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It’s important to note that the concept of a field cannot be broken down into something which has a material or mechanical analogy. Sometimes, physicists think of a field as the aggregate effect of exchange or virtual particles which are governed by a quantum field theory, or the effect of the curvature of space time, but it’s important to note tha... See more

In this respect, Bayesian inference is more intuitive at its core and in closer alignment with our natural mode of probabilistic reasoning than frequentist inference. For example, we are more interested in the probability that 1 treatment is superior to another (Bayesian probability) than in the probability of obtaining certain data assuming the tr... See more

No physical process can grow indefinitely.

There are always friction terms in the dynamics equation that eventually become dominant (energy consumption, heat dissipation, quantum effects, thermal fluctuations, communication bandwidth, mass/energy density....).

Even processes that *appear* exponential on a long time scale are actually a succession of... See more

But I was learning that succeeding at a research institution like Penn required skills that had little to do with science. You needed the ability to sell yourself and your work. You needed to attract funding. You needed the kind of interpersonal savvy that got you invited to speak at conferences and made people eager to mentor and support you. You ... See more

Science may be the pursuit of truth, but scientific language is adept at dressing up insidious ideologies as fundamental truths.

Frequentist inference begins by assuming a null hypothesis to be true before data are collected (eg, that there is no effect of a particular treatment on survival). Investigators then collect data, analyze them, and ask, “How surprising is my result if there is actually no effect of the treatment on survival?” The data would be surprising if there ... See more

“ To see the beauty of the Maxwell theory it is necessary to move away from mechanical models and into the abstract world of fields. To see the beauty of quantum mechanics it is necessary to move away from verbal descriptions and into the abstract world of geometry. Mathematics is the language that nature speaks. The language of mathematics makes t

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In a free society, at one or another point in your life, you’ll actually have to form your own opinion about something. You’ll do better at that if you have some practice forming opinions. When experts have strong opinions on something, this is a good opportunity to practice your opinion-forming skills, see whether you get the same result as the ex... See more

This probability of obtaining another data set as extreme as the one collected is known as the P value. The P value is often criticized for being misunderstood and misused in the field of medicine.2,3 For example, in contrast to popular belief, the P value is not a measure of how correct a hypothesis is, nor is it a measure of the size or importanc... See more