freecounterpoint: Joys of Academia

Sunday, June 10, 2007

Joys of Academia

25 comments:

Arelcao Akleos said...: pathetic. that this is the norm is even more pathetic. heck, he should have thrown caution to the wind and dared quote a bit of Newton, even Euler, to his classes.....you know, really dig into that thought crime worthy of the wrath of PP's minions; 6/10/2007 9:40 AM
My Frontier Thesis said...: AA, speaking of Newton, have you ever read Newton's book on mathematics? I heard it's one of the most brilliant and difficult works of all time.

Do you or AI have any takes on it?; 6/10/2007 10:39 AM
Pepe le Pew said...: How seriously should a science department take an academic that professes belief in the Great Pumkin?
The comparison with churchill is also plain silly: it is one thing to not grant tenure and entirely an other matter to fire a tenured faculty for expressing its opinion. I don't know if churchilll would have been given tenure had he expressed his views as an assistant prof.
In any case, whho has a dog in the fight of arguing whether or not the rights of some promoter of obscurantism have been slightly violated.; 6/10/2007 11:20 AM
My Frontier Thesis said...: So really guys, to deviate slightly from this thread, is this Newtonian work still a part of your respective disciplines, or what?

A couple months ago I heard a fellah talk about it on the radio, but I'm suspicious that (like many academics nowadays) he hadn't actually read it through. Since it deals with philosophy, JJ wouldn't like it.; 6/10/2007 3:12 PM
Pepe le Pew said...: Never had to read it (i have an ms in physics). It was always mentioned but i don't think i know anyone that's read it. the feynman lecture series should cover this up nicely and legibly.; 6/10/2007 6:16 PM
Arelcao Akleos said...: I have read the first and third books of the Principia, the first thoroughly and the third still working through his details [his proofs could be very "elegant" indeed]. The second is real hard slogging, primarily because Newton's ambitious attempt to strike into fluid dynamics was undone by a mathematical apparatus far from adequate to the task. Heck, even a 100 years later the masterful Euler has managed only to get a serious grip on "dry water". Newton's efforts to bend early calculus and great geometric intuition to the task are fascinating, but it is alien to contemporary approaches and requires immersion in the mathematical language of the day to capture how he was conceiving and attacking the problems.
The Principia is a masterpiece of mathematical physics in its early days, and the work of a truly great mind. The only works of the 17th century that are even vaguely in the same league are Huygens' treatise on light, Newton's own early lectures on optics [the mathematical ones, not the later "Optics", which had a more phenomenological bent], and Kepler's books on optics and on the "new astronomy".; 6/10/2007 7:45 PM
Arelcao Akleos said...: As for Pepe, his defense of silencing thought shows yet again Versailles' respect for the search for truth and free enquiry into the nature of things has not changed since Louis XIV used Huygens' as his court fool while carrying out his massacres of the Dutch.
And as for Pepe's absurd mutterings that there is nothing in Newton not found in Feynman, well, that shows how useless a degree in physics is at the hands of an ignorant idiot.
Try to study Newton, Pepe, and then speak again as to how to understand where Newton was going one only needs a smattering of undergraduate exposition from a current text.; 6/10/2007 7:51 PM
Arelcao Akleos said...: As for belief in the "Great Pumpkin" justifying the murder of a scientists career, can Pepe point out where in the 60 odd published papers on the man's astronomy the GP entered into his science??
The answer his, Pepe cannot. He is just blowing his farts.
Cann Pepe justify the assertion that belief in GP, however separate from the practice of science, disqualifies one from being a scientist? You know, like those gerbils such as Kepler, Descartes, Newton, Euler, Gauss, Maxwell,Gibbs and a host since then?
Hah, there is no stinking Justification in Versailles; 6/10/2007 7:59 PM
Pepe le Pew said...: aa - the only idiot here is you: feynman is much more readable than newton and is a much better introduction.
I feel truly sorry for you and your inability to escape your blind and moronic animosity and certaily hope you are a better person that the pompous loser you strive to impersonate. It is a mystery to me though why you persist in this adolescent pursuit: do you have something to prove to your mommy? is she reading the blog?; 6/10/2007 9:03 PM
Pepe le Pew said...: justifying the murder of a scientists career
murder? Forward, christian soldiers! The great liberal shoah against creationists cometh!

fool.; 6/10/2007 9:17 PM
Arelcao Akleos said...: pepe, you are so deeply mired in your stupidity that even spelling out the letters one by one is yet too fast a writ for you to read.
That you would seriously suggest that Feynman's lectures encapsulate and explain what Newton did, never mind doing so more clearly, shows that you just don't know what the hell Newton did, or how he approached what he did, why he chose to do what he did, or in fact anything at all about the state of science and mathematical "physics" at that time.
In studying Newton, there is only a little that would aid you in studying Feynman's lectures [in the sections wherein he tackles "newtonian physics"!]. In studying Feynman's lectures there is just about nothing that helps in making sense of Newton.
The state of the practice and interpretation of the science, never mind the available mathematical apparatus, is wildly different.
To say that Feynman tells you what Newton was about is akin to saying that reading Pauling tells you what Boyle or Lavoisier were about. That reading your high school texts tell you what Euclid, Archimedes, Apollonius, Pappus were about. That reading Shu's introduction to astrophysics tells you what Ptolemy or Aristarchus or Kepler were about. That reading Gray's Anatomy tells you what Galen was doing.
Only someone who simply has not read the original works of these mathematicians and natural philosphers could be so vapid in thought and knowledge as to think that by reading our current texts you know what the original work was about.
With Pepe, we have the perfect marriage of Versaillian idiocy with historical know-nothing-ism.
So we were wrong,...this is ALMOST a world devoid of perfection; 6/10/2007 9:27 PM
Pepe le Pew said...: aa quit being such an agressive moron. mft asked about reading newton andd Feynman is a fine introduction. There is nothing to disagree about here. Now quit nit-picking like an old woman and piss off.; 6/10/2007 9:32 PM
Pepe le Pew said...: mft - i am talking about feynman lecture series which is a 3-volume freshman text that is highly readable and totally enjoyable. If i am not mistaken, the principles of newtonian mechanics are covered in volume 1.
aa is so blinded by his tedious and compulsive need to harp on everything I state that he is retorting the obvious fact that Feynman's work wasn't the same as newton's.; 6/10/2007 9:55 PM
Tecumseh said...: Only someone who simply has not read the original works of these mathematicians and natural philosphers could be so vapid in thought and knowledge as to think that by reading our current texts you know what the original work was about.

Well said, AA. Although I must confess I never had the internal fortitude to read Sir Isaac Newton in the original, I would never brag about that -- as you say, only your typical Know Nothing can do that. And, as you also note (I think), Newton was a deeply religious man. Nevertheless (and there is no contradiction in that, pace Pepe, who keeps regurgitating the well-trodden Party Line), Newton was one the truly great minds to unlock the great swaths of the mysteries of the Universe. But don't expect someone imbued with pidgin Marxism and half-digested pinko dogma to comprehend that.; 6/10/2007 10:42 PM
Arelcao Akleos said...: what a surprise. now pepe is fibbing about what he said earlier, apparently hoping we are as averse to reading as he is.

PP: "

Never had to read it (i have an ms in physics). It was always mentioned but i don't think i know anyone that's read it. the feynman lecture series should cover this up nicely and legibly....
the only idiot here is you: feynman is much more readable than newton and is a much better introduction....
aa quit being such an agressive moron. mft asked about reading newton andd Feynman is a fine introduction...
need to harp on everything I state that he is retorting the obvious fact that Feynman's work wasn't the same as newton's."

Three times you repeat, in answer to MFTs question on reading Newton's Principia, that Feynman "should cover this up nice and legibly" "is more readable than Newton and is a much better introduction" etc...
I point out, strongly, that this is simply not so. Feynman's work is neither an introduction to Newton's, nor explains Newtons, nor helps one read Newton. Volume I develops a "Newtonian physics" which would have been almost completely alien to Newton. Feynman is making a beautiful exposition of "classical" physics as understood in the middle of the 20th century, and in no way is he relevant to making sense of Newton, never mind your constant claims as to his doing so better.
Of course, keeping to what makes your Mama proud, you then fib as to what I was said. I did not say that Feynman and Newton were merely "different", I said that Pepe's assertion that Newton's work would be well and clearly presented by Feynman was simply wrong.
As for your contentment at a scientist far finer than you having his career murdered because he dared write a popular book in which he refuses to think like Pepe, that speaks yet again on the brave "thug at a distance" you are; 6/10/2007 10:51 PM
Arelcao Akleos said...: AI said: ". And, as you also note (I think), Newton was a deeply religious man. Nevertheless (and there is no contradiction in that"

Yes, I think I mentioned Newton as an example of those many great scientists who were deeply religious. And there is no contradiction in that.
Myself, must admit, am not religious. Have not been since a very young age, and as to exactly why I do not respond to religion is not altogether clear to me. But anyone whose had a chance to read something on the history of mathematics and the sciences, from ancient days to present, must face the stark fact that many [not all, but many] of the most profound and creative thinkers on the nature of things are deeply religious.
There is more to this, of course, it seems to matter very much what their sense of God, of the intelligibility of Nature, actually is. That is a huge and hugely interesting discussion, and relevant very much to our times [consider the near total lack, in the last 800 years, of religious Muslims who are deeply committed to the study of nature]. But, ...let that be for Boston
In the meantime let us leave Pepe to his mutterings that any scientist who dares believe in the gods is "obscurantist"; 6/10/2007 11:01 PM
Pepe le Pew said...: leave Pepe to his mutterings that any scientist who dares believe in the gods is "obscurantist"

A convenient distortion of my statement. The creationists/ID crowd are the obsurantists.; 6/10/2007 11:48 PM
My Frontier Thesis said...: Interesting dialog, fellows. First and foremost, thank you for spending the time to weigh in on Newton. Currently I'm going over David Hume's, "An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding" with a fine-point pen. I write in the margins of my books and underline all the time. Someone once told me not to do that. I told them there was writing/print on the pages already.

Anyhow, I was interested in Newton because he was nearly (if not entirely) deified by the Humes and Voltaires of the following generation.

AA and Pepe are better polemicists than I, but I view that as one of their academic strengths. It's probably a good thing for you two to be at eachother's throats as there's too much tippy-toeing going on in academia these days, hidden ideologies and agendas and all.

As for religion: metaphysicians do sometimes amaze me as they are willing to speak so boldly about what they can not prove through empiricism. I'm just no good when it comes to metaphysics or spirituality. So long as the faith of the religious person doesn't suggest or demand that unbelievers or infidels be slaughtered, I try to be as empathetic/anthropological/Collingwood/Geertz with them as possible.

I won't be able to get around to Newton for a while, but all of you have provided me with a great historiographic start.

Note: Pepe, you or I haven't met in person (yet, someday we might if we keep hanging around that asshole, JJ), but I've known AA for quite some time. Although his arguments are intense, he's one of the most hospitable and generous friends I know. Hume would regard this as me merely conveying an idea to you, though. It gets back to that whole read the Secondary Accounts, or be a good historian and read the secondary accounts while thoroughly reading the primary source.

I've a friend who dropped out of his undergraduate MaCalester education because he believed that many of the Ph.Ds were merely pseudo-intellectuals: summarizing the Great Works of the Western Cannon before their undergrads without having actually read the said Great Works themselves. I continuously find that my friend's belief was well-founded.; 6/11/2007 2:22 PM
Pepe le Pew said...: The point is well taken mft but for the purpose of working out physics problems, there is no need to go to the source as there would be in philosophy of science /epistemology. Whoever writes about the problem in a way that is most thorough and understandable is who one needs to read. In the end, the proof is in the pudding: you solved the problem or you didn't, and little else matters.; 6/11/2007 3:23 PM
My Frontier Thesis said...: In the end, the proof is in the pudding: you solved the problem or you didn't, and little else matters.

Yes, a devoted to science kind of position I can respect. Yet for me, physics or mathematics only became interesting when it was placed within context of the historical setting in which it rose out of (all that crap about placing the micro within the macro yet not losing sight of individual contributions because of the macro).

Also: isn't it dangerous for a physicist to ignore the philosophy of science, or the history of ideas? Seems like the more context one can bring to a situation, the more light, and with more light it's likely that the disciplines can push further and further into previously unknown realms. JJ would call all of this bullshit philosophy. But Hume largely agreed with the bullshit nature of philosophy, too. So I need a better argument than the JJ Defense/Opposition.; 6/11/2007 4:13 PM
Pepe le Pew said...: I don't know why it would be dangerous. I can't speak for others but I was interested in wave propagation and inverse problem theory for tomography-related applications and, because of that rather practical perspective, philosophy was never even on the radar.

Certainly in Berkeley where I was doing mostly computational problems (as opposed to theory), things were very "applied": the goal was really to build a hammer to whack a nail real hard. very technical and not esoteric at all.; 6/11/2007 11:41 PM
My Frontier Thesis said...: Ah hell, forget it: I'll never get you techies to see the bigger humanities picture. Admittedly though, hammers and nails are good.; 6/12/2007 9:53 AM
Pepe le Pew said...: hell, if i'd taken a philosophy class, they would have assumed i was a junky, or gay or something!; 6/12/2007 4:05 PM
My Frontier Thesis said...: Just don't flail your friggin arms, or pivot your hands at the wrist when talking. Only the Italians can get away with that.; 6/12/2007 10:31 PM
Pepe le Pew said...: ... i just can't help myself.; 6/13/2007 5:13 PM

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