rede96 said:
I spend a lot of time in the Special & General Relativity forum as I love the subject. I would also love to learn more about this as well as quantum mechanics and many other topics here. PF is a great forum.
However I am just a layman, not great at the math and don't always have the time to read up on subjects.
I also find it really frustrating having questions answered by very technically competent PF Mentors / Members but who give answers that are just way over the layman’s level or are just a heap of formulas that layman like myself will struggle to grasp.
This leads to a lot of frustration both from the layman poster who just wants to learn conceptually and the PF Mentors / Members who get fed up with the not properly formatted layman's replies and the 'I don't get it' responses!
So I was wondering, could we have a science forum(s) for the layman. Where the expectation is not to be scientifically correct all the time, but where we layman can just go chat and ask questions to people that are not expecting us to be the next Einstein?
Well, OK, I'll respond to this, but it'll be tedious to follow. Here goes:
First, a bit of a background. I've been involved in an outreach program for many years, and also been involved in direct contacts with students, and the general public that often visited our facility. I deal with many questions from this group of people about physics in general, and about what we do in particular. As far as I can tell, and from the feedback that I occasionally receive, these efforts have been well-received. So yes, I do know quite a bit, based on experience, on how to communicate physics to the public, and also the importance of such communication and education.
Now, coming back to your point. As has been pointed out, it would be
extremely beneficial that a layman declare himself that when asking a question. In fact, I would say that anyone, especially new members that many of us are not familiar with, should present a brief educational background of what he/she knows, so that the members who respond to the question can tailor the answer that can be understood at that level. This is a no-brainer, but yet, members frequently neglected to do that.
Now that that is out of the way, there is also another problem, and something I encounter very often.
Often, members with very little physics background will ask a question that is "too advanced for his/her own good!" :) Now, this is meant in jest, but let me explain a bit via an example. We often see a question from a layman that looks something like this:
Can you tell me if we can send a signal faster than light using quantum teleporation?
That actually is quite a common question. Now, let's assume that that person has clarified that he/she is a layman. Now, you need to look at this from OUR point of view. From my point of view, when the person is asking such a question, he/she must have read about some of the results where IF there is a signal going from one entangled entity to another, that signal would have to go way beyond c to go between each other. I will also assume that he/she is knowledge about the quantum entanglement phenomenon, because he/she is now asking about the USE of this phenomenon.
So my approach in responding to such a question is to explain, in layman's term, why it isn't possible to send a signal faster than light. But you see, my explanation will require that this person understands already what quantum entanglement is, and the fact that the superposition principle is the crucial piece in this phenomenon. In other words, there are a few "prerequisites" to understand before one gets to quantum entanglement, and then quantum teleportation. But you see, no matter how simple I explain this, I often find out that the person asking the question hadn't really understood these prerequisites. So what inevitably will happen is that we have to backtrack and backtrack some more in having to explain the basic principle of the components of the idea, I have to explain what quantum entanglement is, and I have to explain superposition principle, etc. Often, the thread will get derailed into a discussion of more basic, fundamental ideas.
So yes, I can see why a layman will find it difficult to follow, but you see, this is a DIRECT result of the fact that in physics, very seldom can one simply pluck a fruit in mid air. So what should this person do to learn about quantum teleporation? I have a suggestion:
Make sure that you first check and see if your understanding of what you are going to be applying is valid.
So if what you ultimately want to know is if we can send signals faster than c via quantum teleportation, check first of all whether you've understood what quantum entanglement is. It is "closer" to the lower level of the foundation, upon which you will build all other subsequent knowledge. You'll often find that you haven't fully understood it, such as you didn't know that superposition is a necessary ingredient to this phenomenon. So now, you ask more questions about, say, superposition, etc., and how this comes into play.
This is how you build knowledge. It isn't via learning a set of disconnected/disjointed pieces of information. Rather, it is the awareness and understanding how many of these things are related to each other.
I've made many posts on here where I started my response with "Back up a bit" (see
https://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=514001" as the latest example). This is because in asking these questions, the members have based it on a rather puzzling/faulty knowledge of something. Rather than check if their knowledge of that something is valid, they went ahead and used it to justify or claim another thing. This is what usually makes explaining things confusing, even if we try to use description that a layman can understand!
Learning and understanding is a 2-way process. There's work to be done by both parties. The inquirer needs to think a little bit on not only what to ask, but how to ask, and what efforts have I done to see if I can understand this myself. The responders need to pay attention to the level of knowledge of the inquirer and present an answer that the person could possibly understand. In fact, I feel very strongly about this that https://www.physicsforums.com/blog.php?b=2679" about people who simply don't investigate the level of knowledge of the inquirer when such information wasn't provided.
In a roundabout way, I'm answering your question by telling you that a separate forum will not help. Rather, there has to be an awareness on both sides, regarding the issues I've mentioned, to communicate for effectively.
Zz.
