Re:Growing evidence that the universe is connected by giant ...
by RHSeeger on Friday January 17, 2020 @07:56AM
(#22074179)
The fact that pretty much all thoughts from people outside the field are either obvious, false, or nonsensical... doesn't invalidate the idea that flashes of insight can come from anywhere. I get what you're saying and agree the odds of it happening are pretty much zero. But sometimes even things with a probability of pretty much 0 can happen. The eigenvalue thing is an example of that, in my opinion.
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Re:Growing evidence that the universe is connected by giant ...
by specialist on Friday January 17, 2020 @09:02AM
(#22074650)
A layperson could unwittingly trigger a cognitive leap by asking naive questions. A la Feynman saying he can't explain magnetism in a way that I could understand it, the effort could spark an insight or novel angle.
Re:Growing evidence that the universe is connected by giant ...
by MiroF on Friday January 17, 2020 @11:06PM
(#22082191)
Name a single instance of a lay person without a background in physics discovering the basis behind a phenomenon since 1900.
For some reason, physics seems to be disproportionately popular among armchair theorists compared to other fields like math or chemistry.
Re:Growing evidence that the universe is connected by giant ...
by ben_w on Saturday January 18, 2020 @03:46AM
(#22083246)
> disproportionately popular among armchair theorists compared to other fields like math or chemistry.
I’ve heard this before, but I wonder how true it is? I know my experiences are just anecdotes, but I knew a guy who was convinced the Hotel Room/Bellboy/Missing Dollar problem “broke maths”, and I’ve had countless frustrations with family members promoting homeopathy and acquaintances talking about chemical X being “one atom away from being bleach” like that doesn’t apply to water.
I’d be interested if anyone has done a real analysis of rates of armchair nonsense by sector.