Kevin Valson Jacob

Assistant Professor of Physics, Wheaton College.
PhD Physics, Louisiana State University
MSc (Integrated) Physics, IIT Kanpur
Opinions my own.

[Andrej Karpathy @karpathy]

# on shortification of "learning"

There are a lot of videos on YouTube/TikTok etc. that give the appearance of education, but if you look closely they are really just entertainment. This is very convenient for everyone involved : the people watching enjoy thinking they are learning (but actually they are just having fun). The people creating this content also enjoy it because fun has a much larger audience, fame and revenue. But as far as learning goes, this is a trap. This content is an epsilon away from watching the Bachelorette. It's like snacking on those "Garden Veggie Straws", which feel like you're eating healthy vegetables until you look at the ingredients.

Learning is not supposed to be fun. It doesn't have to be actively not fun either, but the primary feeling should be that of effort. It should look a lot less like that "10 minute full body" workout from your local digital media creator and a lot more like a serious session at the gym. You want the mental equivalent of sweating. It's not that the quickie doesn't do anything, it's just that it is wildly suboptimal if you actually care to learn.

I find it helpful to explicitly declare your intent up front as a sharp, binary variable in your mind. If you are consuming content: are you trying to be entertained or are you trying to learn? And if you are creating content: are you trying to entertain or are you trying to teach? You'll go down a different path in each case. Attempts to seek the stuff in between actually clamp to zero.

So for those who actually want to learn. Unless you are trying to learn something narrow and specific, close those tabs with quick blog posts. Close those tabs of "Learn XYZ in 10 minutes". Consider the opportunity cost of snacking and seek the meal - the textbooks, docs, papers, manuals, longform. Allocate a 4 hour window. Don't just read, take notes, re-read, re-phrase, process, manipulate, learn.

And for those actually trying to educate, please consider writing/recording longform, designed for someone to get "sweaty", especially in today's era of quantity over quality. Give someone a real workout. This is what I aspire to in my own educational work too. My audience will decrease. The ones that remain might not even like it. But at least we'll learn something.

[Kevin Valson Jacob @KevinValson]

@okthisisnagy There's the Schrodinger's cat!

[nagy @okthisisnagy]

Plasma physics cannot be a real field they got meow squared in the denominator 😭😭

[Wheaton College @WheatonCollege]

Wheaton College is delighted to announce that Dr. Kevin J. Vanhoozer will join the Litfin Divinity School as the Blanchard Professor of Systematic Theology in July 2026. https://t.co/BToRtaxe7R

[Kevin Valson Jacob @KevinValson]

@DanielW_Kiwi I suppose the best practice would be to have the pseudocode in the paper and a link to the code on GitHub. Just including code could clutter the paper and obscure the algorithm.

[Kevin Valson Jacob @KevinValson]

@millinerd Reminds me of the verse 'The Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.'

[Kevin Valson Jacob @KevinValson]

@Kaju_Nut McIntyre. It uses a spins-first approach, focuses on the essential rules of quantum mechanics.

[Kevin Valson Jacob @KevinValson]

@thomasgwong @Creighton @gkduda This is great! Was the talk recorded?

[Kevin Valson Jacob @KevinValson]

@LuisDeStefano @aktilaiyan About $500 per month.

[Kevin Valson Jacob @KevinValson]

@NeerajaEcon @mukesh_tiwari Similar situation with me at Louisiana State. Thankfully for me my imitation of American English (after a week in the country) worked, and I was exempt from the class.

[Kevin Valson Jacob @KevinValson]

@NeerajaEcon In my case, I had to contact the commissioner of Louisiana DMV who graciously helped me renew my DL while my STEM OPT extension was pending.

[Kevin Valson Jacob @KevinValson]

@mukesh_tiwari This reminds me when a US university wanted my wife's English transcript translated to English.

[Kevin Valson Jacob @KevinValson]

@NeerajaEcon International travel is not the only problem faced. Obtaining Employment Authorization Cards on time and even Drivers Licenses were really challenging at times. Add to it the list of employers who won't hire because of immigration status.

[Kevin Valson Jacob @KevinValson]

@_KarishmaK Perhaps it has to do with the nature of the contract. 9-month faculty appointments are the norm in the US.

[Kevin Valson Jacob @KevinValson]

@martensmatt1 "He has caused his wonders to be remembered" - Ps 111:4.

[Kevin Valson Jacob @KevinValson]

@thomasgwong McIntyre. PhysPort has great resources for the course. https://t.co/3iKt0fiOWe

[Kevin Valson Jacob @KevinValson]

@millinerd Thank you for the essay. Your words about the twin despisals were indeed a poignant reminder of my life growing up.

[Kevin Valson Jacob @KevinValson]

@sharbat_c Similar experience in the US for my wife, where the university here wanted an Indian transcript already in English to be translated into English.

[Kevin Valson Jacob @KevinValson]

@jtcochran Glad to see the book on South Asian Christians, and especially the discussion of St. Thomas Christians of Kerala.

[Kevin Valson Jacob @KevinValson]

https://t.co/E0NmgJAXYe

What can we learn from Mary's response to the unique situation that she found herself in?