The Universe Is Not Locally Real

[Jehanne]

I've decided to start learning Hmong and Spanish. Maybe it's time I acquired a decent grasp of physics as well. No time like the present to learn something new.

It only takes 10 years of effort, 40 to 60 hours each week; you can take a day or two off around Christmas or New Year's.

[Angrboda]

I've decided to start learning Hmong and Spanish.  Maybe it's time I acquired a decent grasp of physics as well.  No time like the present to learn something new.

It only takes 10 years of effort, 40 to 60 hours each week; you can take a day or two off around Christmas or New Year's.

But think of how much faster I can learn it if I don't take those days off!

[Foxaèr]

It only takes 10 years of effort, 40 to 60 hours each week; you can take a day or two off around Christmas or New Year's.

[polymath257]

If you want to learn physics, start with math. Go at least through differential equations and linear algebra.

Then get a good engineering physics textbook and read it. After that, you can start on quantum mechanics and special relativity. Don't expect to do general relativity until you have had more math (at least multivariate calculus and some more advanced linear algebra involving tensors).

[Anomalocaris]

I've decided to start learning Hmong and Spanish.  Maybe it's time I acquired a decent grasp of physics as well.  No time like the present to learn something new.

It only takes 10 years of effort, 40 to 60 hours each week; you can take a day or two off around Christmas or New Year's.

slackers!

[Anomalocaris]

It only takes 10 years of effort, 40 to 60 hours each week; you can take a day or two off around Christmas or New Year's.

But think of how much faster I can learn it if I don't take those days off!  

Relativity says if you learn too fast, time slows down.

[zebo-the-fat]

But think of how much faster I can learn it if I don't take those days off!  

Relativity says if you learn too fast, time slows down.

No just feels like it's taking forever!

[HappySkeptic]

Fantastic article!  Without derailing this thread, it is interesting that one could get a PhD in physics, "have fun for five  years, and then...be jobless."  That outcome, of course, would feel very real, not to mention, painful.

It was less than 5 years after Ph.D. for me, and it is still painful.

Although I think the meaning of the fun 5 years in the article was the time doing the Ph.D., not the time afterward.

[Jehanne]

Fantastic article!  Without derailing this thread, it is interesting that one could get a PhD in physics, "have fun for five  years, and then...be jobless."  That outcome, of course, would feel very real, not to mention, painful.

It was less than 5 years after Ph.D. for me, and it is still painful.

Although I think the meaning of the fun 5 years in the article was the time doing the Ph.D., not the time afterward.

You only live once. I would rather have a PhD and be poor than be rich without one. Assuming that I could have ever been admitted to a PhD program (improbable but not impossible), my likely, perhaps only, major accomplishment would have been to have made the top half of my graduating class possible. Still, math & science are fascinating enough subjects to have made such a journey fun!

[Anomalocaris]

It was less than 5 years after Ph.D. for me, and it is still painful.

Although I think the meaning of the fun 5 years in the article was the time doing the Ph.D., not the time afterward.

You only live once.  I would rather have a PhD and be poor than be rich without one.  Assuming that I could have ever been admitted to a PhD program (improbable but not impossible), my likely, perhaps only, major accomplishment would have been to have made the top half of my graduating class possible.  Still, math & science are fascinating enough subjects to have made such a journey fun!

I know a couple of PhDs who clearly compartmentalized their intelligence to such an extent that no hint whatsoever of it can be perceived in any other aspects of their lives.