Re: [FRIAM] Book publishing advice needed

I wonder If some part of this is a wish for methods that allowed one to put things to rest, so that a subject can “build”. When people I run across talk about how they wish their work were more like the work they think goes on in physics, they often invoke work that has been settled for so long

Re: [FRIAM] Book publishing advice needed

My own experience of IP policy by a university was when my institution decided in the early noughties to require all staff to sign an IP legal agreement. I had been working there some 8 years by this point. I looked over the legal agreement, objected to a couple of clauses, and proposed amendments

Re: [FRIAM] Book publishing advice needed

Eric, I think a difference between psychology, for example, and physics is that a much larger number of people have opinions about psychology. Most people don't venture opinions about string theory but if a psychologist tells a "layman" a psychological finding the response is often "that's obviou

Re: [FRIAM] Book publishing advice needed

Glen, I've definitely read and processed your prior posts. The reality of a someone else's situation does not limit whether or not a third party can be envious, or jealous, or any of those other related concepts. You can be envious of someone's wonderful life, even when that other person's life is

Re: [FRIAM] Book publishing advice needed

Eric Charles> "But to return to my point, the question is still open: When grasping for something with which to fake adding-depth to their writing, why do people so often grasp at physics?" My take as a layman, i.e. not a physicist: Most people think of "physics" > in terms of Newtonian physics, w

[FRIAM] invoking quantum woo (was Book publishing advice needed)

OK. So, maybe y'all have collectively provided an answer. The reason(s) people invoke quantum woo so *often* is because it serves several (perhaps conflatable and ambiguous) purposes. In order of appearance in the thread: 1) justificationist appeals to authority 2) donning attributes others (see

Re: [FRIAM] invoking quantum woo (was Book publishing advice needed)

I actually find most of those explanations weak, given that, according to Feynmann, no one understands quantum mechanics. How does an appeal to authority work when you appeal to an authority that does not understand and cannot explain? How does one don the attributes of experts who do not underst

Re: [FRIAM] invoking quantum woo (was Book publishing advice needed)

Roger, I've become rather suspicious of the field of quantum computing for much the same reasons. Surely *someone* can write an easily understood basic explanation of how it is supposed to work in principle. Maybe I just haven't dug deep enough, but everything seems to be either too hand-wavy, too

Re: [FRIAM] invoking quantum woo (was Book publishing advice needed)

I feel the same way. But my brief thrashing in this rabbit hole was interesting: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post-quantum_cryptography In particular: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elliptic-curve_cryptography#Quantum_computing_attacks I only mention that because it seems to imply a real impact

Re: [FRIAM] invoking quantum woo (was Book publishing advice needed)

I think that's the essence of Jon's idea. But there is a refinement we could make. Oracles don't have to be embodied in a person(ality). In some ways, Gisin's idea of distant digits in real numbers or a random process are non-personal oracles by some definition. Deterministic sensitivity to init

Re: [FRIAM] invoking quantum woo (was Book publishing advice needed)

Gary writes: "I'd like to see how this fact can be put to practical use *at an algorithmic level* to solve some problem" Shor's algorithm[Ͽ] has long been one of my favorite concrete examples. Here is an algorithm that has a classical counterpart wrt the techniques common to elliptic curve factori

Re: [FRIAM] invoking quantum woo (was Book publishing advice needed)

Of the 5, I think I align with reason #3. Can you unpack a little more what you mean by it? * Extra points if you explain with a steelman of my paradigm shift :-) On Wed, Jul 8, 2020 at 7:51 AM ∄ uǝlƃ wrote: > OK. So, maybe y'all have collectively provided an answer. The reason(s) > people inv

Re: [FRIAM] invoking quantum woo (was Book publishing advice needed)

Speaking as a federal employee I encounter appeals to authority almost constantly in situations where the thing appealed to lacks the authority claimed. It is amazing to watch the reactions when someone says "We are going to do X because so-and-so says we are going to do X," and the whole room

Re: [FRIAM] invoking quantum woo (was Book publishing advice needed)

EricS said it well enough, I think, quoted below for easy cf. I'll try to restate including a comment Firestein makes on Darwinism. The point is a kind of hindsight fallacy, where prior to the shift, we were confused and argumentative and after the shift we are (mostly) in consensus. That shift,

Re: [FRIAM] invoking quantum woo (was Book publishing advice needed)

Damnit. That 2nd α should have been a β. Stupid brain. On 7/8/20 10:44 AM, ∄ uǝlƃ wrote: > EVEN MORE of what Firestein describes above. [α] [...] > > [β] Sideline to this supercool result that popped off my queue the other day: > A continuous reaction network that produces RNA precursors > https

Re: [FRIAM] COVID-19 Pandemic Modeling and Simulation

Some have posted their COVID-19 models to the list. Here's a specific request from the SCS. It's unclear to me if they only want members to fill it out. My guess is they would be OK with posts from non-members as long as they were willing to join, present, or collaborate. On 7/8/20 12:19 PM, do

Re: [FRIAM] invoking quantum woo (was Book publishing advice needed)

What a minute. I am lost. Who is devaluing evolution? And when they are devaluing it, are the devaluing evolution as a phenomenon (adapted phylogenic descent, or some other systematic form of change), or are they devaluing natural selection as a process by which that change is thought to come

Re: [FRIAM] invoking quantum woo (was Book publishing advice needed)

Ha! 2-factor authentication! > As an academic, my fascination with authority mostly revolved around > graduation ceremonies. At Penn State Altoona, we always had an emissary from > the board of trustees, who would travel to our campus with an oversized > magical amulet that he gives to the Cha

Re: [FRIAM] invoking quantum woo (was Book publishing advice needed)

On Wed, Jul 8, 2020 at 11:44 AM ∄ uǝlƃ wrote: > your phenomenal path integral (regardless of mechanism), then you could > argue that the addition of that purely physical principle to evolution > facilitates EVEN MORE of what Firestein describes above. > > How was that? Will you buy me a pint? Or

Re: [FRIAM] invoking quantum woo (was Book publishing advice needed)

Roger but also Jon, It is neat that this question can be so simply posed, and can be answered in a way that isn’t trivial but is also hard to disagree with. > Where are the solid foundations of quantum mechanics? I would characterize my own position in nearly identical terms to those Jon used

[FRIAM] An analysis of three Covid-19 outbreaks: how they happened and how they can be avoided | Science Tech | EL PAÍS in English

I found this fascinating. Lot’s of good eye-candy, here, worthy of scientific American. https://english.elpais.com/spanish_news/2020-06-17/an-analysis-of-three-covi d-19-outbreaks-how-they-happened-and-how-they-can-be-avoided.html?campaign_i d=154