[lifeisstillgood]

I was reading a book hoping to work out how to derive E=mc2. My idea was to go from being about 400 years behind science to merely being 100 years behind. This sort of reporting makes me realise those 100 years are not linear.

I had to go check that this was real - https://www.nature.com/articles/s41557-023-01300-3, because it could have as easily been a marketing site for the next Marvel movie for all I could ground it in my understanding of experimentation.

[Panoramix]

I'm not sure I really "get" the 400 year old physics. Things like the Lagrangian, Lagrangian transform, and the principle of least action and the Hamiltonian. I understand them on a superficial level and I know very well how to use them, but I just don't really get it. Why can we even write equations for this stuff. I have a degree in physics which makes it all the more depressing.

[marcosdumay]

> Why can we even write equations for this stuff.

It's a (very) weird way to write the same equations as Newton. It happens to be easier to solve on some cases, because calculus works like that.

It's conceptually not very different from using a Fourier or Laplace transformation to simplify some signal handling. But 400 years ago they didn't have any easy way to understand it, so it got an aura of magic that never got away.

(But you probably already know all that. You probably just didn't internalize it because of that aura.)

[pm3003]

Alexandre Koyré has written a book and a lot of articles about it (well-known are the Copernician and Gallilean moments), and it made me mostly realize how different their thinking could be. His works are sometimes hard to read because of the mathematics involved but also the extensive quoting in Italian, Latin, Greek etc (though with Google Lens it shouldn't be a problem in 2023).

[sharikous]

That's "just" special relativity. I would suggest to see it exposed in current textbooks.

Spoiler: E=m_rest c2 + E_kinetic unless you redefine the mass as a function of velocity. Something that people used to do a century ago but is unusual to it nowadays

[voidmain0001]

Mentioning Marvel in this context made me think of Quicksilver saving everyone. https://iv.ggtyler.dev/watch?v=ZnZqB5Z75zI

[sytelus]

This is really a bad idea to study anything. Actually this is what sets aside naïve hobbyist interested in Physics vs someone studying Physics systematically and efficiently as part of PhD program. I did this mistake repeatedly. I started with annotated version of Newton's Principia, spent about a year just pulling my hair and gave up to realize how much time I had lost in all kind of minutia, noise and random things that were completely useless to develop good understanding of core principles. I repeated this mistake yet again by buying Maxwell's original publications and wasting yet another year. And then again with Einstein's original papers and wasting yet another year.

I thought I would do differently and everyone else was doing wrong. I was the one doing wrong. I didn't learned much from all these original manuscript. I also lost precious years which I could have obtained real Masters degree. It is super important to understand that original manuscripts have tons of noise and baggage that only make sense in historical context. They also have unbacked goods which are super hard to digest, if you can digest at all. A ton of experts have already spent their lives distilling these original writings that fits with everything else, easy to digest and doesn't have all that noise. So, get a good textbook and follow that. Stop chasing original manuscripts.

[bowsamic]

Yeah the beauty of physics is that the idea can always be abstracted and re-explained in an easier to digest way. It's extremely rare that the first presentation of an idea is a very nice way to understand it.

Also, the fashion of physics changes. Back in the day, physicists seemed much more comfortable writing long intuitive arguments with lots of words, and were always happy with a strong connection to classical physics which they obviously had a strong understanding of (since at the time, that was all physics). These days, it's far more common to prefer a more mathematical oriented approach; people prefer to see an equation rather than paragraphs of intuition dumping. Also, we don't care so much about a connection to classical physics, since most physicists are now quite comfortable with quantum mechanics.

Even as a physics researcher it can be painful and difficult to go back to the original papers for things. This is also reflected in the popularity of wikipedia among physicists. It's much more likely that I'm going to understand the explanation of (for example) Bell's theorem on wikipedia than reading his original paper "On the Einstein Podolsky Rosen Paradox." People have come up with better examples, emphasised important points better, and refined the understanding.

We also can't forget the impact that LaTeX (or equation typesetting in general) has had on physics. Reading some of these old typewritten equations can add unnecessary cognitive load.

Now, this is unique to physical sciences. None of this can be relied on with philosophy (at least, continental philosophy). Sure, there are good modern summaries like on SEP, but you can never really be sure that your interpretation of the author will be the same.

[FreshStart]

There is still something amiss.. A interactive way to break latex symbols down into 3b1b video like explanations.. The glyphs come alive to express there purpose in dance to all..

[NikolaNovak]

This is also why I don't understand people who insist we need to read the original philosophy texts.

I can't. I tried reading e.g. Plato and I just want to argue with him forever. He starts with assumptions which were "obvious" then, but are just obviously wrong now. It's much better to read a modern interpretation / summary which takes the bits which are still relevant, and Contextualize them with what we know today.

(Note - if you want to study history of something, by all means do read original texts. But if you actually want working knowledge of the subject, it's a horrible horrible way to go).

[p1esk]

I tried reading e.g. Plato and I just want to argue with him forever.

That’s the whole point of reading Plato. You’re being exposed to the Socratic method.

[NikolaNovak]

Then I have not explained myself correctly.

If I take a philosophy class, I can talk to teacher, discuss things,explore questions and Contradictions. And I do :-).

When Plato says "let us all agree there exists a perfect blue independent of any real world blue", I want to argue that no, "blue" is a human construct and dependent on accidental biology. We can't even make sure thay we all experience the same blue and what "blue" is, is purely definitional. There exists no inherent "blue" other than us arbitrarily taking a chunk of EM spectrum and attaching a loose meaning of "blue" to it.

Plato did not know of EM spectrum or cones in our eyes. half the things he starts as "it is obviously true that..." I scream"no it is not! I challenge your key assumptions ".but he's dead and can't argue with me :-). So for me, that's not the whole point of reading Plato - it's the whole frustration.

-----

Edit : you've added "that way you're exposed to Socratic method " which changes the gist of the comment, but I'll still argue it's a horrible way to do so. I understood Socratic method for a decade if not two before I tried Plato. If I tried Plato first, the dubious and implausible arguments would have turned me off completely. Both the teacher's and the student's proposals are frequently at odds with our current understanding, so as a reader I'm not invested in either and the argument feels farcical as opposed to logical.

My point is:

If somebody asks "what is Socratic method", pointing them to Plato is a horrible (and frankly elitist / gatekeeping) way to go. It can rather be explained in a few minutes with excellent, understandable modern examples. You can get working knowledge quickly and effectively. There are circumstances and situations where reading the original is relevant! But if you want to understand the basics, or even intermediate knowledge of actual subject, reading original newton and original Plato are not great ways to start.

[p1esk]

but he's dead and can't argue with me

But you’re alive and you can supply both sides of the argument, if you believe the topic is interesting. The concept of “perfect blue” is beautiful and powerful - even if it’s wrong! It can lead to very interesting ideas, such as “universe as a mathematical structure”, or having a soul. Just play along and be flexible.

Also, you can prompt GPT-4 to argue with you as Plato would.

[I_Am_Nous]

This reminds me of Kierkegaard arguing with himself in various publications under pseudonyms. I think he must have had some intense cognitive dissonance about most things for most of his life. It makes for a great way to flesh out a topic from both a pro and con standpoint, but it can't have been easy to go back to "normal" thinking modes after doing so.

[bawolff]

> When Plato says "let us all agree there exists a perfect blue independent of any real world blue", I want to argue that no, "blue" is a human construct and dependent on accidental biology.

Assuming some premise for the sake of an argument is not just a plato thing, and its not particularly relavent if the specific premise is true.

[NikolaNovak]

Oh for sure but I think it's a spectrum.

I find it most productive when the assumption is asked and granted for something uncertain, interpretable, subjective, etc. Or when we are just having fun :-)

If a) you are building a serious proposedmodel of reality and b) start with something demonstrably false, I'd have to be in a pretty specific mood to go with it :-D

[barrysteve]

You're not reading.

You've fallen into the age old trap of reacting, to written text.

His argument might well be farcical, suspend disbelief like you would watching some Micheal Bay nonsense.

Do you let people get to the end of their sentence irl? I've noticed more that some people wont tolerate a building narrative in basic sentences, and want to deal only in conclusions.

I really do miss the days when people regularly had multi-layered, long running conversations. Now everything has to be said in discrete steps, one by one.

[NikolaNovak]

Thx for the response!

(To your very last sentence, I'd venture that kind of fees like the Socratic method :-)

But to the rest of the post, can you elaborate? Are you suggesting relaxing the skepticism / logic muscle and reaction for a while, and reading to see where it goes? I'd be willing to discuss that approach, though I'm also aware that's exactly what my cousin pishing deepak chopra keeps saying :-P.

In the finite time we have on this earth, how does one choose where and when to relax the filters, as opposed to saying "this is not bringing value, there are better materials to ingest?".

And the other context, which I feel we still haven't addressed is - lateral to whether there is any advanced and isolated value in reading Plato, do we really feel it's a good suggestion to get somebody introduced to concepts? I still feel there are way better ways to get somebody introduced to core ideas, and then advanced readers who want to zero-in, experience the original material and immerse themselves into context of the times (and the good / bad / ugly / archaic thay goes with it), can certainly choose to do so.

Thx again!

[NotSuspicious]

Does there exist a perfect number four independent of any real world number four?

[regularfry]

There's a related idea, which is that there's no reason that the first person to discover something will happen to find the best way to teach it. In fact there are many reasons for that not to be the case: their own understanding is nestled in a complex web of adjacent trivia, some of which is critical but they don't realise it, and some of which is unrelated but seems vital to them.

[Angostura]

On the other hand, some of Darwin's original treatise - Origin of species of species in particular, is well worth a read.

[ozSofi]

From skimming Gallileo he could also be a nice read.His writing is entertaining and has a lot of examples, so could help in internalizing some basic ideas.

[ch_sm]

Yeah! Worth noting that both Galileo and Darwin intentionally published their most important works in the form of easily digestible „pop-science“ intended for the inclined layman. This was because they knew they faced near universal opposition in the scientific establishment of the time.

[mejutoco]

Maybe I got a bad translation but that was completely unreadable to me.

[mrblah]

As a complete novice, I had a similar revelation naively trying to derive one of Maxwell's mind-blowing insights connecting light to magnetism. It was well accepted that if you just divided the electric constant by the magnetic constant (in their respective inverse square force formulas), you end up calculating the speed of light. The units and numbers matched up nicely using old definitions and units. I wanted to see it soup to nuts in modern terms, but so much has changed not only in the definition of magnetism, but also new standardization of units, more accurate measurements of vacuum permeability... I just gave up. I'll take Maxwell's word for it.

[hexane360]

The derivation is pretty simple, but a little messy in the integral formulation of Maxwell's laws

https://phys.libretexts.org/Bookshelves/University_Physics/B...

[imtringued]

This reminds me of how nobody reads Keynes and everyone has read Hick's interpretation of Keynes instead. Except in this situation there is quite a large discrepancy between the two.

[greenbit]

That's what the shoulders of giants are for. No need to grow your own beanstalk.