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From: Timo A. Nieminen on 15 Sep 2006 19:19 On Fri, 15 Sep 2006, jmfbahciv(a)aol.com wrote: > "Timo A. Nieminen" <timo(a)physics.uq.edu.au> wrote: >> On Wed, 13 Sep 2006, jmfbahciv(a)aol.com wrote: >>> mmeron(a)cars3.uchicago.edu wrote: >>>> >>>> And, the belief that scientific training translates to "requiring all >>>> the details" is quite false. >> [cut] >>>> On the contrary, it is a matter of >>>> recognizing which details matter and which can be ignored. >>> >>> Sure. [here comes the but ;-)] Don't you have to look at >>> all the details before you can ignore them? This takes time. >> >> Yes, it takes time, but often very little time. To look at the details of >> the details is what takes lots of time. [cut] >> queen capture, it just wasn't worth the time to analyse in detail - this >> was rejected in seconds, as it needs to be in a 10 minute game. > > However, this think has to be done consciously. You can't submit > it to the back brainstem and have it pop out the answer. Science > training doesn't allow this method; people are taught to dismiss > this kind of answer unless it can be physically demonstrated. No, this is the _real_ goal of science training. To reduce this kind of thing to "intuition". This is hard to do, and profoundly hard to teach. If it wasn't for very talented students coming up through the system, I think there would be little success. Perhaps there is little success in any case. The best have this intuition; that's why they're the _best_. Not that I disagree with your assessment of science training, in general. Science training pre-postgrad research is largely about cramming for exams, and how can that teach intuition? This is a problem. Most scientists are just crank-the-handle scientists, just as most engineers are crank-the-handle engineers, and most <foo> are likewise. How can a system designed to teach the mass accomodate the most excellent few? The most excellent few are, um, typically _different_, and I don't see any way to teach them by recipe. Intuition, insofar as it is trainable and teachable, needs to be a 10-year project. Compare learning martial arts: 1 hour lets you know the absolute basics, the terminology, basics stances and the like; 10 hours lets you actually do some of these things approximately, 1000 hours (= approx 1 year with a typical training schedule) lets you do some of these well. About 3 times this is a respectable black belt. About 10,000 hours, and you can actually be _good_ at what you do. Not that long after this, the limits of human lifespan interfere, for better or for worse. > It's easier to identify the superfulous in science than it is > in politics. At least, for me, this is true. In politics, every > last thing seems to have a bearing. Given that I ended up in science rather than politics, how could I disagree with this :? -- Timo Nieminen - Home page: http://www.physics.uq.edu.au/people/nieminen/ E-prints: http://eprint.uq.edu.au/view/person/Nieminen,_Timo_A..html Shrine to Spirits: http://www.users.bigpond.com/timo_nieminen/spirits.html
From: mmeron on 15 Sep 2006 19:41 In article <Pine.WNT.4.64.0609160902450.1304(a)serene.st>, "Timo A. Nieminen" <timo(a)physics.uq.edu.au> writes: >On Fri, 15 Sep 2006, jmfbahciv(a)aol.com wrote: > >> "Timo A. Nieminen" <timo(a)physics.uq.edu.au> wrote: >>> On Wed, 13 Sep 2006, jmfbahciv(a)aol.com wrote: >>>> mmeron(a)cars3.uchicago.edu wrote: >>>>> >>>>> And, the belief that scientific training translates to "requiring all >>>>> the details" is quite false. >>> [cut] >>>>> On the contrary, it is a matter of >>>>> recognizing which details matter and which can be ignored. >>>> >>>> Sure. [here comes the but ;-)] Don't you have to look at >>>> all the details before you can ignore them? This takes time. >>> >>> Yes, it takes time, but often very little time. To look at the details of >>> the details is what takes lots of time. > >[cut] >>> queen capture, it just wasn't worth the time to analyse in detail - this >>> was rejected in seconds, as it needs to be in a 10 minute game. >> >> However, this think has to be done consciously. You can't submit >> it to the back brainstem and have it pop out the answer. Science >> training doesn't allow this method; people are taught to dismiss >> this kind of answer unless it can be physically demonstrated. > >No, this is the _real_ goal of science training. To reduce this kind of >thing to "intuition". This is hard to do, and profoundly hard to teach. If >it wasn't for very talented students coming up through the system, I >think there would be little success. Perhaps there is little success in >any case. > There can't be much success, since this is attempting to teach something we really have no good idea how it works. About all that can be done is to show examples of past feats of intuition and hope that these will awake something in those minds capable of similar feats. >The best have this intuition; that's why they're the _best_. > >Not that I disagree with your assessment of science training, in general. >Science training pre-postgrad research is largely about cramming for >exams, and how can that teach intuition? > >This is a problem. Most scientists are just crank-the-handle scientists, >just as most engineers are crank-the-handle engineers, and most <foo> are >likewise. How can a system designed to teach the mass accomodate the most >excellent few? The most excellent few are, um, typically _different_, and >I don't see any way to teach them by recipe. Indeed. > >Intuition, insofar as it is trainable and teachable, needs to be a 10-year >project. Compare learning martial arts: 1 hour lets you know the absolute >basics, the terminology, basics stances and the like; 10 hours lets you >actually do some of these things approximately, 1000 hours (= approx 1 >year with a typical training schedule) lets you do some of these well. >About 3 times this is a respectable black belt. About 10,000 hours, and >you can actually be _good_ at what you do. Not that long after this, the >limits of human lifespan interfere, for better or for worse. > Some intuition is trainable, as it amounts to accumulated and internalized experience. But then, some things you're just born with. Capablanca might have improved his skills with practice, but he was already better, the first time he approached a chessboard, than many a person with long experience. >> It's easier to identify the superfulous in science than it is >> in politics. At least, for me, this is true. In politics, every >> last thing seems to have a bearing. > >Given that I ended up in science rather than politics, how could I >disagree with this :? > I'll second this. Mati Meron | "When you argue with a fool, meron(a)cars.uchicago.edu | chances are he is doing just the same"
From: Edward Green on 15 Sep 2006 20:38 Timo A. Nieminen wrote: > No, this is the _real_ goal of science training. To reduce this kind of > thing to "intuition". This is hard to do, and profoundly hard to teach. If > it wasn't for very talented students coming up through the system, I > think there would be little success. Perhaps there is little success in > any case. I share your views on the importance of intuition. I add my take. Intuition indeed must be "trained", and this must be undertaken by the individual. The training method is this: when some result is encountered which is "counterintuitive" or paradoxical, one should not be statisfied with an alternative line of thought which doesn't seem to generate the paradox, plus the label "wrong" applied to our first line of thinking. One should go back and meticulously take apart one's first line of thinking until one finds the specific hidden assumptions which led to the bad data, so that in the future one may not make them unconsciously. Untimately the so-called counterintuitive result becomes intuitive, because (somewhat circularly) one understands it! Otherwise, one is left with permanent cognitive dissonance, along with some additional structure "this is apparently wrong, and this is apparently right, but I really don't understand why". Ultimately, given human limitations, we must perhaps accept that we simply don't understand some things: but it ticks me off when this is sometimes (characteristically) worn as a kind of badge of honor -- "it's counterintuitive": that's just another way of saying you don't really understand it, and have perhaps given up trying to understand it, and perhaps even feel everyone else should also (not "you", Timo Nieminen, I hurry to add). People with this bent will often _malign_ intuition, pointing out its pitfalls; but that's because they seldom bother to retrain their own intuition when it fails, and have mostly given up the matter as a bad business. I used to be troubled by a strong intuition, but fortunately, I've had most of it beaten out of me.
From: Gunnar Kaestle on 16 Sep 2006 04:50 jmfbahciv(a)aol.com wrote: >>> Did it say what her expertise was? Perhaps a better question is >>> whether she's theorist or experimentalist. >> >> Analysis of the mechanism of breakup reaktions with single bond breaking >> and calculation of their rate constant based on quantum-chemical and >> statistical methods >> >> Untersuchung des Mechanismus von Zerfallsreaktionen >> mit einfachem Bindungsbruch und Berechnung >> ihrer Geschwindigkeitskonstanten auf der >> Grundlage quantenchemischer und statistischer Methoden > > Thank you. I don't know, and don't seem able to guess, what > the project was. Here's my guess: she took H-O and various > other compounds that had two elements connected with one bond > and meausured the energy required to sever each bond? There is a "book review" of her thesis in the German weekly Newspaper "Zeit" (http://www.zeit.de/2005/29/B-Merkel). Maybe you have someone available, who can translate the main passages. She worked as a theoretical physicist / quantum chemist. To me as a layman it seems she did some research about the thermal decay of bonds in larger molecules. The application would be the conversation of hydrocarbons in the absence of oxygen (thermolysis, pyrolysis). Best, Gunnar -- Do you want to be an evangelist? See http://www.mozilla.org/projects/tech-evangelism and report all dismozillarious behaviour at the Tech Evangelism category on Bugzilla.
From: MathFreak NoMore on 16 Sep 2006 22:33
On 13 Sep 2006 02:22:02 -0700, Peter Christensen wrote: > MathFreak NoMore skrev: > >> On 10 Sep 2006 09:06:56 -0700, tadchem wrote: >> >>> Technical competence does not necessarily translate to leadership >>> competence. >> >> This "leadership" goal is for a politician in USA. >> Someone whose only use is in getting some asked-for >> thing done, be it jingobatic or not, tribal or not. A >> politician in other countries is more than a leader. In >> what you do "more" than leadership you can find good >> use for a physics background. > > Do you think, that Germany is going for 'the bomb'? (Far behing US, UK > and France) > > Hope not, :-) > > PC Oh Germans've got better things to do, you know, like living. They've got that luxury. And they've been ahead of Americans in that. A lot of valuable things appearing in USA to enhance quality of life were direct imitation of what Germans had and did first. Say, nice physics books :) Nice microbiology or chemistry books. Very comprehensive and elaborately done. Quite expensive but available, and more than anything that an individual could ask for in learning those stuff. In USA this type of books did not exist outside the confines of corporations a decade or two back. But Germans had them already by 1960. For everyone! This may look like one little example but it says and points to much more. Germans know how to live with each other. So do the French. Americans proper, on the other hand, still have that frontiersmen culture in them. They can't rest or live no matter how "successful". Is Bill Gates living? Did he really live the years from 1974 to now? I think he's been on adrenaline rush since. That's not a German way of living :) -- "maranjAn delamrA ke in morghe vahshi ze bAmi ke barkhAst moshkel neshinad" |