I'm Nathari Staats, fancy physics pretty much. I play the violin and do thought experiments to build a theory of everything and to figure out dark matter.
If I was not a physicist, I would probably be a musician. I often think in music. I live my daydreams in music. I see my life in terms of music. ... I cannot tell if I would have done any creative work of importance in music, but I do know that I get most joy in life out of my violin.
-- A. Einstein
Harry Potter First-Year Quiz!🧙♂️🧙
Think you know the Philosopher’s Stone like a true Hogwarts student?
Grab your wand, and see if you can ace this First-Year quiz! Let the trivia begin!
https://t.co/O7FCbp4pLq via @YouTube
@BHolshouserUS Yeah, it's a little heartbreaking how rare non-romance fantasy has become. There’s something so beautiful about fantasy stories that focus close friendhsip building not continuing it towards a romance.
Here's how Richard Feynman mastered calculus by the age of 15 ✍️
He started with a series of self-instruction books called Calculus for the Practical Man, which explained the principles of differential and integral calculus in a clear and simple way.
He followed the book closely and took meticulous notes in his own notebook, copying diagrams and formulas carefully. He also compiled a table of contents for his notes, which helped him find the relevant sections later. He found the book fascinating and challenging, and it was the first time he realized that he could understand something that his father could not.
He developed his own mathematical notations and symbols before he entered college, and experimented with topics such as the half-derivative using his own logic.
Feynman’s calculus notes show his insatiable curiosity and his determination to learn by himself. He later became one of the most influential physicists of the 20th century, known for his contributions to quantum mechanics, particle physics, and many other fields.
His theoretical prediction of black holes was by far his greatest scientific achievement, fundamental to the modern development of relativistic astrophysics, and yet he never showed the slightest interest in following it up. So far as I can tell, he never wanted to know whether black holes actually existed.
We know that the Oppenheimer-Snyder calculation is correct and describes what happens to massive stars at the end of their lives. It explains why black holes are abundant, and incidentally confirms the truth of Einstein's theory of general relativity. And still, Robert Oppenheimer was not interested. ...How could he have remained blind to his greatest discovery?
... Perhaps if the Oppenheimer-Snyder calculation had not happened to coincide with the Bohr-Wheeler theory of nuclear fission and with the outbreak of World War II, Robert would have paid more attention to it.
-- Freeman Dyson, as mentioned in The Scientist As Rebel (2006)