Octaveoctave
November 29 2024
A lot of people, once they realize what my profession is (to be specific, STEM R&D), have all kinds of ideas about they think I should do with my time. Most of these revolve around "immanetizing" or "realizing" or "actualizing" something they have seen in a science fiction movie or video or read about in a book of some kind. They think something they saw is "cool" and they want someone to create it for them. They can't do it themselves. Also, it would be too much effort for them to do it, even if they knew what to do. Therefore, they figure they can just order a sort of geeky nerdy "magic person" like myself to create this thing they have come across in a fictional story. I am not particularly anxious to do their bidding. To me, most people are fairly uninformed, particularly about my domain of experise. Their ideas just reek of...well, I dare not say. But it is not good, in general. Why would I waste my time on something that is completely pointless and boring? A big part of the reason that I do "what I do", is for my own personal enjoyment. I am exploring. I am investigating. I am creating. I am contributing. It is what I always wanted to do, from a very young age. And I trained for many years to be able to do it, and worked very, very hard for a long time to enable myself to do this. Also, it is exciting. It is a grand adventure. I am taking part in something far bigger than myself. And I am joined in these activities by my fellow investigators. We are exploring not just the physical realm (or perhaps one might say the "physico-temporal zone") but other more ethereal domains. We do this not just to enable human flourishing through the applications that invariably result, but for the ennoblement of humanity. We are harnessing our creativity and curiousity for this enterprise. As Elon Musk says, we are "expanding human consciousness". Although of course, our activities are integrally and intrinsically connected with National Security, as they have been since the time of Archimedes and even before, that is not their main purpose and motivation. In the words of Robert R. Wilson, the first director of Fermilab, "It has nothing to do directly with defending our country except to make it worth defending." In light of this, I would ask the reader to consider some thought-provoking passages from atypical sources: “Your kids have been turned into mindless vassals who look up to some twit instead of looking up to Thomas Jefferson. Kids! Magellan is a lot cooler than Justin Bieber! He circumnavigated, with one ship, the entire planet! He was killed by wild natives before he got back to Portugal! And when they got back there were only like 11 people alive, out of the two hundred and something crew. And the entire ship was rotting down to the waterline.” “That’s destiny! That’s will! That’s striving! That’s being a trailblazer! Going into space! Mathematics! Quantum mechanics! The secrets of the universe! Life is fiery with its beauty!” -- Alex Jones Also, let us consider some paragraphs lifted from the following article in the Federalist by John Daniel Davidson in 2020 [1]: Scientists have discovered signs of life on Venus. Why don't we care? Our Lack Of Interest In Space Is a Sign Something Is Wrong But you would think that discoveries of this magnitude, of such consequence, would at least pique our curiosity. You’d think it would elicit some sort of conversation — about our place in the cosmos, the existence of God, the future of life on earth, the need for a renewed push to explore space. Something. Instead, we’re passing over all these questions and conversations in favor of what can only be characterized, in context, as lesser concerns. There’s a reason for that, and it has much to do with waning confidence in our civilizational project. A society that actively tears down and distorts its past has no real interest in its future, near or distant, and momentous events that might have once united us, like the discovery of the Venusian microbes, or UFO footage, or even a space shuttle launch, no longer do. Our ambivalence about space exploration and relative indifference to the discovery of alien life in our solar system should be a wake-up call. Only a society woefully lacking confidence in itself and the worthiness of its highest endeavors would react the way we have to these revelations. It’s a sign, above all, of civilizational decline. We are dithering and bickering over who owes who for which past sins while a vast frontier beckons. If we have lost interest in that final frontier, it means we have lost something necessary for the preservation of our society: a desire to expand, explore, and discover new worlds. Confidence is no small thing for civilizations. Without it, they die. The same impulse that now pushes us to obsess over past injustices, to tear down our monuments and erase our history, will also cause us to lose interest in our future—here on earth, and to the stars. I remember when the "Space Race" ground to a halt in the 1970s. The public was basically bored and disgusted with it. It was viewed as a massive waste of resources. This was after the electrifying announcement of Sputnik, about 15 years previously. Sure, there was some amazing exploration of other bodies in our solar system with robotic craft and devices. And we deployed some astounding observational platforms. Only now, decades later, are we starting to re-experience some of those heady feelings associated with this vast new frontier, somewhat characterized by space exploration, but more generally by STEM in general. It is about time that we recapture the leadership of this quest from the endless hoarde of mindless bureaucrats and leeches that have bogged it down for decades. As a species, humanity can do big things, and it must do big things, to fulfill its destiny. Another useful anecdote is that of phenomenal mathematical talent Grigori Perelman. Perelman solved some mind-boggling problems, like the Poincaré Conjecture, and then turned down all the following awards and recognition and disappeared. As Perelman said, "I'm not interested in money or fame." Here is some interesting discussion of this from an article I have linked below: Why did Perelman turn down $1 million? - Some say it was a protest against academic pettiness and corruption. - Others chalk it up to his old-school Soviet disdain for material wealth. - But maybe... math was never about prizes or prestige. It was a quest for truth. To Perelman, mathematics was almost a spiritual calling. The struggle to understand, to push the boundaries of knowledge—those were the real prizes. Once he had glimpsed those deep truths, external validation meant nothing. His story reminds us that some mysteries are solved not for glory or gold, but for the simple, profound joy of understanding.[2] Let me finish with a couple of other somewhat relevant unattributed quotes: "Ad astra per aspera." (to the stars through the rough.) "Love is the creative energy of the universe."Notes [1] 'Scientists have discovered signs of life on Venus. Why don't we care?' https://thefederalist.com/2020/09/16/scientists-have-discovered-signs-of-life-on-venus-why-dont-we-care/ John Daniel Davidson, The Federalist, 2020 Subtitled, 'Our Lack Of Interest In Space Is a Sign Something Is Wrong' [2] This man solved one of the hardest puzzles of the century. https://x.com/GeniusGTX/status/1861768256543228245 Then rejected his $1,000,000 prize and vanished into Russia. Everyone thought he was crazy. Here's the forgotten story of the craziest genius mathematician everyone should know about.
Octaveoctave
December 14 2024
Of course, the boundaries between different fields like chemistry and physics and biology are sort of arbitrary. They were created initially by humans for our convenience. Now we maintain them more out of a sense of tradition than anything else. The most fruitful areas have always been, and continue to be, at the field boundaries. If you can combine information from two or three or more disciplines, you are more likely to make progress than someone who is confined to a single field. Obviously, it is a bit of a hassle to acquire knowledge from different areas. They oftentimes use different terminologies for the same phenomenon or object. Also, if you are working on the boundary between fields A and B, you are faced with being "neither fish no fowl". You can and probably will be attacked by staunch "purist" adherents of both fields A and B as being an interloper and unwelcome. But, it can be more exciting and lead to more adventures and discoveries. You also get to hear the jokes about field A that people in field B make, and vice versa. And this can be somewhat amusing and enlightening. And if you repeat these jokes you hear, you can irritate everyone concerned. I am not exactly sure that is a benefit, but if you have the stomach for it, you can raise a few eyebrows here and there. I came across an interesting set of aphorisms about various discplines when I was perusing X (formerly known as Twitter): · Study mathematics to understand physics · Study physics to understand chemistry · Study chemistry to understand biology · Study biology to understand psychology · Study psychology to understand economics · Study economics and philosophy to be free https://x.com/equant_org/status/1866762296095109171 This is clearly not completely accurate, but there is some truth to this characterization. For example, physics is mostly written in the language of mathematics. There is some cross-fertilization between these fields as well, but less than one might expect. Physics is intrinsically an empirical field, anchored in data obtained either from field observations (as in the case of the earth sciences and space and astrosciences) or laboratory experiments. Mathematics, on the other hand, is firmly bound to reason and logical chains from assumptions, or axioms.[1] In modern physics (that is, physics from the last century or so), physics has turned sharply away from reason and conventional experiences. In addition, Mathematics is able to undertake far more extreme "flights of fancy" than physics, because it is not grounded in physical reality. A lot of chemistry is just a sort of applied physics. And a lot of biology seems to be applied chemistry, or at least applied biochemistry. Psychology seems to have deep roots in chemistry and biology, even though we do not understand these very well yet. And economics, the so-called "dismal science", appears to have a lot to do with human psychology and sociology (which itself is a kind of psychology of humans in group settings). It is true that if one really understands economic and philosophical forces, one can conquer a lot of "inherent misery" that life seems to entail. Philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer published numerous influential works on this topic, which were not recognized until Schopenhauer was much older. However, they provided the basis of further work by famous intellects like Nietzsche, Freud, Tolstoy, Proust, and Wittgenstein.Notes [1] I am a mathematical physicist interested in applications. And a lot of the problems I work on come from the more quantitative end of engineering. However, I draw from various mathematical subfields like statistics and partial differential equations and differential geometry and functional analysis and applied mathematics and numerical analysis. I actually approach mathematical problems as a physicist would, so my personal approach is still somewhat empirical in nature. That puts me at odds with "pure mathematicians", but it gives me a set of skills and techniques the purists are less familiar and comfortable with.