Any one else here obsessed with physics?

[Ronald Zeeman]

I'm much more interested in the molten salt reactor due to it's safety features, and especially because of it's lack of water consumption. Australia is the driest continent after Antarctica, water is a serious issue here. We've been having a lot of seismic activity in our Great Dividing Range lately too, that's more of a concern for other types of reactors.

Metallurgy appears to be the biggest issue molten salt very corrosive. I try and keep up with going on my back ground in chemistry and engineering helps. Hopefully the Chinese and Indians make head way with this reactor you do not need water but it can make water,

 

[FayetheAspie]

I didn't do very well in a physics class I took, but I like the concept of it still, just not the actual math.

I read part of a college level book on applied physics for fun when I was about 13 or 14. I don't like math either, but I like understanding the formation of things and how things work. I think I started experimenting with water tension, sound waves, aerodynamics, and other fields before I ever started school. I also liked disecting plant parts to see the plant's internal structures. Also it was/is fun to observe animals, birds, fish, insects to discover their habits, communication styles, ect.

 

[Ronald Zeeman]

Math got big in physics with Paul DIrac, previous it was not as rigorous. See Sabine Hosenfelder's book Lost in math.
My knowledge of math only extends into high school. I fortunately can visualize it all in my head.

 

[FayetheAspie]

There was an exception to my general dislike of high school math. I actually loved the section that covered statistics and probability. It seemed fascinating to be able to predict the likelihood of outcomes mathematically. After all this time I would need to relearn the formulas though.

 

[Ronald Zeeman]

There was an exception to my general dislike of high school math. I actually loved the section that covered statistics and probability. It seemed fascinating to be able to predict the likelihood of outcomes mathematically. After all this time I would need to relearn the formulas though.

I like statistics and calculus, use excel for formulas. Even mathematicians do not memorize formulas, just use them. I have some threads on statistics, I was trained as a quality engineer.

 

[Boogs]

I've always loved science from as young as I could read, it was one of the few things I would happily read as a kid, in part I think as it satisfied the desire to know how my world works (and far more interesting than "Janet and John go to The Park"). But I was never much good at math, especially complex abstract math. So although I've made a lot of connections and ideas about how the universe works, I'm unable to prove any of it (even to myself).

A lot of things I've worked out myself (or at least believe I have) have also later been corroborated (or at least agreed as possible) by professional scientists, but without the framework of math that provides a common methodology others can independently apply, it all seems to be of little worth beyond personal satisfaction and knowledge, which is most frustrating.

I suspect the math side may be down to a total inability to internally visualise anything at all. Most of the more interesting topics have such complex mathematical abstractions, on the page they are pretty meaningless to me. But many of the concepts they model seem much easier to grasp as long as I can make the logical links that connect their parts to create the whole.

I vaguely recall my confusion when first starting math at school (simple arithmetic really), and the teachers telling us all to close our eyes and imagine four oranges, and then imagine eating two of them, and having two left over, and I'm wondering what the heck they mean by this. What's all this thinking of oranges and eating them. The answers obvious, 2, why all the weird stuff with oranges? And what even is 'imagining four oranges', what does that mean?

Now I know most/all of the kids would actually be able to 'see' these oranges internally, and maybe even smell and taste them too, but that's only benefit of hindsight, a lot of hindsight. And looking back I think a lot of the later much more advanced math topics were also reliant on internal visualisation to grasp the concept of what the math was describing. At least I assume so anyway, most of it meant little to me at the time and I presume that's why, at least in part.

 

[Outdated]

Now I know most/all of the kids would actually be able to 'see' these oranges internally...

That sort of thing gave rise to one of our more common sayings here. It came from teachers trying to explain the abstracts of algebra and they all refer to Apples and Oranges in their analogies.

So a phrase often used here to mean that everything's good and there's no confusion is "She's all apples here, mate." (no oranges)

 

[Ronald Zeeman]

I like Sabines take too much math, too much complexity. Why I like Neil Turoks latest work.