Comment on sometimes it's just easier
cocomutative_diagram@infosec.pub 1 day agoBrian Greene elegant universe. This is the typical illustration of general relativity.
I watched too much Brian Greene documentaries in high schools, it tooks years to recover from that, and my physics friends finally starts to talk to me.
Karjalan@lemmy.world 9 hours ago
I’ve seen his fabric of the the cosmos series and loved it. How does elegant universe rate?
cocomutative_diagram@infosec.pub 8 hours ago
Both of them are beyond excellent from a story telling and visual prospective: highly entertaining, motivating, and fun.
However the “physicists will stop talking to you” bit just comes from the fact that professionals typically expect rigorous discussions, instead of handwaving; as handwaving will sometimes leads to reasonable, yet completely nonsensical results. And over-fantasization of a topic can cause student burnouts quite quickly, when they discovered the field is completely different from what they imagined. Finally many just don’t enjiy string theory, as they describe a universe that is fundamentally different from ours, and they just keeps making up more math to fix unrealized predictions.
In general, I think the Brain Greene do benefit both the field physics and the general public, by bringing many talented students to physics. And I believe many teachers and professors can learn a lot about storytelling and visualization from pop sciences.