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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.
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Re: What's the best degree path for a potential mad scientist?
Quote:
Originally Posted by
deuterio12
Physics of course.
-Chemistry and biology? It's all atom reactions, check.
Physicists: "Chemistry and biology are nothing but applied physics."
Physicists when asked a chemistry or biology question: "I don't know, I'm a physicists!"
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Re: What's the best degree path for a potential mad scientist?
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Peelee
Physicists: "Chemistry and biology are nothing but applied physics."
Physicists when asked a chemistry or biology question: "I don't know, I'm a physicists!"
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.
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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.
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Re: What's the best degree path for a potential mad scientist?
Ornithology.
Fly, my dark minions!
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Re: What's the best degree path for a potential mad scientist?
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Originally Posted by
Lvl 2 Expert
Fly, my dark minions!
Just as well cassowaries don't fly. (You are up on the latest exploits of Florida Man?)
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Re: What's the best degree path for a potential mad scientist?
Quote:
Originally Posted by
DavidSh
Wherever there's a cassowary kill or an emu war, an evil ornithologist isn't far behind.
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Re: What's the best degree path for a potential mad scientist?
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Kato
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.
Because they're true. Like this event that really happened:
Quote:
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".
And nowadays biologists and chemists heavily rely in all sorts of fancy machinery that's all physics based. Microscopes? TEM? SEM? Spectrum analyzis? Smaller and faster computers to run simulations better and proccess all the data? Physicists say "you're welcome".
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.
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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.
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Re: What's the best degree path for a potential mad scientist?
Quote:
Originally Posted by
deuterio12
Because they're true. Like this event that really happened:
And nowadays biologists and chemists heavily rely in all sorts of fancy machinery that's all physics based. Microscopes? TEM? SEM? Spectrum analyzis? Smaller and faster computers to run simulations better and proccess all the data? Physicists say "you're welcome".
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.
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.
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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.
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Re: What's the best degree path for a potential mad scientist?
Quote:
Originally Posted by
deuterio12
And nowadays biologists and chemists heavily rely in all sorts of fancy machinery that's all physics based. Microscopes? TEM? SEM? Spectrum analyzis? Smaller and faster computers to run simulations better and proccess all the data? Physicists say "you're welcome".
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.
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.
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Re: What's the best degree path for a potential mad scientist?
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Originally Posted by
NichG
A physicist can do physicist-chemistry and answer physicist-chemistry questions, which is different than chemist-chemistry and answering chemist-chemistry questions.
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. :smalltongue:
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Re: What's the best degree path for a potential mad scientist?
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Originally Posted by
Brother Oni
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. :smalltongue:
We're trying to rebrand that as 'messy chemistry', otherwise known as 'discard the 200 highest abundance peaks in the mass spec and look at the shape of the distribution of crud living close to the noise floor'.
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Re: What's the best degree path for a potential mad scientist?
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Brother Oni
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. :smalltongue:
Organic chemistry was one of the most useful classes I ever took - it taught me that I didn't want to study chemistry.
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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.
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Re: What's the best degree path for a potential mad scientist?
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Originally Posted by
Knaight
Organic and inorganic chemistry are almost two entirely different disciplines in a lot of ways.
That's an interesting way to say "fewer hexagons."
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Re: What's the best degree path for a potential mad scientist?
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Originally Posted by
Peelee
That's an interesting way to say "fewer hexagons."
Different hexagons, anyways. Bravais lattices for inorganic crystals come to mind.
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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.:smallfurious:
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Re: What's the best degree path for a potential mad scientist?
Quote:
Originally Posted by
JDMSJR
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.:smallfurious:
Can the pencil neck pull a trigger? Because bullets don't care how much you bench.
Besides, what mad science would that dude do anyway? Punch his way into a lab and steal their work?
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Re: What's the best degree path for a potential mad scientist?
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Originally Posted by
Peelee
Can the pencil neck pull a trigger? Because bullets don't care how much you bench.
Besides, what mad science would that dude do anyway? Punch his way into a lab and steal their work?
I think you're straw manning a bit with the "Punch his way into a lab and steal their work?"
There have been some overlords and mad science types who are in fairly close to peak human condition. Like some versions of Lex Luthor, for example.
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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 subjects class every semester. The possibilities are endless.
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Re: What's the best degree path for a potential mad scientist?
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Originally Posted by
gomipile
I think you're straw manning a bit with the "Punch his way into a lab and steal their work?"
We have three pieces of knowledge on this "scientist." He has a doctorate in Physical Education, and he can bench 600 lbs. I'm not strawmanning so much as I'm throwing out a possibility based on what little we know. Also, "he" is the third thing, in case you missed it.
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Re: What's the best degree path for a potential mad scientist?
Quote:
Originally Posted by
JDMSJR
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.:smallfurious:
It's the ideal for someone who fights other mad scientists.
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Re: What's the best degree path for a potential mad scientist?
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Mark Hall
No, that's the Jurassic Park guys you're thinking off there.
Because all their victims just stand there and go "That's so cool".
Or "Your deinonychus is inaccurate!", either one works...
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Re: What's the best degree path for a potential mad scientist?
Quote:
Originally Posted by
JDMSJR
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.:smallfurious:
Isn’t turning themselves into a monster what half the mad scientist end up doing anyway?
Quote:
Originally Posted by someone they all said was mad
Why yes, I will test my theories on myself.
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Re: What's the best degree path for a potential mad scientist?
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Fyraltari
Quote:
Originally Posted by someone they all said was mad
Why yes, I will test my theories on myself.
It worked for Jonas Salk.
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Re: What's the best degree path for a potential mad scientist?
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Fyraltari
Isn’t turning themselves into a monster what half the mad scientist end up doing anyway?
Hey, if I develop a super soldier serum I'm sure not going to waste it on some meat head soldier! (after the successful primate tests of course)
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Re: What's the best degree path for a potential mad scientist?
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Originally Posted by
Kato
Hey, if I develop a super soldier serum I'm sure not going to waste it on some meat head soldier! (after the successful primate tests of course)
That's why you pick a non-meat head soldier. :smallamused:
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Re: What's the best degree path for a potential mad scientist?
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Peelee
She already has her comic book title: The Amazing Grace!