Theorist vs. Experimentalist
By Christopher MooreI was reminded yesterday of how my former advisor as an undergraduate used to distinguish between experimentalists and theorists:
“An experimentalist can fix your car. A theorist can read the manual and tell you why it doesn’t work.”
I was reminded of that yesterday when in the beginning of the day I was asked about some problem in Quantum Mechanics to which I had no idea. Later in the day I was beating the underside of my truck with a hammer trying to replace an oxygen sensor. I work on half-million dollar German vacuum systems every day, so I was pretty sure I could figure out a two thousand dollar American truck.
I got the truck running without ever looking at the manual. I still don’t know how to begin the QM problem after reading at least four books on the subject.
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“RTFM.”
Comment by Martin — Wednesday -- June 22nd, 2005 @ 2:55 pm
theorist can read the manual and tell you whats wrong so you can go to the experimentalist to fix your car that have the equipment.
i have a separate question. when you spin in space you fell yourself being pulled apart so you would know if you are spinging or not in space. so there would be a equal footing between two objects right? if one is spinning in space but has no reffrence point but can tell he is sping by the force he feels.
Comment by evan — Thursday -- September 8th, 2005 @ 12:10 am
Your questions needs to be posted in the forum.
Comment by Chris Moore — Thursday -- September 8th, 2005 @ 9:07 am