Resource-Rich PhD-Level Self-Education | Hacker News Reader

Resource-Rich PhD-Level Self-Education

profhugodegaris.wordpress.com

26 pointsjeremyrwelch20 comments

I don't have a PhD, which is why I have a tremendous amount of respect for PhDs. I hope my question is not too obvious, but when OP says that one will get a "PhD level of education," isn't he missing the fact that the point of a PhD is to do original research, and therefore not just "ingest" knowledge, but actually create new knowledge for humanity?

We stand on the shoulders of giants. One is awarded a PhD for producing original research, but it doesn't magically materialise from the ether. Rather, it is a refinement and/or synthesis of what preceded.

"I hope my question is not too obvious, but when OP says that one will get a "PhD level of education," isn't he missing the fact that the point of a PhD is to do original research, and therefore not just "ingest" knowledge, but actually create new knowledge for humanity"

And furthermore, much of the work and reading material (especially in the social science, not sure about other fields) is really about jumping through hoops, learning the game, knowing the rituals of your particular tribe, and knowing how to cite other academics so that you can properly join the social network. If you are just trying to learn for the sake of knowing, 95% of the readings and the problem sets are irrelevant.

I would like to hear the opinions of other PhDs on the validity of this comment. Specifically if it's a universal problems to all fields, and whether the actual PhD time can be cut short had it not been an actual issue?

Comments like the granparent's frustrate me. Often they're from people who have good reasons, but I feel that it paints a skewed picture. I have a PhD, but am no longer in Academia. However, I think the "systematic" problems with academia that people talk about stem from a misunderstanding about what research and peer review are.

A PhD has _nothing_ to do with coursework and _everything_ to do with conceptualizing, managing, and completing projects then finally _communicating_ the results. Yes, it's about original research, but that usually doesn't mean that it's done in isolation.

Yes, you need to be conversant in your field. Yes, that means being up to date with what other people are doing. At the end of the day, though, the key question is, "Can you convince other people to buy into your work?".

A large part of it, for better or worse, is salesmanship. (Also know as "communication".) That's by design. If you can convince several intelligent, skeptical, and yes, biased people that you are right, then there's a good chance that you are.

People are human. They have agendas. It's not a perfect system. Nonetheless, peer review mostly works. I think there are things we can do to improve it, but the picture most people seem to have of academia is overly pessimistic, i.m.o. I would argue that it works fairly well, for the most part.

In Mathematics at least this is very much not the case.

Math is sadly an exception.

I've always liked this - http://matt.might.net/articles/phd-school-in-pictures/ - as a description of what exactly a PhD is.

De Garis appears to have genuinely good intentions to educate the world and thereby free it from war and poverty. Unfortunately, he also comes across as self-important, cantankerous, elitist prick, which makes me think that he is unlikely to make much positive impact. At least the categorized archive of papers appears to be way more useful than his rambling youtube lectures (with a typical view count of 15 over 3 years).

His last video was 2 years ago. Maybe he has a new hobby! I looked at some of his pure math videos. Basic stuff but I thought he explained well. If you visit this HN post and you decide to investigate further, just bookmark his youtube channel and maybe you enjoy some of his videos on maths or quantum physics sometime.

I have no doubt that he is a tremendously important researcher but from the way he talks he sounds like one of those Mensa types. "IQs in the top percentile" and all that.

> the way he talks he sounds like one of those Mensa types

He is discriminating people based on IQ and I don't think Mensa members are like that at all. Mensa's founder wanted to gather brilliant minds to solve society difficult problems (I think they are missing that mission though) which I think is a laudable.

I felt uneasy reading this article... He is specially discriminative in the last section and I don't think all the Noble prizes in the world give the rights to anyone to talk like that.

His web design sense is not great for somebody with this much general self-regard.

While this does look like a great resource, I find it hard to take him seriously when he writes things like this: https://profhugodegaris.wordpress.com/masculism/

Heh. The funny thing is that in a way everything on that page makes a lot of sense. If you take mainstream feminist and egalitarian ideology at its face value, and then you look at how things actually play out in the real world, then something like his masculism makes sense. However, most people when noticing a difference between the ideology and the reality will question the ideology. Other people won't think about it too hard and will accept some rationalization for the contradictions. It takes a special soul to make a reductio ad absurdum and actually completely believe the reduction.

When reading the original article I thought, this guy seems off, maybe becoming a professor does that to someone, probably no big deal.

Then I skimmed through your link:

> I predict that in a few years, fluffy feminist divorce court judges will start being assassinated by young women, as the latter increasingly see the source of their misery coming from these judges. These young women, manless, loveless, sexless, and especially childless, due to the mass exodus of the MGTOWs will then express their hatred against these judges in the form of assassination.

Nope, just a normal full on crazy person.

His writings on the subject of the interaction between men and women scream "frustrated virgin." He's full of rage toward women and their place in families and society.

The title links to an overview of the project. Actual lecture list is here: https://profhugodegaris.wordpress.com/mathphysics-lectures/

Nothing says "curated list of useful resources" like copying other people's lecture notes to your own site / Google Docs. For instance, on this list:

https://profhugodegaris.wordpress.com/classical-mechanics-2/

here's a breakdown of the "papers":

* anon, A Brief Introduction to Classical, Statistical, and Quantum Mechanics (free)

Not "anon". Ends with the back cover of the book of the same name by Oliver Buehler.

* anon, Classical Mechanics I, Review Problems (free)

Not "anon", as presumably SOMEBODY taught Physics 503a at Emory in 1996 / 1997.

* anon, Resonances in Classical Mechanics (free)

More lecture notes. Who knows where "221B" was taught.

* Deotto et al, Hilbert Space Structure in Classical Mechanics, II (free)

PDF of an article from the Journal of Mathematical Physics. Not free, see AIP's site for terms

* Doran, Grassmann Mechanics, Multivector Derivatives and Geometric Algebra (free)

Preprint (?) of an article in conference proceedings. Springer may disagree with "free" on this.

* Duviryak, Classical Mechanics of Relativistic Particle with Colour (free)

Quite far off-topic for a traditional Classical Mechanics course; assumes sizable math (fiber bundles) and physics (Yang-Mills fields) knowledge.

* Fitzpatrick, Classical Mechanics, An Introductory Course (free)

Another batch of somebody else's lecture notes, from 2006.

* Forger, Romer, Currents and the Energy-Momentum Tensor in Classical Field Theory, A Fresh Look at an Old Problem (free)

This is hep-th/0307199 from arXiv.

* Hestenes, Hamiltonian Mechanics with Geometric Calculus (free)

From the same proceedings as the Doran article above.

* Hestenes, Spinor Particle Mechanics (free)

Another conference proceeding.

* Lasenby et al, Grassmann Calculus, Pseudoclassical Mechanics and Geometric Algebra (free)

Another Lasenby / Doran / Gull paper. This one's from J. Math. Phys.

* Morin, Introductory Classical Mechanics, with Problems and Solutions (free)

This has the copyright notices IN THE PDF, ffs. May be a 2003 draft of Morin's 2008 book.

* Nelson, Derivation of Schrodinger Equation from Newtonian Mechanics (free)

From Physical Review, 1966.

* Olshanetsky, Perelomov, Classical Integrable Finite-Dimensional Systems Related to Lie Algebras (free)

From Physics Reports. In a new low, has ORDERING INFO on the first page of the PDF. Yep, totes free...

* Pascazio, The Action in Classical Mechanics (free)

The first one on this list whose source wasn't immediately trackable. Reads like a lecture handout.

* Pearson, An Exact Classical Mechanics Leads toward Quantum Gravitation (free)

Self-published "here's my scheme to replace relativity" crankery. This doesn't belong here.

* Rajeev, PHY 411, Advanced Classical Mechanics (Chaos) (free)

More lecture notes, this time from U. of Rochester, 2002.

* Rosu, Classical Mechanics (free)

This is physics/9909035 from arXiv.

* Routh, A Treatise on the Dynamics of a Particle (free)

Out-of-copyright, as this is from 1898.

* Seahra, The Classical and Quantum Mechanics of Systems with Constraints (free)

Notes on a course, from a student. http://www.math.unb.ca/~seahra/notes.html

* Tabachnikov, Math Methods of Classical Mechanics (free)

More lecture notes, with a bonus giant photo of the original author.

* Tabunshchyk, Hamilton-Jakobi Method for Classical Mechanics in Grassmann Algebra (free)

This is math-ph/9911001 from arXiv.

* Tatum, Classical Mechanics (free)

Lecture notes from the University of Victoria

* Woit, Hamiltonian Mechanics and Symplectic Geometry (free)

Lecture notes from Mathematics G6434 at Columbia.

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Most of what's here isn't "free"; arXiv articles and out-of-copyright papers from 1898 are the exceptions not the rule.

> which is a mistake by the way, since it is the alfas who win the Nobel Prizes, the Abel Prizes, who invent the transistors, and write the symphonies. We are the creators and shakers of society. We should not be ignored, we should be worshiped, because it is we who pull the rest of society (the betas) behind us, whether they like it or not.

OK. Where would you like me to build your altar?

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