Is there a path (short of going through a Physics undergrad curriculum itself) to enjoy and get more 'return' from Feynman for someone without formal Physics background? Any recommendations of books to read prior to undertaking Feynman?
There are many more things you can do that will be enjoyable to you.
Going through a Physics undergrad makes you do things you otherwise won't do. Those things, done over 3-4 years for some thousands hours transform you in no small way.
While you are doing this, you are reading Feynman, and it hits you on a completely different way. You also begin to read between the lines, and you start to apply those kinds of tools to other areas of Physics that aren’t explicitly mentioned in the Lectures.
But it's not something that you need to chase and they are neither unique set of things available only in the Lectures and nowhere else.
Just do something or read something where you are better suited to get 'returns'.
Also, as a person who has experienced xenophobia in over 50 nations I can tell you that it’s never the best and brightest who stayed in their home town and defend it against outsiders via physical violence and harassment. I have a metal plate and five screws in my leg that tell me your proposals are a no go.
$ perl -Mstrict -e 'say $x'
Global symbol "$x" requires explicit package name (did you forget to declare "my $x"?) at -e line 1.
Execution of -e aborted due to compilation errors.
With the addition of `Coy` module [1]:
$ perl -Mstrict -MCoy -e 'say $x'
-----
Gautama dies near
a monastry. Two woodpeckers
fly over the lake.
-----
Or Wunt's commentary...
Global symbol "$x" requires explicit package name (did you
forget to declare "my $x"?)
(Analects of -e: line 1.
Execution of -e aborted due to compilation
errors.)
> Is it not possible that the low-hanging fruit had been found earlier, in the 1970s-1990s, and the problem got harder?
The problem of "problems getting harder" is a continuous phenomenon. Why would that be the case suddenly after 2000, and not before?
> However, I'm a bit puzzled by the weird direction the journalist ran with this, which is straight to his preconceived notions that are not that supported by the data he's looking at.
Is it possible that your own preconceived notions about the author and the publication may have caused you to judge this way?
In any case, don't trust every comment posted on Hacker News (including my own) :)
> The problem of "problems getting harder" is a continuous phenomenon. Why would that be the case suddenly after 2000, and not before?
Well, there was that whole dotcom boom and a lot of things changed for computers & the internet which led to researchers being able to share more information, use more powerful computer techniques, etc.
>Well, there was that whole dotcom boom and a lot of things changed for computers & the internet which led to researchers being able to share more information, use more powerful computer techniques, etc.
In my experience working with/contracting for neuro labs, a lot of researchers don't really know how to fully leverage the technology that's available, and often rely upon proprietary tools they have limited knowledge of, which doesn't bode well for being able explore for themselves.
The few that I have met that can push the limits of current technology are working in labs ran by the above…
I'm not sure how it is in other fields, but in convos from some other commentators on HN over the past years, makes me think this is not just in neuroscience.
Maybe the problem is that the skills needed to explore the solution space and communicate it effectively have gone up because the complexity it has added to the process without research labs/academia addressing the gap sufficiently? I don't think this is a problem with just labs or academia though, not many people in general have the skills to be able to leverage technology to it's fullest for even the most banal tasks.
I don't see that chart supporting a sudden change. The time point could be moved quite a bit and tell the same story.
Also I had not heard of Kevin Drum before this, and had a positive view of Mother Jones. I'm left with a poor impression of Kevin Drum and a hit to Mother Jones' reputation after reading this.
You could go read the original paper and examine the actual data and scientific conclusions drawn from the underlying data as represented on that chart.
You could look for confirmation or disconfirmation of the hypothesis that preregistration leads to an increase in null results in other data sets.
Both of those seem like more useful ways to dispute this finding than squinting at a graph and finding fault with a blog post headline.
I'm not sure if you meant to reply to me, because every aspect of your post is wrong.
The "squinting at the graph" was assuming that there's a sudden change. I read the paper, and looked up several studies and came to the conclusion that the paper was being misrepresented by the blog text. And I agreed with the headline, but not with the blog text.
India, UTC+05:30, all through the year. Despite having widely different climate zones in various regions of the country, there is no "Daylight Saving Time".
