<story><title>What I learned as a hired consultant to autodidact physicists (2016)</title><url>https://aeon.co/ideas/what-i-learned-as-a-hired-consultant-for-autodidact-physicists</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>buescher</author><text>Most impressive: &amp;quot;One of them might even publish a paper soon. Not a proposal for a theory of everything, mind you, but a new way to look at a known effect. A first step on a long journey.&amp;quot; Hossenfelder must have the patience of Job and a deep teaching vocation.&lt;p&gt;If you are ever even around physics or math at all, you will see the crackpot letters.  I was a little surprised engineers are largely unaware of the phenomenon and are shocked, for example, that anyone seriously tries to make perpetual motion machines at all.&lt;p&gt;Here&amp;#x27;s a couple links about the mathematical equivalent:&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.laphamsquarterly.org&amp;#x2F;roundtable&amp;#x2F;beware-cranks&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.laphamsquarterly.org&amp;#x2F;roundtable&amp;#x2F;beware-cranks&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;web.mst.edu&amp;#x2F;~lmhall&amp;#x2F;whattodowhentrisectorcomes.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;web.mst.edu&amp;#x2F;~lmhall&amp;#x2F;whattodowhentrisectorcomes.pdf&lt;/a&gt;</text></item><item><author>overthemoon</author><text>Wow, I love this. What a thoughtful, empathetic project. This passage really stuck out to me--&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;A typical problem is that, in the absence of equations, they project literal meanings onto words such as ‘grains’ of space-time or particles ‘popping’ in and out of existence. Science writers should be more careful to point out when we are using metaphors. My clients read way too much into pictures, measuring every angle, scrutinising every colour, counting every dash. Illustrators should be more careful to point out what is relevant information and what is artistic freedom. But the most important lesson I’ve learned is that journalists are so successful at making physics seem not so complicated that many readers come away with the impression that they can easily do it themselves. How can we blame them for not knowing what it takes if we never tell them?&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;Of course, this writing often isn&amp;#x27;t for the layperson, it&amp;#x27;s for an audience who can tell the difference between diagram, artistic license, and metaphor, but even so, it&amp;#x27;s good to think about, especially when communicating science to the general public.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>robocat</author><text>From beware cranks (1st link):&lt;p&gt;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;  The mathematical physicist John Baez proposed a “crackpot index”[1] [snip]

  Mathematician Chris Caldwell was inspired by Baez’s list and devised a mathematical version. Some (lightly edited) examples from Caldwell’s list are

  1 point for each word in all capital letters;
  5 points for every statement that is clearly vacuous, logically inconsistent, or widely known to be false;
  10 points for each such statement that is adhered to despite careful correction;
  10 points for not knowing (or not using) standard mathematical notation;
  10 points for expressing fear that your ideas will be stolen;
  10 points for each new term you invent or use without properly defining it;
  10 points for stating that your ideas are of great financial, theoretical, or spiritual value;
  10 points for beginning the description of your work by saying how long you have been working on it;
  10 points for each favorable comparison of yourself to established experts;
  10 points for citing an impressive-sounding, but irrelevant, result;
  20 points for naming something after yourself;
  30 points for not knowing how or where to submit their major discovery for publication;
  30 points for confusing examples or heuristics with mathematical proof;
  40 points for claiming to have a “proof” of an important result but not knowing what established mathematicians have done on the problem.
&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;
[1] &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;math.ucr.edu&amp;#x2F;home&amp;#x2F;baez&amp;#x2F;crackpot.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;math.ucr.edu&amp;#x2F;home&amp;#x2F;baez&amp;#x2F;crackpot.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;Edit: The second link has a scanned advert at the end from 1983 for “The Science of Programming” by David Gries: the title of the book amuses me.</text></comment>
<story><title>What I learned as a hired consultant to autodidact physicists (2016)</title><url>https://aeon.co/ideas/what-i-learned-as-a-hired-consultant-for-autodidact-physicists</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>buescher</author><text>Most impressive: &amp;quot;One of them might even publish a paper soon. Not a proposal for a theory of everything, mind you, but a new way to look at a known effect. A first step on a long journey.&amp;quot; Hossenfelder must have the patience of Job and a deep teaching vocation.&lt;p&gt;If you are ever even around physics or math at all, you will see the crackpot letters.  I was a little surprised engineers are largely unaware of the phenomenon and are shocked, for example, that anyone seriously tries to make perpetual motion machines at all.&lt;p&gt;Here&amp;#x27;s a couple links about the mathematical equivalent:&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.laphamsquarterly.org&amp;#x2F;roundtable&amp;#x2F;beware-cranks&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.laphamsquarterly.org&amp;#x2F;roundtable&amp;#x2F;beware-cranks&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;web.mst.edu&amp;#x2F;~lmhall&amp;#x2F;whattodowhentrisectorcomes.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;web.mst.edu&amp;#x2F;~lmhall&amp;#x2F;whattodowhentrisectorcomes.pdf&lt;/a&gt;</text></item><item><author>overthemoon</author><text>Wow, I love this. What a thoughtful, empathetic project. This passage really stuck out to me--&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;A typical problem is that, in the absence of equations, they project literal meanings onto words such as ‘grains’ of space-time or particles ‘popping’ in and out of existence. Science writers should be more careful to point out when we are using metaphors. My clients read way too much into pictures, measuring every angle, scrutinising every colour, counting every dash. Illustrators should be more careful to point out what is relevant information and what is artistic freedom. But the most important lesson I’ve learned is that journalists are so successful at making physics seem not so complicated that many readers come away with the impression that they can easily do it themselves. How can we blame them for not knowing what it takes if we never tell them?&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;Of course, this writing often isn&amp;#x27;t for the layperson, it&amp;#x27;s for an audience who can tell the difference between diagram, artistic license, and metaphor, but even so, it&amp;#x27;s good to think about, especially when communicating science to the general public.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>more_corn</author><text>Remember when google offered that “ideas to save the planet” contest? I used to wade through those.&lt;p&gt;They fell into a couple easy  categories. Perpetual motion machines, casual ideas that are obviously impractical, fundamentally failing to understand the subject area. Not a single one of them seemed new or useful.&lt;p&gt;Then again Nicola Tesla had some strange ideas. Turns out half of them were brilliant and the other half still seem weird. Efforts to demarcate crackpot and real might be approaching the problem from the wrong direction.&lt;p&gt;I like the author’s strategy of helping people gain the knowledge to understand what they’re trying to talk about. Teslas ideas about motion and flow as it pertains to physical health were weird but that doesn’t mean he was unable to learn about biology, had he spent time learning about it, maybe he’d have brought his ideas back to reality and contributed something interesting.&lt;p&gt;We should celebrate people for their curiosity, encourage them to gain the knowledge that has already been discovered and help them express their ideas in ways that others can relate to.</text></comment>