{"id":124,"date":"2002-09-04T21:35:56","date_gmt":"2002-09-05T01:35:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.goer.org\/wordpress\/back_to_school"},"modified":"2002-09-04T21:35:56","modified_gmt":"2002-09-05T01:35:56","slug":"back_to_school","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.goer.org\/Journal\/2002\/09\/back_to_school.html","title":{"rendered":"Back to School"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>My old mentor and friend, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.physics.hmc.edu\/faculty\/saeta\/\" title=\"'Peter's HMC faculty page'\">Peter Saeta<\/a>, is writing a Statistical Mechanics textbook (whimsically titled, <cite>Statistical and Thermal Physics<\/cite>).  I just received a draft copy to review.  Peter probably thinks I&#8217;m doing him a big favor, but the truth is I am deeply honored that he would seek my input on this. <\/p>\n<p>(You can probably tell that even after several years, I&#8217;m still having trouble with the transition from hero-worship to friendship here.  Bear with me.)<\/p>\n<p>See, years ago, I wanted to be Peter.  Ok, maybe I wanted to dress a little sharper, but other than that, Peter was where it was at.  The problem was that I wasn&#8217;t really cut out for it.  Here&#8217;s the thing about experimental physics &#8212; when you&#8217;re starting out, you need to learn an awful lot about an awful lot, awful fast.  For example, a typical condensed-matter physicist would need proficiency in:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>vacuum systems<\/li>\n<li>low-temperature physics and cryogens<\/li>\n<li>system administration (UNIX or NT)<\/li>\n<li>digital electronics<\/li>\n<li>analog electronics<\/li>\n<li>at least one programming language<\/li>\n<li>lithography and semiconductor processing<\/li>\n<li>machining (mostly lathe and mill)<\/li>\n<li>general physics knowledge<\/li>\n<li>general mathematical knowledge<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>\n  There are a very small number of people who are<br \/>\n  A) mathematically inclined and who B) ferociously and fearlessly attack<br \/>\n  any new learning situation that they&#8217;re thrown into, no matter what.<br \/>\n  People who are both A) and B) should be scientists.  People who are only A)<br \/>\n  should be engineers.  (And people who are terrified of learning anything<br \/>\n  new at <em>all<\/em> should be programmers.)<br \/>\n  Personally, I can handle one or two new things just<br \/>\n  fine&#8230; but eight or ten?  Nope.  I wish it were otherwise, but no.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  So Peter managed to crank out the rough draft of<br \/>\n  <cite>Statistical and Thermal Physics<\/cite> in about three months.<br \/>\n  There&#8217;s your famous physicist&#8217;s tenacity for you.  I don&#8217;t think Peter knows<br \/>\n  what writer&#8217;s block <em>is<\/em>.<br \/>\n  Anyway, I&#8217;m definitely looking forward to reading it.<br \/>\n  The funny thing is that Stat Mech was never really<br \/>\n  my strong suit&#8230; I was more of a Quantum Mech and E&amp;M kind of guy.<br \/>\n  (Strangely, I was never big on Theo Mech, even though it shares a fair<br \/>\n  amount of math with E&amp;M.  Go figure.)  Many students have trouble with<br \/>\n  Stat Mech, because, well, it&#8217;s kind of weird and abstract&#8230; and that&#8217;s weird<br \/>\n  and abstract by a <em>physicist&#8217;s<\/em> standards, which should tell you<br \/>\n  something.  I wish I had some analogies or some good examples for<br \/>\n  why this is, but I don&#8217;t. I bet if push comes to shove, I can steal<br \/>\n  something from Peter&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Many students have trouble with Stat Mech, because, well, it&#8217;s kind of weird and abstract&#8230; and that&#8217;s weird and abstract by a <em>physicist&#8217;s<\/em> standards, which should tell you something.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-124","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goer.org\/Journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/124","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goer.org\/Journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goer.org\/Journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goer.org\/Journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goer.org\/Journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=124"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.goer.org\/Journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/124\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goer.org\/Journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=124"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goer.org\/Journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=124"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goer.org\/Journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=124"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}