physics.math.phil8

Physics Mathematics Philosophy.

[big brane boi @bcubeddd]

you can know that theoretical physics is a higher, more human pursuit than mathematics because there’s never been a genius 6 year old physicist

[Bahram Shakerin @BahramShakerin]

[History of Physics]

From Hole Theory to Quantum Field Theory: Relativistic Fermions and the Role of Ettore Majorana (1933-1937)

Francesco Vissani

https://t.co/1fmNMbPdJ6

[Marcos Mariño @marino_beiras]

Yesterday I asked ChatGPT to prove a q-series identity that I didn't know how to prove. First it told me: oh, this is easy, and produced something that at first sight looked like a proof, but it was full of mistakes. It tried again and again, and after two hours, it gave up.

[Nitya @nityasnotes]

You can understand more about how learning works from Ravi Vakils page for PhD students than 90% of writing on this topic

[Maheshwer Peri @maheshperi]

What NIRF and QS/THE rankings have done to Indian Education is similar to what entrance exams and coaching institutions have done to learning to students and the schooling system.
Students in coaching institutions are more focused on scores, numbers, and cracking the entrance exam. They are focused on rote learning, practising only important questions, and chapters. They are also told to leave a part of the syllabus as ‘choice’ questions. They know what to study and what to ignore and leave it in choice.
Similarly, Indian Universities now excessively focus on quantity of research, faculty etc. Good researchers now work to show numbers. They no longer are bothered about cutting edge research, quality and impactful research, commercializing patents etc. The way students are taught to crack an exam, score the most and be the topper is what annual institutional rankings(also leading to business benefits) have done to the entire education.

[Jeremy Howard @jeremyphoward]

For those that hope (or worry) that LLMs will do breakthrough scientific research, I've got good (or bad) news:

LLMs are particularly, exceedingly, marvellously ill-suited to this task. (if you're a researcher, you'll have noticed this already)

Here's why🧵

[Nirmalya Kajuri @Kaju_Nut]

Ravi Vakil on learning via osmosis from seminars. The backfilling part, where your vague semi-understanding becomes sharp, is very satisfactory.

[Martin Bauer @martinmbauer]

Two threads on calcalus in non-integer dimensions and how it is used in Quantum Field Theory

Part II : Fractional dimensions in QFT

A particle in QFT is associated with a fluctuation of a field that permeates all space and time. 1/14

[Nirmalya Kajuri @Kaju_Nut]

Physicist Ivette Fuentes was one of those who said no, as per a report from 2017 (link below):

"Fuentes says, she and Penrose had a conversation. "Would I be interested in receiving funding from a wealthy man who had also been convicted of a sex offense?" Fuentes recalls Penrose asking her.

Fuentes immediately said no, citing ethical objections, and quickly forgot about the conversation. But 2 months ago, after reading that Epstein had been arrested, she called Penrose. "Was it Epstein?" she asked him. "And he said, ‘Yes, I think it was.' And I said, ‘Oh God.'"
....
"The dream of my life is to build a gravitational-wave detector, and have it work," she says. "So, if someone were to say to me, ‘I'll give you the money to make your dream come true,' it would be very tempting to say yes."

"But then you have your ethical standards. Even if you lose some opportunities, [saying no] is the right thing to do. … What Epstein has taught me is how important it is to do that."

[Happy Researchers @hapyresearchers]

In academia, it is crucial to learn not to devalue others work while manuscript writing, reviewing, and attending presentations.

The objective should be to bridge knowledge gaps but not to show-off!

[Delip Rao e/σ @deliprao]

To give one example, my materials science colleagues no longer will need to write DFT and other computational chemistry workflows. Progresses in VLA models will lead to automation of some “bench” tasks. My husband works on quantum computing research and majority of his workflow, other than physically setting up cryogenics and chip configurations, can be automated too.

[Rahul Siddharthan @rsidd120]

In the early 1990s, years before I met the legendary Prof V Balakrishnan of IIT Madras in person, I read his introduction to the Indian edition of the Feynman Lectures in Physics. Sadly, his description of the Indian context stays relevant.

[Nirmalya Kajuri @Kaju_Nut]

I am going to write about three instances of remarkable progress in the foundations of physics that happened within the last 20 years. 🧵

[Bahram Shakerin @BahramShakerin]

[Weinberg on his work with Witten]

In addition to the pleasure of working with Witten, I reaped an extra benefit from this work: I always insist that authors of papers on which I collaborate should be listed in alphabetical order, so I am usually listed last. But not this time.

[flux @fluxtheorist]

Warning: string theory and machine learning

I've been promising to do a short(?) thread about a project that I am very excited about and hope produces some interesting results, so here:

This sexy little thing is a Calabi-Yau manifold. This is a 2D slice of a 6D object .🧵

[Daniel Whiteson @DanielWhiteson]

@atheorist Source: https://t.co/sT5IVdsF4m