<story><title>So You Want to Learn Physics (2016)</title><url>https://www.susanjfowler.com/blog/2016/8/13/so-you-want-to-learn-physics</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>andrepd</author><text>Well I disagree with many of the book choices, but if there&amp;#x27;s one thing that&amp;#x27;s absolutely spot-on is this:&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt;One big problem is that a lot of the popular books written about physics (especially those by famous physicists) are incredibly speculative and tend to present an unrealistic view of what the study of physics is all about. When you&amp;#x27;re learning physics, it&amp;#x27;s good to avoid these types of speculative books, and stick to the good ones that talk about the real physics we know exists.&lt;p&gt;Oh god yes. Why is it that whenever a lay person wants to talk about physics they talk about &amp;quot;11 dimensions&amp;quot;, &amp;quot;string theory&amp;quot;, or &amp;quot;time dilation&amp;quot;, or any similarly crazy-sounding term that they read in a massively incorrect pop-sci article. Basically it makes it sound like physics is about all this crazy complicated and far-fetched ideas, rather than simple and beautiful principles to understand reality, which is what it is.&lt;p&gt;I don&amp;#x27;t know if I managed to convey what I mean.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>ellius</author><text>I have a model with two kinds of knowledge: sexy knowledge and homely knowledge. I think the internet and mass media era in general have massively endorsed and empowered the projects and acquisition of sexy knowledge. If it doesn&amp;#x27;t garner attention rapidly on a large scale, then it doesn&amp;#x27;t go on TV. The problem is that most of the real projects of science and industry are about homely knowledge. It&amp;#x27;s the little boring things like washing your hands that prevent catastrophic hospital deaths. But that&amp;#x27;s not superficially interesting, or fun, and it doesn&amp;#x27;t provide the knowledge bearer with any kind of moral or intellectual superiority by which they can affect pretensions of enlightenment. Quackery has always been a thing, but I think sexy knowledge lies somewhere before the frontier of quackery. It&amp;#x27;s true, or plausibly true, information, but it is dramatically overvalued in our time and culture.</text></comment>
<story><title>So You Want to Learn Physics (2016)</title><url>https://www.susanjfowler.com/blog/2016/8/13/so-you-want-to-learn-physics</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>andrepd</author><text>Well I disagree with many of the book choices, but if there&amp;#x27;s one thing that&amp;#x27;s absolutely spot-on is this:&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt;One big problem is that a lot of the popular books written about physics (especially those by famous physicists) are incredibly speculative and tend to present an unrealistic view of what the study of physics is all about. When you&amp;#x27;re learning physics, it&amp;#x27;s good to avoid these types of speculative books, and stick to the good ones that talk about the real physics we know exists.&lt;p&gt;Oh god yes. Why is it that whenever a lay person wants to talk about physics they talk about &amp;quot;11 dimensions&amp;quot;, &amp;quot;string theory&amp;quot;, or &amp;quot;time dilation&amp;quot;, or any similarly crazy-sounding term that they read in a massively incorrect pop-sci article. Basically it makes it sound like physics is about all this crazy complicated and far-fetched ideas, rather than simple and beautiful principles to understand reality, which is what it is.&lt;p&gt;I don&amp;#x27;t know if I managed to convey what I mean.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>cygx</author><text>&amp;gt; &lt;i&gt;&amp;quot;11 dimensions&amp;quot;, &amp;quot;string theory&amp;quot;, or &amp;quot;time dilation&amp;quot;&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;One of these things is not like the others...</text></comment>