July Video: Outdated Science

I LOVE videos like this!! In one of my favourite (math, I guess?) books, every chapter starts with an (intended to be?) inspiring quote. One of my favourites that is relevant here is "The search for truth is more precious than its possession -- Albert Einstein".

Are you saying that you need a lab to do physics today? That there is no room for an Einstein or a Dirac anymore? Maybe I misunderstood.

I always find it surprising how some reviewers are just total dicks. Never had an experience quite as bad as Angela's but I have had some where people were just rude. The interesting thing is IMO there is a strong correlation between how knowledgeable someone is and how polite they are. The guys who are rude usually don't understand counter arguments. A good example of this is a YouTube video that contrasts Chomsky and B. F. Skinner talking about each other. Chomsky is polite and even complements Skinner for making psychology more of a science. Skinner is a complete jerk. In one talk on that video, someone asked Skinner what he thought of Chomsky's review of his book Verbal Behavior. That review is seen by many as the beginning of the end of classic Behaviorism and the beginning of the "Cognitive Revolution" and Cognitive Science. Skinner replied something like: "I would reply to Chomsky's review but that would mean I would have to read it", implying it was so clearly wrong it wasn't even worth his time to read it.

happy pride!! and please please make the telescope video even if it doesn't work

I love that you're ending these with a link to a playlist being like "and also go watch this if you want." Watching a video series on concrete is, indeed, something I want

I wanna see the dynamics video, but also agree you probably shouldn't make it...

This is such a great subject, thanks!

Hi Angela, thanks for the great video! There is one point I don't entirely agree with. It is not exactly true that the "pen-and-paper guy" has disappeared. I am one. The point is that the pen-and-paper guys tend to drift from theoretical physics to mathematical physics. There are many questions in physics that can only be answered with theorems and proofs, and this can only be done in "the old way". Of course, the pen-and-paper guy has become more rare, and he cannot work in isolation. He needs to talk with the simulation guys. Also, the type or research he performs is not truly "Einstein-type", but more "mathy". Moreover, there are not many open positions in mathematical physics. Still the exact number is greater than zero. Frequently we end up being hired in math departments (personal experience).

Hearing that you have another Star Trek video coming makes me so happy. I hope it's 4 hours. We want to hear it ALL!

One outdated science or engineering field that is not wrong but has simply been replaced by a whole new, better technology, is analogue Hi-Fi Audio equipment like tape decks and HQ chrome / ferro / whatever audio cassettes. My friends and I used to do calibrating sessions ... when we switched to either a new type / brand of cassette (and different time lengths like 60 vs. 90 minutes also had a noticable influence on the quality!) or switched to a new tape deck, we did loads of recording / copying tests with different settings to figure out which gave us the best audio quality. Hail the TDK SA-90 and Technics or Sony tape decks. I used to buy so many TDK SA-90s that their price became a currency unit in my brain.

I hope you know that, if you ever make that video about that Ahole in dynamics, we stand with you. An army of keyboard warriors might be a kind of pathetic thing in our current society, but whatever, I guess we're yours!

Unrelated to this video, but since you asked some time ago about the PBS channel. I have now watched dozens of their videos and I'm still binging more. Matt O'Dowd is actually a really sensible presenter and it seems very calm, balanced and rational. It won't contain anything that you as a physics PhD don't yet know, but I'd love to hear what you think once you have watched a few episodes, Angela!

I feel alchemy got a bad reputation for no good reason. People back then also had real needs for chemistry, e.g. if one is serious about agriculture, concepts like nutrients and the pH of the soil are very good to have. Alchemy was the best they could come up with and I don't think that was the worst. For a strange reason the most horrifying stories are from medicine, that's where bad theory meets authoritarianism and with "the road to hell is paved with good intentions". I read in the memoir of a chemistry professor that one of his teachers collected alchemy tools as a hobby and also taught alchemy for fun and when he read Rudolf Steiner's Agriculture he felt some of its alchemy was translatable to modern chemistry. And taking a science out of its context and magnifying it to an extreme always results in "making gold" and "eternal youth". Are our pursuits for "infinite economic growth" and "interstellar travel" any better? (Btw. I always find it funny that Faraday also had the acolierastro story. He wasn't satisfied with his job, then he suddenly felt science is for him so he wrote a letter, not to a university but to Humphry Davy, who after some interplay actually hired him. And this sealed his fate in many ways, he got world class in experimenting but spent too much time in dead ends, he got too old to master advanced mathematical instruments. Some interpret this as Davy was mean to him and hindered him, who knows. But fortunately he was an extremely nice and positive guy, he found his own ways to bloom.)

If we suggest you shouldn't release it if it fails, that would of course mean you should release it here for your supporters. I really enjoy your forays in to science history.

Great video! Seinfeld video eventually please!

You have to release the telescope video regardless of results. "Fail again. Fail better." To quote Samuel Beckett. I mean you get content whatever happens. And at worst you lose an eyebrow. (Please don't Logan Paul it if something goes catastrophically wrong.)

Whether it works or not, the telescope video will be great!

Yes please make the video even if the telescope does not work

Go, Slugger! Another mighty swing of the bat. At first I was thinking of you as one of the Willie's: Mays, McCovey, Stargell. Of what you do. But at the risk of being the sexist I am, I wanna call you our Babe Ruth. Nice rimshot edit. 😎 Astro's good, science history good, building & doing things are good. By all means, keep it up. Dwelling too much on past trauma, not good. I'm glad to have heard your war stories. I think you've coped, wishing you the best, which I think means moving on. I did like an aphorism of a CS PhD gradual student I used to bump into: "Academic feuds are so bitter bc the stakes are so low." As in, they're often petty. Obviously tho, they aren't harmless. You're an example of more than the sum of your experiences. I'm glad you didn't cut the digression. By a fictional symmetry in my head, good calls on all the stuff you did cut. 😏

Section 31 hat ftw

Interesnting, Huygens Optics on YT was also building a telescope the other day (but his works was more low-level). One thing I though about "outdated science" was Mysterium Cosmographicum from Keples with the solids corresponding to Orbits, which was... something

Just look at the President's cabinet and tell me phrenology isn't valid. Hah! Also my NX-01 cap is well received everywhere and a savvy shopper can get one online cheap.

I would love to see the telescope video, even if it doesn't work. The process is always more interesting than the result

I come from Quantum Chemistry, which is sort of in between chemistry and physics, and we often get to interact with both worlds. My advisor always used to say that physicists are assholes whereas chemists are much nicer. Idk, every physicist I've collaborated with was nice, but it's not a huge sample size. I've also been to chem conference sessions where people were literally shouting at each other. I can't say that any particular individual has ruined it for others though. I think it's a case of the smaller the field (or subfield), the more likely that the bad apples stand out.

Omg a TNG video??? SO HYPED!

Loved the video. Glad to see my suggestion because a fun video to do. The epicycles part was super interesting and I don't think I've heard of it before (or forgot)

I think you suits make the tenacious telescope video even if it didn't work

You should definitely upload the telescope video even if it doesn't work. Also, super hyped about another Star Trek video.

I learned astronomy as a kid in the '50s. In 1962 I went to a 6-week summer science program where we learned spherical trig, calculus, and determined the orbits of asteroids. (Dr. George Abell was a teacher there.) I became a statistician. Now, in my retirement, I've been catching up with astronomy and astrophysics. Almost everything I learned way back when is outdated. There used to be just novas and supernovas. Now there are a half-dozen types of supernovas. A steady-state universe was an alternative to the big bang. Dark matter wasn't mentioned. And of course yet-to-be discovered were dark energy, exoplanets, microwave background, and on and on. So, I agree that outdated science was not bad science. And the corollary is that much of what we "know" now will be outdated in the future.

Ptolemy could be used for both sides of an 'outdated science' versus 'bad science' contrast, if you believe those who argue that he fudged some of his astronomical data.

Idea for another video. Wolfgang Pauli supposed coined the phrase "Not even wrong". (Es ist nicht nur nicht richtig, es is nicht einmal falsch). Discuss some physics research that was 'not even wrong'.

Yes absolutely make the video if the telescope doesn't work

please make a video about the telescope especially if it doesn't work :D

I'd like the telescope video either way, unless you find it more frustrating/energy draining than fun.

Yes do the telescope video anyway. Looking forward to the Star Trek video.

Interesting point of view. Thanks for clarifying bad vs outdated.

Am I not supposed to comment on the hat?