Quantum Physics For Everybody 145
fiziko writes in with a self-described "blatant self-promotion" of a worthwhile service for those wishing to go beyond Khan Academy physics: namely Bureau 42's Summer School. "As those who subscribe to the 'Sci-Fi News' slashbox may know, Bureau 42 has launched its first Summer School. This year we're doing a nine-part series (every Monday in July and August) taking readers from high school physics to graduate level physics, with no particular mathematical background required. Follow the link for part 1."
Re:oblig XKCD (Score:4, Interesting)
Of course, he neglected to point out that mathematics is applied philosophy, and that philosophy is applied sociology...
Re:No mathematical background? (Score:5, Interesting)
My personal opinion is that you CAN discuss the principles without going into more details. I think it's pretty easy to explain the concept of a Hilbert space with absolutely no knowledge of calculus, because it's just geometry and common sense.
It is problematic to teach physics without math, because you can get it horribly wrong. But you can explain graduate level concepts without math, and you can certainly describe the experiments that prove a formula works, even if you don't go through the complicated math involved in connecting the theory, formula and experiment.
It took some time to get from quantum physics to the specific heat of metals in the statistical physics course. But I can tell anyone on the street "look, if we measure the way metals conduct heat, we find that they behave in a certain way. we are only able to explain that if we use quantum physics to describe part of the electrons as a gas moving around inside the metal. classical physics fails.", and that should be enough for a basic idea.
So far, I'm not impressed (Score:3, Interesting)
I read the first lesson, and while it's interesting, so far I'm not impressed.
It presents some of the problems with classical physics, but it seems to focus on the wrong problems. The first problem it mentions is that information can't travel faster than the speed of light-- but to address that problem you need more than just introductory quantum mechanics, you need relativistic quantum mechanics, and I just don't think you can get to Dirac's equation in a nine part series without math. Then they ask a question about nuclear physics ("what holds the nucleus together?"), for which, to even understand the question correctly, you need some information that the reader doesn't have yet (for example, what do they mean when they say that the only macroscopic force is electromagnetic? In fact, all the forces you do experience in everyday life actually are electromagnetic in nature... but you need quantum mechanics to really understand that! It sure isn't obvious that the force that keeps you from falling through the ground to the center of the Earth is electromagnetic). And this really isn't fundamental to quantum mechanics, either. Next, the nucleus mass question is, once again, a question of relativity and not quantum mechanics (although at least one that can be answered without resorting to the Dirac equation!). And the final question seems to require addressing the equation of state in ultradense matter at the beginning of the universe! Good luck with explaining that with grade school math.
Re:How do you talk about physics without mathemati (Score:3, Interesting)
It's more like discussing modern dance by performing it as a sequence of ballet moves.
Or deconstructing poetry.
Or using your words instead of your numbers.
In the end, mathematics is a means of manipulating facts to reveal other facts in a deterministic manner (even if they're facts about non-deterministic things). If you can't subsequently describe both sets of facts in terms a non-mathematician can understand, you haven't reached a result that non-mathematicians will know about, much less be able to form the idea that they should ask what it means.
Physics, being the means of describing the natural world, can be conducted in non-mathematical terms, since the math is just a symbolic model of the physical features, which exist regardless of the shorthand you used to reason about it.
Math will help you turn one symbolic model into another, but unless you understand what the subsequent model means when turned back from symbols into physical concepts, you haven't done any physics.
Re:No mathematical background? (Score:3, Interesting)
And yes, I do physics for a living.
Re:oblig XKCD (Score:3, Interesting)
I disagree in that mathematics is applied philosophy, I think its a fundamental law of the universe.
Mathematics is applied Logic, which is a subset of Philosophy.
Re:No gedanken background (Score:3, Interesting)
Yeah, introductory quantum mechanics is introduced typically in second year, and then more detailed versions including Dirac notation show up in third and fourth year. The graduate level is where relativistic implications are usually taken into account, unless you take senior undergraduate particle physics.
Einstein (Score:3, Interesting)
I will add to this one of the greatest physicists around, Albert Einstein, did not know the necessary maths when he wrote his first theory. The maths was done for him, though he did later learn to do mathematics.
Science as we know it is not about the maths, but being able to produce a solid theory that stands up under scrutiny. Using scientific process helps add weight and often mathematics can provide a calculable way of showing numerical relationships, but if the reasoning for the theory is sound then these are just bonuses, IMHO.