com/2007/06/17/nuts-and-bolts/#comment-55281 Clifford Mon, 18 Jun 2007 04:03:43 +0000 http://asymptotia.com/2007/06/17/nuts-and-bolts/#comment-55281 And yes, teaching is a big part of the measure of success too. (I missed that part of your question on first reading) ...It is a vital part of academia, and a major means by which society ensures continuity, and ultimately learns how to feed and support itself better. I'm proud of every single student (at whatever level) I've had the pleasure and privilege to teach, over the last 20 years and more. Best, -cvj And yes, teaching is a big part of the measure of success too. (I missed that part of your question on first reading) …It is a vital part of academia, and a major means by which society ensures continuity, and ultimately learns how to feed and support itself better. I’m proud of every single student (at whatever level) I’ve had the pleasure and privilege to teach, over the last 20 years and more.

Best,

-cvj

]]> By: Clifford http://asymptotia.com/2007/06/17/nuts-and-bolts/#comment-55278 Clifford Mon, 18 Jun 2007 03:51:24 +0000 http://asymptotia.com/2007/06/17/nuts-and-bolts/#comment-55278 I would say that the measures of success are more or less the same that they have ever been. As scientists (theorists or experimentalists) we are part of a large community constructing a body of knowledge that is analogous to building a large and intricate structure, like a bridge. No particular tiny part of the structure that I or anyone else (with a few exceptions) build might be considered great work, but it is an important part of the whole, or the bridge won't work. As theorists we are developing tools and ideas that often have a wide range of applicability. It is never clear at any one point in time what all of those avenues of exploration will produce, or to what use the knowledge may ultimately be put. But that's ok. In fact, it is part of the wonder of it all... you just never know. You strive to establish the facts about what you're doing as carefully as you can, with the existing knowledge as your guide and standard by which you measure the value of what you uncover, and you keep moving forward. What defines "forward"? That is not always clear, but you do the best that you can at the time, and follow the questions that seem best to you. For my own work, a lot of what I am interested in focuses on (1) the nature of the physics of spacetime when you include quantum mechanics, (2) better understanding of how to describe the various forces of nature in various extreme regimes. These lead me to questions about black holes, cosmology, the nature of spacetime itself, the description of physics when the usual things we hold dear about spacetime (smoothness, dimensionality, etc) are not neccessarily behaving in familiar ways.... the strong interactions and quark confinement, the various exotic forms of matter that arise when strongly interacting matter is put into extremes.... and so forth. As a theoretical physicist I actually love applying myself to any interesting physics problem when I think I can make a contribution, and so I would say that my interests are not limited to the above. Measures of success are therefore built around making progress in finding better descriptions of the things I mentioned... sharpening our understanding of the various phenomena that can arise, narrowing down which aspects of the tools being developed can be honed into tools that can help us make contact with experiments that can establish what nature's really doing. I'm under no illusions that I'll singlehandedly write down some theory that nobody has thought of that will describe some profound aspect of nature...it is possible, but extremely rare... and but I'm confident that as part of the community I've made highly significant contributions to the body of work that may one day help us understand various profound aspects of nature. If that body of work turns out to not be the best for describing nature, that's fine too. The work needed to be done in order to establish that one way or another, so the endeavour was worthwhile. Furthermore, the history of science has taught us that time and again, well defined and rich theoretical tool often end up having useful applications in unexpected domains. Cheers, -cvj I would say that the measures of success are more or less the same that they have ever been. As scientists (theorists or experimentalists) we are part of a large community constructing a body of knowledge that is analogous to building a large and intricate structure, like a bridge. No particular tiny part of the structure that I or anyone else (with a few exceptions) build might be considered great work, but it is an important part of the whole, or the bridge won’t work. As theorists we are developing tools and ideas that often have a wide range of applicability. It is never clear at any one point in time what all of those avenues of exploration will produce, or to what use the knowledge may ultimately be put. But that’s ok. In fact, it is part of the wonder of it all… you just never know. You strive to establish the facts about what you’re doing as carefully as you can, with the existing knowledge as your guide and standard by which you measure the value of what you uncover, and you keep moving forward. What defines “forward”? That is not always clear, but you do the best that you can at the time, and follow the questions that seem best to you. For my own work, a lot of what I am interested in focuses on (1) the nature of the physics of spacetime when you include quantum mechanics, (2) better understanding of how to describe the various forces of nature in various extreme regimes. These lead me to questions about black holes, cosmology, the nature of spacetime itself, the description of physics when the usual things we hold dear about spacetime (smoothness, dimensionality, etc) are not neccessarily behaving in familiar ways…. the strong interactions and quark confinement, the various exotic forms of matter that arise when strongly interacting matter is put into extremes…. and so forth. As a theoretical physicist I actually love applying myself to any interesting physics problem when I think I can make a contribution, and so I would say that my interests are not limited to the above. Measures of success are therefore built around making progress in finding better descriptions of the things I mentioned… sharpening our understanding of the various phenomena that can arise, narrowing down which aspects of the tools being developed can be honed into tools that can help us make contact with experiments that can establish what nature’s really doing. I’m under no illusions that I’ll singlehandedly write down some theory that nobody has thought of that will describe some profound aspect of nature…it is possible, but extremely rare… and but I’m confident that as part of the community I’ve made highly significant contributions to the body of work that may one day help us understand various profound aspects of nature. If that body of work turns out to not be the best for describing nature, that’s fine too. The work needed to be done in order to establish that one way or another, so the endeavour was worthwhile. Furthermore, the history of science has taught us that time and again, well defined and rich theoretical tool often end up having useful applications in unexpected domains.

Cheers,

-cvj

]]> By: Cecil Kirksey http://asymptotia.com/2007/06/17/nuts-and-bolts/#comment-55239 Cecil Kirksey Mon, 18 Jun 2007 00:48:11 +0000 http://asymptotia.com/2007/06/17/nuts-and-bolts/#comment-55239 Dr. Johnson: You are a confessed theoritical physicist of the HEP-quantum gravity area I believe. I have been trying to obtain a definition of a successful career for such a physicist. I mean IF you are suppose to be identifying NEW theories that are capable of describing our universe, how can you measure success if any of your (not you personally a generic theoritical physicist) ideas NEVER are confirmed or are in fact in conflict with existing data or new data? You (again generic) obtain tenure. Is teaching considered a success? You train more smart people to do the same thing. Maybe you write a book based on the current SOA. Of course you write papers and maybe some are published in a peer review journal of high note. Is success judged by your peers? Your published papers require peer review; your tenured position requires peer approval. But once tenured you do what you want consistent with any contract obligations for your tenured position. Is this success? But the above paragraph could describe almost anyone with a PhD and doing "research", i.e., 12th century Germanic literature. Now I know research, particular pure research, is for knowledge only, but a theoritical physicist is suppose to produce theories that correctly describe our universe. There have been only a few notable theoritical physicists. (I have read autobios or bios about most, still need to read about Dirac though). But these books are about successful theortical physicists in the highest sense. What about the run of the mill theoritical physicist? What's his/her claim to fame. Sorry for the rambling, but just curious how a theoritical physicist views success. Maybe it is just being accepted by your peers and an earning a decide wage. Thanks for your time. BTW I really enjoy you flower pics. What type of camera? I do alot of bird shots and some flowers too. I am just a retired engineer who would have loved to have been smart enough to be called a theoritical physicist successful or not. Dr. Johnson:

You are a confessed theoritical physicist of the HEP-quantum gravity area I believe. I have been trying to obtain a definition of a successful career for such a physicist. I mean IF you are suppose to be identifying NEW theories that are capable of describing our universe, how can you measure success if any of your (not you personally a generic theoritical physicist) ideas NEVER are confirmed or are in fact in conflict with existing data or new data?

You (again generic) obtain tenure. Is teaching considered a success? You train more smart people to do the same thing. Maybe you write a book based on the current SOA. Of course you write papers and maybe some are published in a peer review journal of high note. Is success judged by your peers? Your published papers require peer review; your tenured position requires peer approval. But once tenured you do what you want consistent with any contract obligations for your tenured position. Is this success?

But the above paragraph could describe almost anyone with a PhD and doing “research”, i.e., 12th century Germanic literature. Now I know research, particular pure research, is for knowledge only, but a theoritical physicist is suppose to produce theories that correctly describe our universe.

There have been only a few notable theoritical physicists. (I have read autobios or bios about most, still need to read about Dirac though). But these books are about successful theortical physicists in the highest sense. What about the run of the mill theoritical physicist? What’s his/her claim to fame.

Sorry for the rambling, but just curious how a theoritical physicist views success. Maybe it is just being accepted by your peers and an earning a decide wage.

Thanks for your time. BTW I really enjoy you flower pics. What type of camera? I do alot of bird shots and some flowers too. I am just a retired engineer who would have loved to have been smart enough to be called a theoritical physicist successful or not.

]]> By: How science is done: the nuts-and-bolts edition « Entertaining Research http://asymptotia.com/2007/06/17/nuts-and-bolts/#comment-55181 How science is done: the nuts-and-bolts edition « Entertaining Research Sun, 17 Jun 2007 19:49:31 +0000 http://asymptotia.com/2007/06/17/nuts-and-bolts/#comment-55181 [...] How science is done: the nuts-and-bolts edition Clifford has a nice post at Asymptotia: Yes, part of my job is to sit and think about how the universe works. People hear this, and they wonder exactly what that entails. Well, it entails a lot of things - sometimes there’s the grand thoughts and the thought experiments and the like that you hear of from documentaries and books about Einstein and other famous scientists - but more often that not it is grungy nuts and bolts. [...] [...] How science is done: the nuts-and-bolts edition Clifford has a nice post at Asymptotia: Yes, part of my job is to sit and think about how the universe works. People hear this, and they wonder exactly what that entails. Well, it entails a lot of things - sometimes there’s the grand thoughts and the thought experiments and the like that you hear of from documentaries and books about Einstein and other famous scientists - but more often that not it is grungy nuts and bolts. [...]

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