/sci/ - Science & Math

I'm applying to study theoretical physics and medicine.
In case I get accepted to both which one should I choose?

Most of all I'd like you to tell me what it's really like to study either one of those.
My gut feeling is that despite getting more respect in med school, it's actually easier than theoretical physics.

OP here. I'd also like to understand the concept of a field.
Here's what I've been thinking about fields:

Does the electromagnetic field exist everywhere in the universe or does an em wave simply generate the field as it travels through a vacuum?
I mean if something can travel without a pre-existing field, why are physicists so hellbent on explaining gravity with a quantum field and messenger particles? I haven't studied this subject at all but my intuition doesn't understand why messenger particles are required in the first place. If those particles are restricting us from the theory of everything, just scrap them completely? Make a new standard model without them?

I understand my posts must make you cringe if you study these things for a living, but please help.

I'm watching an American tv show about Nikola Tesla's "death ray". This is such bullshit.
I think it's sad that people in the 21st century still research Tesla's deluded sci-fi ideas like they were feasible.
What's sadder is that we're still impressed by science that was done over a century ago, proving that we're getting dumber, lazier and less productive every year. There are no Teslas or Einsteins in our generation. We can only look back if we want to see heroes.

Why do you study science? What's the end goal really? Are you essentially a tool for a billionaire like Steve Jobs to use in their search for world domination?
Engineers, mathematicians etc. study 10 years to get 2k a month working for a big corporation that spits out useless plastic products every day, making the owner a celebrated billionaire and movies will be made of him. The owner had only one skill: hiring the right guys who could do what he couldn't.

I study a combination of physics and electronics. One of the professors said our field is important because our growing population demands more products and the design of embedded systems.
That made me think. I really fucking hate products. I don't even own a smartphone, a full-hd tv or Facebook - I think these kind of inventions are destroying us as a species. We've already dumbed down thanks to smartphones. Most kids today have ruined their attention spans and won't be able to study science - their brains are hardwired to seek easier dopamine sources such as entertainment on their phones. Not to mention that products are things that eventually end up in the ocean and in the atmosphere thanks to China. I want no part in this, yet I just realized being in the science field might actually mean I'll end up designing future iPhones for some smooth guy in a sweater who will take credit for my work.
I'm having a crisis right now. Should I just go study philosophy? Maybe the only thing worth studying is thinking itself.
The only reason I study physics is because I can't stop thinking and asking questions.

Hey uni students and scientists, are you stupid?
I sure am.
I'm going to start my studies in theoretical physics and I'm honestly dumb as a rock.

I was never good at math as a kid, I was the artistic type with no talent in logical thinking. Seems like everyone else who studies physics was born to do it. They were math geniuses from birth.
I'm just some guy who turned 25, started taking high school math and decided that I want to be a scientist, even if I'll be the worst physicist that's ever lived. It would still make me a lot happier than being the best truck driver in the world.

>be an insufferable, narcissistic autist with no skills in anything other than science

>"scientific research requires teamworking skills"

Fucking normies have ruined science, too. It's just a huge circlejerk of young, beautiful people travelling over the world and socializing.
Ree!

You take pride in being a scientist and you think it's the highest state of a human being.

How do you feel about the fact that all the problems in our ecosystem are caused by science and scientific "progress"?
Pollution, nuclear warfare, weapons, distorted evolution..
I especially want to thank the worshipped Mr Einstein for giving us the technology to reduce our whole planet to dust.

Dude, if we were "dumb" cavemen with sticks and stones, we'd be better off. Seriously. It's just the pride in us that wants us to become gods. It's like humans can't accept the fact we're animals. You don't need smart phones and cars, it's just a fucking illusion. You need love, companionship and natural food. Nothing else. Science is elitist bullshit that's destroying humanity.

I'm an unemployed 30-year-old poet and most of my friends are physicists or programmers. I think I'm superior to them as a life form.

I'm not a physicist, but I've deduced that the higher you get in your understanding of the universe, the more depressing, bizarre and philosophical it gets.

Newtonian physics were nice and calm. They didn't hurt anybody. But now, you're taught that nothing really is what it seems. It's shittier.
Physical solids and particles? Nah they don't exist bro, everything is a probability cloud. Even the particles themselves don't even whirl around each other like you were taught in elementary school - the electron is just a probability cloud. You are made of probability clouds. Basically everything in existence is just calculations flying around like we lived in the goddamn Matrix. The universe consists of nothing but strings of energy that vibrate on the 11th dimension. And the energy? Just more intangible, non-physical calculations. Time doesn't really exist either: it's all curved into one.. beginning and the end, coexisting simultaneously. The keyword of 21st century physics seems to be that nothing really exists (outside math).

This is so mindfucking that I really don't see how modern physicists keep their sanity.
Tell me the truth, does studying physics get depressing or psychotic at times? These days people think about questions that are insanely abstract yet they have to consider the possibility that it might be reality.
I want to go back to those times when you just observed nature in awe. Now you accelerate particles and go "oh, apparently I don't have free will after all".

Is it increasingly harder to make new discoveries? 400 years ago you could poke rocks to deduce laws of motion and revolutionize science. Today it's not so simple, and I'm not saying science in the past was simple to discover - not by a long shot.
But it seems like we haven't made any significant progress in art or science in the last 100 years which makes me think humanity has already peaked. The best paintings, compositions and quantum mechanics were made at least 100 years ago. Today, if you want to revolutionize science, you have to study membranes in the 11th dimension and shit I can't even imagine well enough to type here. It's getting too abstract for a 3-dimensional, temporal being that eats and poops and is constantly tricked by their hormones.

On the other hand, with the Internet and all, all of human kind is now connected like a worldwide superbrain that is no longer wondering about these questions alone. We're a single organism and currently using our collective processing power to solve mysteries.
Still, huge breakthroughs don't happen anymore. Why?
There is a downside to the Internet phenomenon, too. Having instant access to _everything_ in existence has made less and less people want to become scholars. Your brain thinks it's more rewarding to receive dopamine through porn and Youtube vids than studying. Every generation of new humans seems to have a shorter attention span than the previous.

All in all, it seems that as the number of possible discoveries approaches zero, the number of qualified scientists to do this approaches zero as well. All of this leads to a situation where the probability of a human solving the hardest problem of all, is basically zero.

What if the world is actually only 6000 years old?
I mean, sure, it isn't, but what if it is?

The oldest trees we can find are conveniently about 7000 years old. Considering that tree rings appear at a varying rate, it's dangerously close to the biblical 6000 year limit.

Sure, we have radioactive dating. What if it's based on assumptions that are simply wrong? And of course, we have allegedly starlight that has travelled for millions of years. What if it hasn't? Maybe tomorrow someone will develop new science that proves all that old light suffered from some kind of time dilation and appeared older than it is. Before Einstein, we used to believe all kinds of stupid shit to fill the gaps in science.

I mean, shit, I don't want to say this, but there's a 0,1% chance scientists are actually biased towards atheism which makes them force their results to match an atheistic world view. This would be unscientific but we're only human. We all want to favor our beliefs.

People actually think gravitons are a real thing.
Holy shit.

Gravity is just a result of other forces and how they play out in the macro world. Even a brainlet can figure this out.

Am I the only one who hates "armchair scientists?"

Almost every idiot has a strong opinion on scientific matters even though they don't have any education in the field.
Some of these people have no education of any kind, yet they are certain they understand how everything works.
This pisses me off to no end. Especially quantum mechanics seems to be a popular subject amongst people who have yet to pass the first high school physics course.

There are lots of scientists out there whose biggest intellectual accomplishment is speaking against God.
This is fucking sad. Think about it.

Personally I'm sick and tired of this fad. Guys like Lawrence Krauss study 20 years of hard science and then feel proud when they realize that hey, maybe religion can be used to brainwash simple people into obedience. They don't discover new particles, they don't develop any new science of any kind. They just preach atheism to retards and reap fame doing so.
It doesn't take a particle physicist to question God. IQ 70 people are doing it these days because atheism is the rising trend. I always cringe when I see Dawkinses strutting around the stage like peacocks feeling superior when they're telling a muslim that they need to update their world views.
It's like a boxing match between Mike Tyson and a crippled child.

Maybe new thinkers in the 21st century get edgy and start criticizing atheism and re-introduce the God hypothesis.
Questioning the status quo is a baby step on a thinker's path. Yet we have renowned scientists who never get further than this.