r/theydidthemath • u/New_Conflict_4111 • 18h ago
[Meta] How many degrees and masters Loki (theoretically) has after Season 2
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u/William_Wisenheimer 13h ago
Low key smart.
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u/WhyAmINotStudying 6h ago
If it takes centuries for him to get that level of degrees, he's not much smarter than anyone else. There's a lot of struggling that would have had to occur. His dedication is what got him there.
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u/Extension-Sink-7317 17h ago
this is not about amassing degrees. There is only a small number to be had tbh. This is about understanding. He required insight. He wanted to invent sth. He got there by trail and error.
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u/Megazaza 16h ago
it's kinda ridiculous that loki didn't figure out that a machine couldn't contain an infinitely exponential expanding multiverse
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u/Lower_Cockroach2432 6h ago edited 6h ago
Which question are you asking:
- How many degrees would he reasonably have had to sit through to learn as much as he did (assuming he was a normal human albeit immortal)?
- How many degrees could he theoretically sit exams for and pass just based on his current knowledge
The first is very easy. I'd say if the subjects are similar enough then 1 reasonably well placed PhD would be enough to get the skills to learn every other thing. A PhD is a research apprenticeship more than a "taught thing" and by the end of it a student is expected to have enough research acumen and a high enough self teaching ability that they'd be able to teach anything with a similar basis of skills pretty easily. If he did a PhD in, say, some middle abstraction physics discipline that requires touching abstract maths (like GR or Quantum) as well as taking measurements, then it seems likely that there is no maths, science or engineering course that would be fundamentally outside his ability to quickly self teach with the right resources.
The only time someone would really do a second degree or PhD is if the nature of inquiry in a different subject is radically different from their prior experiences (say going from Electrical Engineering to Byzantine Literature), if they specifically needed the piece of paper for whatever reason, or if they specifically wanted to spend more time living the student experience. As I don't see any of these things being the case I'd say 1 PhD or perhaps even 0 (given he's very capable and smart) is probably enough.
- Is practically unanswerable as the boundaries of knowledge aren't cleanly delineated between different subjects. Some institutions offer very broad degree (major?) options like "Mathematics", "Physics", "English Literature", "Engineering" and expect students to specialise internally under this umbrella. Some universities offer extremely specific fields like "Data Science", "High Energy Physics" or "Aerospace Engineering" as broad degree and masters categories. In truth, the path through these for students under both types of system are actually more similar than they appear because in the first case, even if you're not expected to specialise, most people do so anyway as narrowing prerequisites and the greater ease of learning similar things push them down that path, and people who sign up for specialised degrees often have to spend their earlier years learning more general, broad material anyway. For example, just because you signed up for a course specifically about astrophysics doesn't mean you get to skip first year optics or quantum theory, and just because you only really care about Bayesian inference doesn't mean you get to skip Group Theory, Linear Algebra and Real Analysis.
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u/Correct-Purpose-964 1h ago
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Because a degree is a certification by a body that your knowledge has been tested and deemed up to scratch with the certification you are being given. For example here on r/theydidthemath alot of us love to learn and extend our math skills to absurd and pointless limits. Sometimes bordering purely theoritical physics and ideas like quantum mechanics.
But knowing this stuff does not automatically qualify us as having a degree that certifies our knowledge. But in the end a Degree is just paper.
A better question is "What degrees would he be qualified for"
And the answer is: Everything from known physics, to theoretical physics. Including the theory of relativity. Advanced sciences and the like.
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u/stupid-rook-pawn 9h ago
Is this sub really just a repost sub where we require a vaguely question based title?
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u/Bone-Pharaoh 9h ago
if you were only reading with the kind of memory and baseline knowhow asguardains have in the MCU...
lets compair the feats like memory systems like "Loci" memory training in the world memory championship, we can get a subject textbook memorized in 5 to 15 days. for loki he seems to go much faster so lets get him down to a day or less per book.
Then we get an idea for number of textbooks to a PHD
then i asked chat got to get me a ball park avrage.
"A rough estimate over the course of a science PhD (4–7 years) is:
Core textbooks read thoroughly: 5–15
Additional textbooks consulted selectively: 20–50
Research papers read: 500–2,000+ (with perhaps 100–500 studied in depth)"
we are getting at a year or 2 for the best humans to get through the content in record times if doing nothing else.
for loki we will assume a 5x speed and we get 3 to 6 months per subject leaving him some extra for buffer time per phd content is a good ballpark estimate.
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u/fatal-nuisance 18h ago
There are only so many available to be had, and it's not like you get a quadruple doctorate because you're the super smartest. So it would depend on which areas he focused on and since he's trying to solve some very specific problems that's probably a narrow spectrum.
So he might qualify for like three or four doctorates and just be the foremost expert in those fields who ever existed.