Insights Interview with Instrument Engineer Jim Hardy - Comments

[Greg Bernhardt]

TheAdmin submitted a new PF Insights post

Interview with Instrument Engineer Jim Hardy

Continue reading the Original PF Insights Post.

 

[Bystander]

" ... there’s the boutique appeal ..."
Reference https://www.physicsforums.com/insights/interview-instrument-engineer-jim-hardy/
Hear. Hear. (Lord knows there's nothing else.) Call it what it is.

 

[Greg Bernhardt]

I think your "Symphony Orchestra" comment was very unexpected and interesting. I've also had some interest in nuclear reactors ever since I got to view the inside of a live reactor on a Russian nuclear ice breaker a few years ago.

 

[jim hardy]

Thanks Guys.

I still remember vividly my parents taking my sister and me to a children's concert when we were eight-ish years old.
The moment the orchestra started i was engulfed with a tingling sensation , the sound of the live strings seemed to enter my brain and soothed me clear down to my toes as if i were standing in a cool , gentle waterfall..
I wonder what is the neurological affect of music. A pleasant melody picks up and carries my psyche. My sister described Mozart's Requiem as "A backrub for your soul." His Horn Concerto #4 puts me in a near trance, but i recently played it for my friends and they were indifferent. We're just not all wired the same, i guess. Maybe somebody will do one of those science shows where they show brain activity with a scanner . An icebreaker ? How'd you get to tour one of those ?
I took the engine room tour on Alaska Ferry (MV Columbia) , and just wandered down into engine room of the Cape May (NJ) ferryboat .

 

[John Green]

Mr. Hardy, I loved a comment you made on one of the fora about a year and a half ago (Transmission line voltage loss) wherein you said. "As Sophie says, "Classification is the enemy of understanding.". That comment jibed with lessons that I have taken from life and I should like to quote you on that from time to time but Sophie says mystifies me. So my question is Is there some more history to this quotation? Just who is Sophie?
Thanks, You may reply to [personal e-mail removed by mentor] if you wish.

Reference https://www.physicsforums.com/threads/transmission-line-voltage-loss.812451/page-2

 

[Drakkith]

Just who is Sophie?

@sophiecentaur?

 

[sophiecentaur]

Mr. Hardy, I loved a comment you made on one of the fora about a year and a half ago (Transmission line voltage loss) wherein you said. "As Sophie says, "Classification is the enemy of understanding.". That comment jibed with lessons that I have taken from life and I should like to quote you on that from time to time but Sophie says mystifies me. So my question is Is there some more history to this quotation? Just who is Sophie?
Thanks, You may reply to [personal e-mail removed by mentor] if you wish.

Reference https://www.physicsforums.com/threads/transmission-line-voltage-loss.812451/page-2

I heard someone rattle my cage.

My point about Classification was aimed at Classification for its own sake, without the backup of any understanding. Arranging items into groups with similar characteristics can be very useful but NOT if one hasn't a clue about what those characteristics actually mean. I speak from years of experience of students trying to rely on learned 'lists' in order to work out a problem. Such an approach gets in the way of real learning and understanding. Rote learning of certain things is, of course, essential and you can't go through life working things out from scratch but you can't work anything out with classification alone.
"Nature abhors a vacuum" will take you quite a long way in the design of a rudimentary pump and knowing the Periods and Groups of the table of elements will get you points in a Quiz but neither of those can make you a Scientist.

 

[Drakkith]

I heard someone rattle my cage.

Wasn't me...

*Puts away the stick and whistles innocently*

I will say that I recently had a "mini-epiphany" about this Sophie, but alas, I can't remember what it was about.

 

[sophiecentaur]

I will say that I recently had a "mini-epiphany" about this Sophie, but alas, I can't remember what it was about.

Ask the Matron. She often helps me out at times like this.

 

[John Green]

Thanks guys. Then I shall quote Sophie.