A new approach to do science

cavarka9 · #1 by **cavarka9** » Oct 29, 2011 3:00 pm

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142 ... lenews_wsj

Polymath
http://polymathprojects.org/

twistor59 · #2 by **twistor59** » Oct 29, 2011 3:12 pm

Yeah, you know - one thing I've often thought about (and been a bit disappointed) is that the amazing availability of information due to the advent of the internet hasn't led to rapid advances (at least in physics, which as we all know is the only subject worthy of study :hide:

).

It's orders of magnitude easier to get information these days compared to pre-internet days, so I would have expected this to precipitate massive strides - in fundamental theoretical physics anyway. But I don't get the impression that this has been the case. Maybe we just need more experimental data to chew on.

campermon · #3 by **campermon** » Oct 29, 2011 3:15 pm

twistor59 wrote:Yeah, you know - one thing I've often thought about (and been a bit disappointed) is that the amazing availability of information due to the advent of the internet hasn't led to rapid advances (at least in physics, which as we all know is the only subject worthy of study ).

It's orders of magnitude easier to get information these days compared to pre-internet days, so I would have expected this to precipitate massive strides - in fundamental theoretical physics anyway. But I don't get the impression that this has been the case. Maybe we just need more experimental data to chew on.

I blame the increased use of calculators in schools.....

:coffee:

twistor59 · #4 by **twistor59** » Oct 29, 2011 3:21 pm

campermon wrote:
twistor59 wrote:Yeah, you know - one thing I've often thought about (and been a bit disappointed) is that the amazing availability of information due to the advent of the internet hasn't led to rapid advances (at least in physics, which as we all know is the only subject worthy of study ).

It's orders of magnitude easier to get information these days compared to pre-internet days, so I would have expected this to precipitate massive strides - in fundamental theoretical physics anyway. But I don't get the impression that this has been the case. Maybe we just need more experimental data to chew on.

I blame the increased use of calculators in schools.....

I blame the teachers. :roll:

campermon · #5 by **campermon** » Oct 29, 2011 3:24 pm

twistor59 wrote:
campermon wrote:
twistor59 wrote:Yeah, you know - one thing I've often thought about (and been a bit disappointed) is that the amazing availability of information due to the advent of the internet hasn't led to rapid advances (at least in physics, which as we all know is the only subject worthy of study ).

It's orders of magnitude easier to get information these days compared to pre-internet days, so I would have expected this to precipitate massive strides - in fundamental theoretical physics anyway. But I don't get the impression that this has been the case. Maybe we just need more experimental data to chew on.

I blame the increased use of calculators in schools.....

I blame the teachers.

Me too!! For letting the kids use calculators!

:mrgreen:

cavarka9 · #6 by **cavarka9** » Oct 29, 2011 3:32 pm

but calculation is the boring part of science :dopey:

campermon · #7 by **campermon** » Oct 29, 2011 3:40 pm

cavarka9 wrote:but calculation is the boring part of science

Calculation is important! But when my physics students kept on getting out their calculators to make trivial calculations* (and thus wasting loads of time), I banned them for a while and forced them get better at mental arithmetic!

* for example - they were getting their calculators out to do really simple multiples and divisions like 144/12 or 30*20 etc..

cavarka9 · #8 by **cavarka9** » Oct 29, 2011 3:46 pm

thats bad yes,

http://www.ted.com/talks/conrad_wolfram ... uters.html

edit- ok

cavarka9 · #9 by **cavarka9** » Oct 29, 2011 3:46 pm

if I had it my way, I would give mathematica and matlab to every kid.

campermon · **#10** by **campermon** » Oct 30, 2011 8:36 pm

On the topic of cooperation, a nice vid from TED;

twistor59 · **#11** by **twistor59** » Oct 30, 2011 8:50 pm

campermon wrote:
cavarka9 wrote:but calculation is the boring part of science

Calculation is important! But when my physics students kept on getting out their calculators to make trivial calculations* (and thus wasting loads of time), I banned them for a while and forced them get better at mental arithmetic!

* for example - they were getting their calculators out to do really simple multiples and divisions like 144/12 or 30*20 etc..

No, they get out their calculators to type 5318008 and look at it upside down

campermon · **#12** by **campermon** » Oct 30, 2011 8:53 pm

twistor59 wrote:
campermon wrote:
cavarka9 wrote:but calculation is the boring part of science

Calculation is important! But when my physics students kept on getting out their calculators to make trivial calculations* (and thus wasting loads of time), I banned them for a while and forced them get better at mental arithmetic!

* for example - they were getting their calculators out to do really simple multiples and divisions like 144/12 or 30*20 etc..

No, they get out their calculators to type 5318008 and look at it upside down