Physicists avoid highly mathematical work despite being trained in advanced mathematics, new research suggests.
The study, published in the New Journal of Physics, shows that physicists pay less attention to theories that are crammed with mathematical details.
Math is hard. Where the r-selected expectation of free resources meets physics, physicists expect great accomplishments to happen without math. r-selection infects – and degrades – everything.
Every so often you hear of some experiment physicists launch that other researchers say will cause the end of the world. I’ve always dismissed the worries, assuming the researchers would buckle down, do the math, and make certain they weren’t about to turn Earth into a black hole. Now, I expect something out of a Simpson’s episode.
If it wasn’t for God, we’d all be gone by now.
… the particle could one day be responsible for the destruction of the known universe.
Hawking is not the only scientist who thinks so. The theory of a Higgs boson doomsday, where a quantum fluctuation creates a vacuum “bubble” that expands through space and wipes out the universe, has existed for a while. However, scientists don’t think it could happen anytime soon.
“Most likely it will take 10 to the 100 years…
10 to the 100 years, or 10 to 100 years? If you are a rabbit, what is the difference?
The funny thing is, our amygdala takes care of all of this for us. Here, physicists are describing the total elimination of the universe, and I am sure everyone reading this is absolutely disregarding it all, without even a second thought.
Authority is dead in the time of peak r. Donald’s respect marks the turn toward K.
[…] Physicists Afraid Of Math […]
I find a comfort in the idea that was floated around the time CERN was firing up the latest giant collider.
The idea is that if the universe unravels, because time is a dimension, it has to exist. Therefore, if the universe was to ever unravel in that manner, it would have already unraveled at once, all through time, and the universe, for all intents and purposes, would have never existed.
A more fun extension of this is that the universe actually protects itself from that sort of occurrence, so if you were about to do something that would unravel existence, more and more improbable things would continue to keep you from being able to take the action.
My favorite extension is that the universe we perceive is a giant digital simulation, and the designer of the simulation has simply programmed the universe to cheat however needed to prevent you from crashing the simulation. (I already believe the universe is a giant simulation as our best analogy, so this fits into my confirmation bias.)
They said the same thing about the A bomb causing a chain reaction in the atmosphere and burning everything to a crisp in a fraction of a second. I dunno about you but my amygdala is a little desensitized to all the sensationalist false alarms.
Stephen Hawkins [whatever] is an idiot loved by idiots; anyone with a 100+ IQ knows that, many just lie.
As to simple math, I have been teaching the common man my “Take numbers apart and put them back together again” approach for years. They can do ,oh, 102 x 64 in their head so quick. Makes their lives in this world easier.
What’s so silly about this is there’s particles that hit the top of Earths atmosphere that are way, way, way more powerful and faster than CERN. I’m certainly not a physicist but I know this. Why don’t they? Are they just making up stuff to frighten us? Where these particles come is??? I’ve heard guesses but…
“I am sure everyone reading this is absolutely disregarding it all, without even a second thought.”
Yes of course we are disregarding it! What do you expect us to DO about it? Shut down CERN — and therefore no Higgs-Boson will exist to destroy the world? What would you like us to do? Worry? Cry? ‘Do the math’ (and then what)?
Will worrying about it do a damned thing? Seems to me, as a pretty hardy ‘K’ myself: this is a possible event I can neither plan for, prevent, nor live through. ‘kay-done. NOT worth any of my time. I’ve got a wall to get built and hordes of ‘r’s to drive off.