/sci/ - Science & Math

[Anonymous No.3314204]

What do you guys think of Michio Kaku? I like how he's in basically every physics related show on natgeo and discovery, but he explains things like we're dumb potatoes. You'd think that it would occur to him that most of the people that do watch his shows are people with at least some knowledge of physics.

[Anonymous No.3314209]

I don't like his theory on the origin of the universe.

[Anonymous No.3314214]

he is a fucking idiot

[Anonymous No.3314218]

>>3314209
Oh god, lets hear it.

[Anonymous No.3314221]

>>3314204
I agree, I don't like how everything is dumbed down. But I know lots of people who enjoy watching Discovery, History, Natgeo... who aren't science geeks.
There should be a version of Discovery which is just all more advanced physics, science and math based. I guess that's what DiscoveryScience was supposed to be, but it was still all dumbed down explanations.

[Elektron !M4Rlambda. No.3314237]

Poke a couple holes through a piece of paper with a pencil.

WORMHOLES!

[Anonymous No.3314239]

He's giving these explanations so that there is as little math as possible, since most of the show's viewers aren't really good at math.

Obviously this is a problem because he is descvribing physics, but there you have it

[Anonymous No.3314257]

I used to watch NOVA when I was a little kid, that show kicked ass. It was technical, they had experts spilling their guts (personal experience). It was about the excitement of discovery.

Now I watch some modern episodes on Hulu and its lame like what is being described here. Dumbed down. I think its a sign of the times.

As far as Michio Kaku, I like Brain Green better...

[Anonymous No.3314262]

television physicist

i hate how some physicists will do anything for recognition nowadays even stupid shows and writing pop sci-fi books.

do you think einstein, heisenberg, dirac, de broglie, schrödinger, pauli, ehrenfest, curie, lorentz, chandrasekhar, schwarzschild, debye, bohr, bragg, planck, born, kramers, langevin, sommerfeld, wien, poincaré, jeans, rutherford and etc would be doing that nowadays?

[Anonymous No.3314263]

>>3314262
If they went broke, yeah.

[Anonymous No.3314264]

>>3314262
...yes.

[Anonymous No.3314266]

>>3314264
>>3314263
0/10

[Anonymous No.3314268]

>>3314262
Come on, they are trying to get people interested in science, even if it is dumbed down.
And its not like that thats all their doing, most do real work.

[Anonymous No.3314269]

>>3314263
this

[Anonymous No.3314272]

Dear Summerfags of /sci/,

If you see a picture of Kaku in OPs picture, it is a troll thread. Either don't reply or use a sage.

Much love,
The rest of /sci/

[Anonymous No.3314275]

>>3314272
says he of little sage.

[Anonymous No.3314279]

>>3314262
Actually, einstein did his best to explain everything he did to the layman. Feynman went as far as to give lectures on science to liberal arts schools and to the public, not just on physics but on the applications of his knowledge to philosophy and global issues, as einstein did.

So actually Kaku is attempting to emulate them in this regard, though he's not successful enough at novel research to have the same respect among his colleagues, and is therefore just a big degree to give credence to the dumbed down philosophy, rather than a benevolent genius, revered by all.

[Anonymous No.3314281]

I love him on Opie & Anthony.

[Anonymous No.3314284]

>michio kaku
>known for: string field theory, popular science

that is all

[Anonymous No.3314285]

>most of the people that do watch his shows are people with at least some knowledge of physics.

Quite the opposite, actually. National Geographic, ever since becoming "Nat Geo", Discovery, and the Science Channel get most of their ratings from unrelated viewers. The general tactic is to sensationalize things and make them very extreme and interesting to the average viewer.

National Geographic once did an excerpt on Nostradamus, and so many people watched it that they followed it up with 6 more about prophecies, Nost., 2012, Mayans, etc. Look also at how often Discovery has shows on Psychic/Paranormal stuff and UFO's (In a sensationalized, paranormal-esque way of "Oh shit let's listen to abduction stories")

Anyway, they're not as much his shows as Nat/Disc/Sci Channel's shows. He's just a pretty fair spokesperson for it as he's a large figure in the field, and it's not entirely a bad thing. It's bringing an interest into the field that would otherwise not be there, and it's making him and those educational channels a considerable amount of money-- Hopefully they can drop the other /x/-related shows and take up more along these lines.

If you want documentaries that are a little more scholarly, try PBS stuff or feature-length documentaries like some of Werner Herzog's.

[Anonymous No.3314295]

>>3314285
but that's exactly what's wrong with science nowadays, that only encourages the surface of pure shit pseudoscience such as ''what the bleep do we know'' and etc where actual scientists are featured talking crap.

the other day i was walking by a stand and saw books/magazines on topics such as ''quantum healing'', ''quantum spirituality'', ''religion and quantum mechanics'', ''quantum mechanics, the deceiving art of god'' are you fucking serious?

[Anonymous No.3314298]

whatchu talkin bout niggas michio kaku is da best i can lern my science shit in normal words becuz of him bein on tv

[Anonymous No.3314303]

>>3314204
He's a narcissistic idiot and a prima donna. The unfortunate souls that actually have him as a professor say he's arrogant to the point of forbidding classroom discussion and talks more about his TV appearances that the subject at hand.

As they say, if you want the measure of a man, see how he treats the people under him. By that standard Michio Kaku is a fucking asshole.

[Anonymous No.3314306]

>>3314298

[Anonymous No.3314311]

>>3314303
>The unfortunate souls that actually have him as a professor say he's arrogant to the point of forbidding classroom discussion and talks more about his TV appearances that the subject at hand.

lol please tell me this isn't true

[Anonymous No.3314313]

>>3314295
Anyone can write a book, and it's even easier to get one published than it is to write it. Shit like that sells because it's sensationalized in such a way.

It is misleading, but as a personal stretch of my imagination, I feel any exposure to the individual is a good thing. If a person reads that, it might open their minds to some elements of physics-- and if they take it very seriously and truly are interested, they're going to run across some "bumps" where things don't line up. They can either ignore them and go about their routine day with that shit, or they can look down, see what they stumbled over, and investigate the discrepancy, form their own opinions about physics/science, and explore it, finding more information to support, confirm, or refute their opinions.

If those individuals aren't going to take that effort, then they won't make a significant impact on the scientific community either way.

Might sound like a lot of "Yeah right, doesn't work that way bro", but it kinda' does. I grew up with my dad, who was an acupuncturist. I grew up with a lot of knowledge related to it, and because I was familiar with it (and chiropractics, etc.), I had a familiar base of knowledge of medical stuff, and it compelled me much further to learn where/why things didn't line up with my perception of them-- I've strayed away from my dad's practice and I'm in medical physics now, going into Medschool next semester with the intention of surgery. My dad still does acupuncture and sells homeopathic medicines, and I let him do his hokey shit and stay out of his way.

[Anonymous No.3314320]

Kaku may be a faggot but at least he's a scientist.

Pic related, what you would get if you told the average Christian with a bachelor's in business management to single-handedly create a TV show about physics and astronomy, whose only source of research is a copy of wikipedia from 2003.

[Anonymous No.3314336]

>>3314311
>>3314303

http://www.ratemyprofessors.com/ShowRatings.jsp?tid=103122&page=3

[Anonymous No.3314337]

>>3314320
That shit I saw advertised on the Science Channel's facebook page. I like Morgan Freeman as a narrator, but good shit I couldn't last 10 minutes into that show.

"Scientists have been baffled for centuries out how people perceive near death exp--"
"DMT" *turns off*

[Anonymous No.3314343]

I hate it when they have scientists talk about things outside their fields of expertise.

[Anonymous No.3314344]

>>3314303

[Anonymous No.3314350]

kaku? more like cuckoo amirite?

[Anonymous No.3314352]

>>3314311
Half his youtube channel consists of him on a dedicated set featuring a fancy chair and backdrop, where he sits cross-legged with a smirk on his face arguing with students that call him an asshole on his ratemyprofessor page.

[Anonymous No.3314357]

>>3314343
I hate it even more when they edit, cut, and take out of context what scientists have to say.
>Many modern scientists now believe in theories about strange exotic types of matter that defy convention; Dr. John Doe explains.
>"Well some of these particles are very hard to detect because they emit no light, so technically they can't be 'directly' observed-" CLIP CUTS
>And there you have it, their new strange unobservable theories

[Anonymous No.3314368]

The problem with this "sensationalizing" non-sense is that 20th century physics is pretty fuckin' amazing. Without a doubt the first golden age of physics. And there's no need to talk about the purely theoretical stuff like string theory and its implications in a world where the double slit experiment is, what 75 years old? I mean, experiments are pretty much the only thing everyone thinks is neat about science, and we have Kooku talking about wormholes and how string theory means there could be an infinite number of universes? Where are the documentary specials about the atomic bomb and the particle accelerators? Shit here's an idea for a show, take a simple every day object, discuss it's engineering, and then do the experiments that form the foundation of that engineering! Don't give me this parallel universe unfalsifiable mumbo jumbo, just give me some physics.

[Anonymous No.3314371]

>>3314357
Dr. John Doe? That's obviously a statement regarding physics and I know of most of the physics community and he's not one of them... but I have heard of him before. What's he a doctor of, out of curiosity?

[Anonymous No.3314380]

My opinion

Pic totally related..
not even shooped try for yourself

[Anonymous No.3314383]

ITT: Pseudo-intellectuals think they're better than everyone else.

Just another day in /sciiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii/!

[Anonymous No.3314387]

>>3314380
I'm sorry bro. I hate to tell you this. But you're a fucking legend.

[Anonymous No.3314396]

>>3314387

complete accident too

[Anonymous No.3314406]

>>3314380

to be fair...

[Anonymous No.3314412]

>>3314406

i lold

[Anonymous No.3314423]

lol this is fun

[Anonymous No.3314426]

>>3314423
lol'ed hard at deepak

I like Deepak a lot before he went batshit crazy

[Anonymous No.3314432]

[Anonymous No.3314438]

[Anonymous No.3314455]

>>3314438

>List of Canadians

[No.3314458]

You guys googling for asian physicist blah are so fucking retarded. Google clearly searches only for "asian" and "physicist" on the results regarding Michio Kaku. The third word being oh so lulzy is not even considered.
(Regarding Albert Einstein, my post is irrelevant because the Wikipedia article had the word "Genius" in it.)
Fucking idiots.

[Anonymous No.3314459]

>mfw people don't understand how google, and most search engines work

gtfo, you type asian physicist 'anything' and still get michio kaku pic related

[No.3314462]

>>3314459

Yeah, I could have said it this way... but I'm a german faggot not quite knowing how to form good sentences...
Thanks for proving my point.

[Anonymous No.3314463]

>>3314458
>>3314459
>>3314462

[No.3314470]

>>3314463

I'm not laughin'!

[Anonymous No.3314471]

>>3314459
>Asian Physicist Titty

[Anonymous No.3314472]

>>3314470

That's cuz you're german. The only laugh you're capable of is the evil laugh upon attempted genocide.

[No.3314560]

>>3314472

I laugh at Louis CK, I guess that's the same category. Killing millions of mexican babies.

[Anonymous No.3314575]

>>3314472
Amerifags are responsibly for genocide too.

[Anonymous No.3314581]

>>3314575

Yes, but we market it better.

[Anonymous No.3314597]

Meh.

Only pop scientist I really like is Sagan, mostly because I grew up reading his stuff and watching Cosmos.

[Anonymous No.3314601]

>>3314426
> before he went batshit crazy

how?

[Anonymous No.3314613]

is this the thread for the most important physicists who ever lived?