Seems weird: Most threads are questions, not discussions....

[ellipsis]

Most original posts on PhysicsForums, in the more 'academic' categories (i.e. Math, Physics, etc), has the original poster asking a very specific question. It seems the vast majority of users just come here to get free tutoring or push past a roadblock or misconception in their learning. The remainder come here to advertise their revolutionary ideas.

That probably isn't a good or bad thing. After all, people are learning.

 

[lisab]

Seems not so weird to me. You can either do science, or talk about science. We like to attract the "doers" here .

 

[ellipsis]

Seems not so weird to me. You can either do science, or talk about science. We like to attract the "doers" here .

Ah, I don't often see anyone saying "Hey, no question here, I'd just like to showcase and discuss my recent research in an informal environment". Instead its "I've hit a major roadblock in my project, please help"

 

[Hornbein]

Most original posts on PhysicsForums, in the more 'academic' categories (i.e. Math, Physics, etc), has the original poster asking a very specific question. It seems the vast majority of users just come here to get free tutoring or push past a roadblock or misconception in their learning. The remainder come here to advertise their revolutionary ideas.

That probably isn't a good or bad thing. After all, people are learning.

Yep, questions all right. The revolutionaries are told to shut up, generally.

I sometimes post interesting thing with no question. There is seldom any response. What is there to say?

 

[wolram]

There could be lots of things wrong you may have made a mistake and a mentor or other will correct it with good cheer.

 

[OmCheeto]

...The revolutionaries are told to shut up, generally.
...

Yah!

Though, I've generally been told to shut up, privately.

----------
I learned the other day that Brigadier General Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart, was actually a private, in real life.

 

[WWGD]

Ah, I don't often see anyone saying "Hey, no question here, I'd just like to showcase and discuss my recent research in an informal environment". Instead its "I've hit a major roadblock in my project, please help"

Well, there is a thin line between revolutionaries and crackpots. And thousands of posts for moderators to monitor, all with a shoestring budget. So maybe it is understandable, given the contraints.

 

[Stephen Tashi]

It seems the vast majority of users just come here to get free tutoring or push past a roadblock or misconception in their learning.

I agree with your observation that the majority of threads have a question-answer pattern. The majority of original posters are "askers", but the users of the forum also include the "answerers". So the question-answer format is also due to the fact that there are members who like to answer questions. It's interesting to observe the division between "askers" and "answerers". I think that few members strike a balance between asking and answering, they tend to fall into one category or the other.

To me, it is more interesting to discuss topics than to ask or answer questions that have known specific answers. However, such discussions are difficult to have - on the internet or face-to-face. You have to be talking to people who understand the topic. And you have to talk to people who are sympathetic to discussion - instead of people who have the outlook "Hurry up and state the problem. Which page of the book is it on?".

The "Insights" feature of the forum is one that most fosters discussions. The topics of Insights are broad enough so they don't get stuck on solving one particular problem. Most people who comment on the Insights know something about the topic.

 

[S.G. Janssens]

I like answering questions most, or at least trying to, find it quite instructive for myself as well. It's appreciated when an "asker" actually responds to a hint or answer to conclude the thread, instead of just disappearing.

 

[Digitalism]

Yeah, that is part of what makes this forum so boring. There is no back and forth or controversy that is stimulating and thought provoking. I enjoy learning through dialectical interaction. I think often you can gain insight from how two people interact into the motivational reasoning behind their ideas. We all have "schools" that we lean toward in terms of branches of study that we find intriguing or that seem to draw us toward them or call to us. Feynman famous summed this up in his comparison of "Babylonians" and "Greeks." I think certain ideas appeal to some more based on personality differences. More open personalities for example seem more willing to entertain more speculative ideas and also seem more creative. More closed personalities seem to prefer rigor, but in my opinion, this often comes at the expense of taking in new observations to expand the reference background against which familiar data is tested. Maybe it's like a sort of Wittgensteinish trade off system in evolutionary adaptation. Ie you could create complete theories that are inconsistent or consistent ones that are incomplete and we are "Avatars" of different computational processing schema competing for the resources to expand our processing power. Mlodinow said something similar in Feynman's Rainbow when he noted that Feynman had a comfort for thinking the way he did in part because he behaved in a semi-chaotic fashion in a similar manner to the electrons he studied.

 

[DiracPool]

Yeah, that is part of what makes this forum so boring. There is no back and forth or controversy that is stimulating and thought provoking. I enjoy learning through dialectical interaction. I think often you can gain insight from how two people interact into the motivational reasoning behind their ideas. We all have "schools" that we lean toward in terms of branches of study that we find intriguing or that seem to draw us toward them or call to us. Feynman famous summed this up in his comparison of "Babylonians" and "Greeks." I think certain ideas appeal to some more based on personality differences. More open personalities for example seem more willing to entertain more speculative ideas and also seem more creative. More closed personalities seem to prefer rigor, but in my opinion, this often comes at the expense of taking in new observations to expand the reference background against which familiar data is tested. Maybe it's like a sort of Wittgensteinish trade off system in evolutionary adaptation. Ie you could create complete theories that are inconsistent or consistent ones that are incomplete and we are "Avatars" of different computational processing schema competing for the resources to expand our processing power. Mlodinow said something similar in Feynman's Rainbow when he noted that Feynman had a comfort for thinking the way he did in part because he behaved in a semi-chaotic fashion in a similar manner to the electrons he studied.

I don't think this forum is boring at all. PF has drawn out a mission statement that they are not going to entertain any discussion that isn't mainstream science. So they try to hold to that standard, but will occasionally yield to "fringe" arguments. I can respect that. I personally have several other forums I visit if I want to wax philosophical, but not here.

 

[Digitalism]

I don't think this forum is boring at all. PF has drawn out a mission statement that they are not going to entertain any discussion that isn't mainstream science. So they try to hold to that standard, but will occasionally yield to "fringe" arguments. I can respect that. I personally have several other forums I visit if I want to wax philosophical, but not here.

That's the problem right there, the implicit connection between a back and forth conversation and "fringe science"/speculation. Bad dog! *lightly smacks you on the nose* The reasons the rules are in place are because of the proliferation of quantum woo among other things over the last few decades which believe me pisses me off as much as anyone here in all likelihood, but that is not what I am arguing for. I don't care about giving equal time to some conspiracy nut, rather I want physics to be about PLAY. Talking about physics should be like a seduction with glimpses into the mind of your interlocutor, witty banter, humor, and a bit of playfulness. Instead all too often it is a stale droll routine that we pretend we are interested in because the subject is "important." If it doesn't make your neurons tittilate with excitement, it is likely a useless idea! I am reminded of a TED talk about sex and mathematics that correlated logical precise linear thinking with sex and abstract reasoning with love. Physics requires sex and love or you're not doing it right. Remember, "Physics is like sex. Sure, it may give some practical results, but that’s not why we do it.”

 

[Student100]

That's the problem right there, the implicit connection between a back and forth conversation and "fringe science"/speculation. Bad dog! *lightly smacks you on the nose* The reasons the rules are in place are because of the proliferation of quantum woo among other things over the last few decades which believe me pisses me off as much as anyone here in all likelihood, but that is not what I am arguing for. I don't care about giving equal time to some conspiracy nut, rather I want physics to be about PLAY. Talking about physics should be like a seduction with glimpses into the mind of your interlocutor, witty banter, humor, and a bit of playfulness. Instead all too often it is a stale droll routine that we pretend we are interested in because the subject is "important." If it doesn't make your neurons tittilate with excitement, it is likely a useless idea! I am reminded of a TED talk about sex and mathematics that correlated logical precise linear thinking with sex and abstract reasoning with love. Physics requires sex and love or you're not doing it right. Remember, "Physics is like sex. Sure, it may give some practical results, but that’s not why we do it.”

Physics only exists to provide practical results. It's a physical science after all, one of approximations. You can talk physics and find it enjoyable without some kind of weird physics fetish, devolving into philosophy or any of the other number of questions physics was never meant to answer. You can also do all that here, perfectly inbound of the rules.

Just to add this in, personally I think TED talks are a waste of otherwise perfectly good livable time.

 

[Drakkith]

Note that discussing physics and most of science in general isn't like discussing which brand of automotive part would be best for your vehicle or which telescope and mount would be best for my future outdoor pier. There's little to talk about in terms of like and dislike. Most of learning science is about learning already-established rules, laws, and terminology and personal opinion about something rarely has a place.

I pop my head into the engineering forums on occasion and there seems to be more like-dislike discussions going on there than in the primary physics forums. Probably because engineering is about how you use physics to build things, which opens the doors to a much more free discussion.

 

[Ryan_m_b]

I want physics to be about PLAY. Talking about physics should be like a seduction with glimpses into the mind of your interlocutor, witty banter, humor, and a bit of playfulness. Instead all too often it is a stale droll routine that we pretend we are interested in because the subject is "important." If it doesn't make your neurons tittilate with excitement, it is likely a useless idea! I am reminded of a TED talk about sex and mathematics that correlated logical precise linear thinking with sex and abstract reasoning with love. Physics requires sex and love or you're not doing it right. Remember, "Physics is like sex. Sure, it may give some practical results, but that’s not why we do it.”

For you perhaps the interest is pretence unless it comes with banter and jokes but for many people the cold hard facts presented in the clearest possible way are extremely interesting.

I think this is the difference between different types of science communication. For me when I read a paper I want it to be as clear and concise as possible. It needs to tell me exactly what the study did and shows, no embellishments or distractions. Presentations are similar but being spoken have more scope for being entertaining, but not at the expense of clarity. Now if you're talking bout science communication to the public, via TED talks, documentaries, podcasts, popsci articles etc then you do have to me more entertaining. After all much of science is obscure and the applications murky, if you're not in the field it can be hard to get excited about it. But that's no excuse for taking entertainment over the science, if your wit, banter and humour lead to misunderstanding then employing them is worse than doing nothing at all.

 

[Hatesmondays]

These questions help start discussions.

 

[Digitalism]

For you perhaps the interest is pretence unless it comes with banter and jokes but for many people the cold hard facts presented in the clearest possible way are extremely interesting.

I think this is the difference between different types of science communication. For me when I read a paper I want it to be as clear and concise as possible. It needs to tell me exactly what the study did and shows, no embellishments or distractions. Presentations are similar but being spoken have more scope for being entertaining, but not at the expense of clarity. Now if you're talking bout science communication to the public, via TED talks, documentaries, podcasts, popsci articles etc then you do have to me more entertaining. After all much of science is obscure and the applications murky, if you're not in the field it can be hard to get excited about it. But that's no excuse for taking entertainment over the science, if your wit, banter and humour lead to misunderstanding then employing them is worse than doing nothing at all.

Well, first of all I would like to apologize to the person I chastised a bit too harshly. Physics has a lot of beauty within it however and it is FUN to talk about. That is what captures my attention. The question-answer format works for what many people are seeking here, namely help for academic purposes, however creative discussion is necessarily non-linear and doesn't conform to regulated procedures for "correct" discussion. That sort of thing necessarily KILLS the idea generation process. In other words, when you "know" everything then one takes on the role of the teacher and guides those less knowledgeable to "correct" answers. Truly innovative thinking necessarily must challenge the established norms in place. I guess I am just more attracted to the periphery of what is known, because that is where we are challenged, grow, and come to more complete understanding. Organizations with different kinds of people tend to find better answers more quickly than those composed of monocultures. The top end of physics is done by people who are both creative and analytical like Feynman and if you wish to attract creative people then you have to be friendly or accomodating to the types of discussions that those people like and usually they are much more open ended discussions. In other words, the way physics forums is right now may be very FAMILIAR or COMFORTABLE and that is fine, but what would likely be in the long term best interests of the community would be moves to incorporate other types of interaction.

 

[WWGD]

Well, first of all I would like to apologize to the person I chastised a bit too harshly. Physics has a lot of beauty within it however and it is FUN to talk about. That is what captures my attention. The question-answer format works for what many people are seeking here, namely help for academic purposes, however creative discussion is necessarily non-linear and doesn't conform to regulated procedures for "correct" discussion. That sort of thing necessarily KILLS the idea generation process. In other words, when you "know" everything then one takes on the role of the teacher and guides those less knowledgeable to "correct" answers. Truly innovative thinking necessarily must challenge the established norms in place. I guess I am just more attracted to the periphery of what is known, because that is where we are challenged, grow, and come to more complete understanding. Organizations with different kinds of people tend to find better answers more quickly than those composed of monocultures. The top end of physics is done by people who are both creative and analytical like Feynman and if you wish to attract creative people then you have to be friendly or accomodating to the types of discussions that those people like and usually they are much more open ended discussions. In other words, the way physics forums is right now may be very FAMILIAR or COMFORTABLE and that is fine, but what would likely be in the long term best interests of the community would be moves to incorporate other types of interaction.

You have good points , but in order to have a casual, fun conversation, I think it is necessary to have the basic down cold, otherwise you get nowhere.

 

[f95toli]

The question-answer format works for what many people are seeking here, namely help for academic purposes, however creative discussion is necessarily non-linear and doesn't conform to regulated procedures for "correct" discussion. That sort of thing necessarily KILLS the idea generation process. In other words, when you "know" everything then one takes on the role of the teacher and guides those less knowledgeable to "correct" answers. Truly innovative thinking necessarily must challenge the established norms in place. .

There are two problems here

*The forum has -for very good reasons- a rule that forbids discussions personal theories.
*The "threshold" for having a meaningful discussion about physics is (usually) very high Most of the questions people ask here either already have a definite answer (which might be difficult to explain, but an answer nonetheless) or are philosophical in nature (and -again for very good reasons- not allowed).

I do not expect to be able to have the type of discussions I have with my colleagues (or even students) about active research on an internet forum. This is in part because of the aforementioned rules, but also because there are very few people in the world who know enough about my particular sub-topic for me to be able to have a useful discussion with them about problemswe do not know the answer to. The only place I can find that outside of my group is at conferences.

 

[Pythagorean]

I remember a lot of interesting, productive discussion in the Biology forum.

 

[ZapperZ]

I will echo f95toli's sentiment.

Having a "creative" discussion on a research-front topic requires that ALL participants are well-versed in that topic. This is not possible in an open forum such as this, because inevitably, someone will come in and interjects with the most basic question that requires us to move 3 steps back. Or worse still, the originator is the one who wants to discuss these complex issues, but does not know the basic knowledge required to understand what he/she wants to discuss in the first place. This type of "discussion" is extremely frustrating, because each time you try to take one step forward, you often end up having to take 3 steps backward because you have to explain your explanation. If I'm discussing the trigger for a vacuum breakdown, I do not want to waste my time having to explain to someone the Fowler-Nordheim model, and its implications and limitations, when I invoke it. This is something that I never had to do when I discuss this topic professionally.

But more than that, *I* personally want to do such discussion with people I either know personally, or people I know of by reputation. It is why I go to conferences and workshops, and it is why I look at the names of the people on the papers that I read. I can tell the level of information that I am getting, and what those people know and don't know. This is something you cannot do in an anonymous forum.

Whenever we have a discussion on interesting stuff on here, one only needs to wait long enough before the participants will somehow drag it into the land of mindless speculation. The thread may started off well, and it may be useful and informative, but inevitably, you'll have people who barely understood the basic physics involved wanting to air their own ideas about it. This is no longer "nonlinear", but rather, it is nonsensical. Professionals do not care to get involved in this, and as a professional, I never had to deal with such things in my professional discussion. So why would I want to deal with it on here?

Zz.

 

[WWGD]

Yes, like many have said, ultimately there is some order or rules for speculation to be effective and for creativity. They must both be informed but a solid understanding of the facts.

 

[Digitalism]

You have good points , but in order to have a casual, fun conversation, I think it is necessary to have the basic down cold, otherwise you get nowhere.

Fair enough. On that we can agree.

Re: level of complexity in discussion. I think those discussions can be had on this forum even with each person not being specifically versed in the sub-field. Think of it like interdisciplinary interaction between highly intelligent and talented people from different disciplines. Take for example someone like Tao who is a mathematician, but because of his training looks at physics differently and perhaps that sort of thing led to his interesting insights on Navier-Stokes. Especially with the push for a quantum information theory the overlap between math, physics, and comouter science is very high and this is even beginning to spill over into biology/neurology as we examine physical systems in information theoretic terms. Think of academia as an ant colony with some rigid "caste" divides in such biological systems we find that individuals from the different specialized groupings used to perform tasks for the colony lose at least 1 or more kinds of functionality found in the other segments, so in order to "restore" that lost functionality there must be interaction between the different specialized groups. To put it in IT terms the information in a message can become geographically isolated over time and must be transmitted back to its region of origin as the message evolves in complexity and the original messengers, media, and receivers can no longer contain instances of it.

 

[Ryan_m_b]

Re: level of complexity in discussion. I think those discussions can be had on this forum even with each person not being specifically versed in the sub-field. Think of it like interdisciplinary interaction between highly intelligent and talented people from different disciplines.

That happens frequently in academia and whilst it's rewarding it's very difficult. Perhaps more importantly I don't think a thread like that would look like what you think it would. When people of different disciplines meet they present and there's a long period of one side learning what the other does. They can't be completely different and expect to produce anything useful in a short time, your example of Tao was someone whose background was very amenable to the field he contributed to.

It seems like what you want is for this forum to be exactly like academia. That's just not possible, and it's not the point of the forum.

 

[ZapperZ]

I very much agree with Ryan. As someone who has been and still involved in a multi-disciplinary projects, all of us had to learn a bit deeper what the other knows, and what they need. We can't simply and blindly offer our opinion and knowledge because, often, what we tell them can be either irrelevant, useless, or something they can't use. A condensed matter physicist or material scientist can offer an accelerator physicist a material with very high quantum efficiency. But if that material cannot withstand the harsh environment of a high gradient photoinjector, and something that doesn't also give out a large amount of dark current (both properties that a material scientist won't know about), then that material becomes useless for accelerator applications!

A cross-disciplinary collaboration requires that each camp learns about the other camps first and foremost.

Zz.

 

[f95toli]

I think the kind of discussion Digitalism seems to have in mind are rare even in academia. Even at a typical conference I mostly end up talking "shop" with people I already know and who work on more or less exactly the same thing as me. When talking to other people we mostly discuss either very generic physics (i.e. if there has been some important discovery) or we talk about funding or simply gossip (who has moved where) etc.
Hence, I agree with what was said above: interdisciplinary research is difficult and everyone involved typically has to spend quite a lot of time reading and asking questions before you reach a point where it actually gets useful. Alternatively, if the goals are clear you can just divide up the work and let everyone get on with their own specialty.

Modern science is highly specialized and the kind of discussions and collaborations you read about in books about e.g. the early days of atomic and quantum physics (back when it was actually possible for someone to actually keep up with everything that happened in a field) simply do not happen anymore. .

 

[OmCheeto]

...
Modern science is highly specialized and the kind of discussions and collaborations you read about in books about e.g. the early days of atomic and quantum physics (back when it was actually possible for someone to actually keep up with everything that happened in a field) simply do not happen anymore. .

I just learned, over the last 16 hours, that "modern science" specialization goes back almost 80 years! [ref, PF]

[Otto] Hahn[nuclear chemist], who did not inform the physicists in his Institute, described the results exclusively in a letter to [Lise] Meitner[physicist] [circa 1938]​

Fascinating story.

 

[OmCheeto]

Seems not so weird to me. You can either do science, or talk about science. We like to attract the "doers" here .

Given that I'm not up for an award next year, you should talk to Greg about adding a new category: Most weird science projects performed by a civilian

Why is ice white?
How to turn an ammeter experiment into a vector-terra-flux-meter.

There are more...

 

[newjerseyrunner]

I've seen a lot of discussion. I see mostly questions because that's where people get stuck, I know a lot about relativity and quantum mechanics, but I'm no physicist. I like to think about how things work and I often think myself into a seeming paradox. I ask a specific question, which usually has a definite answer, so I would expect a Q/A format to that thread.

Original ideas tend to be discussions, the hard science forums tend not to have very many ideas. The physicists who understand physics well enough to come up with their own breakthrough ideas would probably prefer to discuss them with other scientists in a round table discussion than post on a forum.

Discussions on news are very common and can be wildly speculative. There is a thread right now about a weird star that seems to have something big orbiting it that's been a very lively discussion. Even ideas that are normally reserved for crackpots (like alien megastructures) have to be at least considered in a discussion like that and they have been.

I think if you're mostly seeing question/answer style, you aren't looking hard enough. My favorite forum on here is the Sci Fi writers forum. It forces me to really think outside of the box and consider a wide variety of variables, but within the realm of reality.