I mean't that what they were saying about fundamental physics, such as Kinematics, was bullshit.
There are two ways of modeling atomic and molecular structures, in computational material physics, computational chemistry and quantum chemistry, and molecular biology: classical, and
ab initio or quantum mechanics.
Quantum mechanical models model the electron density, and are very computationally intensive. At this point in time, in 2018, you can model systems with maybe a few thousand interacting electrons (only the outermost electrons in atoms interact), and the system must have periodic boundaries in all directions.
Classical models use mathematical approximations to describe the interactions between atoms. They are less precise (or rather, each model is limited in the situation they can model), and are usually derived from a combination of theory and practice, there being a theoretical basis for the
form of the equations, but the
parameters are fitted experimentally, to best fit the situation being modeled. You can easily model chunks of matter with billions of atoms; this is done for example to find new, durable alloys for hard environments like natural gas turbine pumps and fusion reactor chamber coatings; or finding useful layered materials for use in mass-produced thin layer vapor or chemical deposition, where each layer can be as thin as a single molecule thick. Those are ubiquitous in e.g. all kinds of displays.
Classical models use Newtonian kinematics to model atom movement.
Thus, a large fraction of materials physics and chemistry simulations rely on approximating Newtonian kinematics.
It sounds like the people who were arguing about the importance of some subfields of physics were basing their arguments on emotion, not on practice or utility.
As an example: The teacher says that if you were to throw an object straight forward and up, like this pen, ...
Vector algebra and linear algebra in general, as well as unit quaternions (AKA versors, describing orientation in 3D), are extremely useful tools in physics, computational physics, and computer programming (both graphics and physics modeling in e.g. games). They should be your basic tools in modeling such problems. The number of dimensions is then just a detail that depends on the model. Arguing about the number of spacetime dimensions is then like arguing that the proper solution to all
hedge mazes is to use a helicopter.
There is so much left to do and fix even in basic models, it sometimes overwhelms me.
As an example, consider the Wikipedia
Trilateration article. It describes how you can determine the position of an unknown point relative to three known points, if you know their distances. (It looks like EvilFish deleted the formulae in June 2018 as "original work". I don't see how any well-known math formula is "original work", but then again, Wikipedia is a social media, not an encyclopedia.) For three known points, and their distances to an unknown point, you can find the solution very easily using basic vector algebra, by using a coordinate system based on the fixed points. The result is a pair of points, symmetrically on both sides of the plane formed by the three known points. Many guides and tutorials use a complicated trigonometric function sequence to convert between coordinate systems (because they really only know about Euler and/or Tait-Bryan rotations, which IMO are evil and should not be used), but if you know the properties of 3D rotation matrices, it it really trivial to do. Just compare the "Preliminary computations" between the
May 2010 and
February 2018 versions of the article.
There is no end to that kind of "cutting through the crud" work, making things simpler, more robust, and more reliable, because it seems very few people know (or care about) more than one way of doing things. All it requires is a willingness to do the work to learn the details of the problem at hand, listening to those who have practical experience to learn the ropes, and then doing work necessary to find a better solution.
Similarly, even if you don't know much (other than the general basics of many subjects), but are willing and able to learn, and have that reliable team-working attitude, there are an increasing number of employers (in smaller companies, mind you; not the big conglomerates who have HR departments that do the hiring, and know nothing about the actual jobs they select people for) who are desperately trying to find such employees.
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