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Re:What's Going Wrong in Particle Physics? by Pet_Ant on Monday February 13, 2023 @07:16AM (#34772615)
Felt bad that I couldn’t stand one of the only female hard science YouTubers. Then I found Dr Becky: https://m.youtube.com/@DrBecky

Seems to know her shit and doesn’t seem to hate it.

Re:What's Going Wrong in Particle Physics? by was_a_dev on Monday February 13, 2023 @07:24AM (#34772657)
This is essentially my thoughts.

Dr Becky is a fantastic science communicator that is clearly very passionate and optimistic about her field

Re:What's Going Wrong in Particle Physics? by maegul on Monday February 13, 2023 @07:52AM (#34772846)
Agree. Also, from what I've gathered, she's relatively junior, in that she only recently completed her PhD and is a postdoc now (thus, I suspect, the "Dr" in the handle?). Which is a good thing! You're getting the perspective, energy, excitement, and focus of someone actually "on the ground" and still pumped about their field.

One of the take aways I've got from what I've seen of academia (whether this applies to Sabine or not) is that you'd be surprised how disconnected a senior academic is from the current state of their field. Not that they're ignorant of the latest findings (though, again, you'd be surprised how little time they have actually read papers unless they have to), but they're often not doing actual research at all, not reading the latest papers as widely as a good postdoc would be, and see the field through older often outdated (though sometimes still valuable) lenses, and can be very distracted by their other responsibilities. A young excited researcher is genuinely looking out for the future of their field, and, IMO, I think you can see that Dr Becky

Re:What's Going Wrong in Particle Physics? by k2xl on Monday February 13, 2023 @08:00AM (#34772900)
I actually love both Sabine and Dr Becky. I think they both do a great job with different styles.
Re:What's Going Wrong in Particle Physics? by sho_hn on Monday February 13, 2023 @09:16AM (#34773631)
I find Hossenfelder's style to be very entertaining, it's lovely content. With some of the more opinionated videos I often wish I'd find another similar creator offering a rebuttal or context to help me sort in her take.

Of course if you follow this to its logical conclusion you eventually hit "become a scientist, work with the material, form your own opinion", but well, a little bit more aggregation and summary would be of service to me.

I guess what Hossenfelder offers me is content above the quality bar of most science journalism, on that spectrum.

Re:What's Going Wrong in Particle Physics? by Retric on Monday February 13, 2023 @09:56AM (#34774140)
Hossenfelder can be entertaining, but even as a non specialist I’ve noticed either oversimplification or errors in her videos. So, I think she needs better collaboration with specialists when operating outside her specialty.

The one that comes to mind is when talking about fusion she said the output energy of the reaction * efficiency must be > input energy which seems perfectly logical. Except the input energy doesn’t all disappear much of it ends up in the plasma which in a steady state is then converted at some efficiency to electricity again. This is why Q is considered independently of the total power used by the facility which goes on to invalidate much of the rest of the video.

I don’t know if that was intentional oversimplification or a mistake on her part, but it makes me question the accuracy of her videos on other topics.

Re:What's Going Wrong in Particle Physics? by sho_hn on Monday February 13, 2023 @10:01AM (#34774212)
I've noticed a few things like this as well. I vaguely recall not liking a calculation in a nuclear energy video she did because she omitted thorium from the topic - I'm no expert, but I was awaiting her to address it next to her discussion of uranium reserves and was confused by its absence.
Re:What's Going Wrong in Particle Physics? by davrosthedalek on Monday February 13, 2023 @09:43AM (#34773946)
There is also "My Journey as a Physicist". Haven't listened to it yet, but I hear good things from my colleagues.

[1] https://sites.google.com/msu.edu/phy480905/home?pli=1