minmin-vs-physics

[minmin-vs-physics]

It’s sad how much of what is taught in school is useless to over 99% of the population.

There are literally math concepts taught in high school and middle school that are only used in extremely specialized fields or that are even so outdated they aren’t used anymore!

[minmin-vs-physics]

“I hate school I’m sorry Malala”- Funny yet poignant. Acknowledges both the difficulty of the task and the fact that doing that task is a privilege. Gives credit to the people who fought for that privilege with a tongue in cheek acknowledgement of the irony of the initial statement

“I’m just a girl I should be home baking bread not doing calculus” - at best historically uninformed at worst leaps decades back in time. Refusal to acknowledge the charged history of education and slights the centuries of women’s labor it took to reach this point

[minmin-vs-physics]

Major human pastimes:

frying dough

classifying things and then arguing about the classifications

[minmin-vs-physics]

I mean, fuck, I like bed. I like sleep. I like cozy blankies I like napping, I like to eep. I like Z catching and wink catching and counting sheep. I like doing beddie bye shit. Snooze it? Honk mimi

[minmin-vs-physics]

Caffeine is good for you and will never hurt you and you should drink more caffeine now

[minmin-vs-physics]

bastard sounds great in an irish accent. if an irish person calls you a 'daft bastard' it just feels right

the welsh have the monopoly on things ending in hell. fuckin hell and bloody hell hit different in a welsh accent. its like music to my ears

the scots have piss and shite for sure. "its pishin it doon out there" "this is a load of shite" absolute poetry

if i may speak for the english i think we do penis related words very well. dickhead, knobhead, bellend, etc.

and for all the shit we give them, you gotta admit that no one can deliver a 'goddamn' quite like an american. theres a certain weight to it that you just cant achieve in other accents. when an american says goddamn you know shit just got real

[minmin-vs-physics]

Imagine a far-future society, we don't know what's happened but the Earth is dead, I'm vaguely picturing them all living on space stations or something, there are only precious few species of plants and animals being kept alive, very few indeed, you couldn't quite count the remaining species on your fingertips but you could certainly check out all of their Wikipedia pages within the space of an hour. Future Wikipedia I guess, I mean whatever it is they have. No edible fruit or vegetables have survived at all, I'm not sure what they do for food, something futuristic presumably. Some kind of... future powder?

But there's this project that's been in the works for decades, they've figured out they can synthesize an apple. I don't know how that works, but the scientists have figured out a way. They're going to make an apple and this is like landing on the moon for them, everyone's insanely hyped about it, nobody's seen an apple for millennia... well see part of what's going on here is that the historiography of the time back when Earth still existed is irreparably bad now, it's super impressionistic because so little survived. And I guess partly because the Genesis story has been all blown out of proportion (there's more to it but that's a big part of it) these guys have a really exaggerated idea of the importance of apples to Earth humans, they basically imagine us eating apples all day long and worshiping apple gods and making apple art and all stuff like that. It's pretty silly but remember they have NO fruit or veg, they eat powder or whatever it was I said, they don't even have a rough concept of what "eating an apple" might be, like does it get you high for example? I bet they think it does, like a really spiritual special kind of high! They must have embellished it so much right? Gotten real carried away.

So like I say it's really hype, they're going to finally make an apple! A real one I mean, not like an approximation of what some scientists theorize an apple might be like, they've figured out how to definitely do it accurately (somehow, idk, just trust the omniscient narrator that they're doing it for real). But: they can only make one. Too much resources required or some shit, like I said this is their equivalent to the first moon landing except maybe more so, it's not a sustainable plan to reintroduce apple trees or something, they can only make one apple ever and that'll be it.

So as you can imagine, quite apart from all the scientific resource that's gone into this project, there's been a ton of resource invested into (not to mention endless public fascination and debate over) the question: who gets to eat the apple? It's a big deal! Everybody envies whoever's gonna eat it; most people also don't envy them. Since time immemorial, the essence of the apple has been defined by centuries and millennia of myth and speculation and storytelling holding together scattered fragments of a mysterious glorious past. Very soon, the essence of the apple will be defined by whatever this guy says it is, whatever the apple eater manages to communicate of the ineffable experience that will always be theirs alone. Humanity will demand a report, and the apple eater will have to be a poet of rarest genius at the very minimum to be trusted to deliver it, they hold the most privileged position maybe anyone will ever hold by being allowed to do this, and all that will remain of that briefest experience for all eternity will be their words. They're an instant prophet, no questions asked. I don't know about you, but if that was me I would definitely shit myself.

Well anyway forget about all that stuff. I was only thinking of this because it occurs to me, you're kind of like the apple eater of your own life, right? I mean nobody's making a big song and dance of it like those crazy apple space freaks, but it's true no?, you *pokes you in the face quite hard* with your highly specific soul positioned in your highly specific situation, that's only going to happen once, you're the only one who's ever going to know what that's like, assuming you aren't going to give some sort of big testimony, somehow. Only difference is like I say, no one really cares in your case, although actually I do sometimes, I hope that doesn't weird you out. I'm just saying imagine being asked the question! As if the answer really did matter! In theory anybody could just walk up to you and do that! I promise I won't ask you, if you promise you won't ask me.

[minmin-vs-physics]

[minmin-vs-physics]

[22/3/25] long time no see huh? i spent the past few weeks becoming a cautionary tale. the funding situation in the us is kinda hmmmm. and lets just say i will be applying to programs abroad now! bc i just got an acceptance rescinded and my plans have upended lol.

anyway, this was an oddly freeing experience bc idk im worrying less and i can finally focus on physics again. but idk it does not feel good to make another set of applications bc you got a full round of rejections. or maybe its time to get LinkedIn-pilled and look for a job idk lmao

[minmin-vs-physics]

okay yeah sure

[minmin-vs-physics]

😮 what…..

[minmin-vs-physics]

too much math turns me into a magnus archives character

[minmin-vs-physics]

[3/3/25] my friend came to visit over the weekend (all the way from fucking London), so i had a blast taking her around my college! i also got my calculations working, and i found a new observable to gnaw on.

i had a very necessary conversation with my research mentor last week, and i think im a lot more at peace with where i am right now.

senior spring still chugs on. we must make the most of the days we have.

song: Just For You by iKON

[minmin-vs-physics]

it's gotten to the point of winter where the notion of summertime feels like a distant dream. "you will be warm, not just cold-and-also-sweaty, AND it doesnt cost any money to get warm. and all you have to do is wait". sure, and after we die we go to the land of gumdrops and honeydew. tell me somehting more plausible. i know i will be cold forever

[minmin-vs-physics]

21/02/25 || Friday

Accidentally wrote the month as January in my motivation letter I sent to a PhD position I was applying to 🤦‍♀️🤦‍♀️🤦‍♀️.

[minmin-vs-physics]

"wow ur so good at math" ah ha but you see. you dont ever get good at math. you stay bad, but now youre bad at harder math

[minmin-vs-physics]

[21/2/25] just sent an email to my prof that the bug ive been working at for six months is fixed now. and by fixed i mean i found evidence that my answer is correct as is. so now im equipping 3000 papers as if im going to trial to present my findings in our next meeting.

wish me luck; it's too cold for spite alone to warm me.

currently playing: Cynthia's Theme from Pokemon Black and White.