Neil deGrasse Tyson is the host of a cultural highlight for anybody interested in science. He is a great story teller and connects education with entertainment, and he does so with an enthusiasm rarely found elsewhere.
Neil deGrasse Tyson is the host of a cultural highlight for anybody interested in science. He is a great story teller and connects education with entertainment, and he does so with an enthusiasm rarely found elsewhere.
How can a crackpot be recognized? Angela Collier presents an example as follow-up to the first course in this YouTube video. There is one question left over: do you share the judgement? Is is legitimate to speculate in science? Where exactly is the red line to distinguish scientific avant-garde ideas from blank nonsense? Is string theory a story made up by a community of crackpots? Or is it bleeding edge science in terra incognita?
Patrick Winston explains how to structure and set up a talk. This lecture is from MIT IAP 2018.
There is another YouTube video describing the origins of quantum electrodynamics at the Shelter Island conferences after World War II. The coincidences of agreement of the theoretical and experimental values are under scrutiny.
Quantum mechanics evolved to describe the electromagnetic field itself. The first field theory is called quantum electrodynamics. It is considered to be a high precision theory and its success is claimed to have started right from the beginning. However, there is a story behind the story. Theoretical results and experimental results came along in good agreement while both being false. This happend more than one time, as Dr. Alexander Unzicker summarizes in this YouTube Video:
There are several links found in the video description. It is some background research material published by Oliver Consa:
Sabine Hossenfelder presents some background information about economic constraints in modern academia. The paradigm economy first, science second has been evolving for several decades. Whoever wants to do research in modern science, mathematics, physics or similar, should watch, think about and understand this video. The culture of producing justification rather than knowledge in exchange for low payment has led to a self-enhancing mainstream paper production machinery. If this sounds familiar within a different context: the quick motion version of this is actually hyped as AI. Be prepared and keep a sick bucket in range.
In the past decades something went wrong with the academic research system. It is hard to tell when exactly this happened, but the trend to economic optimization of academic structures is a main driver in this story. A first impression is given by the following YouTube Video with focus on the US situation.