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comment by lm
lm  ·  2866 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Pubski: January 18, 2017

Semester started yesterday, so the past couple of days have been a lot of last-minute rushing about getting everything ready to go.

I'm TAing a senior/grad level class and I am excited to be able to have expectations of my students. Teaching intro classes is fun, but it's nice to expect people to know the basics & thus be able to spend time talking about the more interesting stuff. Some of my students this semester have been my students in the past, so I know I've got some sharp cookies. It's going to be fun & also too much C.

I'm sitting in on a modern physics class this semester since I have approximate knowledge of how that stuff works but little formal/mathematical understanding. I'm used to graduate classes: the professor was discussing an example, and said, "we'll do the math for this on Friday" and I thought to myself, "but I want the math NOW!"





Devac  ·  2866 days ago  ·  link  ·  
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lm  ·  2866 days ago  ·  link  ·  

The course is called "Modern Physics"--I think it covers relativity and maybe some QM. I'm planning to sit in on some QM classes in the future, but I haven't taken a proper physics class since...2010? so I figured I'd start here.

The example is the moving light clock one that demonstrates special relativity since the light must travel further as compared to the light in a stationary clock.

Devac  ·  2866 days ago  ·  link  ·  
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lm  ·  2865 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Those diagrams sure do look like a nice formalization of the stuff we were talking about, so I'll bet you're right. Susskind looks awesome! I'll let you know if I run into anything I want to know more on.

Actually, there is one thing: do we have any more motivation for Einstein's special relativity postulates other than "it makes sense and, seriously, what other way would you try to formalize reality?"

Devac  ·  2864 days ago  ·  link  ·  
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lm  ·  2863 days ago  ·  link  ·  

No, this makes pretty good sense to me. Thanks! I'm sure I'll have more questions as time goes on but for now I need to do some stuff to keep my advisor happy.

Congrats on the grades, by the way!

Devac  ·  2865 days ago  ·  link  ·  
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