Some have pondered why this blog is “Rantings of an Angry Physicist” (as opposed to, say, “Rantings of an Ecstatic Physicist” 
), and there is a little story behind it.
If you go to my infamous “about” page, you’ll see in the second to last paragraph that at one point in time I wanted to be an economist (I saw it as the science of capitalism more or less). <An aside: It was during this time I was working my way through The Great Books of the Western World, and I went back to Hegel since I didn’t understand it the first time. This would be back in High School mind you. It was during this time that Ed Clark, the fellow mentioned in the previous post, said “Dialectics isn’t the science of change…it’s little more than complete bullocks! If you want to study that, study physics!” So I said to myself “Huh, I should study physics after this”. If it wasn’t for that comment, I probably wouldn’t have gotten into physics.> Well, after becoming disillusioned by the pseudo-scientific economists, I naturally became somewhat embittered towards their system where you either contribute to the pre-existing paradigm or you are insane.
I went on to something more scientific (there is little else that is more scientific than physics!). But there is a similar structure here it seems: you contribute to the pre-existing system(s) or you’re insane (or at least seen as somewhat of an odd hermit of an outcast — you know, like Roger Penrose). I’m back where I started! But I was promised that science doesn’t care about how you get your ideas or what your ideas are insomuch as how effective your ideas are at explaining and predicting phenomena (Hawking mentions this in A Brief History). I was lied to! Wouldn’t you be a little irate too?
The name “Angry Physicist” is a bit of a misnomer though, I’m rarely angry in person. But that’s the history behind my name as “Angry Physicist”, now you know!
9 Comments
16 May 2007 at 1:38 pm
Well, it won’t make you less angry, but a wonderful introduction to the sociology of physics is “Gravity’s Shadow”, which traces the rejection of the results of the early gravity wave experiments and theory.
The problem with getting off the beaten tracks of physics is that physics is a fabric that is very tightly woven with very long strands. The two patches, general relativity and quantum mechanics, don’t quite mesh together, but they do share many of the same strands.
Because of these connections, one cannot fix QM or GR by making small changes to their foundations. Like Feynman said, correct physics theories are perfect things, and a replacement theory must be a new perfect thing, not an imperfection added onto the old perfect theory. And the deep foundational connections between QM and GR prevent small changes from fixing the theories.
If you say that you’d like to modify some small stone in the foundations of physics you can find people who will talk about it with you; heck you can find people who have tried it already. But none of these small changes can fix the problems. If they did, it would have been done years ago.
On the other hand, to make major changes to the foundations of physics is a difficult problem. First you will have to understand what you are changing. Then you will have to replace it all. It is the work of a madman and no one will help you on it, or listen to your ravings.
16 May 2007 at 5:21 pm
BTW, Angry physicist, what is with this “bullocks”? Here in the UK we have “bollocks” (= testicles) => nonsense, but I don’t think that this is used in North America. Or was Ed Clark actually talking about young male cattle?
Career-wise, I recommend doing what I did, at least up to a point. Get on a PhD program in QFT – it sounds like you would be able to get the grades -then do what you think best, bearing in mind that it is much harder for your examiners to fail you than to pass you. After all, if they are going to fail you, they are going to have to understand you first. Then leave. Quietly – like I didn’t – and do something useful.
16 May 2007 at 8:29 pm
I naturally became somewhat embittered towards their system where you either contribute to the pre-existing paradigm or you are insane.
Very fair reasoning, since it is quite true. I am even called ‘insane’ regularly by people who don’t know the first thing about category theoretic QG, and who lecture me on the scientific method of ‘checking one’s facts’.
16 May 2007 at 10:53 pm
Chris, never mind the bullocks.
16 May 2007 at 10:53 pm
What Chris? British people don’t use the phrase “bullocks”? That’s a load of bullocks!
I couldn’t resist; you’re probably right, my spelling of British words is terrible…with all those random “u”s put everywhere, I just thought putting one in there would make me look British!
Alas, it didn’t…time for some calculations!
19 May 2007 at 4:43 am
… then do what you think best, bearing in mind that it is much harder for your examiners to fail you than to pass you. After all, if they are going to fail you, they are going to have to understand you first. – Chris Oakley.
Good idea! My thesis will be called A lengthy obfuscation of frontier physics using irrelevant-but-impossible-to-grasp mathematical techniques. If my examiners ask any difficult questions, I’ll go to the blackboard, and lead them into deep water until they either drown in technical trivia, or admit they’re more incompetent than I am, and pass me.
19 May 2007 at 2:56 pm
Anon. – you may laugh, but it worked for me!
Sample question by one of the examiners – “Perhaps you can give us a seminar on chapter 5 of your thesis, as neither of us understood it.”
(I’m sure there is something in Sun Tzu, The Art of War that is relevant here).
They passed me. Getting an academic job thereafter, though, was a different matter entirely – hence the advice to Angry Physicist.
22 May 2007 at 11:16 am
I just like reading rants so … don’t change.
31 May 2007 at 7:31 am
There is also Angry Astronomer
http://angryastronomer.blogspot.com/
Now, we just need an Angry Mathematician, Chemist and Geologist and we’ll have pretty much all the physical sciences covered.