[FRIAM] Watch "The Most Important Idea in Physics: The Principle of Least Action - Ask a Spaceman!" on YouTube

[glen]

Yeah, Sutter triggered me when he said "but you don't have to worry about that if you don't know what an integral is". I mean ... maybe? This stuff is like heroin to an addict, right? Models upon models upon models. And not just in a simple stack, but a hairball heterarchy of metaphor.

You kinda do need to know what an integral is, right? I mean ... [sigh] ... I guess that's a rabbit hole, too. The only way you can understand what an integral *is* (not merely those pesky aspects like what a particular type of integration is *good for* ... noooooo, we don't need to know that, we're after the *essence* of integration) is to use it to do work. To understand integration, you must integrate some particular thing over some particular domain.

That same principle ("What I can't create, I don't understand.") applies to Action ... and brewing ... and cleaning your carburetor. You will never understand carburetors until you *use* carburetors to do some particular thing ... like drive across the country in broken down jalopy.

I feel like there's an analogy waiting to be made between [mal|mis|dis]information and the popularization of [physics|math|biology]. Books like Thiel's "The Straussian Moment" seem similar to books like Kaku's "Quantum Supremacy". And the category they compose seems similar to arm-chair opining on:

• foreign affairs like Prigozhin's mutiny,
• epidemiology like the origins of SARS-CoV-2, and
• deep sea physics and the Titan submersible.

I've probably mentioned this before. But I learned a new word awhile back: ultracrepidarian cf https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sutor,_ne_ultra_crepidam. Yes, I'm as guilty as the next shoemaker. But sometimes it's good to simply stay in one's lane, at least until you've done some homework.

Just to complete the arc of this rant, am I crazy for getting a distinct Cult Prophet vibe circa 13:39 in the video: https://youtu.be/UuqpCBZoX3M?t=819 ? When Sutter says, with cadence envied by every budding preacher in every small town church across the country: "The Least Action Principle is a generator of Physics. The Least Action Principle is a Creator of Physics. It is a Mother Principle that allows Physicists to generate Laws of Physics and Equations of Motion. It's . right . there. Folks you can write down a Lagrangian ..." I mean, that's some good ole down home fever-eyed preachin' right there. Reminds me of Keith Raniere of the NXIVM sex cult.

Do you see it?!?! Do you?!? It's right there! The Secret <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Secret_(Byrne_book)> to the universe.

On 7/2/23 23:16, Stephen Guerin wrote:
> The Action is the integral of the Lagrangian along the whole path, not just a single instant.
> 
> On Sun, Jul 2, 2023, 9:12 PM Nicholas Thompson <thompnickson2 at gmail.com <mailto:thompnickson2 at gmail.com>> wrote:
> 
>     So the difference is at a positive max when the ball hits the ground and at a negative maximum when the ball reaches its highest altitude?  So how am I to understand positive and negative?    vectors?
> 
>     Instantaneious Action is at a minimum when the two terms are equal?
> 
>     I have no intuitive sense of what is going on here.
> 
>     But thanks for trying, Frank.
> 
>     N
> 
> 
> 
>     N
> 
>     On Sun, Jul 2, 2023 at 12:27 PM Nicholas Thompson <thompnickson2 at gmail.com <mailto:thompnickson2 at gmail.com>> wrote:
> 
>         Frank,
> 
>         Thanks SO  MUCH for forwarding this to me.  To any other defrocked english majors on Friam, who have listened to these guys blather on about LaGrangians for all these years,  I highly, HIGHLY recommend the video. Pretty short, AND, you might possibly, conceivably understand Steve Guerin when you  get to the end.   Yeah.  Really.
> 
>         Nick
> 
>         ---------- Forwarded message ---------
>         From: *Frank Wimberly* <wimberly3 at gmail.com <mailto:wimberly3 at gmail.com>>
>         Date: Thu, Jun 29, 2023 at 2:53 PM
>         Subject: Fwd: Watch "The Most Important Idea in Physics: The Principle of Least Action - Ask a Spaceman!" on YouTube
>         To: Nicholas Thompson <thompnickson2 at gmail.com <mailto:thompnickson2 at gmail.com>>
> 
> 
> 
> 
>         ---
>         Frank C. Wimberly
>         140 Calle Ojo Feliz,
>         Santa Fe, NM 87505
> 
>         505 670-9918
>         Santa Fe, NM
> 
>         ---------- Forwarded message ---------
>         From: *Frank Wimberly* <wimberly3 at gmail.com <mailto:wimberly3 at gmail.com>>
>         Date: Thu, Jun 29, 2023, 12:51 PM
>         Subject: Watch "The Most Important Idea in Physics: The Principle of Least Action - Ask a Spaceman!" on YouTube
>         To: Thompson, Nicholas <nickthompson at earthlink.net <mailto:nickthompson at earthlink.net>>, Barry MacKichan <barry.mackichan at mackichan.com <mailto:barry.mackichan at mackichan.com>>
> 
> 
>         https://youtu.be/UuqpCBZoX3M <https://youtu.be/UuqpCBZoX3M>
> 


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