"Because Graham is on holiday and Chung Hiao is dead" - that line made me laugh more than anything I have ever heard - soo dry and dark at the same time!
@@aModernDandy Damn! I was hoping to finally get a little insight. (But thank you so much for replying! I figured the chance of you actually seeing that comment was slim to none, so I'm glad it worked out for both of us ha ha ha)
Quite right. It can be irritating when people hear a short layman's description of a theory, think they have a full grasp of it and then go on to say why they think it's flawed.
"Professor Feynman, can you explain the science for which you have just won the Nobel Prize in terms that the average reader of the New York Times can understand?" "No, because if I could, it wouldn't have been worth the Nobel Prize."
Brilliant and hysterical ! This sketch reminds me of Feynman answering, or rather NOT answering, an interviewer's question about how/why magnets attract and repel one another.
@@thetooginator153 I've lived in Cambridge for the past 28 years and met a lot of graduates from the university - although there is prestige in having a degree from Cambridge it is not at the top of the league when it comes to academics achievement.
Very profound of you to say, and I must admit that I concur. Science does not have to be fun, however, at times, it can be. I know I found learning about Ben Miller's PhD topic: Novel Quantum Mechanics in Quasi Zero-Dimensional Mesoscopic Electron Systems rather interesting and fun for me, but I delved within it to find a truth. Science of all disciplines don't have to be fun, but for those of us who study it, we tend to make it, not on purpose, rather it becomes so.
This is pretty much every professor at my university. They are either too smart to talk with you or too busy to know you exist, and if you manage to get five words out of them you are pretty sure everything you previously knew about the universe was wrong...and that is a law professor
"I have a great subject to write upon, but feel keenly my literary incapacity to make it easily intelligible without sacrificing accuracy and thoroughness". Francis Galton.
@@medievalist I was making a joke about your name. Maybe I shouldn't have done. Many of my pupils who are studying history are studying the Russian Revolution and the Tudors and Stuarts, and I can only recall a couple of them saying they preferred the latter (or the former, if it's put in the context of Time).
Reminds me of something i read a few decades ago about when Eddington (maybe) was asked if he was only one of 3 people in the world who could understand Einstein's theory (relativity maybe?) . He responded along the lines of well Einstein can, he can but he was struggling to know of the 3rd person to whom the interviewer was referring to . Or something along those lines :)
I agree that this was great. I on the other hand am not a Physicist by profession, however, I've studied Physics for many years. Funny enough, though, is that Ben Miller actually was a Physicist himself.
I love everything about this sketch - the blankly literalist researcher who can't communicate and apparently hasn't noticed that's why he's there, the bubbly, slightly brainless presenter with amazingly ambitious goals for what can be explained in ten seconds 'in layman's terms', and most of all, that last line :).
I think it's true, but sometimes minimal understanding of a concept is already a great achievement. It's not always realistic to gain enough understanding of a concept to explain it easily.
Arthur Eddington was being interviewed about general relativity in 1919. When asked if it was true there were only three people that understood it, he paused for a long time and then said "I was just wondering who the other person is".
At my uni there was a joke about the chemist Brøndsted. He wrote a text book that only two persons could understand: Brøndsted himself and god. Some years later the second revision of the text book was published, and only one person could understand that.
@flowerbower "In the case of Newton's third law, there is no room for improvement. The application of relativity or quantum mechanics to it does not change its overall import. " Except, you know, that they totally do change things. On a pretty staggering level.
@flowerbower I don't quite see how that's anti-gravity. Obviously if it was lifting itself without any energy being supplied it would be anti-gravity, but in this case isn't energy being supplied to cause the lift? I'm probably missing a more subtle point...
@flygweilo Gettiing back to the original topic: there was a BBC Radio 4 documentary about Richard Feynman yesterday, and it recalled the on-screen testiness which he had exhibited with the producer of one of his filmed talks. It pretty much followed the scenario of the above clip: Feynman had appeared to be unable to explain magnetic attraction, but nowadays the director realises that Feynman was just too 'honest' to talk about 'invisible elastic bands' or some other such 'palliative'.
Yeah but if you, or Einstein, tried to explain general relativity quickly and simply like this, people who don't know physics won't understand you. It simply can't be explained without context. "Matter is energy and time and space can be warped by incredibly massive or incredibly fast-moving objects." OK great but if you know physics, I left a lot out, and if you don't know physics, you still don't understand relativity.
As a physicist who has sometimes had to deal with media-people, I can confirm that this sketch is spot-on. Physics is so far beyond everyday experience that attempts to simplify it usually produce a horrible mess that helps no-one. Horizon is a prime example of the horrors of dumbing-down.
"Horizon is a prime example of the horrors of dumbing-down" And it got even worse after your comment. I haven't watched it for years, but doubt if it's improved since then.
@BreachedWall As I mentioned elsewhere here, I was inspired by 'boring' programmes such as one by Bragg himself illustrating the effect of point defects in crystals by playing with a model of a BBC 'outside-broadcast van' stuck in a traffic-jam of Dinky-toy cars. I don't think that those who need soaring music, actorly voice-overs and helicopter shots, to be inspired, really have the right mind-set for physics in the first place. However, a bigger problem is that a 'good teacher' can ...
@flygweilo [cont] became clear that he not only subscribed to the ridiculous but popular 'Bernoulli' theory of flight but had also confused the law of static equilibrium with Newton's 3rd law. But, hey, that doesn't matter: the first successful passenger-carrying aircraft was designed by someone who thought that gravity was a suction force! My connection with Aerospace is that I was originally employed as a metallurgist to work on missiles and other military kit, and even my theoretical ...
@Terraval No, they don't. Newton's third law is really only a corollary of the 1st law of thermodynamics. So, I would say that a 'staggering' result would be an invalidation of the latter law. However, after 'the smoke has cleared', and a few terms have been re-defined, one finds that it is still there, inviolate, and so is Newton's 3rd.
@flygweilo Not sure what you mean by that; physics subsumes all other disciplines. Of course, the other disciplines don't like to admit it. Electrical engineers, in particular, are liable to question well-established principles of physics at the 'drop of a gyroscope'; thus explaining why there is an especially large overlap between electrical engineers and 'cranks who believe in perpetual motion and/or anti-gravity'. Eric Laithwaite was very much the poster-boy for this tendency. Sometimes ...
@2011bcrazy [cont] them are based upon misinterpretations of rote-learned physics. The notorious Dean Drive of the 1960s impressed many people (including professional mathematicians and engineers) by its ability to scuttle across polished floors. Their positive reaction (pun intended) was due entirely to their belief in the silly 'little mountains' model of friction (which does not allow for non-linear effects, and fails the simplest thermodynamic analysis). The Dean Drive was still being ...
@flygweilo [cont] work for a doctorate in physics was related to a revolutionary new concept in gas-turbine blades (Shhh!). Can't tell you any more, having signed the Official Secrets Act three times. Lucky that I never got my dream-job, eh? I applied to work at Porton Down when I was still a schoolboy.
@flygweilo Another descent into fine-sounding waffle on the rubber front, but unfortunately this is a clear-cut situation and not open to obfustication. In the case of most materials, one can make a straightforward link between the potential-energy versus separation curve for interatomic forces and the macroscopic elastic properties. But rubber is an unruly polymer which prefers to maximise its disorder and it is the energy required to impose order (straightening, not extending, chains) which ..
@flowerbower I did indeed hear that response, I fully understand the potency of such a statement, this is supported again by Tyson "Being scientifically literate empowers you"
Funny. Yeah, I was thinking about doing that in the future, working for a degree in Physics. Even funnier though is how you mentioned being like lawyers. I'm actually planning on Law School. It's true though, that we scientists tend to want to just give information like it's nothing. I love how they made it clear, there really is no such thing as a simple answer. Yes it will take 11 years sometimes, and that's if you know something! Oh how superficial life can be. What I hate even more
@BreachedWall I somehow missed your reply earlier. It is easy to disprove the Bernoulli explanation: imagine that the aerofoil is contained within a closed-circuit wind-tunnel having an incredibly high power/weight ratio. Then there is NOTHING in the typical Bernoulli explanation that prevents the aerofoil from lifting itself AND the wind-tunnel. Most illustrations do not even indicate any diversion of the airflow. There is in fact an 'anti-gravity' patent 'based' upon my reductio ad absurdam.
@flowerbower Of course it's still a perfectly good conservation law once we bring in GR and QM, but the consequences of that law and the physical phenomena we can expect change drastically. Think we're arguing over nothing here really, just semantics.
@2011bcrazy [cont] mentioned by NASA less than a decade ago: apparently because certain high-ups in the organisation still believed in it, so the engineers patiently had to dismiss it all over again. Of course, I have given a very specialised example: but imagine it multiplied by the number of all defective models and it becomes a considerable waste of resources. It is not a matter of striving for perfection, but of hanging on to what is already known. BTW, doesn't it bother you that ...
@2011bcrazy My basic objection is your generalization of the principle. Applied to big bang theory, I would certainly agree ('cosmologists are always certain and always wrong' as they say) but one has to have the hope of zeroing-in on the truth, or what is the point of trying? In the case of Newton's third law, there is no room for improvement. The application of relativity or quantum mechanics to it does not change its overall import. However, too many people just don't get it, even as it is!
@rlinfinity [cont] often found that inventors of such machines believe that they are exploiting Newton's laws when, in fact, they are being defeated by them. Even worse, the inventors frequently picked up their incorrect notions during an early undergraduate course on mechanics, but went on to specialise in another subject, thus leading to the awful spectacle of someone with a BSc, PhD (even a professorship) claiming to have invented a 'reactionless propulsion device'. Because of their ...
@flowerbower Indeed, I'm aware of how an explanation through the Bernoulli effect is not the right one, as I understand it, Newton's 3rd law is much better at explaining flight...not that I have any idea how you can demonstrate anti-gravity if Bernoulli's effect were true! To be honest, I did get inspired to get into physics because of dramatic documentaries and pop sci books. Not sure I'd be doing it now if it weren't for them. So despite their simplicity, I still appreciate them.
@BreachedWall I define antigravity (in my book on the subject) as anything which does not obey Newton's third law: that avoids a lot of silly crackpot objections and covers both levitation and propulsion. Even the loony-tunes admit that energy would have to be used. However, their main ambition/claim is to do away with reaction-mass. In my 'closed-circuit wind-tunnel', the reaction mass is used again and again, which is impossible (although there are patents based on that idea as well!).
@rlinfinity Quite. However, even in the formal physics-teaching situation there is a 'tradition', of using models which are flawed, simply because the student does not yet have the other skills (mathematics, etc.) to understand the best treatment. Friction, for instance, is treated appallingly; even in undergraduate textbooks. I am writing a book about antigravity crackpots and, although some of the proponents are outright fraudsters, others have simply 'built on incorrect conceptions'. It is
@flowerbower The point that I think you're missing is that every single possibility that can be arrived at through science can never be considered truth as a pure term, but rather an approximation of truth. Science can only ever hope to suggest that something is caused by something else, as our knowledge is, has always been and will always be limited. You cannot say that anything as a pure fact, as you are in that relenting to acknowledge the potential and probable existance of unknown variables
@flowerbower You said it clear enough, you have no time for philosophers or philosophy, such are the words of any fool. Saying that something cannot be proven so is, and always will be, a valid point. For you to see, you must maintain open eyes, when there is potential for it to be otherwise, in accepting that there are other possibilities, you check and determine the most logical solution time and time again, forever enabling you to have solid basis for any further scientific advances!
@flygweilo [cont] that a diagram in the hydrostatics textbook which he was reading was wildly incorrect (and that the error had been reproduced for some 80 years). He was incensed because he was a civil engineer 'who had built dams'. HE used the term, 'idiot'. However, he could not argue with a quick mathematical analysis of the situation. BTW, that hydrostatic error began to appear at about the same time as the silly Bernoulli explanation for flight. I blame both on lazy teachers. Finally, ..
@flygweilo [cont] informs its macroscopic behaviour. This is why rubber becomes cooler when it is stretched, contrary to what happens in most materials. It also shrinks (ah, the logic of it) when heated; watch carefully the surface of a partially deflated party balloon when put near to a flame. Gee, this should all be Physics-101. It was, in the past. Have standards fallen so low?
@Just1Micky I am not missing it, but it is a mere philosophical point and I have no time for philosophy or philosophers. There have always been philosophers, but science (and therefore modern civilisation) never really 'took off' until the time of Bacon. Of course scientists know that their theories are never exact but they do not use that fact as an excuse to waffle interminably and never get anywhere. Philosophers are like the crafty lawyer who gets a valid case thrown out on a technicality.
Quite: 'fun' is not an absolute. But one has to draw a line between the sort of science-fun that involves blowing up caravans and the sort of science-fun that is on a par, say, with the fun of playing fairy-chess against the clock, or breaking a coded message. I'll get me anorak.
@flowerbower I'm currently studying physics at Cambridge and I disagree. Physics documentaries, if done well, can at least give people a basic notion of the fundamental laws that govern the Universe, even if they're always going to be lightweight. And, most importantly of all, they have the potential to inspire people to do physics and learn it properly - and for that reason alone, they're well worth making. Hilarious sketch btw.
Just wasted about an hour searching for this video until I found the right search phrases and it was the first result. Gah. I have to improve my search skills.
@flowerbower Errors are bad...but at the end of the day, when you start off learning science, you tend to learn the simplest models rather than jumping in the deep end. So while these models are generally wrong, they work on one level. In that sense they can often be useful. After all, none of our current theories can be said to be completely true. I guess you're criticising simplified models that are misleading - and in such cases I'd agree. Defining such cases is the hard part.
This reminds me of questiontime...politicians trying to explain political and economic issues to the public who cheer at anyone who brings up "popular politics".
@BreachedWall [cont] long. The unpublished appendix was 500 pages long! Another pet hate of mine is 'hands-on science centres'. They often translate misconceptions into concrete form. When one tries to suggest 'plores' that will demonstrate the correct physics, one is told that, "it would confuse the pupils and annoy the teachers because it contradicts their textbooks". I realise that I have strayed slightly off-topic but, you see, if the teaching is poor, what is the point of 'inspiring TV'?
@InnocenceExperience Well poor Chung Hiao surely doesn't like being dead to begin with ;) And also I somehow interpreted it as a sort of allusion that a chinese collegue who had been working on that with him had been deported or something. Thinking about it now I would say that that is maybe going a bit far though...
@flygweilo My motto is, "nobody else gets the last word on my turf". And again I am in awe at your inability to 'read between the lines'. Think: editor - publishing - deadlines. I have a journal to bring out by Monday, how does that equate to 'so much time to waste'? But I am never trying to convince my interlocutors: this is all for the benefit of casual readers. The intelligent ones will draw the correct conclusions. The last time that I argued with an 'aerospace expert' on CZcams, it ...
@BreachedWall [cont] Even worse was the Christmas (Faraday) lecture by Professor Eric Laithwaite. Look around CZcams, and the internet in general, and you will find that his 'inspiring' lecture about gyroscopes 'truly defying gravity' still leads hundreds of people down blind alleys. As a student, you are perhaps not yet aware of just how much incorrect information you have been fed by school-teachers. Some years ago, a report appeared on 'errors in school textbooks'. It was some 30 pages ...
@mrbeanaswell What should I be doing? Solving the mysteries of the universe? I regard this as worthy missionary work among the scientifically challenged.
@flygweilo I have no intention of apologizing for your short attention-span. Where do you get the idea that Feynman was testy and impatient? The case that I mentioned stood out starkly precisely because he was renowned for being so laid back in general. Perhaps Brian Cox is more 'your speed'; you know, the overgrown schoolboy who starts a sentence in one continent and finishes it another (not that one can hear him clearly over the dramatic music). Missed the point again, haven't you? If I ...
Yes, I know about Miller. That itself is a sad indictment of the status of science in the world at large. Perhaps when Miller has amassed enough money, he will finish his PhD work as a sort of hobby. That is what Brian May (the pop star) did, of course. But career scientists are kind of stupid: we rush to tell people things for nothing. We should act more like lawyers and make clients pay through the nose, again and again, for every snippet of information; each time that it is asked for!
@flygweilo Sure, but engineering is not physics. It is hard to think of a practical device (the goal of engineers, after all) whose operation is impossible to explain in simplified terms. The closest example that I can recall is a device from the days of steam which could inject water into a vessel which was at a higher pressure. Many scientists thought that it was a scam at first!
@flowerbower never to disappoint- I was beginning to wonder-and you never commented on my "dress up" John Searl link I sent you. Now-there's an actor! I am trying to gently urge you onto the stage-but you resist. Resistance is futile...
@Bowenwww Didn't you ever hear Feynman answer a similar slur to that one? An artist had said that he pitied Feynman because he could not simply enjoy the beauty of a flower. Feynman retorted that of course he could appreciate its superficial beauty but, unlike the mere artist, he could also experience its wonder at a much deeper level. Doesn't it occur to you that 'fun' is here being used to make you pay attention to a more serious point? I guess that the strategy did not work in your case.
@flowerbower You can look at things differently. But if we as scientists have to reduce everything we see to a logical, reasoned purpose then we lose all personality and all that makes us beautiful humans. It's fine to look at a piece of art and try and explain all its brush strokes, but in doing so, you miss the point of the art itself. Have fun never seeing any joyful soul in anything.
That is quite untrue in many cases; you cannot explain some things to someone that lack most of the basic knowledge required or set of references in common to communicate through. Try e.g. explaining colours to a blind person. Also, all the scientific models that we are taught in High school are extreme simplifications of reality as “we” know it; some of them, such as the classic atom model with the electrons orbiting the nucleus, are so simplistic that they are just arguably misrepresentations.
@2011bcrazy Perhaps you do not understand that the correct model is often not more difficult than the incorrect one, but time-serving clock-watching teachers are not interested in correcting errors. When it was pointed out to them some decades ago that there was a glaring error in a standard textbook diagram, the teachers were more intent on trying to find unlikely ad hoc situations in which the diagram might be correct than in simply admitting that they had never spotted the mistake. The ...
I think that it was Lord Rayleigh (referring to electromagnetism) who said that nothing can be considered a science until a standard system of units has been introduced. I tend to adhere closely to that rule and dismiss quite a few 'sciences' as being mere hand-waving. But I mainly dislike 'science as fun'. Why does it have to be made fun? I see science as a form of accountancy, and I don't see the latter profession being 'sold' on its potential to amuse (pace A and M, that is).
@deathbyfishstix Just as millions of children have enjoyed Gulliver's Travels; not realizing that it was a savage allegorical indictment of the society of Swift's time. "Science is an ocean in which an elephant can bathe and from which a gnat can drink".
@2011bcrazy [cont] Godel's unprovability theorem is universally misunderstood and misused? Crackpots are very fond of quoting it in order to undermine accepted theories so as to make their own theories look less loony. Everybody else seems sadly to agree with their interpretation of Godel. However, Godel's stated intent was exactly the opposite of what is now attributed to him: he was defending theories that relied upon mathematics, NOT attacking them!
@2011bcrazy [cont] diagram has now disappeared entirely from new textbooks, thus sparing them embarrassment. As I have already pointed out here, the 'Bernoulli' explanation for flight is now seen everywhere even though it is ludicrous. It is lucky that the Wrights were not exposed to it; they might never have got off the ground. The Wrights (and other aviation pioneers) used a simple inclined-plane model. Why is that not taught? After all, it is still retained for everything except aerofoils!
@2011bcrazy Simplified models are necessarily wrong models. Sure, that does not matter if one sees education as a system of merely parrotting back the wrong ideas so as to get a desirable piece of paper. This is not a question of airy-fairy philosophy but of pure utilitarianism: e.g. there are hundreds of patents for devices that promise reactionless propulsion. They have clearly involved many thousands of man-hours of work, considerable legal expenses and have consumed tons of paper. ALL of ...
@flygweilo Not quite sure which side you are on now: are you suggesting that Feynman had to use such an excuse, rather than truly believing that the questioner would both be 'short-changed' by rubber-band analogies and baffled by the full force of chromoelectrodynamics? BTW, I have seen engineers explain elasticity in terms of interatomic potential energy, and then go on to use rubber as an example. Major fail: rubber elasticity is an entropy effect; not an energy one.
What they normally do is explain the effects. If this discovery is going to change life, the universe, and everything. Just explain the effects on society. "We'll be able to,travel 10x faster" or "People will live a lot longer". Or whatever the main effects are.
@flygweilo So will they: the Bernoulli 'explanation' has been highly criticised in a number of papers, and has been dropped by informed physicists. It continues to be used only by engineers, journalists, and the like. You know, the sort of people who value 'communication' over truth.
@flygweilo Well that is kind of what the profile is for. Big secret! What was covered at your school; the Treloar explanation for rubber elasticity? Better tell that to the Doring-Kindersley publishing company: one of their glossy popular-science encyclopedias gives the interatomic potential energy explanation for elasticity, and then immediately gives rubber as a practical example. No wonder that there are so many crackpot inventors on CZcams, if that is the quality of their education.
@flygweilo [cont] lost on laymen. Which leads us to the second aspect: if someone is not already schooled in the rigors of scientific thought, he will not even realise that he is being cheated by being given an explanation which is actually just as complicated as the original puzzle. It is even worse if there is no hand-waving explication to be had and only phasor-theory, say, will suffice. It may well be that the questioner IS too stupid to master the necessary skills but that is not the point.
"Because Graham is on holiday and Chung Hiao is dead" - that line made me laugh more than anything I have ever heard - soo dry and dark at the same time!
It's such a brilliant throwaway joke.
Oh, I see you made this comment eleven years ago.
Are you finally approaching understand of this new theory?
@@CaptainLumpyDog unfortunately I spent those years on other things... indeed I had forgotten this sketch existed, so thanks for reminding me!
@@aModernDandy Damn! I was hoping to finally get a little insight.
(But thank you so much for replying! I figured the chance of you actually seeing that comment was slim to none, so I'm glad it worked out for both of us ha ha ha)
See you both back here in 2034, I suppose?
Quite right. It can be irritating when people hear a short layman's description of a theory, think they have a full grasp of it and then go on to say why they think it's flawed.
"Professor Feynman, can you explain the science for which you have just won the Nobel Prize in terms that the average reader of the New York Times can understand?"
"No, because if I could, it wouldn't have been worth the Nobel Prize."
Brilliant and hysterical ! This sketch reminds me of Feynman answering, or rather NOT answering, an interviewer's question about how/why magnets attract and repel one another.
I'm pretty sure its because they're magnetic
That is a fascinating video and well worth watching
Ben Miller was originally studying to be a physicist but dropped out of his phd to pursue comedy instead.
Yeah, at Cambridge! Anyone can get a PhD in solid-state physics THERE!
@@thetooginator153 I've lived in Cambridge for the past 28 years and met a lot of graduates from the university - although there is prestige in having a degree from Cambridge it is not at the top of the league when it comes to academics achievement.
@@thetooginator153 Diane Abbott got a masters there so it must be easy.
@@flipper2392 She only got a 2:2 in history + she has privileged skin.
@@SlartiSome of our spies are made there though
RIP Chung Yao
This is one the best thing I've seen on CZcams.
Yahtzee was here...
+1337penguinking and thats mainly the reason why i'm here too
Everything about this is so spot on
Yeah. Certainly helps that Ben Miller was himself studying physics.
Just love Ben Miller's delivery at 0:38.
Very profound of you to say, and I must admit that I concur. Science does not have to be fun, however, at times, it can be. I know I found learning about Ben Miller's PhD topic: Novel Quantum Mechanics in Quasi Zero-Dimensional Mesoscopic Electron Systems rather interesting and fun for me, but I delved within it to find a truth.
Science of all disciplines don't have to be fun, but for those of us who study it, we tend to make it, not on purpose, rather it becomes so.
This is pretty much every professor at my university. They are either too smart to talk with you or too busy to know you exist, and if you manage to get five words out of them you are pretty sure everything you previously knew about the universe was wrong...and that is a law professor
"I have a great subject to write upon, but feel keenly my literary incapacity to make it easily intelligible without sacrificing accuracy and thoroughness". Francis Galton.
I've got a history degree, and this is how I feel about describing the effects of great historical events on society.
So, um, which era of history, did you focus on the most...?
@@pineapplepenumbra Tudor Stuart history.
@@medievalist I was making a joke about your name. Maybe I shouldn't have done.
Many of my pupils who are studying history are studying the Russian Revolution and the Tudors and Stuarts, and I can only recall a couple of them saying they preferred the latter (or the former, if it's put in the context of Time).
Love it !
Just like talking to Searls lot !!
Reminds me of something i read a few decades ago about when Eddington (maybe) was asked if he was only one of 3 people in the world who could understand Einstein's theory (relativity maybe?) . He responded along the lines of well Einstein can, he can but he was struggling to know of the 3rd person to whom the interviewer was referring to . Or something along those lines :)
I agree that this was great. I on the other hand am not a Physicist by profession, however, I've studied Physics for many years. Funny enough, though, is that Ben Miller actually was a Physicist himself.
I love everything about this sketch - the blankly literalist researcher who can't communicate and apparently hasn't noticed that's why he's there, the bubbly, slightly brainless presenter with amazingly ambitious goals for what can be explained in ten seconds 'in layman's terms', and most of all, that last line :).
"It'll take quite a long time"
"How long?"
"11 years" XD XD XD XD
I think it's true, but sometimes minimal understanding of a concept is already a great achievement. It's not always realistic to gain enough understanding of a concept to explain it easily.
Arthur Eddington was being interviewed about general relativity in 1919. When asked if it was true there were only three people that understood it, he paused for a long time and then said "I was just wondering who the other person is".
At my uni there was a joke about the chemist Brøndsted. He wrote a text book that only two persons could understand: Brøndsted himself and god. Some years later the second revision of the text book was published, and only one person could understand that.
@flowerbower "In the case of Newton's third law, there is no room for improvement. The application of relativity or quantum mechanics to it does not change its overall import. "
Except, you know, that they totally do change things. On a pretty staggering level.
@flowerbower I don't quite see how that's anti-gravity. Obviously if it was lifting itself without any energy being supplied it would be anti-gravity, but in this case isn't energy being supplied to cause the lift? I'm probably missing a more subtle point...
I thought of this watching a documentary about Stephen hawking et al, just on a different planet
@flygweilo Gettiing back to the original topic: there was a BBC Radio 4 documentary about Richard Feynman yesterday, and it recalled the on-screen testiness which he had exhibited with the producer of one of his filmed talks. It pretty much followed the scenario of the above clip: Feynman had appeared to be unable to explain magnetic attraction, but nowadays the director realises that Feynman was just too 'honest' to talk about 'invisible elastic bands' or some other such 'palliative'.
“If you can't explain it simply, you don't understand it well enough” Einstein
Yeah, well he was Einstein though.
Yeah but if you, or Einstein, tried to explain general relativity quickly and simply like this, people who don't know physics won't understand you. It simply can't be explained without context. "Matter is energy and time and space can be warped by incredibly massive or incredibly fast-moving objects." OK great but if you know physics, I left a lot out, and if you don't know physics, you still don't understand relativity.
As a physicist who has sometimes had to deal with media-people, I can confirm that this sketch is spot-on. Physics is so far beyond everyday experience that attempts to simplify it usually produce a horrible mess that helps no-one. Horizon is a prime example of the horrors of dumbing-down.
"Horizon is a prime example of the horrors of dumbing-down"
And it got even worse after your comment.
I haven't watched it for years, but doubt if it's improved since then.
@BreachedWall As I mentioned elsewhere here, I was inspired by 'boring' programmes such as one by Bragg himself illustrating the effect of point defects in crystals by playing with a model of a BBC 'outside-broadcast van' stuck in a traffic-jam of Dinky-toy cars. I don't think that those who need soaring music, actorly voice-overs and helicopter shots, to be inspired, really have the right mind-set for physics in the first place. However, a bigger problem is that a 'good teacher' can ...
You know Ben Miller actually began studying PhD in solid-state physics.
@flowerbower What's worse is when a layperson reads one of these superficial explanations and gets it into their heads that they understand it.
@flygweilo [cont] became clear that he not only subscribed to the ridiculous but popular 'Bernoulli' theory of flight but had also confused the law of static equilibrium with Newton's 3rd law. But, hey, that doesn't matter: the first successful passenger-carrying aircraft was designed by someone who thought that gravity was a suction force!
My connection with Aerospace is that I was originally employed as a metallurgist to work on missiles and other military kit, and even my theoretical ...
@Terraval No, they don't. Newton's third law is really only a corollary of the 1st law of thermodynamics. So, I would say that a 'staggering' result would be an invalidation of the latter law. However, after 'the smoke has cleared', and a few terms have been re-defined, one finds that it is still there, inviolate, and so is Newton's 3rd.
@flygweilo Not sure what you mean by that; physics subsumes all other disciplines. Of course, the other disciplines don't like to admit it. Electrical engineers, in particular, are liable to question well-established principles of physics at the 'drop of a gyroscope'; thus explaining why there is an especially large overlap between electrical engineers and 'cranks who believe in perpetual motion and/or anti-gravity'. Eric Laithwaite was very much the poster-boy for this tendency. Sometimes ...
Funny because Ben actually studied Quantum Physics.
@2011bcrazy [cont] them are based upon misinterpretations of rote-learned physics. The notorious Dean Drive of the 1960s impressed many people (including professional mathematicians and engineers) by its ability to scuttle across polished floors. Their positive reaction (pun intended) was due entirely to their belief in the silly 'little mountains' model of friction (which does not allow for non-linear effects, and fails the simplest thermodynamic analysis). The Dean Drive was still being ...
@flygweilo [cont] work for a doctorate in physics was related to a revolutionary new concept in gas-turbine blades (Shhh!). Can't tell you any more, having signed the Official Secrets Act three times.
Lucky that I never got my dream-job, eh? I applied to work at Porton Down when I was still a schoolboy.
@flygweilo Another descent into fine-sounding waffle on the rubber front, but unfortunately this is a clear-cut situation and not open to obfustication. In the case of most materials, one can make a straightforward link between the potential-energy versus separation curve for interatomic forces and the macroscopic elastic properties. But rubber is an unruly polymer which prefers to maximise its disorder and it is the energy required to impose order (straightening, not extending, chains) which ..
@flowerbower I did indeed hear that response, I fully understand the potency of such a statement, this is supported again by Tyson "Being scientifically literate empowers you"
That's called "The Internet"
I read The Dancing Wu Li Masters once and I found it incredibly hollow and patronising.
Funny. Yeah, I was thinking about doing that in the future, working for a degree in Physics. Even funnier though is how you mentioned being like lawyers. I'm actually planning on Law School. It's true though, that we scientists tend to want to just give information like it's nothing. I love how they made it clear, there really is no such thing as a simple answer. Yes it will take 11 years sometimes, and that's if you know something! Oh how superficial life can be. What I hate even more
You're not a scientist.
@aModernDandy what's the dark part?
@beardedartisan Not really. Physicists do physics; not some 'displacement activity'
@BreachedWall I somehow missed your reply earlier. It is easy to disprove the Bernoulli explanation: imagine that the aerofoil is contained within a closed-circuit wind-tunnel having an incredibly high power/weight ratio. Then there is NOTHING in the typical Bernoulli explanation that prevents the aerofoil from lifting itself AND the wind-tunnel. Most illustrations do not even indicate any diversion of the airflow. There is in fact an 'anti-gravity' patent 'based' upon my reductio ad absurdam.
its simple life the universe and pretty much every thing= 42
@flowerbower Of course it's still a perfectly good conservation law once we bring in GR and QM, but the consequences of that law and the physical phenomena we can expect change drastically. Think we're arguing over nothing here really, just semantics.
@2011bcrazy [cont] mentioned by NASA less than a decade ago: apparently because certain high-ups in the organisation still believed in it, so the engineers patiently had to dismiss it all over again.
Of course, I have given a very specialised example: but imagine it multiplied by the number of all defective models and it becomes a considerable waste of resources. It is not a matter of striving for perfection, but of hanging on to what is already known. BTW, doesn't it bother you that ...
@sledgehammer4321 Yups, he did.
@2011bcrazy My basic objection is your generalization of the principle. Applied to big bang theory, I would certainly agree ('cosmologists are always certain and always wrong' as they say) but one has to have the hope of zeroing-in on the truth, or what is the point of trying? In the case of Newton's third law, there is no room for improvement. The application of relativity or quantum mechanics to it does not change its overall import. However, too many people just don't get it, even as it is!
@flowerbower On a side note, are you an Athiest/do you believe in an afterlife?
@rlinfinity [cont] often found that inventors of such machines believe that they are exploiting Newton's laws when, in fact, they are being defeated by them. Even worse, the inventors frequently picked up their incorrect notions during an early undergraduate course on mechanics, but went on to specialise in another subject, thus leading to the awful spectacle of someone with a BSc, PhD (even a professorship) claiming to have invented a 'reactionless propulsion device'. Because of their ...
@flowerbower Indeed, I'm aware of how an explanation through the Bernoulli effect is not the right one, as I understand it, Newton's 3rd law is much better at explaining flight...not that I have any idea how you can demonstrate anti-gravity if Bernoulli's effect were true!
To be honest, I did get inspired to get into physics because of dramatic documentaries and pop sci books. Not sure I'd be doing it now if it weren't for them. So despite their simplicity, I still appreciate them.
@BreachedWall I define antigravity (in my book on the subject) as anything which does not obey Newton's third law: that avoids a lot of silly crackpot objections and covers both levitation and propulsion.
Even the loony-tunes admit that energy would have to be used. However, their main ambition/claim is to do away with reaction-mass. In my 'closed-circuit wind-tunnel', the reaction mass is used again and again, which is impossible (although there are patents based on that idea as well!).
@rlinfinity Quite. However, even in the formal physics-teaching situation there is a 'tradition', of using models which are flawed, simply because the student does not yet have the other skills (mathematics, etc.) to understand the best treatment. Friction, for instance, is treated appallingly; even in undergraduate textbooks. I am writing a book about antigravity crackpots and, although some of the proponents are outright fraudsters, others have simply 'built on incorrect conceptions'. It is
@flowerbower The point that I think you're missing is that every single possibility that can be arrived at through science can never be considered truth as a pure term, but rather an approximation of truth. Science can only ever hope to suggest that something is caused by something else, as our knowledge is, has always been and will always be limited. You cannot say that anything as a pure fact, as you are in that relenting to acknowledge the potential and probable existance of unknown variables
@flowerbower You said it clear enough, you have no time for philosophers or philosophy, such are the words of any fool. Saying that something cannot be proven so is, and always will be, a valid point. For you to see, you must maintain open eyes, when there is potential for it to be otherwise, in accepting that there are other possibilities, you check and determine the most logical solution time and time again, forever enabling you to have solid basis for any further scientific advances!
@drewcwhitehead I made that point one year ago.
@flygweilo [cont] that a diagram in the hydrostatics textbook which he was reading was wildly incorrect (and that the error had been reproduced for some 80 years). He was incensed because he was a civil engineer 'who had built dams'. HE used the term, 'idiot'. However, he could not argue with a quick mathematical analysis of the situation.
BTW, that hydrostatic error began to appear at about the same time as the silly Bernoulli explanation for flight. I blame both on lazy teachers. Finally, ..
@flygweilo [cont] informs its macroscopic behaviour. This is why rubber becomes cooler when it is stretched, contrary to what happens in most materials. It also shrinks (ah, the logic of it) when heated; watch carefully the surface of a partially deflated party balloon when put near to a flame. Gee, this should all be Physics-101. It was, in the past. Have standards fallen so low?
@Just1Micky I am not missing it, but it is a mere philosophical point and I have no time for philosophy or philosophers. There have always been philosophers, but science (and therefore modern civilisation) never really 'took off' until the time of Bacon. Of course scientists know that their theories are never exact but they do not use that fact as an excuse to waffle interminably and never get anywhere. Philosophers are like the crafty lawyer who gets a valid case thrown out on a technicality.
did he just quote the hitchhikers guide to the galaxy?
Quite: 'fun' is not an absolute. But one has to draw a line between the sort of science-fun that involves blowing up caravans and the sort of science-fun that is on a par, say, with the fun of playing fairy-chess against the clock, or breaking a coded message.
I'll get me anorak.
@flowerbower I'm currently studying physics at Cambridge and I disagree. Physics documentaries, if done well, can at least give people a basic notion of the fundamental laws that govern the Universe, even if they're always going to be lightweight. And, most importantly of all, they have the potential to inspire people to do physics and learn it properly - and for that reason alone, they're well worth making.
Hilarious sketch btw.
@Terraval OK.
Just wasted about an hour searching for this video until I found the right search phrases and it was the first result. Gah. I have to improve my search skills.
I'm proud to report that my search skills have improved. This time I got it first try. (Wonder if personalized search had a play in it, though.)
@t479921 Is there some sort of prize for solving these coded messages?
@flowerbower Errors are bad...but at the end of the day, when you start off learning science, you tend to learn the simplest models rather than jumping in the deep end. So while these models are generally wrong, they work on one level. In that sense they can often be useful. After all, none of our current theories can be said to be completely true.
I guess you're criticising simplified models that are misleading - and in such cases I'd agree. Defining such cases is the hard part.
This reminds me of questiontime...politicians trying to explain political and economic issues to the public who cheer at anyone who brings up "popular politics".
"and economic issues to the public"
You make it sound like politicians understand Economics...
@BreachedWall [cont] long. The unpublished appendix was 500 pages long! Another pet hate of mine is 'hands-on science centres'. They often translate misconceptions into concrete form. When one tries to suggest 'plores' that will demonstrate the correct physics, one is told that, "it would confuse the pupils and annoy the teachers because it contradicts their textbooks".
I realise that I have strayed slightly off-topic but, you see, if the teaching is poor, what is the point of 'inspiring TV'?
@InnocenceExperience Well poor Chung Hiao surely doesn't like being dead to begin with ;) And also I somehow interpreted it as a sort of allusion that a chinese collegue who had been working on that with him had been deported or something. Thinking about it now I would say that that is maybe going a bit far though...
@flygweilo My motto is, "nobody else gets the last word on my turf".
And again I am in awe at your inability to 'read between the lines'. Think: editor - publishing - deadlines. I have a journal to bring out by Monday, how does that equate to 'so much time to waste'? But I am never trying to convince my interlocutors: this is all for the benefit of casual readers. The intelligent ones will draw the correct conclusions.
The last time that I argued with an 'aerospace expert' on CZcams, it ...
@BreachedWall [cont] Even worse was the Christmas (Faraday) lecture by Professor Eric Laithwaite. Look around CZcams, and the internet in general, and you will find that his 'inspiring' lecture about gyroscopes 'truly defying gravity' still leads hundreds of people down blind alleys. As a student, you are perhaps not yet aware of just how much incorrect information you have been fed by school-teachers. Some years ago, a report appeared on 'errors in school textbooks'. It was some 30 pages ...
@mrbeanaswell What should I be doing? Solving the mysteries of the universe? I regard this as worthy missionary work among the scientifically challenged.
@flygweilo I have no intention of apologizing for your short attention-span. Where do you get the idea that Feynman was testy and impatient? The case that I mentioned stood out starkly precisely because he was renowned for being so laid back in general. Perhaps Brian Cox is more 'your speed'; you know, the overgrown schoolboy who starts a sentence in one continent and finishes it another (not that one can hear him clearly over the dramatic music).
Missed the point again, haven't you? If I ...
Yes, I know about Miller. That itself is a sad indictment of the status of science in the world at large. Perhaps when Miller has amassed enough money, he will finish his PhD work as a sort of hobby. That is what Brian May (the pop star) did, of course.
But career scientists are kind of stupid: we rush to tell people things for nothing. We should act more like lawyers and make clients pay through the nose, again and again, for every snippet of information; each time that it is asked for!
@flygweilo Sure, but engineering is not physics. It is hard to think of a practical device (the goal of engineers, after all) whose operation is impossible to explain in simplified terms. The closest example that I can recall is a device from the days of steam which could inject water into a vessel which was at a higher pressure. Many scientists thought that it was a scam at first!
@flowerbower never to disappoint- I was beginning to wonder-and you never commented on my "dress up" John Searl link I sent you. Now-there's an actor! I am trying to gently urge you onto the stage-but you resist. Resistance is futile...
@Bowenwww Didn't you ever hear Feynman answer a similar slur to that one? An artist had said that he pitied Feynman because he could not simply enjoy the beauty of a flower. Feynman retorted that of course he could appreciate its superficial beauty but, unlike the mere artist, he could also experience its wonder at a much deeper level.
Doesn't it occur to you that 'fun' is here being used to make you pay attention to a more serious point? I guess that the strategy did not work in your case.
@Supermassively i care, im somebody
@flowerbower You can look at things differently. But if we as scientists have to reduce everything we see to a logical, reasoned purpose then we lose all personality and all that makes us beautiful humans. It's fine to look at a piece of art and try and explain all its brush strokes, but in doing so, you miss the point of the art itself. Have fun never seeing any joyful soul in anything.
Oh gee, that's sad. Ben Miller was on Horizon today (10-01-11) doing just the sort of dumbed-down explication that they are lampooning here.
That is quite untrue in many cases; you cannot explain some things to someone that lack most of the basic knowledge required or set of references in common to communicate through. Try e.g. explaining colours to a blind person.
Also, all the scientific models that we are taught in High school are extreme simplifications of reality as “we” know it; some of them, such as the classic atom model with the electrons orbiting the nucleus, are so simplistic that they are just arguably misrepresentations.
Quantum chromodynamics is SO much harder than quantum electrodynamics.
So not just 50% harder?
@2011bcrazy Perhaps you do not understand that the correct model is often not more difficult than the incorrect one, but time-serving clock-watching teachers are not interested in correcting errors. When it was pointed out to them some decades ago that there was a glaring error in a standard textbook diagram, the teachers were more intent on trying to find unlikely ad hoc situations in which the diagram might be correct than in simply admitting that they had never spotted the mistake. The ...
I think that it was Lord Rayleigh (referring to electromagnetism) who said that nothing can be considered a science until a standard system of units has been introduced. I tend to adhere closely to that rule and dismiss quite a few 'sciences' as being mere hand-waving.
But I mainly dislike 'science as fun'. Why does it have to be made fun? I see science as a form of accountancy, and I don't see the latter profession being 'sold' on its potential to amuse (pace A and M, that is).
Hahaha, i love the irony of the top comments!
@deathbyfishstix Just as millions of children have enjoyed Gulliver's Travels; not realizing that it was a savage allegorical indictment of the society of Swift's time.
"Science is an ocean in which an elephant can bathe and from which a gnat can drink".
@mrbeanaswell QED (and mate)!
@2011bcrazy [cont] Godel's unprovability theorem is universally misunderstood and misused? Crackpots are very fond of quoting it in order to undermine accepted theories so as to make their own theories look less loony. Everybody else seems sadly to agree with their interpretation of Godel. However, Godel's stated intent was exactly the opposite of what is now attributed to him: he was defending theories that relied upon mathematics, NOT attacking them!
Brian Cox can't make sense of it? Sweet jebus...
@2011bcrazy [cont] diagram has now disappeared entirely from new textbooks, thus sparing them embarrassment.
As I have already pointed out here, the 'Bernoulli' explanation for flight is now seen everywhere even though it is ludicrous. It is lucky that the Wrights were not exposed to it; they might never have got off the ground. The Wrights (and other aviation pioneers) used a simple inclined-plane model. Why is that not taught? After all, it is still retained for everything except aerofoils!
@2011bcrazy Simplified models are necessarily wrong models. Sure, that does not matter if one sees education as a system of merely parrotting back the wrong ideas so as to get a desirable piece of paper. This is not a question of airy-fairy philosophy but of pure utilitarianism: e.g. there are hundreds of patents for devices that promise reactionless propulsion. They have clearly involved many thousands of man-hours of work, considerable legal expenses and have consumed tons of paper. ALL of ...
@flygweilo Not quite sure which side you are on now: are you suggesting that Feynman had to use such an excuse, rather than truly believing that the questioner would both be 'short-changed' by rubber-band analogies and baffled by the full force of chromoelectrodynamics?
BTW, I have seen engineers explain elasticity in terms of interatomic potential energy, and then go on to use rubber as an example. Major fail: rubber elasticity is an entropy effect; not an energy one.
What they normally do is explain the effects. If this discovery is going to change life, the universe, and everything. Just explain the effects on society. "We'll be able to,travel 10x faster" or "People will live a lot longer". Or whatever the main effects are.
"no"
@flygweilo So will they: the Bernoulli 'explanation' has been highly criticised in a number of papers, and has been dropped by informed physicists. It continues to be used only by engineers, journalists, and the like. You know, the sort of people who value 'communication' over truth.
@flygweilo Well that is kind of what the profile is for. Big secret!
What was covered at your school; the Treloar explanation for rubber elasticity? Better tell that to the Doring-Kindersley publishing company: one of their glossy popular-science encyclopedias gives the interatomic potential energy explanation for elasticity, and then immediately gives rubber as a practical example. No wonder that there are so many crackpot inventors on CZcams, if that is the quality of their education.
Does this argument thread really belong under this video!?
@flygweilo [cont] lost on laymen. Which leads us to the second aspect: if someone is not already schooled in the rigors of scientific thought, he will not even realise that he is being cheated by being given an explanation which is actually just as complicated as the original puzzle. It is even worse if there is no hand-waving explication to be had and only phasor-theory, say, will suffice. It may well be that the questioner IS too stupid to master the necessary skills but that is not the point.
your*