Never Bored by James Lyons Walsh

Hi James,

I like your video. The production value isn't great, but I think it is well-written. One question though: what connection does the knee replacement example have with physics?

By the way, if you could watch and rate my video, "The Cool Physics of Refrigeration," that would be awesome.

David

Thanks for responding. I guess I usually think of unit conversions and probability as part of math in general, but they certainly have applications in physics.

David

Hi James, Erica,

We agree! If you study/think about the world with a physics point of view you'll never get bored. So in regard to the Nietzsche quote "Against boredom even the gods contend in vain" this must be referring to gods with no love/knowledge of physics :-). The two examples you give are great. While calculating the risk of a knee surgery is not physics directly *it* does illustrate a physics way of thinking and this is the kind of justification we give to our students when tey complain that they'll never need to understand an Atwood's machine (for example). Maybe not but the way of approaching problems that allows one to solve the Atwood's machine is a very general and powerful way of approaching problems.

By the way Feynman had a very similar view to the power of physics. Their was some interview (we think it's on YouTube) where he discusses his (Feynman's) ability to appreciate a sunset or a flower. Feynman's point is that he is able to appreciate these things in more or less the same way as an artist, photographer or painter (maybe not in as refined a way, but he (Feynman) is also able to appreciate and understand these things from a physics perspective and this only deepens ones understanding and appreciation for these things.

Anyway a nice video. We wish you well in the contest.

Best,

Mike, Max, Simon, Dan, Doug

Thanks to everyone who's been checking us out! I'm really glad if you've liked the video; it was very fun to work together with James on it, and I was both humbled and honored to have him ask me to be co-creator with him.

Hehehe. James is right, I do have a fondness for Nietzsche. :) He's not someone I agree with completely on everything, but he does have his very valid points, and I love his sense of humor. My favorite thing about him though, is the fact that, at least in the stuff I've read, Nietzsche doesn't merely state his own ideas for the reader to reject or accept, very often he puts them forth in a way that really allows the reader to draw their own conclusions from what he's saying. He gives you the setup, but what you pull from it is sort of up to you and how much you want to think about what he's saying, and in what context. This is extremely appealing to my math-wired mind, as it's similar to being given a puzzle, but not its solution(s).

I'm familiar with the Feynman video you speak of, too, and that was indeed one of my favorite parts of it. I really do see the world very much in the way I described, and the alchemy of physics, math, and philosophy playing off each other in mind makes for a life in which boredom must be a willful decision. :)

Hi David!

I can understand your initial confusion on the unit conversion thing. Being a math major, I always tended to see that side of physics first, and for a while I wondered if I was maybe even "cheating" a little, because I was relying more on my mathematical intuition, as opposed to understanding the verbal language of physical laws and theories, to grasp what was going on in class. But as James said to me once when I voiced concern about it, "The math is the physics, and the physics the math." It didn't matter which framework I used to comprehend the material, I'd get to the same place either way. Further, I struggled with physics most only when I tried to keep the conceptual and the math as separate entities in my mind. When I finally understood they were really one and the same, things clicked into place a lot more readily. Sure, physics may be a subset of math, but I've looked over James' shoulder at his homework and research for his physics graduate studies, and I've become convinced: it's a pretty enormous subset. :)

Hi Marc!

Thanks for the compliment on the animations! That was fun to do, and a very different art style than I'm used to working in. Usually my stuff is a lot more complex (the images at the end of the video for example), so I had to learn how do simple in a very hot hurry. I'm glad it went over well!

Thanks too for your warm reception of my commentary at the end. It's very true for me. I've stood looking at every day situations and objects and thought how wonderful it was to have a good grasp of what basic physics were at play there, while simultaneously marveling over how much was going on that I *didn't* know about. It's really awesome feeling, in the truest sense of the word. :) Of course, credit where it's due: I have to thank James, because without his great efforts and encouragement, I might never have arrived at that place. ;)

Well done video. Especially liked the cute sketches. Voted it up.

Here's my Higgs Geometry video if you can have a look.

http://fqxi.org/community/forum/topic/2154

It's tricky to present the mathematics of symmetry breaking and particle physics to a popular audience, so I do appreciate feedback on it.

It is interesting to think of physics. I liked the idea you presented and math and physics can (mostly) be two sides of the same coin, although I think theoretical mathematicians would disagree.

Thanks for the compliments on my sketches! I had a lot of fun with those. :)

Given that my area of study primarily IS theoretical math, I politely beg to differ. The math and the physics are, while perhaps not entirely isomorphic, certainly in a set/subset relationship, as I mentioned in an earlier comment. I believe that my personal hero, Emmy Noether, arguably one of the best theoretical mathematicians of our modern age, must have also recognized how incredibly closely tied the two are, else I doubt it would have held her interest long enough to produce her most famous theorem, which is a crowning jewel of both the math and physics communities. :)

I enjoyed a lot the part on Zeno's paradox !

Thanks for your comments on my video. I just voted for yours, and you got 10 community ratings!

stephane

Hi Stephane!

Thanks so much, both for your comments and the vote! James will be thrilled when he sees those. When he was first coming up with the script, I very much liked the Zeno's paradox thing myself, and enjoyed illustrating it, as well as helping James explain it.