The problem with science communication today

[broli]

In the spirit of a similarly named topic I wanted to share some mind spaghetti on this.

Often you hear that kids are no longer interested in science, math or whatever STEM subject out there. Its easy and lazy to claim that kids are only interested in playing video games, spending hours on TikTok and social media. These problems have existed since the dawn of time. Kids will be kids and will entertain themselves with whatever is available at the time, rocks and sticks, trees, playgrounds or video games. Its up to the adults to self reflect on why their kids are not interested in education, seeking knowledge and information.

In my opinion, the true problem in science today is the "communication" part not the "kids" part, to be more precise its the language we use to educate kids on science. A language that is not suited for kids but for drones to continue old traditions. A language stuck 100 years in the past formed by curious young adult women and men in their prime. If you can think you can make equations and math interesting to a TikTok brained kid of today then you are out of touch with your time and reality.

Language is everything to a kid, as language is how we tell stories that can captivate any mind big or small. "Science" is not an art, philosophy or way of life. Its a story, a very long one and therefore should be told as one using the same language kids are taught at birth aka natural language.

However unlike most stories out there this story has an open ending. Therefore its up to the explorers to discover how far this story goes and to even carve their own path towards its ending. Some might quit sooner than others. But the real hardy and curious thrill seekers keep going no matter the hardships, pushing further beyond any imaginary limit in order to test the bounds of this story. Or until they reach their own limit or comfort zone where they are pleased with the progress they made and go into retirement. Leaving the rest of the story for future truth explorers.

However this does not mean that what has been uncovered before you is the "law". Sure it gives you a head start as always starting from 0 will get you nowhere either. But its a best practice to question any path carved by previous explorers as sometimes you might discover that there might be a more optimal one which pushes you even further ahead rather than keep digging at dead ends. Sure you could use existing handy tools like shovels, ropes and binoculars. But tools are just a result of imagination as well. Enforcing paths and tools on a new generation of curious minds is how you get them bored quickly. Video games are fun because they give you freedom and challenge. You might fail many times trying to clear a level but after a while you notice it gets easier and then suddenly you mastered the level or boss. And the players that put the real time and effort into the game might even discover ways around the game that even the game developers didn't think of and jump to the "ending" in record speed without having to use "cheat" codes.

This thing we call "science" is the same. Sure there are some basic rules and guidelines that might help you along, but enforcing comfort zones of past explorers in the form of soulless equations, theorems or "laws" is how you get young minds bored and disinterested leaving only the old grumpy greying players playing the game that are only interested in their retirement plans and even end up relegating their younger peers to YouTube or other platforms to escape this old church.

Tell the stories of science. The people behind breakthroughs, their inventions, the stories behind adversity and rivalry. Love and compassion. Greed and destruction. The more animated, the more wonder and imagination you can inject in a kids brain the more it will fuel its own future truth seeking endeavors. And you will end up with an entire army interested in science and truth exploring. And some like to play the game by the rules while others like to speedrun the game with strange and weird tricks, there is enough room for any kind of play style as banning something you dont understand never works.

What kid doesn't want to play the biggest game the universe has to offer.

Just my opinion.

[Allcanadian]

What tends to turn me off was a lack of information on the reasoning behind many things in science. As Einstein said, "If you can't explain something to a six-year-old, you really don't understand it yourself".

For example, recently someone asked what the 1/2 in E=1/2mv^2 means. It hit home with me because I asked this same question around 10 years ago and spent countless hours trying to find the answer. The answers were always the same old nonsense skirting around the issue but never answering the question. Go to any physics forum and there are pages and pages and pages of physics people squabbling over what it actually means and most supposed experts in physics get it wrong.

Eventually I worked out the answer for myself but recently I asked ChatGPT and I must say I was really impressed. However I had to stop it mid stream during the usual diatribe and ask it to explain the flow of reasoning behind it. So ChatGPT said bla bla bla and I asked how does bla1 lead to bla2?, what is the reasoning behind this. In fact the AI explained it perfectly in a way which was easy to understand which countless websites on google and 99% of the supposed experts failed to do.

Which comes full circle back to Einsteins brilliant observation, "If you can't explain something to a six-year-old, you really don't understand it yourself".

So my thinking has also come full circle and I can see where AI could be a real game changer. It's kind of like having all of the best and brightest experts in science at our disposal and being able to say just stop and explain this to me in the simplest way possible and the reasoning behind every step including every detail of the process. How does this lead to that, how did they come to these conclusions, what was the thought process, what were the prior facts, how did these facts lead to the present facts, what could this lead to in the future?.

So this is really good news for the maker and inventor community. We no longer have to rely on some old person trying to recall what they thought they knew or were taught 40 years ago. We can ask an AI and get the most up to date " unbiased" information explained any way we want... that's a total game changer in my opinion.

AC

[broli]

Information is everything. In human interaction or more simplistic, particle to particle interaction. Momentum information has to be exchanged somehow when particles collide and this exchange requires time.

Heres an interesting illustration on what happens in an elastic collision and its "information exchange":



Its always the same themes:

• Position
• Velocity
• Acceleration

Or the 3 "dimensions".

All being mediated by the information processing unit we call "time" or what the kids call the force of "Friction". So is energy free? Well if you can accept the true currency of the universe it is otherwise you pay units of time to get energy in exchange.

You know no one told me that General Relativity was all about fluid dynamics in university. They throw equations at your head without context without a story and move on. Those that ask why are left behind and those that dont become mindless drones that follow their "teachings". This is not how you pass information to a new generation. The universe and especially earth seems to know something special about stable information processing and exchange perhaps we can learn from it before its too late. New life doesn't emerge out of echo chambers...or perhaps it does.

[F6FLT]

...
You know no one told me that General Relativity was all about fluid dynamics in university. They throw equations at your head without context without a story and move on. Those that ask why are left behind and those that dont become mindless drones that follow their "teachings". This is not how you pass information to a new generation.
...

Mathematics, equations, is the language of physics. Would you like someone to teach you music theory while still being unable to read a staff? I don't know if you realize the complexity of physics and the impossibility for anyone to explain everything, at university or elsewhere (and all the more so as not everything is known). It's unrealistic to demand exhaustive physics teaching. And on the other hand, I've never seen a teacher refuse to answer questions, but he himself doesn't know everything, and even if he did, he couldn't necessarily explain it to someone who didn't already have a minimum of basic knowledge.

So university teaches the essentials, bearing in mind that many of those who take this course won't necessarily make physics their profession. University serves as much to select those with a certain intellectual capacity as to pass on knowledge. Once the basics and methods have been acquired, it's up to each individual to use them to progress in their own field, if they so wish.

The incomprehension of what is already known in science is not essentially a consequence of teaching, even if it can be more or less educational, but of the intellectual limits and/or the lack of work of those who do not understand. And you shouldn't have these limits too low, otherwise you won't even realize that you have them, and you think that if you don't understand, it's the fault of the teachers or the institutions, not yours.
When I see certain physics papers with mathematical developments such that I don't even know what they're talking about, I don't tell myself that if I don't understand them, it's nonsense or the fault of the university, but that my limits are exceeded. That doesn't mean that by working hard enough I wouldn't have access to their understanding, if you really want to understand, that's what you have to do, but that it would take me so much time that it's not possible from a practical point of view.

[broli]

Mathematics, equations, is the language of physics. Would you like someone to teach you music theory while still being unable to read a staff? I don't know if you realize the complexity of physics and the impossibility for anyone to explain everything, at university or elsewhere (and all the more so as not everything is known). It's unrealistic to demand exhaustive physics teaching. And on the other hand, I've never seen a teacher refuse to answer questions, but he himself doesn't know everything, and even if he did, he couldn't necessarily explain it to someone who didn't already have a minimum of basic knowledge.

So university teaches the essentials, bearing in mind that many of those who take this course won't necessarily make physics their profession. University serves as much to select those with a certain intellectual capacity as to pass on knowledge. Once the basics and methods have been acquired, it's up to each individual to use them to progress in their own field, if they so wish.

The incomprehension of what is already known in science is not essentially a consequence of teaching, even if it can be more or less educational, but of the intellectual limits and/or the lack of work of those who do not understand. And you shouldn't have these limits too low, otherwise you won't even realize that you have them, and you think that if you don't understand, it's the fault of the teachers or the institutions, not yours.
When I see certain physics papers with mathematical developments such that I don't even know what they're talking about, I don't tell myself that if I don't understand them, it's nonsense or the fault of the university, but that my limits are exceeded. That doesn't mean that by working hard enough I wouldn't have access to their understanding, if you really want to understand, that's what you have to do, but that it would take me so much time that it's not possible from a practical point of view.

Honestly I didn't even want to get in the structure of education but you mentioned this. You hit the nail on the head with "University serves as much to select those with a certain intellectual capacity as to pass on knowledge.". I am curious what this "certain" means exactly for you. So a student that can not follow the pace in class gets quickly left behind and thus has failed the "certain" criteria and the old rusty bandwagon just moves on? Why is it that in middle and even high school students get a lot of help to make sure they PASS the year rather than flunk them.

Dont underestimate the grudge students get if they get flunked by hard teachers that only want to keep going in straight lines with their "bright" students that never challenge them because they got too comfortable with a cushy job in a prestigious place. Rather than do the hard work and sacrifice THEIR precious personal "teacher" time to help fallen students back up which requires time, energy and sacrifice. Rather than make medal and prize clubs to pat each others back that improve little to no lives our in the real world. Meanwhile these prestigious places only produce drones that are sent out in the world to repeat the same old ideas to young minds keeping the cycle alive and well. Its no surprise the younger generation prefers becoming a YouTuber rather than become a scientist. Young minds need inspiration and excitement. Science need be entertaining and engaging and the language used to teach it is everything.

If I remember right, Einstein got flunked by his professor at the time, Weber, who refused to give him an assistant job at the university. This small event is what set a chain of events in motion that lead to Einstein challenging the entire status quo at his time, a purely mechanical world view, which Weber believed strongly in until Maxwell showed up and Einstein lept off of. This grudge Einstein held for Weber made him come back to bring down the whole exclusive academic club that was created. And suddenly the universe was no longer a hard, flat, boring mechanical place that lacks any waves. Oh the irony of General relativity being used for "PERFECT fluids" ONLY 100 years later. Is there really such a thing like perfection in nature? Surely we randomness is everywhere on the quantum scale. But alas, poor Einstein got infected by the same virus, the virus that infects you when you start to follow prizes, medals and idolization. The virus that gives comfort and security in return for stopping progress. However you cannot enforce perfection on nature and create a dark soulless mechanical world, you need energy, a light that shines on the darkness to unveil what is beneath. Then perhaps students can judge with their own eyes which teacher they chose to follow that can give them their comfortable learning pace AND curve as to keep as much students moving forward as possible rather than be held back by the chains by the long gone past generations. You can only have so much such structure until everything comes crumbling down when the foundation you built everything on was not stable. If universities were truly OPEN to everyone, not only for the "certain" few, and students could follow at their own pace, over multiple years if need be until they really grasp the subject matter, then the same "slow students" might come back to become the top of the class as they might come up with new ways to keep moving forward that no "genius" teacher could have ever imagined.

But hey look, ironically, linear algebra and Weber mechanical electrodynamics were the only things I understood. My own head is sadly very mechanical but everytime I fall I get back up and push through to make sense of everything as this wavey stuff can get complicated fast. But when things get too complex I remember to just go back to the simple foundations. And today these "foundations" have become an unstrucuted mess filled with name stamping every effect or equation that is discovered. There is no structure or story in a flat list of effects and equations named after people.

Rhere is also a difference between doing the hard work to understand and SIMULATE large complex systems in the lab and the enjoyable part of teaching the simplistic nature of it all to young dream filled minds. We dont need quantum mechanics to simulate planet orbits, in fact a curious kid can do this online in Javascript or make an app for it if they wanted because its all very simple and all about scale. But obfuscating the simplistic nature of it all by wasting chalk for blackboard equation that look like artistic black and white murials is NOT how you get students excited. The hard stuff comes later when they start doing their own explorations, the hard simulation AND data verification work as someone who claims to be a scientist MUST always do. This requires times, arguably the most precious resource there is. In the lab everyone is equal. Both teachers AND students or even former students in the lab on the same level discovering nature as they go and sharing their work if they chose to do so. When you enter the truth seeking lab you leave Hierarchy, prizes, reputation and your ego for that matter behind.

I also want to give a shout out to the real angels in all the universities of the world, the ones that do the hard demanding work of trying to pull students along AND at the same time tasked to be the professors lap dog in the labs doing all the boring work so their professors can run with the credits when they make new discoveries. They are the ones that should get all the praise until the professors start doing the hard work too, you know like the hard work in the hard mechanical world they seem to keep going back to in physics. At least if you are obsessed with hard then apply it in the lab.

I have no reputation to lose I am a complete nobody in the "academic" world. I am definitely no teacher either. I am just a bum and ex-physics student that fell off the bandwagon a long time ago and got left behind when all I wanted to do was follow my dreams. But meanwhile I figured out how to make my own wagon, albeit with countless failures, crashes and stumbling's along the way, as is natural if you want to work alone, to speed ahead and to give the shaky old broken rusty bandwagon a good shake down. Perhaps when all the debris and dust settles, more kind and smart people can build a new wagon with a new framework, wheels and suspension this time to make the ride more enjoyable and comfortable for many generations of students and truth seekers to come. Because the type of vehicle you ride matters if you want to go forward efficiently. You can always go ahead solo if you wish in your own wagon with your own mind bending theories oer perhaps make room for more to collaborate on said theories and dreams to at least give the students as high a probability to succeed.

Failure will always happen but putting permanent chains on "failed" ideas never works. Its just a matter of time until those old rusty chains break down and liberate a tidal wave of energy.

I guess Einstein was right after all.