Feynman: "Mathematicians like to make their reasoning as general as possible. If I say to them 'I want to talk about ordinary 3 dimensional space' they say 'If you have a space of n dimensions, then here are the theorems.' 'But I only want the case 3' 'Well, substitute n=3'!" 1/3
-
-
-
"Physicists are always interested in the special case; they're never interested in the general case. They're talking about something; not talking abstractly about anything. They want to discuss the gravity law of 3 dimensions; not the arbitrary force case in n dimensions." 2/3
- 2 more replies
New conversation -
-
-
That's
@jimmyfallon in that pic or not?? -
Exactly my first thought
End of conversation
New conversation -
-
-
It bothers me that ppl repeat this without (i) checking to what extent it's true; (ii) trying to explain why it is true; (iii) comparing to the track record of math in other disciplines; (iv) trying to explain the discrepancy between physics & other disciplines in this respect
-
I don’t think the claim is that math applies _more_ to physics than to other disciplines. Just that there are some preternatural examples of it. C.f. “unreasonable effectiveness” https://www.dartmouth.edu/~matc/MathDrama/reading/Wigner.html …
- 13 more replies
New conversation -
-
-
Except Jules Verne wasn't a mathematician. Or was he ?
-
You forgot to say there is no footsteps of verne in the moon
End of conversation
New conversation -
-
New conversation
Loading seems to be taking a while.
Twitter may be over capacity or experiencing a momentary hiccup. Try again or visit Twitter Status for more information.