Mathematics, equations, is the language of physics. Would you like someone to teach you music theory while still being unable to read a staff? I don't know if you realize the complexity of physics and the impossibility for anyone to explain everything, at university or elsewhere (and all the more so as not everything is known). It's unrealistic to demand exhaustive physics teaching. And on the other hand, I've never seen a teacher refuse to answer questions, but he himself doesn't know everything, and even if he did, he couldn't necessarily explain it to someone who didn't already have a minimum of basic knowledge.
So university teaches the essentials, bearing in mind that many of those who take this course won't necessarily make physics their profession. University serves as much to select those with a certain intellectual capacity as to pass on knowledge. Once the basics and methods have been acquired, it's up to each individual to use them to progress in their own field, if they so wish.
The incomprehension of what is already known in science is not essentially a consequence of teaching, even if it can be more or less educational, but of the intellectual limits and/or the lack of work of those who do not understand. And you shouldn't have these limits too low, otherwise you won't even realize that you have them, and you think that if you don't understand, it's the fault of the teachers or the institutions, not yours.
When I see certain physics papers with mathematical developments such that I don't even know what they're talking about, I don't tell myself that if I don't understand them, it's nonsense or the fault of the university, but that my limits are exceeded. That doesn't mean that by working hard enough I wouldn't have access to their understanding, if you really want to understand, that's what you have to do, but that it would take me so much time that it's not possible from a practical point of view.
Honestly I didn't even want to get in the structure of education but you mentioned this. You hit the nail on the head with "University serves as much to select those with a
certain intellectual capacity as to pass on knowledge.". I am curious what this "certain" means exactly for you. So a student that can not follow the pace in class gets quickly left behind and thus has failed the "certain" criteria and the old rusty bandwagon just moves on? Why is it that in middle and even high school students get a lot of help to make sure they PASS the year rather than flunk them.
Dont underestimate the grudge students get if they get flunked by hard teachers that only want to keep going in straight lines with their "bright" students that never challenge them because they got too comfortable with a cushy job in a prestigious place. Rather than do the hard work and sacrifice THEIR precious personal "teacher" time to help fallen students back up which requires time, energy and sacrifice. Rather than make medal and prize clubs to pat each others back that improve little to no lives our in the real world. Meanwhile these prestigious places only produce drones that are sent out in the world to repeat the same old ideas to young minds keeping the cycle alive and well. Its no surprise the younger generation prefers becoming a YouTuber rather than become a scientist. Young minds need inspiration and excitement. Science need be entertaining and engaging and the language used to teach it is everything.
If I remember right, Einstein got flunked by his professor at the time, Weber, who refused to give him an assistant job at the university. This small event is what set a chain of events in motion that lead to Einstein challenging the entire status quo at his time, a purely mechanical world view, which Weber believed strongly in until Maxwell showed up and Einstein lept off of. This grudge Einstein held for Weber made him come back to bring down the whole exclusive academic club that was created. And suddenly the universe was no longer a hard, flat, boring mechanical place that lacks any waves. Oh the irony of General relativity being used for "PERFECT fluids" ONLY 100 years later. Is there really such a thing like perfection in nature? Surely we randomness is everywhere on the quantum scale. But alas, poor Einstein got infected by the same virus, the virus that infects you when you start to follow prizes, medals and idolization. The virus that gives comfort and security in return for stopping progress. However you cannot enforce perfection on nature and create a dark soulless mechanical world, you need energy, a light that shines on the darkness to unveil what is beneath. Then perhaps students can judge with their own eyes which teacher they chose to follow that can give them their comfortable learning pace AND curve as to keep as much students moving forward as possible rather than be held back by the chains by the long gone past generations. You can only have so much such structure until everything comes crumbling down when the foundation you built everything on was not stable. If universities were truly OPEN to everyone, not only for the "certain" few, and students could follow at their own pace, over multiple years if need be until they really grasp the subject matter, then the same "slow students" might come back to become the top of the class as they might come up with new ways to keep moving forward that no "genius" teacher could have ever imagined.
But hey look, ironically, linear algebra and Weber mechanical electrodynamics were the only things I understood. My own head is sadly very mechanical but everytime I fall I get back up and push through to make sense of everything as this wavey stuff can get complicated fast. But when things get too complex I remember to just go back to the simple foundations. And today these "foundations" have become an unstrucuted mess filled with name stamping every effect or equation that is discovered. There is no structure or story in a flat list of effects and equations named after people.
Rhere is also a difference between doing the hard work to understand and SIMULATE large complex systems in the lab and the enjoyable part of teaching the simplistic nature of it all to young dream filled minds. We dont need quantum mechanics to simulate planet orbits, in fact a curious kid can do this online in Javascript or make an app for it if they wanted because its all very simple and all about scale. But obfuscating the simplistic nature of it all by wasting chalk for blackboard equation that look like artistic black and white murials is NOT how you get students excited. The hard stuff comes later when they start doing their own explorations, the hard simulation AND data verification work as someone who claims to be a scientist MUST always do. This requires times, arguably the most precious resource there is. In the lab everyone is equal. Both teachers AND students or even former students in the lab on the same level discovering nature as they go and sharing their work if they chose to do so. When you enter the truth seeking lab you leave Hierarchy, prizes, reputation and your ego for that matter behind.
I also want to give a shout out to the real angels in all the universities of the world, the ones that do the hard demanding work of trying to pull students along AND at the same time tasked to be the professors lap dog in the labs doing all the boring work so their professors can run with the credits when they make new discoveries. They are the ones that should get all the praise until the professors start doing the hard work too, you know like the hard work in the hard mechanical world they seem to keep going back to in physics. At least if you are obsessed with hard then apply it in the lab.
I have no reputation to lose I am a complete nobody in the "academic" world. I am definitely no teacher either. I am just a bum and ex-physics student that fell off the bandwagon a long time ago and got left behind when all I wanted to do was follow my dreams. But meanwhile I figured out how to make my own wagon, albeit with countless failures, crashes and stumbling's along the way, as is natural if you want to work alone, to speed ahead and to give the shaky old broken rusty bandwagon a good shake down. Perhaps when all the debris and dust settles, more kind and smart people can build a new wagon with a new framework, wheels and suspension this time to make the ride more enjoyable and comfortable for many generations of students and truth seekers to come. Because the type of vehicle you ride matters if you want to go forward efficiently. You can always go ahead solo if you wish in your own wagon with your own mind bending theories oer perhaps make room for more to collaborate on said theories and dreams to at least give the students as high a probability to succeed.
Failure will always happen but putting permanent chains on "failed" ideas never works. Its just a matter of time until those old rusty chains break down and liberate a tidal wave of energy.
I guess Einstein was right after all.
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Topic: The problem with science communication today (Read 1058 times)
