Thread for Genuine Discussion on What You are Reading at University

Discussion in 'Education and Academia' started by TheLostUniversity, Dec 31, 2009.

  1. TheLostUniversity

    Los Angeles Galaxy
    Feb 4, 2007
    Greater Boston
    Club:
    --other--
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Note that this thread is not a platform limited to books I would read, or approve of reading, or to subjects which I respect or find agreeable to my sensibilities. The idea IS that if you have met some book, or paper, or lecture, etc..., whose ideas or arguments are [in your judgement] worthy of discussion, feel free to set out what these are and then discuss openly with others free to discuss as they can.
    The topics could be from absolutely anything under the sun, from Aeschylus to Zoentrope, from hardcore mathematics or physics to the most proudly postmodern, as long as you have met them as part of your University studies [graduate or undergraduate] and that you are prepared to let others speak as honestly and deeply as you would wish to be allowed to speak. The only ones who should ever be accused of trolling on this thread are those who seek to deny others the right to argue and write with untrammeled candor.
    Now, let's see what BS can offer in this large tented Chautaqua [and let's hope it isn't another forum for the adventures of Adu or Bennie or Beckhamcakes:)]
     
  2. TheLostUniversity

    Los Angeles Galaxy
    Feb 4, 2007
    Greater Boston
    Club:
    --other--
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Here's something to begin with. Much of my reading the last two years has been papers which frequently use mathematical arguments in some fundamental way. But what the mathematics is taken to justify can vary strongly from author to author. [Compare Witten to Smolin, two highly mathematically talented physicists, for example. The first references below are for those technically trained. The second are for those approaching this from the outside]. It has led me to think over a very old debate as to what is the meaning of mathematics within scientic thought. In this context I found myself looking back to Newton, and comparing his early mathematical bravado [say, in his Lectures on Optics], where he was sure that to map out the mathematical principles [of, e.g., ray optics with the spectrum of light], was to get complete correspondence to the behavior of nature; with his later suspicion as to the limitations of the grasp of mathematics [in, e.g, his Principia, where God is curiously brought into the game to preserve the "equilibrium" of the planetary motions].
    Ok, so why all this? Because this is the background to taking as side reading a book by Alan Shapiro on Newton's arguments on Light, mathematical or otherwise, and his fascinating theory of "Fits and Passions" , which was an ingenious attempt to reconcile the clashing particle and wavelike behavior of light. If anybody has read this, or would like to, or has thoughts on these sorts of questions, I'd welcome a break from "the thesis" and sort through some of the above.

    [1] E. Witten: The Problem Of Gauge Theory , L. Smolin: Phenomenological Quantum Gravity
    [2] E. Witten: Interview in Scientific American, L. Smolin: The Life of the Universe
    [3] A. Shapiro: Fits, Passions, Paroxysms
    [4] I. Newton: Principia [the recent translation by Cohen]
     

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