We can never fully grasp, define, or understand a system we are part of.
“Distance provides perspective” and wisdom in life is often about perspective.
11 BIG IDEAS OF PHYSICS
via @BlasMoros of @LTCWRK
(Thread 👇)
We can never fully grasp, define, or understand a system we are part of.
“Distance provides perspective” and wisdom in life is often about perspective.
The study of the large-scale behavior of systems exchanging work and heat with connected systems or their environment.
- The Transitive Law
- The Law of Conservation
- The “Contrast Advantage” Law
- The “Absolute Zero” Law
Describe how objects in the world move and react to forces.
- The Inertia Law: An object at rest, stays at rest
- Force = Mass * Acceleration (F = ma)
- The Law of Reciprocity: For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction
A complex system exhibits emergent behavior due to the collective interaction of many individual agents according to simple rules.
Complex systems are sensitive to original conditions, influenced by feedback loops, and buffeted by random outside variables.
Chaos leads to complicated, non-periodic behavior from iteration of a simple rule(s), whereas complexity leads to rich, collective behavior from simple interactions between large numbers of subunits.
Complexity lies in between order and chaos.
A process where higher-order behavior emerges from the interaction of lower-order components.
These smaller or simpler entities do not exhibit the properties that the higher-order entity ends up exhibiting.
The whole is greater than the sum of its parts.
The quantity of motion of a moving body, measured as a product of its mass and velocity: Momentum = Mass * Velocity
Momentum is broadly applicable outside of physics as it can help you understand how things change and how difficult or easy it is to change them.
Velocity has magnitude and direction whereas speed does not.
While nobody knows why nature favors velocity over mass, she does, and we should harness it.
There's a stark difference between potential energy and kinetic energy.
Friction is the force that causes the resistance felt when two objects are moving against one another.
Inertia is a prime example of friction.
More from Science
Read this thread from @lilithsaintcrow. I really mean it. Just read it. Because if what she is saying is true (and I happen to think it is) it explains *so much*
An example using the Flat Earthers: A thread of many parts:
I'm firmly convinced that the flat Earth thing was started by some adolescent trolls with nothing more productive to do. They didn't believe it, but they thought it was entertaining to keep pretending that they did.
You can't engage with them, because they *are playing a game*. They think it's fun to see if they can get anybody to engage with something completely stupid as though it's true.
If you challenge them, the rules of the game state that they have to argue as hard and a spuriously as they like, but *never* to admit that the Earth is not in fact flat. I suppose you have to make up your own entertainment on 4chan or whatever hole this was conceived in.
It's annoying as hell, but I suppose it doesn't do much harm.. except to folks like this:
An example using the Flat Earthers: A thread of many parts:
Let me explain something to those of you who didn't grow up around violently abusive white supremacists.
— Lili Saintcrow (@lilithsaintcrow) January 7, 2021
*They absolutely do not believe their own bullshit*, but it's useful for them to pretend they do.
I'm firmly convinced that the flat Earth thing was started by some adolescent trolls with nothing more productive to do. They didn't believe it, but they thought it was entertaining to keep pretending that they did.
You can't engage with them, because they *are playing a game*. They think it's fun to see if they can get anybody to engage with something completely stupid as though it's true.
If you challenge them, the rules of the game state that they have to argue as hard and a spuriously as they like, but *never* to admit that the Earth is not in fact flat. I suppose you have to make up your own entertainment on 4chan or whatever hole this was conceived in.
It's annoying as hell, but I suppose it doesn't do much harm.. except to folks like this:
It was great to talk about reproducible workflows for @riotscienceclub @riotscience_wlv. You can watch the recording below, but if you don't want to listen to me talk for 40 minutes, I thought I would summarise my talk in a thread:
My inspiration was making open science accessible. I wanted to outline the mistakes I've made along the way so people would feel empowered to give it a go. Increased accountability is seen as a barrier to adopting open science practices as an ECR
It also comes across as all or nothing. You are either fully open science or your research won't get anywhere. However, that can be quite intimidating, so I wanted to emphasise this incremental approach to adapting your workflow
There are two sides to why you should work towards reproducibility. The first is communal. It's going to help the field if you or someone else can reproduce your whole pipeline.
There is also the selfish element of it's just going to help you do your work. If you can't remember what your work means after a lunch break, you're not going to remember months or years down the line
Thank you again @JamesEBartlett for a fantastic talk (with a really nice personal touch) on reproducible workflows!
— RIOT Science Club Wolverhampton (@riotscience_wlv) February 16, 2021
Thanks especially for the co-leads @IMLahart for co-hosting and @DrManiBhogal for nabbing James!
Slides: https://t.co/CNqxzOhch1
Video: https://t.co/YjHEHuRJlz
My inspiration was making open science accessible. I wanted to outline the mistakes I've made along the way so people would feel empowered to give it a go. Increased accountability is seen as a barrier to adopting open science practices as an ECR
It also comes across as all or nothing. You are either fully open science or your research won't get anywhere. However, that can be quite intimidating, so I wanted to emphasise this incremental approach to adapting your workflow
There are two sides to why you should work towards reproducibility. The first is communal. It's going to help the field if you or someone else can reproduce your whole pipeline.
There is also the selfish element of it's just going to help you do your work. If you can't remember what your work means after a lunch break, you're not going to remember months or years down the line
Why are lunch breaks important for #code?
— Dr Rebecca Hirst (@HirstRj) February 11, 2021
If you can't remember what your variable names refer to after lunch, you sure as hell won't remember in 3 months.
You May Also Like
I just finished Eric Adler's The Battle of the Classics, and wanted to say something about Joel Christiansen's review linked below. I am not sure what motivates the review (I speculate a bit below), but it gives a very misleading impression of the book. 1/x
The meat of the criticism is that the history Adler gives is insufficiently critical. Adler describes a few figures who had a great influence on how the modern US university was formed. It's certainly critical: it focuses on the social Darwinism of these figures. 2/x
Other insinuations and suggestions in the review seem wildly off the mark, distorted, or inappropriate-- for example, that the book is clickbaity (it is scholarly) or conservative (hardly) or connected to the events at the Capitol (give me a break). 3/x
The core question: in what sense is classics inherently racist? Classics is old. On Adler's account, it begins in ancient Rome and is revived in the Renaissance. Slavery (Christiansen's primary concern) is also very old. Let's say classics is an education for slaveowners. 4/x
It's worth remembering that literacy itself is elite throughout most of this history. Literacy is, then, also the education of slaveowners. We can honor oral and musical traditions without denying that literacy is, generally, good. 5/x
As someone\u2019s who\u2019s read the book, this review strikes me as tremendously unfair. It mostly faults Adler for not writing the book the reviewer wishes he had! https://t.co/pqpt5Ziivj
— Teresa M. Bejan (@tmbejan) January 12, 2021
The meat of the criticism is that the history Adler gives is insufficiently critical. Adler describes a few figures who had a great influence on how the modern US university was formed. It's certainly critical: it focuses on the social Darwinism of these figures. 2/x
Other insinuations and suggestions in the review seem wildly off the mark, distorted, or inappropriate-- for example, that the book is clickbaity (it is scholarly) or conservative (hardly) or connected to the events at the Capitol (give me a break). 3/x
The core question: in what sense is classics inherently racist? Classics is old. On Adler's account, it begins in ancient Rome and is revived in the Renaissance. Slavery (Christiansen's primary concern) is also very old. Let's say classics is an education for slaveowners. 4/x
It's worth remembering that literacy itself is elite throughout most of this history. Literacy is, then, also the education of slaveowners. We can honor oral and musical traditions without denying that literacy is, generally, good. 5/x
