HRG

[hrg]

Hi. I am HRG, Viennese mathematician/physicist (retd.), weak atheist, bridge player etc. Some of you may know me from CARM and other places.

[Barry]

Hi Hans! Good to see you here.

It will be interesting to see how many members we can round up from the 'other place'.

[cheekymonkey]

Good to see you here. I think it'll be a question of how many people see the post before the Mods disappear it.

[dahduh]

Nov 26, 2009 11:52:48 GMT hrg said:

Hi. I am HRG, Viennese mathematician/physicist (retd.), weak atheist, bridge player etc. Some of you may know me from CARM and other places.

Hi HRG! Good to see you here. I keep meaning to ask: what was your line of physics? Particle, CM, QM...?

[Roarian]

Good to see you here. ^^

[hrg]

Nov 27, 2009 12:54:04 GMT dahduh said:

Nov 26, 2009 11:52:48 GMT hrg said:

Hi. I am HRG, Viennese mathematician/physicist (retd.), weak atheist, bridge player etc. Some of you may know me from CARM and other places.

Hi HRG! Good to see you here. I keep meaning to ask: what was your line of physics? Particle, CM, QM...?

Mathematical physics - covering topics from classical mechanics to quantum field theory. Physicists said that I did mathematics, and mathematicians said that I did physics.

[dahduh]

Nov 27, 2009 13:37:15 GMT hrg said:

Mathematical physics - covering topics from classical mechanics to quantum field theory. Physicists said that I did mathematics, and mathematicians said that I did physics.

;D Best you hang out with the physicists then.

When I was a student a shaggy-dog story did the rounds about cosmologist George Ellis, one of our profs, and incidentally much into religion. The story, which may be entirely apocryphal, goes something like this: he started out in biology, and one day said "hey, why does this chemical reaction work?" The answer was, "huh, we don't know. Go ask a chemist."

So he went off to the chemistry department to study chemistry and they told him about chemical potentials and exothermic and endothermic. Then one day he said "hey, why is this molecule this shape?" The answer was, "We don't know. You'll have to go ask the physicists."

So off he went to study physics and learned all about quantum mechanics and S orbitals and P orbitals, and then one day he asked: "Hey, how can you just integrate over a pole like that?" And he was told, "What the hell, it works. Go ask an applied mathematician."

With a sigh, off he went to study applied mathematics to learn all about complex analysis. And then during one particularly tricky integration he asked: "Wait a minute. How do you know this integral is even meaningful?" And he was told, "Well, it is. If you really want the nitty-gritty you'll have to go ask a pure mathematician."

So off he went to the pure math building and they explained to him all about measures and open and closed sets and convergent Cauchy sequences. And since it didn't make a blind bit of sense he went back to the applied math building and has been an applied mathematician ever since.

[naz]

Dang. I thought the punchline was going to be "I don't know. Go ask a theologian".

[dahduh]

Nov 27, 2009 16:07:31 GMT naz said:

Dang. I thought the punchline was going to be "I don't know. Go ask a theologian".

Sorry to disappoint! But perhaps the real story begins "First he started studying theology, and then he asked..."

Not impossible; Ellis is a Quaker and won the Templeton prize in 2004. Proof that you can be religious and still a great scientist.

[naz]

Nov 27, 2009 19:55:50 GMT dahduh said:

Nov 27, 2009 16:07:31 GMT naz said:

Dang. I thought the punchline was going to be "I don't know. Go ask a theologian".

Sorry to disappoint! But perhaps the real story begins "First he started studying theology, and then he asked..."

That would make it even funnier if it ended the same way!