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/sci/ - Science & Math

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3482805 No.3482805 [Reply] [Original]

How do you deal with the fact that you, right now, have access to the endless sea of information on every single science or area of expertise, and your lifetime is too short to know them all?
How do you deal with the fact that most likely you aren't the next Einstein, Hawking or Perelman, and that you, again, most likely, will not leave a mark on the world?

>> No.3482812
File: 18 KB, 379x214, okwiththis.png [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
3482812

>>3482805

>> No.3482823

>>3482805
>be 19
>iq 154
meh, i've still got time.

>> No.3482829

>>3482812
>CC underachiever detected

>>3482805
I never really though about it that way, I guess I just try as hard as I can, we'll see what'll happen in few years.

>> No.3482835

>>3482823
Had really, really high IQ tested as an 8 year old (please, without the IQ shitstorm) and yet I'm a high school drop out. IQ means shit unless you work your ass off.

>> No.3482836

>will not leave a mark on the world
Even though I'm just a random casual. This one is a very hard thing to achieve.

>> No.3482839

>>3482805

>Have family
>meet people
>talk to people
>make friends
>Have a job
>live
=
>not leaving a mark on the world?

wat

>> No.3482846

>>3482805
>How do you deal with the fact that blah blah blah blah blah

I killed myself. Can't you tell?

>> No.3482880

>>3482846
No, not really.

>>3482839
When I said that, what I meant was this: Imagine any historical figure (general history, history of scientific discoveries, you chose). We, you, I and they started from the same, one cell form. We arent that different, IQ is not a measure of success, what made Napoleon, Einstein, Tesla, whoever you chose, one of the greatest men who contributed to the world?

>> No.3482901

>>3482880
Out of the 100 billion humans ever born on the rock, only, what, 100000? One million max where historical figures.
THEY are the anomaly, we are the true master race.
We, the unimportant, the average, the PEON!
WE ARE LEGION!

(This is of course false, history was made by the whole 100 billion.)

>> No.3482956

>>3482805
imokaywiththis.jpg

>> No.3482972

Chaos theory. Everyone leaves a mark on the world.

Everyone.

>> No.3483201

Donate to life extension research. Sign up for cryonics. Live long enough to learn all that science and more.

feelsgoodman.jpg

>> No.3483226

>>How do you deal with the fact that you, right now, have access to the endless sea of information on every single science or area of expertise, and your lifetime is too short to know them all?

If we conquer aging in my lifetime, I'll have as long as I need to study them and become a master of everything.

If we don't, then attempting to master anything is useless because it will all be taken away from me in 50-60 years. Much better to use my time on Earth to enjoy myself.

>>How do you deal with the fact that most likely you aren't the next Einstein, Hawking or Perelman, and that you, again, most likely, will not leave a mark on the world?

I don't consider myself a part of the human race, and don't care what they think of me of if they remember me.

In fact, I would prefer it if no one knew I existed.

>> No.3483345

>>3483226
>I don't consider myself a part of the human race

soooo edgyyy XD

>> No.3483412
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3483412

how do you deal with the fact that wanting to know or be appreciated is just a human trait like wanting to get laid?

how do you deal with the fact that knowing everything there is to know will not give you some other purpose, and you'll remain just as insignificant as you were before?

>> No.3483444

>>3483226
>In fact, I would prefer it if no one knew I existed.

Done.

>> No.3483450

By not being an autist fag.

I seek for understanding of the universe, not wisdom

>> No.3483461

Why, kill yourself, of course! That solves all problems.

Oh wait, it doesn't. But you can keep up your depressive illusions if it makes you feel better.

>> No.3483541

>>3483461
>Why, kill yourself, of course! That solves all problems.
>Oh wait, it doesn't.
and how exactly doesn't that solve them?
you're just too blinded by your survivability instinct...

>> No.3483557

It does not bother me that I cannot learn everything. I am wholly content to understand the universe in principle.

I'm a theoretical physician after all.

>> No.3483562

>>3483541
>survivability instinct
>still believing in instincts
>2011

LOUOL

>> No.3484222

>>3483412
>how do you deal with the fact that wanting to know or be appreciated is just a human trait like wanting to get laid?
Why, I fulfill those needs.

>how do you deal with the fact that knowing everything there is to know will not give you some other purpose, and you'll remain just as insignificant as you were before?
Define everything, define purpose, define insignificant and stop farting out of your mouth.

>> No.3484502

>>3483541
Your problem: you have access to the endless sea of information on every single science or area of expertise, and your lifetime is too short to know them all.
Your solution: Kill yourself
I don't see how that solves anything, seeing as that would drastically shorten your lifetime, which was part of the problem to begin with.

>> No.3484531
File: 232 KB, 600x3031, kaiji.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
3484531

>>3482823
>i've still got time

>> No.3484540

>>3483557
You mean "physicist" right?

>> No.3484874

>>3484502
Geniuses all up in this bitch.

>> No.3484882

>>3482972
I just farted, and it caused a troll thread on /b/. WHERE IS YOUR GOD NOW?!

>> No.3484904

I narrow my focus to only the books that are universally acknowledged as the greatest ones ever written. You could spend a lifetime just on those.

>> No.3484913

The fact that I'll never accomplish anything of value is slowly driving me nuts, since I don't know whether to kill myself or just enjoy my life - because I can enjoy my life, but I'm just painfully aware that I'll never contribute meaningfully to anybody else's life.

I mean, I would just settle for running a good quest thread - but I'm not even talented enough to do that. Holy fuck.

>> No.3484914

>>3482805

look at your picture... just drink more, it'll put you at ease.

>> No.3484917

>>3482805
How do I deal with it, OP? Applied non-religious type of confucianism and buddhist ideas coupled with some clue of how damn big the multiverse is. Soothes my soul more than any religion to understand that no achievement is big enough to make any difference what so ever - it's all just transient and ultimately pointless.

>> No.3484925

>>3484914
>>3484914
http://endlessvideo.com/watch?v=qcNtKpnBNUw&feature=player_embedded

>> No.3484936

>>3484917
Wow... just... wow...

dunno why, but reading that gave me shivers.

>> No.3484973

>>3484917
What? You don't want to explore the galaxy?

>> No.3484976

Specialize, and make yourself useful in some way. You don't have to be famous to make a difference.

>> No.3485000

>>3484973
Not really, astronomy is boring as fuck.

>> No.3485010

>>3485000
>likes meditating on the hugeness of the universe
>astronomy is boring as fuck
what.

>> No.3485014
File: 8 KB, 178x251, 1291245229536.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
3485014

I have realistic expectations of myself and others.
C'est la vie.

>> No.3485061

>>3485000
Star trek style, not MyBudgetsHaveBeenCut..Again style.

>> No.3485065

>>3485010
He's a hipster.

>> No.3485085

>>3482805
I deal with this fact by taking advantage of what I have today; the internet. With it, I can learn a whole semester's worth of a college course in a week. I can absorb information that I want to learn about and specialize in whatever I want to.

Einstein, Newton, Schrodinger, Hawking, no scientist ever sets out to specifically discover anything. They're students to the universe. They simply learn what they want to learn, and when there's that point where facts start to get fuzzy and hypothesis are everywhere, they apply their knowledge and experience to figure out what comes next.

Live your life, do what you want to do, and share your knowledge.

>> No.3485118

>I can learn a whole semester's worth of a college course in a week.

how the fuck do you people do this. how do you get so motivated and how do you keep from getting tired?

>> No.3485126

>>3485085
It has been the other way around for me. I saw a problem that I wanted to solve and am now acquiring the skills I need.

>> No.3485144

>>3485118
Autism

>> No.3485169

>>3485118
>>3485085
He's overdoing it a bit, unless he has eidetic memory. Sure, I can learn 14 years of math from khan academy in a month (notice: learn, not master it for the math olympiad, which is the equivalent of OP's question), but some other concepts take time and patience. You can't learn semester of medicine in a week. Hell, the medfags struggle to learn week of medicine in a week. It's much different when you learn casually and when you have strict tests that test said knowledge, and even that there is a difference between a person who knows something and person who understands something.

>> No.3485212

>>3485169
>14 years of math
lolno

>> No.3485246

>How do you deal with the fact that you, right now, have access to the endless sea of information on every single science or area of expertise, and your lifetime is too short to know them all?

The simple fact that most of it is irrelevant to my personal life. For what purpose would I ever need to be a top expert in, say, the Goldbach conjecture?

>> No.3485277

>>3485246
Do I need to explain why your post makes you sound unintelligent or would you rather work it out yourself?

Or are you not a top expert in reading your own posts

>> No.3485273

>>3482880
>>We arent that different, IQ is not a measure of success, what made Napoleon, Einstein, Tesla, whoever you chose, one of the greatest men who contributed to the world?

90% of it is pure luck; right place, right time. There's probably a couple million potential Einsteins out there who can't get past bagging groceries. Napolean? Who am I supposed to invade in 2011 to start my empire? Etc.

There was another guy than filed a patent for the telephone just a few HOURS after Alexander Graham Bell.

>> No.3485317

>>3485118
troll'd

>> No.3485327

Always remember, no matter what you want to do, no matter what you think you can do well, there will always be someone else who can do it or even do it better than you (probably even a whole bunch of people). Kill yourself.

>> No.3485356

>>3485277
*yawn* go fail somewhere else.

>> No.3485396

>>3485212
lolyes.
From 1+1=2 (first grade version, faggots) to differential equations etc.

>>3485246
>For what purpose would I ever need to be a top expert in, say, the Goldbach conjecture?
Incidentally, I happen to be the fag who posted here, trying to prove it couple of months ago. Why not? Are you not curious about the thing that evaded greatest minds of our world for hundreds of years? Or anything else? You do not wonder *how* things work, just that they do? There's where you and I differ.

>> No.3485679

>>3485273
Interesting point you have there. I met several quite intelligent guys from shithole places (Indonesia, Balcans, *stan) who studied on shit tier universities and have shit tier jobs although they could've studied on a really high tier uni if they were born in USA. Funny.

>> No.3485712

I just keep trying anyway. If I never give up, I may get nowhere, but if I do give up, I will certainly get nowhere.

>> No.3485854

>>3485679
They deserve that for their parents not moving into USA ;)

>> No.3486036

>>3485854
I can't express my disgust.

>> No.3486085

I study because science is fascinating, more for entertainment purposes than anything. It could be anything else, but the vast amount of highly elegant (complex is ok too) information available in science is as motivating as it gets.

About not leaving a mark on the world, I don't care so much about "the world", but it would be really sad if I couldn't manage to find someone who I can love and be memorable to.

>> No.3486098

>Lifetime being too short?
Just distract yourself with the overwhelming amount of info you can squeeze into your lifespan. But you take for granted that this very generation won't live forever if they want to. You also take for granted that given the actual choice to live long enough to digest all the endless info that you would volunteer to do so.

>Dealing with not being a world changing genius? Easy. Denial and self delusion.

>> No.3487917
File: 91 KB, 400x300, HyVr9O0eaV6yyWf..jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
3487917

>How do you deal with the fact that you, right now, have access to the endless sea of information on every single science or area of expertise, and your lifetime is too short to know them all?

I just don't let it bother me.

I treat it like a glorified digital libary, I know I'll never read or learn 90%...no make that 98% of all the information out there.

But it's nice to know that infomation is there if I ever have a passing interest in it.

As far as the second question Im more concerned about making sure I have and keep a career that allows me to exploit and push my talents as far as humanly possible. That and finding a nice woman to fall in love and be together with.

>> No.3487995

What the majority of you guys fail to realize is that the multitude of the individuals you so revere or idolize actually stood atop the ''shoulders of Giants,'' as Newton would say.

Let's take Einstein, for example. While Einstein is considered a genius, he actually implemented mathematics developed by Riemann and Lorentz. Look it up: Riemannian Geometry shapes the concept of General Relativity, more or less. Secondly, Lorentz was the one who worked out the harder mathematical equations, and Lorentzian Geometry is heavily underrated. They're never heard of, but both of them provided the foundation for Einstein's success.

Secondly, Modern Science as we know it was still being fleshed out; as such, a multitude of individuals discovered an enormous amount of information. Hell, back then, you had fucking GRADUATE STUDENTS writing papers on new discoveries. Physics really took off in the mid-to-late 1800s; before then, it still didn't gain an immense amount of momentum simply because it didn't have an enormous amount of momentum. Discoveries were being made within decades of one another back then; sometimes, years between one another.

Also, WWII was ridiculous. The push for the creation of an atomic bomb catapulted Science to greater heights. Scientists from Germany and America were constantly and consistently working out models, mathematical formulas, etc. It was such a hectic time, but such a beautiful time for the scientific mind.

Since the 1970s or so, we've only had a handful of worthwhile discoveries: Wiles' proof of the Fermat problem & Perelman's proof of the Poincare Conjecture. Those are based in Pure Mathematics, however, and not Physics. Of course, there's Hawkings' theory, but that hasn't been proven conclusively.

>> No.3487999

>>3487995

And furthermore, if you're going for a M.S. or a Doctorate, you're already making a powerful mark on the world. The thesis requires the candidate to publish something completely original. It cannot be rehashed at all. This alone can create ground breaking work, or lead to ground breaking work.

See Richard Hamilton. He published a paper on the Ricci curvature and a rough sketch of how to go about solving the Poincare conjecture; Perelman read the paper and published his articles.

>> No.3489499

>>3487999
>if you're going for a M.S. or a Doctorate, you're already making a powerful mark on the world

With the inflation of education, PhDs are easier and easier to obtain.

>> No.3489502

>>3487917
>that pic
Fuck, I remember Eureka's Castle