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Post by Beady’s Here Now on Mar 13, 2018 22:54:07 GMT -5
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Post by mystoryisgory on Mar 13, 2018 23:07:42 GMT -5
I remember learning about his theories in physics class. Something about black hole radiation, general relativity, and quantum mechanics? I can't remember the details. But RIP, he was one of the greatest scientific minds of all time.
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Post by Elie De Beaufour on Mar 14, 2018 0:18:03 GMT -5
My mother said he did quite well to last this long with all his issues. RIP
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Post by heathenchemist01 on Mar 14, 2018 0:43:26 GMT -5
The man was a genius and it's especially amazing how far he had come despite all his issues. A truly inspiring human being. RIP.
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Post by Mean Mrs. Mustard on Mar 14, 2018 1:33:01 GMT -5
Holy shit, RIP Stephen Hawking
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Post by mimmihopps on Mar 14, 2018 2:22:03 GMT -5
Rest in Peace, Mr. Hawking.
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Post by The-Ghost-Dancer on Mar 14, 2018 4:45:37 GMT -5
The light at the centre of the universe has gone out RIP Mr Hawking your name and contributions to science will be remembered for millennia
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Post by playthehitsgetoff on Mar 14, 2018 5:00:15 GMT -5
A true genious, who despite his disability always maintained a fab sense of humour.
RIP.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 14, 2018 5:15:32 GMT -5
I remember learning about his theories in physics class. Something about black hole radiation, general relativity, and quantum mechanics? I can't remember the details. But RIP, he was one of the greatest scientific minds of all time. Yeah, Hawking radiation. Black holes release radiation because particle-antiparticle pairs are being created in the event horizon and the antiparticle falls into black hole while the particle escapes creating radiation Well, at least that's how I understood it.
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Post by Let It Bleed on Mar 14, 2018 6:34:33 GMT -5
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Post by eva on Mar 14, 2018 7:05:39 GMT -5
"Remember to look up at the stars and not down at your feet" RIP Stephen Hawking
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Post by mancraider on Mar 14, 2018 7:11:32 GMT -5
I remember learning about his theories in physics class. Something about black hole radiation, general relativity, and quantum mechanics? I can't remember the details. But RIP, he was one of the greatest scientific minds of all time. Yeah, Hawking radiation. Black holes release radiation because particle-antiparticle pairs are being created in the event horizon and the antiparticle falls into black hole while the particle escapes creating radiation Well, at least that's how I understood it. A sad loss to the world indeed. Although I've never quite got that layman's explanation of his theory. Why do the anti matter particles fall into the black hole more than the matter? If it was random then surely it would be 50/50 and they would still cancel out making it a zero sum difference. I'm sure it's obvious if you read the maths but im no where near smart enough to follow that.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 14, 2018 7:39:28 GMT -5
Yeah, Hawking radiation. Black holes release radiation because particle-antiparticle pairs are being created in the event horizon and the antiparticle falls into black hole while the particle escapes creating radiation Well, at least that's how I understood it. A sad loss to the world indeed. Although I've never quite got that layman's explanation of his theory. Why do the anti matter particles fall into the black hole more than the matter? If it was random then surely it would be 50/50 and they would still cancel out making it a zero sum difference. I'm sure it's obvious if you read the maths but im no where near smart enough to follow that. I'm not exactly sure why it's the antiparticle that falls into the black hole instead of the particle. I just quickly googled about it and someone asked the same question but I think no one answered. But the theory is that when the antiparticle falls into the black hole, it gives its energy to the other particle giving it enough energy/speed to escape the black hole's gravity (which is slightly smaller outside the event horizon). @isness probably knows a lot more than I do
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Post by mancraider on Mar 14, 2018 7:47:13 GMT -5
A sad loss to the world indeed. Although I've never quite got that layman's explanation of his theory. Why do the anti matter particles fall into the black hole more than the matter? If it was random then surely it would be 50/50 and they would still cancel out making it a zero sum difference. I'm sure it's obvious if you read the maths but im no where near smart enough to follow that. I'm not exactly sure why it's the antiparticle that falls into the black hole instead of the particle. I just quickly googled about it and someone asked the same question but I think no one answered. But the theory is that when the antiparticle falls into the black hole, it gives its energy to the other particle giving it enough energy/speed to escape the black hole's gravity (which is slightly smaller outside the event horizon). @isness probably knows a lot more than I do I've tried to Google it before and never found an explanation. Just a question that's always bugged me. Loved Stephen Hawking though.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 14, 2018 9:06:00 GMT -5
RIP, I respect the guy for his work, very influential, not much left to say about him in particular that hasn't already been said. Although seeing some of the reaction to his death, it made me think about people of similar stature in physics, and I realised that there aren't any in terms of both actual contribution to science and public notability (except for ones that died ages ago like Einstein, Feynman, etc.). It's a shame because there are loads of people really driving physics forward now, but in terms of public consciousness, people only seem aware of a guy who became well-known around three to four decades ago. To be clear, I'm not saying he doesn't deserve the notability he's attained, but I think a number of other people deserve it as well for contributions to their fields in physics, rather than just Hawking being held up as an unparalleled genius without question. Now he's gone, who's left to hold the torch for physics in the public eye? Brian Cox? [Maybe parallels with 'no more great music' argument in the 21st century... All the people doing interesting stuff are underrated and people go on about the frontman of some band from the '90s being rock's last great saviour. And to extend the metaphor, Einstein is the Beatles and Brian Cox is Justin Bieber ] Again, to be clear, this is a criticism of the depiction of physics (and the sciences in general) in the media rather than any one person. Physics is basically a sea of relatively anonymous people collectively pushing stuff forward rather than the dot-to-dot connection between particular totems every decade or so that it is easily made out to be. Anyway, apologies for the diversion, probably comes across as crass on my part posting this today, again much respect to the guy, but personally felt the need to comment on this stuff. A sad loss to the world indeed. Although I've never quite got that layman's explanation of his theory. Why do the anti matter particles fall into the black hole more than the matter? If it was random then surely it would be 50/50 and they would still cancel out making it a zero sum difference. I'm sure it's obvious if you read the maths but im no where near smart enough to follow that. I'm not exactly sure why it's the antiparticle that falls into the black hole instead of the particle. I just quickly googled about it and someone asked the same question but I think no one answered. But the theory is that when the antiparticle falls into the black hole, it gives its energy to the other particle giving it enough energy/speed to escape the black hole's gravity (which is slightly smaller outside the event horizon). @isness probably knows a lot more than I do Thanks, but I'm not a big fan of astrophysics or cosmology tbh, so haven't taken any options involving Hawking radiation, and so I don't know much about it, but will look into it.... [googles for a bit] Ok, it is wrong to say that the anti-particle always falls in and the particle is always emitted. What happens is that whilst a particle/anti-particle pair is always created, there is equal probability of either falling in (neglecting other effects like charge etc.), as mancraider said, and equal probability of either particles or anti-particles being emitted. What this seems to be often confused with is the theory roughly saying the particle of 'negative energy' falls in (and isn't observed) and the one with positive energy is emitted (and is observed). Neither matter or anti-matter is observed having negative energy outside of a black hole, and so I think the confusion lies in saying that anti-matter has negative mass or negative energy, which isn't the case. Also, the fact that there's a more or less equal probability of matter and anti-matter being emitted doesn't mean that their effects cancel. True, they could annihilate each other and produce photons if separately emitted particles and anti-particles are emitted on trajectories so they collide, but there's no reason why this would happen all the time, and so Hawking radiation would still be observed despite this. As before, I'm not familiar with Hawking radiation, so there may be inaccuracies in my logic. ________
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Post by mancraider on Mar 14, 2018 10:26:20 GMT -5
RIP, I respect the guy for his work, very influential, not much left to say about him in particular that hasn't already been said. Although seeing some of the reaction to his death, it made me think about people of similar stature in physics, and I realised that there aren't any in terms of both actual contribution to science and public notability (except for ones that died ages ago like Einstein, Feynman, etc.). It's a shame because there are loads of people really driving physics forward now, but in terms of public consciousness, people only seem aware of a guy who became well-known around three to four decades ago. To be clear, I'm not saying he doesn't deserve the notability he's attained, but I think a number of other people deserve it as well for contributions to their fields in physics, rather than just Hawking being held up as an unparalleled genius without question. Now he's gone, who's left to hold the torch for physics in the public eye? Brian Cox? [Maybe parallels with 'no more great music' argument in the 21st century... All the people doing interesting stuff are underrated and people go on about the frontman of some band from the '90s being rock's last great saviour. And to extend the metaphor, Einstein is the Beatles and Brian Cox is Justin Bieber ] Again, to be clear, this is a criticism of the depiction of physics (and the sciences in general) in the media rather than any one person. Physics is basically a sea of relatively anonymous people collectively pushing stuff forward rather than the dot-to-dot connection between particular totems every decade or so that it is easily made out to be. Anyway, apologies for the diversion, probably comes across as crass on my part posting this today, again much respect to the guy, but personally felt the need to comment on this stuff. I'm not exactly sure why it's the antiparticle that falls into the black hole instead of the particle. I just quickly googled about it and someone asked the same question but I think no one answered. But the theory is that when the antiparticle falls into the black hole, it gives its energy to the other particle giving it enough energy/speed to escape the black hole's gravity (which is slightly smaller outside the event horizon). @isness probably knows a lot more than I do Thanks, but I'm not a big fan of astrophysics or cosmology tbh, so haven't taken any options involving Hawking radiation, and so I don't know much about it, but will look into it.... [googles for a bit] Ok, it is wrong to say that the anti-particle always falls in and the particle is always emitted. What happens is that whilst a particle/anti-particle pair is always created, there is equal probability of either falling in (neglecting other effects like charge etc.), as mancraider said, and equal probability of either particles or anti-particles being emitted. What this seems to be often confused with is the theory roughly saying the particle of 'negative energy' falls in (and isn't observed) and the one with positive energy is emitted (and is observed). Neither matter or anti-matter is observed having negative energy outside of a black hole, and so I think the confusion lies in saying that anti-matter has negative mass or negative energy, which isn't the case. Also, the fact that there's a more or less equal probability of matter and anti-matter being emitted doesn't mean that their effects cancel. True, they could annihilate each other and produce photons if separately emitted particles and anti-particles are emitted on trajectories so they collide, but there's no reason why this would happen all the time, and so Hawking radiation would still be observed despite this. As before, I'm not familiar with Hawking radiation, so there may be inaccuracies in my logic. ________ Thanks for taking the time to write that explanation. Very interesting. Obviously I knew the fault was my ability to understand it rather than the theory itself. I just wanted to try and understand how it would work. It wasn't so much what happens to the ejected particles that confused me but the ones captured. Because the theory says the black hole loses mass I think I was assuming the anti particle must be -ve mass as well as charge but as you point out this is a mistake.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 14, 2018 10:44:50 GMT -5
Thanks for taking the time to write that explanation. Very interesting. Obviously I knew the fault was my ability to understand it rather than the theory itself. I just wanted to try and understand how it would work. It wasn't so much what happens to the ejected particles that confused me but the ones captured.
Because the theory says the black hole loses mass I think I was assuming the anti particle must be -ve mass as well as charge but as you point out this is a mistake. Yeah, that part of it seems to be covered in less detail in general and I think knowledge of what happens inside a black hole is hazy to say the least, and I think a lot of the theory is based around the uncertainty principle which allows these virtual particles with negative mass/energy to exist for a short period of time in order to conserve energy, whilst not existing for long enough to actually be observable as particles of negative mass/energy are unphysical according to current scientific consensus
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Post by mancraider on Mar 14, 2018 11:28:50 GMT -5
Born on Newton's birthday, died on Einsteins. Uncanny.
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Post by mystoryisgory on Mar 14, 2018 12:49:20 GMT -5
RIP, I respect the guy for his work, very influential, not much left to say about him in particular that hasn't already been said. Although seeing some of the reaction to his death, it made me think about people of similar stature in physics, and I realised that there aren't any in terms of both actual contribution to science and public notability (except for ones that died ages ago like Einstein, Feynman, etc.). It's a shame because there are loads of people really driving physics forward now, but in terms of public consciousness, people only seem aware of a guy who became well-known around three to four decades ago. To be clear, I'm not saying he doesn't deserve the notability he's attained, but I think a number of other people deserve it as well for contributions to their fields in physics, rather than just Hawking being held up as an unparalleled genius without question. Now he's gone, who's left to hold the torch for physics in the public eye? Brian Cox? [Maybe parallels with 'no more great music' argument in the 21st century... All the people doing interesting stuff are underrated and people go on about the frontman of some band from the '90s being rock's last great saviour. And to extend the metaphor, Einstein is the Beatles and Brian Cox is Justin Bieber ] Again, to be clear, this is a criticism of the depiction of physics (and the sciences in general) in the media rather than any one person. Physics is basically a sea of relatively anonymous people collectively pushing stuff forward rather than the dot-to-dot connection between particular totems every decade or so that it is easily made out to be. Anyway, apologies for the diversion, probably comes across as crass on my part posting this today, again much respect to the guy, but personally felt the need to comment on this stuff. This. The thing is that scientists don't become famous simply because they're the smartest or because they made the biggest contributions to their fields. They become famous for other reasons. In Hawking's case, he became well-known because he showed the world that you don't need to let a debilitating disease prevent you from making enormous contributions to our understanding of the world, not because of the discoveries themselves. Because, let's face it, how much of the general population even begins to understand what he discovered? I wasn't bad at physics by any means, but I never understood anything more complex than special relativity. I really can't even begin to comprehend this stuff about black hole radiation. Reminds me of how the media made such a big deal when the discovery of the Higgs Boson was announced yet the significance of that discovery would only be understood by people who are really into quantum mechanics. Or how people repeat "E = mc^2" without knowing what it really means. People say science is elitist, which may be kinda true, but the truth is that it takes a lot of brains, but more importantly, dedication to a particular field, to truly understand the cutting edge of any science or field of study. I emphasize the dedication aspect because I firmly believe that anyone can become very knowledgeable about any topic, but only if they find the topic interesting and want to devote their lives to it. I won't ever understand this complex physics stuff not because I don't think I would be able to understand it if I tried to learn it, but because biology is so much more interesting and clearly the better science. I personally think it's a bad thing about our society that we don't champion the best and the smartest scientists and those who made the greatest contributions to their fields. Don't they deserve more general recognition for their work? But I suppose that it's the understanding barrier again that prevents most people from fully getting why those scientists are important.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 14, 2018 13:21:27 GMT -5
mystoryisgory what you're talking about reminds me of school and physics classes. I was studying advanced physics with a relatively small group for about 1.5 years. I was slacking off quite a bit so my grades were low. But the last course which was supposed to be the hardest and which included radiation, astronomy, particle physics, etc. was actually the easiest for me and I got a decent grade from it coz it was so interesting for me I had a big matriculation exam in the end of school and it had a bonus question which had max points of 9 instead of 6. The question was to write an essay about stars and how they work. I'm not very good with essay because I always ramble some random stuff in them but I got 7 points from it which was cool and VERY important thing for my grade.
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Post by mossy on Mar 20, 2018 19:31:53 GMT -5
RIP, I respect the guy for his work, very influential, not much left to say about him in particular that hasn't already been said. Although seeing some of the reaction to his death, it made me think about people of similar stature in physics, and I realised that there aren't any in terms of both actual contribution to science and public notability (except for ones that died ages ago like Einstein, Feynman, etc.). It's a shame because there are loads of people really driving physics forward now, but in terms of public consciousness, people only seem aware of a guy who became well-known around three to four decades ago. To be clear, I'm not saying he doesn't deserve the notability he's attained, but I think a number of other people deserve it as well for contributions to their fields in physics, rather than just Hawking being held up as an unparalleled genius without question. Now he's gone, who's left to hold the torch for physics in the public eye? Brian Cox? [Maybe parallels with 'no more great music' argument in the 21st century... All the people doing interesting stuff are underrated and people go on about the frontman of some band from the '90s being rock's last great saviour. And to extend the metaphor, Einstein is the Beatles and Brian Cox is Justin Bieber ] Again, to be clear, this is a criticism of the depiction of physics (and the sciences in general) in the media rather than any one person. Physics is basically a sea of relatively anonymous people collectively pushing stuff forward rather than the dot-to-dot connection between particular totems every decade or so that it is easily made out to be. Anyway, apologies for the diversion, probably comes across as crass on my part posting this today, again much respect to the guy, but personally felt the need to comment on this stuff. I'm not exactly sure why it's the antiparticle that falls into the black hole instead of the particle. I just quickly googled about it and someone asked the same question but I think no one answered. But the theory is that when the antiparticle falls into the black hole, it gives its energy to the other particle giving it enough energy/speed to escape the black hole's gravity (which is slightly smaller outside the event horizon). @isness probably knows a lot more than I do Thanks, but I'm not a big fan of astrophysics or cosmology tbh, so haven't taken any options involving Hawking radiation, and so I don't know much about it, but will look into it.... [googles for a bit] Ok, it is wrong to say that the anti-particle always falls in and the particle is always emitted. What happens is that whilst a particle/anti-particle pair is always created, there is equal probability of either falling in (neglecting other effects like charge etc.), as mancraider said, and equal probability of either particles or anti-particles being emitted. What this seems to be often confused with is the theory roughly saying the particle of 'negative energy' falls in (and isn't observed) and the one with positive energy is emitted (and is observed). Neither matter or anti-matter is observed having negative energy outside of a black hole, and so I think the confusion lies in saying that anti-matter has negative mass or negative energy, which isn't the case. Also, the fact that there's a more or less equal probability of matter and anti-matter being emitted doesn't mean that their effects cancel. True, they could annihilate each other and produce photons if separately emitted particles and anti-particles are emitted on trajectories so they collide, but there's no reason why this would happen all the time, and so Hawking radiation would still be observed despite this. As before, I'm not familiar with Hawking radiation, so there may be inaccuracies in my logic. ________ Why the Brian Cox diss!? Being able to communicate difficult concepts to the masses isn’t a skill to be sniffed at. I bet more people have watched his TV programmes than read Brief History Of Time. Anyway, here is Brian’s greatest contribution to the world: X
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Post by Deleted on Mar 20, 2018 20:31:30 GMT -5
RIP, I respect the guy for his work, very influential, not much left to say about him in particular that hasn't already been said. Although seeing some of the reaction to his death, it made me think about people of similar stature in physics, and I realised that there aren't any in terms of both actual contribution to science and public notability (except for ones that died ages ago like Einstein, Feynman, etc.). It's a shame because there are loads of people really driving physics forward now, but in terms of public consciousness, people only seem aware of a guy who became well-known around three to four decades ago. To be clear, I'm not saying he doesn't deserve the notability he's attained, but I think a number of other people deserve it as well for contributions to their fields in physics, rather than just Hawking being held up as an unparalleled genius without question. Now he's gone, who's left to hold the torch for physics in the public eye? Brian Cox? [Maybe parallels with 'no more great music' argument in the 21st century... All the people doing interesting stuff are underrated and people go on about the frontman of some band from the '90s being rock's last great saviour. And to extend the metaphor, Einstein is the Beatles and Brian Cox is Justin Bieber ] Again, to be clear, this is a criticism of the depiction of physics (and the sciences in general) in the media rather than any one person. Physics is basically a sea of relatively anonymous people collectively pushing stuff forward rather than the dot-to-dot connection between particular totems every decade or so that it is easily made out to be. Anyway, apologies for the diversion, probably comes across as crass on my part posting this today, again much respect to the guy, but personally felt the need to comment on this stuff. Thanks, but I'm not a big fan of astrophysics or cosmology tbh, so haven't taken any options involving Hawking radiation, and so I don't know much about it, but will look into it.... [googles for a bit] Ok, it is wrong to say that the anti-particle always falls in and the particle is always emitted. What happens is that whilst a particle/anti-particle pair is always created, there is equal probability of either falling in (neglecting other effects like charge etc.), as mancraider said, and equal probability of either particles or anti-particles being emitted. What this seems to be often confused with is the theory roughly saying the particle of 'negative energy' falls in (and isn't observed) and the one with positive energy is emitted (and is observed). Neither matter or anti-matter is observed having negative energy outside of a black hole, and so I think the confusion lies in saying that anti-matter has negative mass or negative energy, which isn't the case. Also, the fact that there's a more or less equal probability of matter and anti-matter being emitted doesn't mean that their effects cancel. True, they could annihilate each other and produce photons if separately emitted particles and anti-particles are emitted on trajectories so they collide, but there's no reason why this would happen all the time, and so Hawking radiation would still be observed despite this. As before, I'm not familiar with Hawking radiation, so there may be inaccuracies in my logic. ________ Why the Brian Cox diss!? Being able to communicate difficult concepts to the masses isn’t a skill to be sniffed at. I bet more people have watched his TV programmes than read Brief History Of Time. Anyway, here is Brian’s greatest contribution to the world: X I agree being able to communicate difficult concepts to the masses is a great skill, but I feel that Brian Cox often wastes more time on his documentaries with unrelated visuals and analogies that serve more to confuse the viewer (and sell Ultra-HD TVs) than to illuminate or teach difficult concepts. Tbh, that's an issue with the bulk of science documentaries on TV, but Brian Cox seems to embody that more than most. I find science/maths-based documentaries by Jim Al-Khalili or Marcus Du Sautoy to be more informative and better at teaching because they feel like a lecture with interesting visuals added on. Whereas Brian Cox's documentaries feel more like an itinerary of aesthetically pleasing places with science shoehorned in almost as an afterthought, with less time devoted to clarifying ideas and avoiding misconceptions. Anyways, was more taking the piss out of Brian Cox relative to Stephen Hawking, rather than anything absolute. Whilst the likes of Stephen Hawking and Albert Einstein appeared more as well-respected scientists who happened to crossover into the public consciousness, Brian Cox appears more as a presenter who happens to also be involved with a bit of scientific research. The bit where I was saying about who will hold the torch for physics after Hawking, in terms of how well known they are and their influence, true, Cox and Hawking may be on comparable levels, but when it comes to their portfolios of actual scientific research, there's no contest. That's the main reason tbh why I was taking the piss, because Brian Cox may be a good presenter and communicator, but there's no chance of him filling Hawking's shoes. Then again, he's carved out his own niche as the physicist formerly known as the keyboard player from D:Ream, so he's not doing too bad on his own terms I guess
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Post by mossy on Mar 21, 2018 7:07:54 GMT -5
Why the Brian Cox diss!? Being able to communicate difficult concepts to the masses isn’t a skill to be sniffed at. I bet more people have watched his TV programmes than read Brief History Of Time. Anyway, here is Brian’s greatest contribution to the world: X I agree being able to communicate difficult concepts to the masses is a great skill, but I feel that Brian Cox often wastes more time on his documentaries with unrelated visuals and analogies that serve more to confuse the viewer (and sell Ultra-HD TVs) than to illuminate or teach difficult concepts. Tbh, that's an issue with the bulk of science documentaries on TV, but Brian Cox seems to embody that more than most. I find science/maths-based documentaries by Jim Al-Khalili or Marcus Du Sautoy to be more informative and better at teaching because they feel like a lecture with interesting visuals added on. Whereas Brian Cox's documentaries feel more like an itinerary of aesthetically pleasing places with science shoehorned in almost as an afterthought, with less time devoted to clarifying ideas and avoiding misconceptions. Anyways, was more taking the piss out of Brian Cox relative to Stephen Hawking, rather than anything absolute. Whilst the likes of Stephen Hawking and Albert Einstein appeared more as well-respected scientists who happened to crossover into the public consciousness, Brian Cox appears more as a presenter who happens to also be involved with a bit of scientific research. The bit where I was saying about who will hold the torch for physics after Hawking, in terms of how well known they are and their influence, true, Cox and Hawking may be on comparable levels, but when it comes to their portfolios of actual scientific research, there's no contest. That's the main reason tbh why I was taking the piss, because Brian Cox may be a good presenter and communicator, but there's no chance of him filling Hawking's shoes. Then again, he's carved out his own niche as the physicist formerly known as the keyboard player from D:Ream, so he's not doing too bad on his own terms I guess Perhaps if ATLAS ever discovers anything interesting you’ll have more respect for the “Bieber of Science” ;-) X
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Post by Deleted on Mar 21, 2018 7:51:59 GMT -5
I agree being able to communicate difficult concepts to the masses is a great skill, but I feel that Brian Cox often wastes more time on his documentaries with unrelated visuals and analogies that serve more to confuse the viewer (and sell Ultra-HD TVs) than to illuminate or teach difficult concepts. Tbh, that's an issue with the bulk of science documentaries on TV, but Brian Cox seems to embody that more than most. I find science/maths-based documentaries by Jim Al-Khalili or Marcus Du Sautoy to be more informative and better at teaching because they feel like a lecture with interesting visuals added on. Whereas Brian Cox's documentaries feel more like an itinerary of aesthetically pleasing places with science shoehorned in almost as an afterthought, with less time devoted to clarifying ideas and avoiding misconceptions. Anyways, was more taking the piss out of Brian Cox relative to Stephen Hawking, rather than anything absolute. Whilst the likes of Stephen Hawking and Albert Einstein appeared more as well-respected scientists who happened to crossover into the public consciousness, Brian Cox appears more as a presenter who happens to also be involved with a bit of scientific research. The bit where I was saying about who will hold the torch for physics after Hawking, in terms of how well known they are and their influence, true, Cox and Hawking may be on comparable levels, but when it comes to their portfolios of actual scientific research, there's no contest. That's the main reason tbh why I was taking the piss, because Brian Cox may be a good presenter and communicator, but there's no chance of him filling Hawking's shoes. Then again, he's carved out his own niche as the physicist formerly known as the keyboard player from D:Ream, so he's not doing too bad on his own terms I guess Perhaps if ATLAS ever discovers anything interesting you’ll have more respect for the “Bieber of Science” ;-) X Maybe, maybe not. Not that big a fan of modern particle physics, and also, if anything interesting is discovered soon at the LHC, I think there'll be a fair amount of luck involved. Mainly because afaik, there's not much they're expecting to see, it's more about turning up the energy, getting better detectors and hoping to see something of statistical significance that may give a clue towards dark matter or CP violation. Was in a lecture last year that was basically just a series of adverts from different senior researchers trying to convince people to take options in their research area over the other ones. I remember the particle physics guy, and in something that was meant to be an advert for particle physics, he basically said that since the Higgs boson was detected there's barely anything left in the standard model that needs experimentally confirming in particle physics, and the impression he gave of the short-to-medium term future of particle physics is that it's mostly just grasping at straws trying to find a more general theory. This presents the issue of funding, because with the standard model, there was some sort of guiding structure to follow allowing stuff to get experimentally confirmed, and so if experiments confirmed theory, that'd be great, and if not, then it would be groundbreaking and require the entire standard model to be rethought, both scenarios are positive and so funding's available. Now, outside of the standard model, if new theories are tested and they match experiment, that'd also be great, but there's less reason to expect this, and if they don't match experiment, nothing much has been lost as they are new theories, and therefore as the latter scenario is more likely, funding might become more difficult to obtain in this field. Typed all that then realised I could've just used a reference. :\ Mostly appears to be written in the context of how particle physics should be presented to governments, etc. to get funding in future. arxiv.org/pdf/1707.03711.pdfBasically, as the future of particle physics seems likely to stall for a bit, I'm doubting seeing anything new from the LHC soon and so probably won't change my views on Brian Cox much. Anyways, back to Brian Cox=Bieber. If Hawking=Oasis and Einstein=Beatles, then even saying Brian Cox=Blur is a bit too generous as it currently stands from the research he's done in comparison. Actually, maybe the most fitting comparison was the one staring me in the face all along. Brian Cox=D:Ream. They did well with Thing's Can Only Get Better, which is miles better than Baby or the rest of Bieber's music, but then again, is it Slide Away, Come Together or even Sing? Nahhhhhhhhhhh.
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Post by WirralRiddler on Mar 21, 2018 8:52:05 GMT -5
If Hawking = Oasis and Einstein = Beatles
Then I guess Nikola Tesla must be Elvis (The King)
Seriously though Tesla was a true genius scientist, Hawking and Einstein don't even come close to his genius, they're more fantasists than scientists.
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