I feel sick from my biologist friend

[celebrei]

I have a friend who is a major in biology and he asked me why Newtonian physics is still being taught in higschool and college since he said Einstein "destroyed" (yes that was his term) Newtonian physics, and I said "you should stick to biology" and went home sick from hearing it...

 

[Cyrus]

You should have said Darwin was wrong and evolution is "just a theory".

 

[celebrei]

You should have said Darwin was wrong and evolution is "just a theory".

lol, yeah! that would have spited him

 

[Math Is Hard]

I can't even count the times biologist friends have made me barf, but it was for completely different reasons. I'm not sure we should allow them in polite company.

 

[zoobyshoe]

I can't even count the times biologist friends have made me barf, but it was for completely different reasons. I'm not sure we should allow them in polite company.

I just learned the gastro-intestinal tract is considered part of the outside of the body. Biologists don't consider them inside till they cross a tissue wall.

 

[Gokul43201]

I just learned the gastro-intestinal tract is considered part of the outside of the body. Biologists don't consider them inside till they cross a tissue wall.

I can't imagine a mathematician would consider it "inside" either.

 

[Matterwave]

Fricken topology...making anatomy more disgusting since 1954. (Yes, that year is totally random)

 

[Frzn]

I have a friend who is a major in biology and he asked me why Newtonian physics is still being taught in higschool and college since he said Einstein "destroyed" (yes that was his term) Newtonian physics, and I said "you should stick to biology" and went home sick from hearing it...

I think you need to get your priorities in order if you get up and leave your friends for not knowing something about physics when it's pretty clear they have never taken a physics class.

 

[robertm]

I just learned the gastro-intestinal tract is considered part of the outside of the body.

Yeah, the human body is a torus. So cool.

 

[celebrei]

I think you need to get your priorities in order if you get up and leave your friends for not knowing something about physics when it's pretty clear they have never taken a physics class.

I'm pretty sure he and other biologists have at least taken physics classes in high school so he should have at least basic knowledge about physics, unless of course he went through college thinking his high school physics teacher taught him wrong stuff

 

[zoobyshoe]

I'm pretty sure he and other biologists have at least taken physics classes in high school so he should have at least basic knowledge about physics, unless of course he went through college thinking his high school physics teacher taught him wrong stuff

Anyone who majors in Biology has to pass a basic intro to physics course. That accomplished, they promptly forget it all. Same for anyone going into medicine. In the course of fulfilling that prerequisite, your friend clearly got Einstein's effect on classical physics garbled up.

 

[Moonbear]

Anyone who majors in Biology has to pass a basic intro to physics course. That accomplished, they promptly forget it all. Same for anyone going into medicine. In the course of fulfilling that prerequisite, your friend clearly got Einstein's effect on classical physics garbled up.

We remind them again when they get to med school. I don't know how many times in the past couple of weeks I've had to say to a med student, "That's why you had to take physics to get into med school."

There are so many more fun ways to gross out people with biology, it's a shame to have to resort to a lack of knowledge of physics.

 

[rewebster]

We remind them again when they get to med school. I don't know how many times in the past couple of weeks I've had to say to a med student, "That's why you had to take physics to get into med school."

There are so many more fun ways to gross out people with biology, it's a shame to have to resort to a lack of knowledge of physics.

I majored in Zoology (for pre-med/pre-dent), and got MORE interested in physics-

-partly due to the physics teachers, and the ones who said, "We don't know why/what/how those things work"

 

[Matterwave]

Well, Einstein's SR and GR did supersede Newton's F=ma and Law of universal gravitation in precision and range of effectiveness (although, F=dp/dt still works). I, myself wouldn't call that "destroyed", but I can see where he's coming from...

 

[Eric McClean]

Newton is my source of inspiration and i love physics.

 

[Cyrus]

Newton is my source of inspiration and i love physics.

You've never read the history about him, have you? Probably the last person to aspire to.

 

[Klockan3]

You've never read the history about him, have you? Probably the last person to aspire to.

My thoughts too when I read his post, unless you want to be a secluded eccentric.

 

[kakarotyjn]

I remember Feynman has said something about this topic in his Lectures

 

[celebrei]

You've never read the history about him, have you? Probably the last person to aspire to.

hahaha so true! he probably hasn't seen Newton playing poker yet!

 

[elect_eng]

I have a friend who is a major in biology and he asked me why Newtonian physics is still being taught in higschool and college since he said Einstein "destroyed" (yes that was his term) Newtonian physics, and I said "you should stick to biology" and went home sick from hearing it...

You should tell him to solve all his biology problems by applying quantum physics/chemistry. And, tell him to use the relativistic version of QM, since standard QM theory is not really correct.

 

[celebrei]

Well, Einstein's SR and GR did supersede Newton's F=ma and Law of universal gravitation in precision and range of effectiveness (although, F=dp/dt still works). I, myself wouldn't call that "destroyed", but I can see where he's coming from...

Einstein wouldn't have been able to formulate his theory of relativity if Newton hadn't first laid down the foundations, general relativity is indeed a replacement of universal gravitation but special relativity is just a modification/expansion of Newtonian physics (when approaching the speed of light) the reason we even have theories of relativity is that they use Newton's first law in the first place, and besides, Einstein's theory of gravity was dependent on Riemannian geometry and special relativity was dependent on Minkowski space, Albert had a LOT of help to able to come up with his theories.

 

[lisab]

Yeah, the human body is a torus. So cool.

And 1/12 of humans are Taurus, too.

 

[zoobyshoe]

Einstein wouldn't have been able to formulate his theory of relativity if Newton hadn't first laid down the foundations, general relativity is indeed a replacement of universal gravitation but special relativity is just a modification/expansion of Newtonian physics (when approaching the speed of light) the reason we even have theories of relativity is that they use Newton's first law in the first place, and besides, Einstein's theory of gravity was dependent on Riemannian geometry and special relativity was dependent on Minkowski space, Albert had a LOT of help to able to come up with his theories.

The real point is: almost no one needs to use Relativity. I started a thread a few years back asking when and where Relativity is actually applied. There was a lot of head scratching and the best answer anyone could give was that it might be used by researchers to analyze what was going on in particle accelerators. I'm sure pure theorists use it all the time, but the average engineer, biologist, doctor never touches it. The question should not be why is Newtonian Physics still taught, but "Why is Relativity ever taught in a prerequisite course?"

 

[Monique]

I can't even count the times biologist friends have made me barf, but it was for completely different reasons. I'm not sure we should allow them in polite company.

You should come and have lunch with me, if you dare

 

[Klockan3]

The real point is: almost no one needs to use Relativity. I started a thread a few years back asking when and where Relativity is actually applied. There was a lot of head scratching and the best answer anyone could give was that it might be used by researchers to analyze what was going on in particle accelerators. I'm sure pure theorists use it all the time, but the average engineer, biologist, doctor never touches it. The question should not be why is Newtonian Physics still taught, but "Why is Relativity ever taught in a prerequisite course?"

You need it for GPS technology:
http://www.astronomy.ohio-state.edu/~pogge/Ast162/Unit5/gps.html

 

[celebrei]

The real point is: almost no one needs to use Relativity. I started a thread a few years back asking when and where Relativity is actually applied. There was a lot of head scratching and the best answer anyone could give was that it might be used by researchers to analyze what was going on in particle accelerators. I'm sure pure theorists use it all the time, but the average engineer, biologist, doctor never touches it. The question should not be why is Newtonian Physics still taught, but "Why is Relativity ever taught in a prerequisite course?"

Quite so! quite so! almost all engineers in the present still have a "Newtonian mindset" in applications concerning their work.

 

[DanP]

and I said "you should stick to biology" and went home sick from hearing it...

He asked you a question. You could have explained to him in 5 min why Newtonian physics stands, but no, you decided to feel sick, go home and trumpet on internet.

This aint what friends do.

 

[Monique]

He asked you a question. You could have explained to him in 5 min why Newtonian physics stands, but no, you decided to feel sick, go home and trumpet on internet.

This aint what friends do.

I agree, what kind of response is that? It is a valid question and there is a straightforward answer. What if you were to ask a naive biological question and your friend would be disgusted and say "you should stick to physics". That would be an incredibly bigoted thing to do.

 

[celebrei]

He asked you a question. You could have explained to him in 5 min why Newtonian physics stands, but no, you decided to feel sick, go home and trumpet on internet.

This aint what friends do.

Sorry that wasn't a clear depiction of what happened, I didn't left him on the spot then, after he said that, I did say he should stick to Biology (in a friendly humorous way) but afterward we talked about something else, though in the back of my mind I was truly disturbed by what he said, my fault perhaps was not clarifying his vague view on physics, he could be very touchy sometimes and doesn't really like to be corrected, reminds me of my grandfather who I angered when I corrected him that a firewall does not prevent a PC from frying :p