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From the incomparable xkcd.
Club Troppo
Fearlessly dispensing political, legal and economic analysis (and some whimsy) since 2002
Because of the way our stylesheet works you may need to widen your browser.
From the incomparable xkcd.
Then again, lawyers define the scope of duty of care for all of them when they get sued for negligence (while granting ourselves immunity for our own courtroom decisions, of course). It’s applied …
As someone working in a theoretical computer science group with a PhD in physics who is often accused of being a mathematician I’d really like to know where on the purity line I sit… I’m guessing somewhere between physics and math but I suspect that there this purity thing can’t be done properly in one dimension.
Then of course some sociologist does a study of why mathematicians figure out how they do the number thing.
And along comes an engineer to work out how to make it actually work, an economist to predict who should benefit from it, a politician to explain to how they got everyone working together to make it pay off and then a KPMG consultant to ensure that no one who can afford it, actually pays for it. Followed well down the track by an MSM pundit to explain in 700 or so words why whatever happened is a good or bad thing. “But while the debate rages back and forth, we can be certain of only one thing. Only the future will prove who’s right. Or not.”
“a theoretical computer science group with a PhD in physics who is often accused of being a mathematician”
Well then move to Melbourne and get a gig with the new Life Sciences Supercomputer. All the biotech folks involved are looking for some serious conceptual thinkers with technical rigor to really push the envelope of their new $100 million Grendelised cell cruncher.
I have degrees in Sociology and Psychology and then later Engineering. Does that make me at the top or the bottom of the pile.
When I was studying Psychology I was interested by how many mathematicians who had found their calling in that field. Perhaps they were rats in a previous life?
Maths is just a made up language, therefore it’s just applied linguistics. Nah, Language Log has already taken that argument to task.
It might be prudent here to post the text from the original image on xkcd.com, which is usually just as insightful as the comic itself:
Jangaari, You’ve used the “m” word on Troppo and it isn’t even Wednesday night.
PF – are you channelling Derek and Clive?
Text only, but not particularly safe for work.
(1) I spotted “purity” earlier (a varition on an old joke), and will have to add it too my call for people to list their favorites (here), and note the similarity to this one.
(2) I’ll add to your advice about browsers and point to xkcd’s text-only service.
(3) I’ll also recommend Joshua Gans’ (of Core Economics) great “add-on including Economists” here based on this.
(4) From empirical evidence (not a large sample tho)
Pr(I_enjoy_an_Australian_blog) = x + Pr(other_author_likes_xkcd)/y
Jacques
As a mature-aged undergrad, taking Maths as a co-Major I think there is a lot of elegant [simple] wisdom in that cartoon. A double major in Maths and Psychology must be a fantastic undergrad preparation for ANY Social Science Ph.D.
Did somenbody say “Derek and Clive?” ;)
[This will be a parting - or Parthian - shot for reasons immediately obvious.]
Unfortunately for the joke, mathematicians don’t belong on the scale because they aren’t scientists. Which is why we make a Blues Brothers distinction and say “maths *and* science”, and you’ll also note that mathematicians don’t do experiments or test hypotheses against observation – they’re logical, the rest of us are empirical.
Can physicists be at the top again please? After all, everything else is just stamp collecting.