Here it comes again, the round number that means I will deliver a progress report. It has been a few weeks less than a year after the 300th Electron. At that time, August 2006, I was working on first year calculus. I am still doing first year calculus, except that I seem to have been waylaid once more by trigonometry. In 2007 I have worked with derivatives, and the reason for the trig is that the next chapter is about the derivatives of the trigonometric functions.

It has been almost seven years since I received the call from the Pythagorean Divine Spirit to study mathematics and physics. This is not the proper scientific way to describe it. Having seen the great engine of atom-smashing particle reality at Fermilab, I resolved to learn Fermilab's physics in the only true way it can be learned, that is with mathematics. I would do this, even though I was a math-imbecile artist who yearned for math intelligence but had no evidence of it. I had ambitions to learn physics at least to the graduate school level, or enough of it so that I could carry on an intelligent conversation with a physicist and perhaps understand a paper or a lecture.

I have spent the last seven years since then learning the math I never learned in high school or college. I worked through arithmetic, pre-algebra, first and second year algebra, geometry, trigonometry, and logarithms, on my own without a classroom or teacher, learning from old textbooks and from a few friendly mathematicians. I had never taken any physics courses, so I started from the very beginning of Newtonian classical mechanics. I spent 2005 working with theoretical falling objects, projectiles, centripetal force, friction, sliding weights, tension cables, vectors, and the other features of high school physics.

In 2006 I finally began calculus, and that's where I am now, doing derivatives, if I can ever get through my trigonometry review. I guess I've done a lot in seven years, especially since I'm not a student working full-time the way someone in college might be. But there is so much more to learn before I even look upon a particle in the world of higher mathematics.

I am not sure how far I will get in this quest. I used to think that by 2010 or so I might actually get to quantum mechanics, but that doesn't seem likely right now. I didn't know back in 2000 that I would get a day job, even a part time one, which would use up a lot of my time. I also didn't quite realize that I would switch from science fiction and fantasy art to "fine arts" and have gallery shows. And back in 2000 I didn't know that I would be learning how to use digital art programs like Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop. Back then I was satisfied with CorelDraw for all my graphics needs. I would be amused back in 2000 by the thought that I switched from PC's to Macintosh for my main computer work. I also had no idea last August that I would trade in my Electron Blue Honda CRV for the Orange Honda Element.

The world of science, for most of those seven years, seemed like some sort of "wizarding world" (as I wrote in Electron 300) where brilliant people did amazing things. Through the excellent and truthful writing of many scientists' weblogs, I have gotten insights into that world from those who participate in it. And it has been, as the journalists say, a sobering view. It continues to be extremely difficult for women in the hard sciences, and the social structures of that world seem to be quite inflexible. It's far from the free-wheeling lifestyles of artists and musicians that I am familiar with. If I had any thoughts of changing career and moving into the sciences, I have been thoroughly disabused of them.

I have gotten most of an answer to my original question, which was, "why aren't there any people who do high-level physics as amateurs?" After all, there are amateur star-gazers and comet-hunters and fossil collectors. There are amateurs who volunteer for biological and geological expeditions. But not particle physics. Why? One reason is that the equipment needed to do particle physics is so complex and enormous that it takes whole corporations' worth of fully committed experts, thousands of people, just to create it and keep it running. It's not like a telescope up on your roof. And the data from these machines can't be processed on your desktop iMac.

Another reason is that in order to produce a competent physicist, there must be a long-term, strong system in place that enables a person to pass through all the learning and tests and experiences and mentoring necessary to create a professional scientific career. The days of rich noblemen experimenting with metals or gravity or chemicals in their private laboratories are gone forever. Not only does it take the right infrastructure of academia and technology, but it also takes a full-time commitment from the human candidate. If you want to be a scientist, you can't be or do anything else while you are learning your trade. Or else, if you do have other activities, such as music (which for some reason many scientists are really good at) you have to be someone of almost super-human energy. They have always impressed me with how much they can get done.

So if I want to learn quantum mechanics or other higher-type physics and mathematics, let alone particle theory or string theory, it becomes harder and harder for me to do it by myself, and would demand more and more of time which I don't have. Like a scientist, I already have something, namely art, which I am trained for and which I keep doing for much of my time, whether commercially or privately. I have already said on many occasions that I am more useful and helpful to the world as a fairly good artist than I would be as a mediocre scientist. It may not be as respectable an occupation as a professor of physics at some institution of higher learning, but it's what I do.

That doesn't mean I am giving up on the whole endeavor. I just have to measure it against what my commitments are at this time in my life. I have a lot of things going on right now and this will continue. I would like to be more efficient in my use of time, but sometimes it doesn't work out that way and I end up reading superficial magazines on my kitchen table instead of working out calculus problems. I try to work on at least one or two math problems each day, with the hope that someday I will get familiar enough with trigonometry to proceed with calculus again. And there's loads more calculus to do, inches of bookbulk left to go through. The calculus that would take a good student a year to do will probably take me three to five years. I will work through it in relativistic time, as if I were approaching the speed of light. Time will slow down, and if I'm lucky enough to ride the light-beam, I'll get where I want to go.

Posted at 3:45 am | link