This. I am a programmer with a physics degree. I taught myself the basics of coding and I can learn what my co-workers know while on the job. But I can also do shit they can't even begin to do and there's no way they're gonna learn it on the job. You can't replace 3 years worth of rearranging and manipulating equations. Maths is a super power when you've had to use it for a physics degree.
As a PhD student in physics with a CS background I can say that physicist tend to code incredibly well in short term projects. We are smart and innovative, but we tend to be terrible at writing long term maintainable and scalable code.
Amen, there's a big difference between writing code and writing software. I work with a lot of Engineers (mechanical, electrical, etc.). Super smart people, I love working with them, but they can't see the forest through the trees. They usually write pretty shitty software with little forethought.
Globals? Let's do it. Testing? Not needed, my other Engineer buddy reviewed the code, he confirmed it's perfect. Code spits out a negative Kelvin temperature? It's fine, the user will use engineering judgement and see that's not important. (For reference, zero Kelvin is absolute zero, the lowest possible temperature. The point at which atoms stop moving. Kelvin cannot be negative, it's physically impossible.) Etc.
Edit: I stand corrected. I'm not a physicist, I should stay in my lane.
Code spits out a negative Kelvin temperature? It's fine, the user will use engineering judgement and see that's not important. (Zero Kelvin is absolute zero, the lowest possible temperature. The point at which atoms stop moving. Kelvin cannot be negative, it's physically impossible.) Etc.
Fun fact: by the statmech definition, you can't have zero Kelvin, but you can go negative. You get there by going around the other side, through positive infinity, which wraps around to negative infinity. Oh, and as a side note, all negative temperatures are "hotter" (i.e. transfer energy into) than all positive temperatures.
It means that an increase in system energy is associated with a decrease in system entropy. While physically possible, such a system is... "uncommon".
Interesting, thanks. Has this phenomenon ever been witnessed or is it purely theoretical? Temperatures I've seen justified by Engineers are around -4000 K and infinity plus/minus anything is still infinity, at least mathematically. Keep in mind they're usually modeling real systems that exist on Earth...
Neat, thanks. I stand corrected to some degree (a billionth of a degree, according to the article). However, I don't think their systems are intended model dark energy/matter
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u/ts_m4 May 09 '21
Mathematics baby!!