viper_1 on Nostr: No disrespect meant. Two observations: In my experience physicists interactions with ...
No disrespect meant. Two observations:
In my experience physicists interactions with one another can be easily mis interpreted by outsiders (and I am one).
Eg hyper aggressive attempts to root out errors can appear as mean infighting and egomania or toxicity.
And there is meanness and egomania present in physics of course, it’s just been my experience that outsiders looking in often just don’t have the training / exposure / mathematical chops to discern which is which. To make a terrible analogy- if I am not actually on the team, and I was never actually in the game, then I am not in a position to judge the locker room talk afterwards.
I also find physicists get so sharpened by the empiriometric precision required by (and successful in) their field they can get frustrated when that tool does not work well in other areas. They sometimes default to assuming sloppiness in applying the tool rather than realizing it just does not work well everywhere. And if they cannot shake that assumption you get a physicist thinking “find and root out the error” and a non physicist thinking “you are totally using the wrong tool” and they talk past one another- sometimes unpleasantly.
In my experience physicists interactions with one another can be easily mis interpreted by outsiders (and I am one).
Eg hyper aggressive attempts to root out errors can appear as mean infighting and egomania or toxicity.
And there is meanness and egomania present in physics of course, it’s just been my experience that outsiders looking in often just don’t have the training / exposure / mathematical chops to discern which is which. To make a terrible analogy- if I am not actually on the team, and I was never actually in the game, then I am not in a position to judge the locker room talk afterwards.
I also find physicists get so sharpened by the empiriometric precision required by (and successful in) their field they can get frustrated when that tool does not work well in other areas. They sometimes default to assuming sloppiness in applying the tool rather than realizing it just does not work well everywhere. And if they cannot shake that assumption you get a physicist thinking “find and root out the error” and a non physicist thinking “you are totally using the wrong tool” and they talk past one another- sometimes unpleasantly.