[dstyrb]

Basically the entirety of paragraph 3...

"set up only for those who wish to become theoretical physicists, not just ordinary ones" --- use of 'ordinary' instead of 'experimental' is intentionally condescending, hopefully for sarcastic effect

"very best, those who are fully determined to earn their own Nobel Prize. If you are more modest than that" --- I'm not sure if this is actual encouragement or a joke. But the following:

"finish those lousy schools first and follow the regular routes provided by educators and specialized -gogues who are so damn carefully chewing all those tiny portions before feeding them to you." --- Must be a joke. Nobel prizes are not awarded to individuals these days, they go to collaborations. There is no way to get into a collaboration, or likely a PhD program without an undergraduate degree in Physics. Legally not allowed in many European countries to join a PhD program...

"More than rudimentary intelligence is assumed to be present, because ordinary students can master this material only when assisted by patient teachers." --- if this isn't sarcasm, then this guy is a monstrous prick who just decided to insult the 'rudimentary' intelligence of all Physics undergrads who deigned to actually attend college. Again with the 'ordinary'.

The opening paragraph continues the authors apparent disdain for school in general:

"But what if you are still young, at School, and before being admitted at a University, you have to endure the childish anecdotes that they call science there? What if you are older, and you are not at all looking forward to join those noisy crowds of young students?"

Which is a bit humerus considering the importance he himself places on fundamentals with:

"solid foundations in elementary mathematics and notions of classical (pre-20th century) physics. Don’t think that pre-20th century physics is “irrelevant”"

If it isn't sarcasm, then I have no idea why the author has decided to be so acerbic in his notation. I'm giving him the benefit of the doubt that he doesn't actually mean to insult basically the 99% of physicists who don't show up in "Brilliant Mind"-esque movies.

edit: From his CV:

* Gymnasium-Beta, Dalton Lyceum, The Hague, 1964 * Physics and Mathematics, University of Utrecht * Kandidaatsexamen N1, 4 July 1966 * Doctoraal examen Theoretical Physics, 10 October 1969 * Promotie (PhD thesis) on the subject "Renormalization Procedure for Yang-Mills fields", 1 March 1972

i.e. He did basically all this stuff he is brushing off as worthless. As in going to classes, with teachers, at an undergraduate university, before applying for a PhD program.

[stan_rogers]

Well, that is one way to read it, I suppose. Another is to take the second paragraph as the theme of the piece: if you don't have a grounding in all of this stuff, your reckonings and supposings are probably not as brilliant and revolutionary as you think they are.

The author isn't expressing his disdain for school, but the disdain he perceives in the people who keep e-mailing him with the simple answers to deep questions. "Okay," he says (I'm paraphrasing wildly here), "you may be too cool for school, but if you don't have at least a firm understanding of these basics, you won't even be able to understand why you're wrong when you, quite inevitably, veer off into the muddy mire of misunderstanding."

He is most assuredly not denigrating experimental physics, nor is he saying that the ordinary educational process is a waste of time and effort. (This is not meant to encourage autodidacts in any way.) He's even hinted that the "lies to children" -- those models that seemed to work for a very long time in the pre-GR/pre-quantum world -- aren't nearly as useless as people might think they are, nor are the scientific processes that led to those models.

So, yes, he is being quite sarcastic here, but the sarcasm is pointed in a completely different direction.

[gohrt]

You are misreading anger where there is slightly ascerbic honesty:

> "set up only for those who wish to become theoretical physicists, not just ordinary ones" -> -- use of 'ordinary' instead of 'experimental' is intentionally condescending, hopefully for sarcastic effect

If you'd finished the sentence, you'd see: "but the very best, those who are fully determined to earn their own Nobel Prize. "

He is constrasting "ordinary" with "the very best". He isn't talking about experimental physics -- that's not his field.

> "finish those lousy schools first and follow the regular routes provided by educators and specialized -gogues who are so damn carefully chewing all those tiny portions before feeding them to you." --- Must be a joke. Nobel prizes are not awarded to individuals these days, they go to collaborations. There is no way to get into a collaboration, or likely a PhD program without an undergraduate degree in Physics. Legally not allowed in many European countries to join a PhD program...

The beauty of theoretical physics (and math) is that you don't need any expensive equipment or overpriced tuition. Just books and people to talk to. Both of these are available free (except some books cost $$$), on the Internet. That's enough to get started.

> "More than rudimentary intelligence is assumed to be present, because ordinary students can master this material only when assisted by patient teachers." --- if this isn't sarcasm, then this guy is a monstrous prick who just decided to insult the 'rudimentary' intelligence of all Physics undergrads who deigned to actually attend college. Again with the 'ordinary'.

It's a simple fact: Smarter folks can get farther without as much guidance from teachers.

> The opening paragraph continues the authors apparent disdain for school in general: "But what if you are still young, at School, and before being admitted at a University, you have to endure the childish anecdotes that they call science there? What if you are older, and you are not at all looking forward to join those noisy crowds of young students?"

Common K-12 schools in many countries generally teach science and math very poorly. This is not a controversial statement.

Colleges are full of 18-22-yr-olds, many of whom are there to party; not a comfortable environment for some 30+ year olds.

> Which is a bit humerus

You seem to have a bone to pick.

> considering the importance he himself places on fundamentals with: "solid foundations in elementary mathematics and notions of classical (pre-20th century) physics. Don’t think that pre-20th century physics is “irrelevant”"

What does that have to do with the high school and college learning experience?

>i .e. He did basically all this stuff he is brushing off as worthless. As in going to classes, with teachers, at an undergraduate university, before applying for a PhD program.

The into goes to lengths to explain the sort of person who doesn't fit into school, and would benefit from an autodidactic alternative. For everyone else...there's school. I don't know why you have such a chip against the possibility of thriving outside of college... too much student loans got you sour grapse?

[dstyrb]

I'm an experimental physicist who did an undergraduate before my PhD and had to fight tooth and nail for my grades and did all that petty nonsense like going to class and after school tutoring and such. I'm not a rockstar, but I'm not a joke either -- I would give myself a "B" rating -- I definitely don't struggle for fellowships, but I'm not Nobel material.

I know from the inside that _these_ actions are the most probable path to success. If some hot shot high school student reads his note, I can see them deciding that they are "brilliant mind" material and then start pursuing this course of action seriously. In my opinion that is a borderline surefire path to failure. College campus is _the_ place to learn physics: you learn physics from casual bar discussions about the fluid dynamics of beer, telling a pretty girl why stars twinkle and planets don't, explaining to stoners why cigarette smoke is blue off the cig and then grey when you exhale, pre-exam pizza binges, adding strobe settings to your dorm lights, and late night campus laser graffiti with your mates and professors. Not from lone wolfing down a textbook with a blackboard.

It's perfectly possible for him to convey his message without "ordinary", "childish", "noisy", "rudimentary", "tiny portions" etc. And if he's just putting together a guidebook for entertaining your interest in Physics, then that's cool. But saying this is the way to get a Nobel is ridiculous... hence my original comment about dripping sarcasm.

Also my original comment was just getting down voted (and someone asked for clarification) so I expounded.

And no, I got a ride through college.

[lucozade]

You're right that Professor 't Hooft is being sarcastic but you've got the wrong target.

He's not aiming this at practicing physicists. He says early on that, if you want to be a physicist, you should enroll at a University. He says in the Questions section that you'll eventually need a degree.

This is aimed at people who can't or won't. The sarcasm is intended to appeal to the "well intended but totally useless" amateur physicists that regularly send him crackpot theories. It's a common refrain from such individuals that they are held back by the establishment.

What he's trying to convey is the amount of information that one needs to master to be taken seriously as a theoretical physicist. His intention is both to put off those that have read a popular science book and now know it all as well as encouraging those that are actually serious by giving them some structure to their learning.

[Luc]

What you call sarcastic and acerbic, I'd call tongue in cheek wit worthy of a little chuckle. Perhaps it's a cultural thing?

[madez]

It would suffice to talk to ambitious people without wrongly contrasting them with people who go to school or college.

His words feel condescending to me.