• Troy@lemmy.caEnglish
    144·
    8 months ago

    My third year thermodynamics course opened with a similar quip by the lecturer. Entropy is actually depressing. You can’t fight it. You can’t not fight it. It just wins.

  • Dogs_cant_look_up@lemmy.worldEnglish
    112·
    8 months ago

    One opening line that’s always stuck with me is:

    “The doctor said I was a paranoid schizophrenic. Well, he didn’t actually say it, but we knew he was thinking it.”

  • umbrella@lemmy.mlEnglish
    307·
    8 months ago

    id want to kill myself too. just from the very little i know from computer stuff, imagine doing an entire semester

        • AngryCommieKender@lemmy.worldEnglish
          7·
          8 months ago

          I’m not entirely sure of that. You can’t have comp sci without algebra and potentially calculus. I could see a society that developed all three fields before they codified Physics

          • force@lemmy.worldEnglish
            32·
            8 months ago

            How do you have computer science without calculus? Calculus is literally necessary for computer science, otherwise it’d just be like… shitty statistics with a little programming

            • Miaou@jlai.luEnglish
              7·
              8 months ago

              Care to expand? Things like complexity theory and type theory, for example, have nothing to do with calculus

              • force@lemmy.worldEnglish
                1·
                8 months ago

                In general, a lot of the stuff computer science shares with data science uses calculus, a lot of the statistics too, but also visuals and modelling other sciences (e.g. simulations) use calculus heavily. I recall utilising vector calc a decent amount when working with Vulkan, for example

                • Miaou@jlai.luEnglish
                  1·
                  8 months ago

                  Sounds like programming more than CS, in that case, fair enough. Also the linear algebra in computer graphics is, well, algebra, not calculus.

            • AngryCommieKender@lemmy.worldEnglish
              2·
              8 months ago

              It would be inelegant as all fuck, but you could get away with just algebra, there are comp sci courses that only need algebra as the foundation.

              • force@lemmy.worldEnglish
                2·
                8 months ago

                as far as i can tell, the ones that do that are usually just programming courses with “computer science” slapped onto the title. but i havent exactly gone to many colleges so i don’t have the experience to say so.

        • theneverfox@pawb.socialEnglish
          2·
          8 months ago

          Sure you can. Physics is describing what is, computer science is building what could be

          The two things require very little overlap. Even physics systems in video games don’t use real physics - it just feels better when you fudge it

  • Pulptastic@midwest.socialEnglish
    22·
    8 months ago

    My favorite class in grad school. I absolutely loved deriving the laws of thermodynamics from first principles based the random motion of atoms. It was beautiful.

  • fizix@lemmy.worldEnglish
    20·
    8 months ago

    I don’t know. I like Griffith’s Quantum Mechanics which opens saying if you think you’re starting to understand this stuff, you really haven’t.

    • tate@lemmy.sdf.orgEnglish
      9·
      8 months ago

      Boltzmann is “riff-raff” now?!? I get what you’re going for, but c’mon.

  • astreus@lemmy.mlEnglish
    10·
    8 months ago

    I dunno, I usually open a textbook by turning over the front cover 🥁

    • CluckN@lemmy.worldEnglish
      5·
      8 months ago

      Why do we have a 🌫️ emoji instead of a cymbal? It would compliment the drum emoji so well.

    • ornery_chemist@mander.xyzEnglish
      13·
      8 months ago

      …and then we take the partial derivative of the log of this infinite sum wrt molar volume to find that–

      - Why?

      Why what?

      - helplessly gestures at the whiteboard

      Oh, yeah, it’s so the math works out later! Anyway, for small Θ, the derivative has a nice closed form that we can Tailor expand in f-

      • Donkter@lemmy.worldEnglish
        16·
        8 months ago

        Yeah lol, lots of physics and math was invented by multidisciplinary geniuses who saw equations that seemed to have no answer and said “oh yeah, this looks like a problem from biology that I’ve seen solved with this bit of fluid mechanics, and that problem can be solved with this complex trick from differential calculus. And you know, after we do that the whole system is starting to look like a circuit that uses properties from thermodynamics…”

        Then your teacher and the textbook throws it on a white board and says “some smart dude figured out this was the way to solve this problem. It looks like this and it boils down to this equation. Don’t ask questions.”

  • naevaTheRat@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
    8·
    8 months ago

    There’s a mechanics textbook called “there once was a classical theory” and it opens with:

    There once was a classical theory Of which quantum disciples were leery. They said, “Why spend so long On a theory that’s wrong?” Well, it works for your everyday query!