Recent content by Cave Diver

A clarification: One can argue that all microscopic forces are conservative however, at that scale, one needs to include electromagnetic fields along with matter even in a non-quantum description and so action-reaction is generally violated (although momentum is still conserved if fields are...

A unified description can be an equation that brings a pattern into focus in place of a long table of data. That may lead to predictions to be tested by experiments. Despite the clarity it offers and its useful ramifications and implications, it is just a description, no matter how you slice it...

"Abstraction" is the way humans experience the implementation of "economy" (unification). What is abstraction other than a perception, an idea? Economy is the subsumption of a larger set to a smaller set of data (not necessarily sense data) through the rules of logic (which are also data but not...

Off the top of my head, Noether's theorem does not explain conservation of momentum. It just shows how the conservation of momentum is reflected on the symmetry properties of the Lagrangian that describes the dynamics of the system. We don't know why momentum is conserved. It just happens...

Education is a product. If you wish to increase sales you lower the price, that is, grades are inflated. Health is a product. The most critical one. That is why you are paying an arm and a leg in US ... It's all about business and the economy and how they evolve over time based on technology...

Yes, apply this in a quantum mechanics class, or statistical mechanics, or optics, or electromagnetic theory, or mechanics of materials, or thermodynamics. Break those subjects down to specific "objectives" and assess those on a rolling basis throughout the semester and make it fair so that...

Any mentally stable MIT student with As in physics, just hire the kid. Let's keep it real, please. Swarthmore? Same thing. Unfortunately that does not solve the problem you describe. Grades mean very little in general. Many As are actually Cs, not Bs. Recommendation letters that strongly...

I don't think that you disagree with anything I actually said. I am not talking about stringent time limits or cut-throat oral examinations, or even interviews for jobs ... (right?) I am talking about fully-proctored, in-class tests with very liberal time limits ... Is this attitude all or...

Mr. Kohn talks nicely but lives in lalaland. If his theories mattered then grades would be a thing of the past. We need proctored tests and grades to know how well students know the material. We also need them so that students get stressed out, do their best, and become better people through...