Which academic discipline do you respect the most?

[KrazyHorse]

I love Patty's argument:

"Physicists have already invented all the cool stuff and there are a lot more doctors and engineers, therefore medicine and engineering are the most awesome"



There are doctors and engineers of merely average intelligence and creativity walking around. Lots of them. Want to bet how many mathematicians or physicists you could say that about?

[KrazyHorse]

You know, I was taught a class by one of the guys who invented the PET scanner. But yeah, the trained monkey with an MD who takes a picture using it is more important.

[KrazyHorse]

Great thread, by the way. I wholeheartedly approve.

[Kuciwalker]

The best part is that he could have said the same thing a century ago.

xpost*2

[KrazyHorse]

Let's be honest: how often do you really need a transistor? I'm sure vacuum tubes would have been just as good if we'd let the engineers work on them a while longer.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by KrazyHorse
Great thread, by the way. I wholeheartedly approve.

The best part of these threads is they always try to engage us on home turf - talking about the usefulness/lack thereof of physics/math/CS - and fail miserably because they don't actually know anything about those disciplines.

[PLATO]

Originally posted by KrazyHorse
Let's be honest: how often do you really need a transistor? I'm sure vacuum tubes would have been just as good if we'd let the engineers work on them a while longer.

Reminds me of the story of when the Mig 25 landed in Japan (I think it was Japan where the pilot defected?). Anyway, it was equiped with the best vacuum tubes anyone had ever seen. The coment that I really liked was one of the western engineers said the Russians had taken obsolete technology to new heights.

[KrazyHorse]

Usefulness isn't even a factor in my respect or lack thereof for academic disciplines. Depth and creativity of thought allied with verifiability of claims is what I go with.

[KrazyHorse]

Originally posted by PLATO


Reminds me of the story of when the Mig 25 landed in Japan (I think it was Japan where the pilot defected?). Anyway, it was equiped with the best vacuum tubes anyone had ever seen. The coment that I really liked was one of the western engineers said the Russians had taken obsolete technology to new heights.

I hadn't heard that story. Wasn't the MiG 25 built in the mid 60s?

[PLATO]

Originally posted by KrazyHorse


I hadn't heard that story. Wasn't the MiG 25 built in the mid 60s?

Yep...I looked it up in Wikipedia and here is the entry.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MiG-25

[Kuciwalker]

Did any NATO pilots ever defect to the USSR? (I suspect the answer is no.)

[PLATO]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker
Did any NATO pilots ever defect to the USSR? (I suspect the answer is no.)

Never heard of any that took airframes with them. I am sure that there were several over the years that went with all kinds of different paperwork though.

[SlowwHand]

You're sure? Ok.

[Nostromo]

Originally posted by KrazyHorse
Usefulness isn't even a factor in my respect or lack thereof for academic disciplines. Depth and creativity of thought allied with verifiability of claims is what I go with.

So I gather that you have more respect for the theoreticians than the experimenters?

[PLATO]

Originally posted by SlowwHand
You're sure? Ok.

Well...I meant that in a relative way. I mean...does anyone think the Russians developed all that stuff themselves?

Quite right to call me on that.