Dorky Poll: Physics or Stamp Collecting?

Stamp collecting. Stamp collecting means counting stamps. And counting means studying number theory. Which is perhaps the major foundation of mathematics and mathematical logic. And mathematics - not physics, whatever some big egos of yesteryear may have thought - is the fount from which all other sciences draw their sustenance.

Are they exclusionary? I do physics; I collect stamps. I suspect I do neither as well as some and vastly better than most. But why the need to make a choice.
But if I did the decision would be simple: physics. Stamp collecting contributes nothing to human understanding of the universe.

The punchline of the Rutherford story is that for all his pioneering work in atomic physics he received in 1908 a noble prize in... chemistry!

mull (or just lol) this over, in your free time.

Physics, obviously. If nothing else, it pays better.

nobel, nobel prize. damn...
chad, if you can fix my previous comment and delete this one I would appreciate it.

In reply to that quote, I have a quote from Robert Woodward to Jeremy Knowles, "If it's interesting, then it's chemistry."

Physics. That's one of my favorite quotes.

Mr. McGuire, "Plastics."

My mother use to have a poster with that quote outside of her office at NIST.

She is biologist. She was not pleased.

Who says you have to choose??

http://th.physik.uni-frankfurt.de/~jr/physstamps.html

-dave

One should note that Rutherford's theory of atomic structure is about as accurate as his aphorisms.

How about using stamps in physics experiments? I'm certain we can draw parallels between the United States Postal Service and Heisenbergs uncertainty principle.

I do both. My stamp collection bankrolls my physics. My work in stamp collecting is much easier to fund and get published. But my work in physics is more fun.

How about using stamps in physics experiments? I'm certain we can draw parallels between the United States Postal Service and Heisenbergs uncertainty principle.

This may not be exactly what you had in mind, but the Annals of Improbable Research reported the results of a 2003 experiment in which a chicken and an egg were shipped via USPS in order to determine which came first. The chicken won.

http://improbable.com/2006/05/29/chickenegg-theory-vs-experiment/

My first love will always be physics, but that doesn't preclude an interest in other sciences, even such stamp-based sciences as natural history, for example. But what I find most interesting nowadays is interdisciplinary efforts, wherein the techniques of physics are applied to other areas. Biophysics, medical physics. And if you think of it, much of astrophysics has been using physics to collect stamps as well, but Chrandrasekhar's work on black holes is not usually so quickly written off.

I philately disagree with Rutherphord.

#11: Zing. Good one.

"Stamp collecting" is what physicists call any discipline too complex to reduce to a relatively simple mathematical abstraction.

Personally, I prefer the physics of stamp collecting

Most of reality is too complicated for us to be able to use physical principles to predict or manipulate them. I prefer physics to stamp collecting, but if I had to choose between Rutherford's physics and Rutherford's "stamp collecting", stamp collecting would be it. We could live relatively well without understanding physics beyond a very primitive level, but getting rid of our other levels of understanding would be lethal.

Yes, but you can sell your stamps! Can you sell your physics? Didn't think so.

And Rex Whitehead said that a lot of physics is stamp collecting also. Prior to 1974, much of HEP looked like stamp collecting as each bump got put somewhere in the album. (And lets not forget Fermi - IIRC - saying about HEP that if he had wanted to learn all of those names he would have become a botanist.) I'll take physics any day.

#11, have you ever read Rutherford's 1911 paper? It was an analysis of the 1909 Geiger and Marsden scattering data, showing that those data imply the positive charge took up a tiny part of the atom's volume. It was not a theory of atomic structure. At best it was a model; the first real theory came later, from Bohr.

As Rutherford did most of his research that earned him that prize as the physics chair at McGill that quote is well know here; it has even been printed on T-shirts. At a semi-recent
colloquium,I forget now who was presenting, by a bio-physicist that quote was modified to be
"All physics is either bio-physics, or un-fundable"

i prefer physics. because it can answer everything and explain it completely and scientifically. unlike stamp collecting, it answers some question but based on theory.

Don't forget that one of Physics Nobel laureate Richard Feynman's few unsuccessful quests was triggered by stamp collecting.

Ralph Leighton, the close friend of Feynman who collected anecdotes for the two books SURELY YOU'RE JOKING, MR. FEYNMAN and WHAT DO YOU CARE WHAT OTHER PEOPLE THINK, was a global traveler, yet was surprised when Feynman asked him "whatever happened to Tannu Tuva?" Feynman remembered from his Brooklyn youthful stamp collecting the triangular and diamond-shaped stamps from a mysterious place called Tannu Tuva. [you can see these easily enough today by Googling, but they arenow considered an elaborate hoax.]

Leighton didn't know and couldn't quickly find out. The two friends started researching. On finding that the capitol was "Kyzyl" they agreed that they had to visit any place that has such a weird spelling. The book TUVA OR BUST! is Leighton's memoir of his search and plans to visit Tannu Tuva with Feynman.

I'd give this story a happy ending, because the outcome was that the top throat singers from Tuva came to greater Pasadena, and stayed at the ranch in the mountains of our mutual friend, the late Jirayr Zorthian, where I had the pleasure of meeting them, and later attending concerts of theirs.

I've had my wrist slapped before for dropping Feynman's name, but he and Zorthian really were friends of each other and mine, have an exhibition of their artwork in a local gallery now, and this thread is about stamp collecting and Physics, so I'm on-topic.

Happy Holidays!