hifrote | 1 year ago | on: Feynman’s Razor
hifrote's comments
hifrote | 1 year ago | on: Feynman’s Razor
> What do you not like about Feynman's "little arrows" / rotating clock hands in the QED book?
It’s difficult to articulate, but two aspects are:
The amount of times I have only confused people more by trying to explain even modular arithmetic by calling on the clock analogy.
And the fact that the little “clock hands” are a complete abstraction from both the physics being described and the mathematical models that describe that physics. ~“Quantum physics is just about adding clocks?”
> I can't think of a more simple metaphor for the exponential of a complex phase, exp(i omega t).
As I noted in the gp I think code implementations or numerical methods should be the goal.
The solution to the confusion about referencing clocks when talking about modular arithmetic was just to write down a complete numerical example, ie all natural numbers mod 6 up to 10, and use that as the abstraction for further discussion: negatives, reals, periodicity, infinities, applications, et al.
hifrote | 1 year ago | on: Feynman’s Razor
Funny thing is I think this about Feynman’s own writing for “the layperson”.
I think things like Feynman’s “little arrows” descriptions in QED only muddied and added to the mystique and mysticism of the physics he loved.
Which is interesting because his written lectures[1], though, in their breadth and complexity require effort, seem as if they are intended for experts while being approachable to ”the layperson“.
My only real complaint about those lectures is that even when I understood I rarely felt I had actionable tools for that new knowledge.
The best descriptions of physics I feel that can sufficiently inform “the layperson” are ones that implements the physics in code[2], or through numerical methods.
page 1
I think it’s okay to be explain complex numbers. I think it’s just best to additionally explain why. That is, show why (real, imaginary) is a better numerical system than the more broadly taught (x,y) of the 2 dimensional space being explored.
As for the Euler identity I suppose you could include that when explaining why we use the exp() function, which is because it plays nicer with integration and derivation than other numerical representations.
I want the analogies to be representative of the work rather than my own mental model of it.