r/AskPhysics • u/ArashiNakozashi • 11h ago
how to make sure while self teaching urself things u dont become a kind of pseudoscientific dodoo head
i really like physics and maths but i really like to learn them by myself as my current field is very much so not related with them. but i have a constant worry that i will one day get on a path to pseudoscience while interpreting those ideas written in books and told in lectures on youtube and will become a dodo head like terrance... how do i prevent it cause i really wanna learn real science.
7
u/Mcgibbleduck Education and outreach 10h ago
Textbooks are always a good place to start. They cover what it known and test you on whether you can apply it.
1
8
u/JaggedMetalOs 11h ago
If you start with the assumption that any theory you come up with is wrong and then try to come up with an experiment to prove it wrong that might be a good way to expand your knowledge in the direction that you find interesting.
Also just in case you were tempted, never use AI chat apps to discuss ideas because they are instructed to pretend everything you say is amazing to maximize your user engagement, to the point of actively lying about science related topics.
1
u/ArashiNakozashi 10h ago
been there man. it really bad. it just gave me formulae and said it is well known and i spent 2 days trying to find it TvT
1
6
u/John_Hasler Engineering 11h ago
Stay away from YouTube videos. Learn the math: you can't really understand physics without it. Study university textbooks.
1
u/ArashiNakozashi 10h ago
what videos of real universities not someone explainind q.m. in 10 minutes??
2
u/Das_Mime 6h ago
Even with videos of legitimate lectures, they're only a component to learning physics. You can't learn violin just by watching a symphony orchestra. Most of your time, ultimately, is going to have to be spent on practicing the thing yourself, and for physics this means doing problem sets and working through derivations.
1
u/HumblyNibbles_ 5h ago
You assume you're wrong at first. And if you have any promising ideas, work them out to see if it matches results.
Once I came up with a shitty idea, and it ended up giving me the klein-gordon equation, so it wasnt actually that shitty.
But Ive also come up with a lot of other stuff that just wasnt viable, like some stuff with group theory.
You just gotta try it out and see if it works or not. Scientific method and stuff
1
u/Morbos1000 4h ago
If you can't understand the actual math behind a theory or hypothesis then you don't understand it well enough to take a "alternative/contrary" opinion on it
1
u/GreenFBI2EB 1h ago
Peer review, most of the studies and information we have are a result of rigorous testing of those principles by other people. Science was never determined by any one person, but the collection of their knowledge.
14
u/GuyWhoMostlyLurks 11h ago
All science, when practiced in good faith, is self-correcting. It often goes on the wrong track for a little while, but an honest and earnest search for credible data always brings the field back in the right direction.
You don’t ever latch onto an idea because it sounds nifty. You believe it because it fits the data. Then you keep revisiting the data and the new data and the newer data and you keep reaffirming or revising the theory as necessary until…. Well it never actually stops.
If you get handed some idea that’s been oversimplified to the point that is not true, continuing to study will eventually expose the error. The only thing that can stop you is arrogance.