Results 31 to 60 of 87
-
2019-04-15, 09:55 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Feb 2011
Re: What's the best degree path for a potential mad scientist?
Physics of course.
-Lasers? Check.
-Speed of light? Check.
-Time travel/relativity? Check.
-Gravity? Check.
-Magnetism? Check.
-Lighting? Electrons, check.
-Explosions? Fission and Fusion, check.
-Mutations? See above.
-Chemistry and biology? It's all atom reactions, check.
-Nanoscale? Check.
-Galatic scale? Check.
-
2019-04-15, 10:07 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Dec 2009
- Location
- Birmingham, AL
- Gender
Re: What's the best degree path for a potential mad scientist?
-
2019-04-15, 10:52 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Apr 2008
- Location
- Germany
- Gender
Re: What's the best degree path for a potential mad scientist?
Yeah, as a physicist myself, this is the biggest lie my colleagues tell themselves. Don't get me wrong, many of us know about a wide range of things, including basic chemistry and biology. But those looking down on chemists and biologists because 'physics can explain it all' are hell annoying.
-
2019-04-15, 11:27 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Nov 2009
- Location
- Canadia
Re: What's the best degree path for a potential mad scientist?
I would say Mechatronics, not just because it sounds cools (it has "Mecha" right in the name), but I imagine an army of robots would be instrumental in any good Mad-scientist plan.
-
2019-04-15, 01:14 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Oct 2014
- Location
- Tulips Cheese & Rock&Roll
- Gender
Re: What's the best degree path for a potential mad scientist?
Ornithology.
Fly, my dark minions!The Hindsight Awards, results: See the best movies of 1999!
-
2019-04-15, 03:02 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Feb 2015
Re: What's the best degree path for a potential mad scientist?
Just as well cassowaries don't fly. (You are up on the latest exploits of Florida Man?)
-
2019-04-15, 03:34 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Oct 2014
- Location
- Tulips Cheese & Rock&Roll
- Gender
Re: What's the best degree path for a potential mad scientist?
Wherever there's a cassowary kill or an emu war, an evil ornithologist isn't far behind.
The Hindsight Awards, results: See the best movies of 1999!
-
2019-04-15, 05:53 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Feb 2011
Re: What's the best degree path for a potential mad scientist?
Because they're true. Like this event that really happened:
biologists and chemists when asked how the tallest trees can carry water from the roots to the upper leaves: "We don't know!"
physicists when asked when asked how the tallest trees can carry water from the roots to the upper leaves: "Let me fully apply fluid mechanics to the diameter of tree veins and taking in account the viscosity of water to the problem and [long explanation that would fit multiple pages] the matter is explained".
Mind you chemists and biologists still have their good points, it's important to keep specialists with different points of view around, but over the last century they've been relying more and more in physicists.
-
2019-04-15, 06:47 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Apr 2008
- Location
- Germany
- Gender
Re: What's the best degree path for a potential mad scientist?
Where do I start?
I'm not exactly sure if you're just talking about a random thing you witnessed if you say 'a thing that really happened' or if you are just turning a long lasting research subject into something physics supposedly solved with a handwave.
Or the fact that there are clearly no stories of other scientists figuring things out without involving physicists, so your example does not invalidate the work in other fields?
Or the work that chemists contribute to cmos and other parts of modern IT done by not physicists? Because most of us could totally do all that without any help.
Just so we don't get misunderstand each other, I in no way mean to put physicists down. But we could spend all day listing stuff one discipline did and not another and which is the best / most important science, or we could acknowledge all are important and equally valuable.
-
2019-04-15, 07:55 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Dec 2009
- Location
- Birmingham, AL
- Gender
Re: What's the best degree path for a potential mad scientist?
Look, nobody's saying that physics isn't a base that chemistry and biology build off. We're just saying, for example, ain't no physicist came up with the cure for polio, and as much as Wolfgang Pauli helped advance physics, Jonas Salk would have carried on just fine without him.
Physicists are great. It's a really fun, interesting field. Overbearing physicists who pretend like they are God's gift to science are no better than doctors with God complexes. Nobody likes them, except maybe other physicists.
-
2019-04-15, 09:53 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Dec 2010
Re: What's the best degree path for a potential mad scientist?
A physicist can do physicist-chemistry and answer physicist-chemistry questions, which is different than chemist-chemistry and answering chemist-chemistry questions.
Chemist-chemistry: given a set of reagents, can I predict whether they would exhibit autocatalysis, and under what conditions?
Physicist-chemistry: is autocatalysis inevitable in all chemical systems containing a sufficient diversity of starting materials (e.g. Kauffman's model of autocatalytic sets)?
Another example, perhaps a bit more famous, is the discussion of chirality in life on earth. There's a lot of action in chemistry circles trying to find high-yield reaction pathways that look vaguely plausible in origins of life conditions which strongly favor a chiral output compared to racemic. The justification for this is something along the lines of 'the homochirality of life on Earth is surprising, and therefore requires a specific explanation'.
On the other hand, from a physics point of view, L and R chirality are symmetric in the underlying physics, but can break that symmetry through interactions (e.g. LL and RR can be different than LR and RL). Therefore, a spontaneous symmetry breaking phase transition is obviously to be expected, any small external factor will get amplified to bias the chirality that is eventually chosen, and there's no point getting overly excited about it.
The two approaches often have almost nothing to say to each-other's questions. A physicist can write down a single-line model that predicts that the racemic state should be unstable for replicating life (including autocatalysis). It will satisfy not one of the chemists studying homochirality; nor will an elaborate piece of lab chemistry that produces R with 97% yield satisfy one of the physicists.Last edited by NichG; 2019-04-15 at 09:59 PM.
-
2019-04-15, 11:38 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Aug 2008
Re: What's the best degree path for a potential mad scientist?
Meanwhile physicists use all sorts of stuff derived from materials discovered and synthesized by chemists, starting with every single plastic. The fields are all interlinked, and the last century has seen huge developments in chemistry and biology just as much as in physics.
I would really like to see a game made by Obryn, Kurald Galain, and Knaight from these forums.
I'm not joking one bit. I would buy the hell out of that. -- ChubbyRain
Current Design Project: Legacy, a game of masters and apprentices for two players and a GM.
-
2019-04-16, 06:48 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Nov 2007
- Location
- Cippa's River Meadow
- Gender
Re: What's the best degree path for a potential mad scientist?
And different again to biologist-chemistry which is so complex, it's starting to morph into its own discipline of biochemistry.
A quick rule of thumb to tell the difference is to utter the phrase 'I have this organic chemistry question...'; if they scream and run away, they're a physicist or chemist.
-
2019-04-16, 07:55 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Dec 2010
Re: What's the best degree path for a potential mad scientist?
-
2019-04-16, 09:26 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Dec 2009
- Location
- Birmingham, AL
- Gender
Re: What's the best degree path for a potential mad scientist?
-
2019-04-16, 10:44 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Aug 2008
Re: What's the best degree path for a potential mad scientist?
Organic and inorganic chemistry are almost two entirely different disciplines in a lot of ways.
I would really like to see a game made by Obryn, Kurald Galain, and Knaight from these forums.
I'm not joking one bit. I would buy the hell out of that. -- ChubbyRain
Current Design Project: Legacy, a game of masters and apprentices for two players and a GM.
-
2019-04-16, 10:46 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Dec 2009
- Location
- Birmingham, AL
- Gender
Re: What's the best degree path for a potential mad scientist?
-
2019-04-16, 11:25 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Aug 2008
Re: What's the best degree path for a potential mad scientist?
I would really like to see a game made by Obryn, Kurald Galain, and Knaight from these forums.
I'm not joking one bit. I would buy the hell out of that. -- ChubbyRain
Current Design Project: Legacy, a game of masters and apprentices for two players and a GM.
-
2019-04-16, 03:37 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Feb 2006
- Location
- Memphis, TN
- Gender
Re: What's the best degree path for a potential mad scientist?
How about have him get his doctorate in Physical Education? I mean are you going to be afraid of the pencil neck who can barely throw the switch for his experiment? Or the big hulking guy who can bench 600lbs. Create a monster? I AM the monster.
-
2019-04-16, 03:46 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Dec 2009
- Location
- Birmingham, AL
- Gender
Re: What's the best degree path for a potential mad scientist?
-
2019-04-16, 03:53 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jul 2010
Re: What's the best degree path for a potential mad scientist?
-
2019-04-16, 03:54 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Feb 2006
- Location
- Memphis, TN
- Gender
Re: What's the best degree path for a potential mad scientist?
He would do what ever mad science he wanted. I mean they give him a new
batch of test subjectsclass every semester. The possibilities are endless.
-
2019-04-16, 04:08 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Dec 2009
- Location
- Birmingham, AL
- Gender
Re: What's the best degree path for a potential mad scientist?
-
2019-04-16, 04:13 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Dec 2007
- Location
- San Antonio, Texas
- Gender
Re: What's the best degree path for a potential mad scientist?
The Cranky Gamer
*It isn't realism, it's verisimilitude; the appearance of truth within the framework of the game.
*Picard management tip: Debate honestly. The goal is to arrive at the truth, not at your preconception.
*Mutant Dawn for Savage Worlds!
*The One Deck Engine: Gaming on a budget
Written by Me on DriveThru RPG
There are almost 400,000 threads on this site. If you need me to address a thread as a moderator, include a link.
-
2019-04-17, 12:09 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Oct 2014
- Location
- Tulips Cheese & Rock&Roll
- Gender
Re: What's the best degree path for a potential mad scientist?
The Hindsight Awards, results: See the best movies of 1999!
-
2019-04-17, 02:49 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Aug 2017
- Location
- France
- Gender
-
2019-04-17, 07:29 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Dec 2009
- Location
- Birmingham, AL
- Gender
Re: What's the best degree path for a potential mad scientist?
-
2019-04-17, 11:11 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Apr 2008
- Location
- Germany
- Gender
Re: What's the best degree path for a potential mad scientist?
-
2019-04-17, 11:25 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Dec 2009
- Location
- Birmingham, AL
- Gender
Re: What's the best degree path for a potential mad scientist?
That's why you pick a non-meat head soldier.
-
2019-04-17, 12:59 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Oct 2014
- Location
- Tulips Cheese & Rock&Roll
- Gender
Re: What's the best degree path for a potential mad scientist?
The Hindsight Awards, results: See the best movies of 1999!