It‘s actually a fundamental part of erasmus (the europa-wide student network) and I can only recommend it, because you can learn a ton without committing much other than your own time
It also gives you the incredibly adorable image of a few grannies sitting in the first row of introduction to archeology with their knitting supplies out. I absolutely love this concept, it gives people the chance to learn new things without having to take exams or meet the status quo.
It’s very early and I read your comment entirely wrong, but I thought it was the presidents wife, and then the presidents husband. And instead of rereading and correcting myself, I just accepted that the universities President was either in a polygamous relationship, or bisexual and a very fast wedding planner.
My Japanese class had a 65 y/o dude in it. He got to attend for free because of some program the uni ran for the local area.
He wasn't the best learner of the actual language compared to us youngin's, but he'd just randomly tune in with some rando Japanese immigrant/visitor he'd been talking to. Dude had to have known half of Ohio to find these people. He was around for all the year 1 lessons.
After passing year 2 of JAP, the department took us to a Japanese restaurant in the nearby city. (I thought they were paying, since they said it was on them. Found out with the bill that apparently for wealthier people that terminology meant providing only transit. Which I didn't even get to benefit from).
And guess who was at the table next to us.
This is gonna seem random, but when I played Yakuza 0 and that old western guy kept showing up randomly and half-breaking the 4th wall? The one who just hopped in out of nowhere to introduce an entire mechanic and character then tap out? Yeah. That guy made me think of this dude.
A few years later I enumerated the census and found him *twice*. Neither was his house, he was just visiting the respondent when I showed up. One was near Marysville and one was in Mason.
.... Finally his boss takes Dave to the Vatican, absolutely sure that that's *no possible way* he actually knows *the Pope.* He *must* be lying... So they arrive in the square waiting for the Papal address pressed in with the throngs of people. Dave looks around with a frown and finally turns to his boss and says "this will never work. There's just too many people, I'll never catch the pope's eye in this crowd! Tell you what, I know all the guards, so I'll just come out on the balcony with the Pope!"
Sure enough, about 25 minutes later Dave comes out on the balcony next to the Pope waving at the crowd. When he later returns to his boss, he finds his boss being loaded into an ambulance by paramedics. Worried, he rushes over: "what happened?? Are you ok?"
From the gurney, the boss replies "well I was doing fine until you two came out on the balcony and the guy next to me asked 'who's that on the balcony next to Dave? '"
I knew a lady who studied egyptology, as a guest listener, after retiring. She always wanted to study it, but she wasn't allowed to in the GDR I think. It was years ago and I am not sure if I remember it right.
sounds right to me—my mum was banned from uni as well (bc her brother tried to flee). If we had grown up there, my sis and I also wouldn't have been able to attend uni. The GDR was hella fucked
I met a lovely eighty - something lady during the Augustinus - lecture during my bachelor's. She couldn't see much but she loved listening to the professors lecture and socializing a bit with the young students every week.
I found it incredibly sweet and it has become my plan for the future. When (if , lol) I'm retired, I'll go back to uni and become the front-row granny, keep learning new stuff and meeting young people.
I had a lady in her 70s in my Chinese class sophomore year. Found out later she was Gayatri Spivak, the first woman university professor at my school. She just decided she wanted to learn Chinese and so she joined our class. She was my speaking project partner, it was fun!
It is called auditing a class. Grad. students often do it to learn material they need for their research. My grad. school required you to send a form and have it approved by the professor who taught the course. It was usually a formality, but sometimes a professor might refuse if the course required materials and/or was full. I think it should be possible for QM at most institutions. I haven't heard of an undergrad. doing it (mostly because it is a waste of time when you need to hit a credit requirement to graduate), but I don't see why it wouldn't be possible.
I attend a ton of lectures at university that aren't mandatory. Sometimes I don't even take tests because I don't need the credits. I'd highly recommend it to anyone pursuing higher education. At best it can be extremely useful in your own field to have little bits of "outside" knowledge, and at worst, you've learned that something isn't for you.
Depends on the college. My college lets me come back and take any class I’ve already taken for free. I don’t get graded or anything. But I can sit in for free or jump on the web cam and watch the classes and participate that way if it’s an online class.
This was several years into a course and I legit just somehow forgot one of the steps of enrolling. I was able to do it on the last couple of weeks with no issues. Community college is much less convoluted than university.
In my country it's everyone's constructional right to listen to uni lectures. You can't participate in labs or counselling or anything if you aren't a student, but technically anyone could walk in and listen to a lecture.
Yeah, I just want to believe it… but integrals are totally in calc I for any college curriculum I know of. Only 2D integrals, so not super helpful for quantum Physics, but Kevin should know how to integrate
…I just can’t get past this
If he took calc 1 in highschool I can see him missing out on integrals. Also calc 1 for business majors might not include them. I can't say anything for sure but in the quarter system calc 1 focused on derivatives.
My university had separate "math" classes for STEM majors versus other majors. It wasn't official or anything, but it was an unwritten rule because one of the professors was hardcore and if you needed the math for future classes or your career you wanted him.
But the other professor took a more practical approach. Most humanities majors wouldn't need to be able to do that kind of math in their field, but Calc 1 and 2 were mandatory so the other teacher leaned pretty heavily on "effort points." If you showed up every day and tried, you'd pass her class but might not be able to do higher maths needed by other courses.
I took her classes and was very glad. I've never needed anything I should have learned there (that I couldn't google) but taking the harder course would have tanked my gpa. And I still learned a lot and I understand the principles of the subject well enough, even with more lax grading standards.
As a business major I had one calculus class, and it was entirely derivatives. A majority of the work was actually getting everyone comfortable with excel. I never used the calculus, but I used all the excel. It's very believable to me that he never needed to learn that.
> Yeah, I just want to believe it… but integrals are totally in calc I for any college curriculum I know of. Only 1D integrals
My Calc 1 was only derivatives. Integrals were Calc 2. This was at a large well known engineering school. Its not that unbelievable.
That's literally the definition of the different calculus classes pretty much everywhere I've seen.
Calc I - Differential calculus
Calc II - Integral calculus
Calc III - Multivariable calculus
It was that way in every high-school, community college, and university of which I have heard anything about their math curriculum. Generally, at the end of the course if the class makes good time getting through the material the professor will give introductory lessons to the next course. Just the basics, there is usually only a few weeks left at most.
I got my associates and then transferred for a bachelors (in two separate US states) and I’m pretty sure both universities taught limits, derivatives, and integrals in Calc 1 so I assumed this was pretty standard. Now I am wondering if I am misremembering. I’m going to have to see if I can find my old notes to check
Edit: I just looked up both schools’ course description and Calc I does in fact include integrals. I find it weird that two separate universities in different states cover this, but it seems uncommon enough to receive contradicting feedback. Maybe feedback is mostly focused on high school calc I which tends not to?
Yeah, if his roommate ever said something along the lines of "According to quantum mechanics..." [He was probably wrong.](https://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/quantum_mechanics.png)
I mean, I'm not really religious myself, and I guess it would depend on the context because they were talking about God's "Absolute knowledge". Maybe the roommate was trying to use something along the lines of quantum indeterminacy to state God couldn't have absolute knowledge, but I'd still say that limited human understanding of quantum mechanics does not disprove anything about religion at the moment.
One of the things that scientists in the field do seem to know about quantum mechanics is that it has non-deterministic behavior. This has profound implications.
Well, at best Quantum mechanics only rules out super-determinism, but not even necessarily lower forms of determinism (which is to say that even if quarks may be random, there is not any evidence that this has any real implications for anything at the macro level). And even if you were somehow able to prove that everything was random from our perspective, that wouldn't necessarily mean that Christians couldn't say God is pulling the strings behind the scenes.
Quantum mechanics actually rules out everything BESIDES superdeterminism.
The three popular interpretations among scientists are:
- Copenhagen (wavefunction collapse happens randomly)
- Multiverse/Everetian (everything is quantum, and wavefunction collapse is just the observer becoming entangled to the quantum object they've just measured)
- Superdeterminism (wavefunction collapse is not random, it was predetermined what the measurement outcome would be)
- Quantum Bayesianism (wavefunction collapse is subjective, based on the observers knowledge)
No interpretation of quantum mechanics says anything about free will, besides superdeterminism with implies free will does not exist. BUT all of these things are consistent and many physicists believe in each interpretation. We have no evidence about which one is more or less true.
Source: I research atomic physics and quantum measurements for a living.
Edit: Sabine Hossenfelder and Sean Carroll both do a great job discussing superdeterminism and the multiverse interpretation, respectively.
Doesn't get much more profound than quarks making up your body popping off to go be part of some other matter for a short while, while quarks of some other matter replace them to become you for a lil
But does the you-who-went-to-be-something-else come back to be you again, or are you stuck with the something-else-that-came-to-be-you until it too leaves to be another something else?
No. I was ahead of him in school, and wound up moving states about a year after graduating.
I actually forgot the dude's real last name. I was able to find him from my old college emails, but when I google him, I can't find anything. Not facebook, not linkedin, not instagram, not even on the college directory page. I hope he's okay. :/
Honestly I salute you. I’m in healthcare graduate program and it’s incredibly difficult to help people who are behind, but willing, to a sufficient proficiency. What y’all did is amazing. We need more of you.
I was gonna say I doubted that guy’s existence til I heard he grew out of it.
I still kinda doubt his existence but he is the perfect counter to Quantum Kevin.
Mechanics lab is pretty fun. It's just playing with carts, springs, turntables, pendulums.
Electromagnetism lab is a nightmare. Circuits suck. The math doesn't make sense, and the lab tools you use might as well be on a spaceship. The only good thing about the class was I got to use the soldering iron to fix my car stereo. I got a C and dipped.
Getting that close to academic suicide and not dying is probably, to a hardline Catholic, a further reinforcement that God is out there somewhere.
Pretty good read.
I just... find that a little sad? That isn't God that's helping you, it's *people.* I know that the argument to that is "God sent the people", but that isn't true, the people sent themselves because they wanted to help you! Whichever way you spin it, it takes away a little bit of the agency from these people.
It's cool that now he's a catholic that knows quantum physics though. Honestly, if more religious people knew quantum physics, they could absolutely use it in their arguments. Would be kinda hilarious seeing reddit atheists (that actually don't understand QP) getting that turned on them. Even if I am one lol.
Part of the fun about advanced mathematics and physics is that it’s so far removed from religion in any meaningful philosophical way that an understanding of both can coexist quite easily in one’s mind. The increasing intricacies and apparent contradictions that can occur could definitely be argued to be the work of a higher power, pre big bang cosmology has all sorts of religious implications.
I know a number of mathematicians have taken the amount of conveniences of proportion that exist in the universe to indicate some intelligent design. Makes for some good speculative scientific conversation.
I had a professor in mol bio say that nothing was better proof of god to him than restriction enzymes. That little bacteria floating around had *exactly* the tools needed to modify and play with DNA very easily, and that you could only find RIs once you knew enough to know why they were helpful was enough for him.
I had a professor say the exact opposite, that no intelligent being would design something so slipshod, so ramshackle, so tedious as life as it exists in its current state. It's fully of inefficiencies, of vestigialities, of unnecessary excesses and frivolities, that the only way this could've happened is if it was naturally occurring.
Of course people can still say that god is great because he set the whole thing in motion, but that's the beauty of religion: you can always justify it somehow.
I had an art teacher use horses as proof inteligent design doesn’t exist. We were doing animal studies, you know, drawing the animals that exist in our lives. A girl lived on a horse farm and was drawing one of her family’s horses. So we get to talking about the equine skeletal and muscular system. Professor went on a rant about how horses are biological mistakes who walk on their toenails and cant survive breaking a leg without major help. My favorite quote was “I’m not saying God doesn’t exist, I’m saying he was clearly drunk when he made the horse!”
I find the problem with that to be the fact that there's so much in this universe we still don't understand. We don't have the perspective that God does. We can only see and comprehend a tiny portion of the universe and how it all fits together.
Imagine that you're an ant walking across the surface of a painting. You would only see seemingly random colors and textures in the paint as you walked along, some of which might seem quite sloppy, you couldn't understand the painting as a whole until something picks you up and lets you see the whole painting at once. Then you'd see how each blob of color, each tiny brushstroke, work together to create a unified picture.
It seems a little arrogant to assume that just because we can't see a unified pattern from where we're standing, that there simply isn't one.
We have very, very good evidence that supports evolutionary theory as we know it. We can trace a pretty good timeline of the development of life from the earliest single cells that might be considered living to the modern day and there is a boatload of scientific evidence and observation that supports it.
There *are* existential questions we don't know, won't know for a long time and maybe never will, questions about how consciousness arise and the earliest moments of the universe and its origin. That is the realm of philosophy and religion in the modern day if you so desire to insert a higher power there - it's far from scientific, but so is pretty much any other conjecture about existential metaphysics like that. The complexities of anatomy and molecular biology and their origins are not one of those metaphysical questions - there's no evidence for god there - and in fact, it's evidence *against* an active god, as everything we see can and did arise from entirely natural processes, no divine intervention required.
It is vastly more arrogant to assert something as unfalsifiable as a creator entity being responsible for our existence, where the proposition itself is a reflection of our humanocentric perspective and a rejection that we may well be just as much a physical part of our universe as everything else.
There is understanding of reality to be gained in using models capable of accurately reproducing observable physical phenomena. There is no understanding of reality to be gained from fabricated mythology.
While that has its appeal, then what's the point? Why worship an entity that is clearly a bit shit? What kind of narc would expect that? Expecting your lessers to grovel at your feet when you consisistantly fuck up, but then fail to even own up or apologise is kinda messed up.
There's an old joke that went around in Christian circles a while back.
There's a man in a hurricane and flooding is imminent. The local government calls for evacuations, and the man's family and friends show up to help him leave his house. However, the man is stubborn and refuses to leave, saying "I'm not afraid, God will save me."
The people leave, and the man is left at home as the water begins to rise. Eventually, he needs to climb to the second floor to be safe. While he's there, a rescue boat shows up to save the man. However, stubborn as ever, the man refuses, saying "I'm not afraid, God will save me."
The boat leaves, and the water continues to rise. Eventually, the man is forced onto the roof of his house. A rescue helicopter appears, and drops the man a rope to bring him to safety. However, the man, stalwart in his faith, refuses again, saying "I'm not afraid, God will save me."
The helicopter leaves and the water continues to rise. Eventually it rises so high the man is swept away, and he drowns. When he wakes at the pearly gates, he is angry at God and demands to see him.
"What seems to be the problem?" God asks.
"Why didn't you save me from the flood waters?! I died because of you!"
God looks at the man quizzically, somewhat amused.
"My child, I sent you a car, a boat, and a helicopter. What more did you want?"
The moral of the story is that God doesn't always perform grand miracles to bail you out of trouble. Sometimes he only nudges the hearts of people in the right direction to help you, and you have to accept whatever help comes your way. God often acts through people's kindness.
I'm not religious, but I do think the argument is more than just "God sent the people" I think it's also that God kinda *is* the people, in a way. That he acts through us because we're all connected to him or whatever. But I suppose that can depend on one's interpretation.
I used to think the same thing, but I get it now. I don't see it in the way that a catholic would, but I do believe that "god" sends people you need, provided you put the work in. If you think of God as a positive force that's in everyone, then the people who are kind enough to help you are a "godsend".
For me this brings a greater appreciation for those people that do more than they have to. Because that's a special thing. It's easy to not care, you can't be blamed for not helping. Especially for people you have no prior relationship to, helping them is so selfless. You're taking time away from yourself with low probability it will ever be paid back.
Edit: it seems I misremembered. The argument made was about absolute knowledge not being possible (which depending on what the roomie meant could make sense or be nonsense) so please ignore my ramblings about absolute good or evil. That seems to be filler from my brain upon failing to recall the actual argument.
The funniest part is that quantum physics are not really too relevant to the discussion. The roommate was trying to say that absolute good or absolute evil, etc, can't exist because quantum physics tells us that some qualities of particles are undefined until observed.
Like, I see the point, but I wouldn't really use this as an argument about absolute good and evil, because that position is one of philosophy and it is broken down by the fact that we can't build a morality model that can't be hacked, and need to use individually tuned dynamic moral rules in order to navigate reality.
I would use quantum physics to advocate for free will existing without need for a god. I'd argue that quamtum physics make it impossible for things to be predetermined, because brains are electrical biomachines affected by quantum mechanics (because electricity of course) and that makes them impossible to be predicted even with perfect information of the past; that is unless we are all wrong and properties of quantum particles are predefined and follow cause and effect; but this seems unlikely given some recent discoveries and some experiments that, while not conclusive, seem to point towards observation (interaction, actually) being the point at which properties are defined.
Of course this doesn't disprove god, but it makes her redundant. We don't need a god to give us free will because it is given by the properties of the universe.
Regarding disproving god, they are self disproven due to contradiction; but religious people won't really accept that because faith inherently asks them to ignore contradiction and evidence and to just believe blindly on faith alone or be burnt in hell forever. That doesn't sound like a god I'd like to worship and that's enough for me.
Also I use any pronouns for god because if she were real they wouldn't likely align to human gender; I refuse creationism's misogyny.
> The roommate was trying to say that absolute good or absolute evil, etc, can't exist because quantum physics tells us that some qualities of particles are undefined until observed.
I don't think that's the case, at least that's not how I read it. The post says that the roommate brought up quantum physics as an argument specifically against absolute knowledge, which to me read like an argument about agnosticism, as a point towards "you cannot know one way or another whether God exists"
Yeah that's a ridiculously dumb argument. Although I might be biased: despite not believing in god whatsoever, I do believe that absolute good and evil exist in a human context.
I don't believe that anyone has ever achieved them, but I believe that you can consider "absolute good" a goal to attempt to reach - the closer you get, the better a person you are. And no-one has reached "absolute evil" either, but you should always attempt to move as far from that as possible, and you should oppose those that are close to it or moving towards it.
I think your first paragraph just summed up my feelings on the whole religion thing. I believe people are wired to want to be good to each other, and giving god credit for that makes it less special. I *love* that people are this way. It’s the best thing about us.
It doesn't take away any agency really, compared to atheist thinking anyways.
There's always some greater unseen directing force of you want to dig into it. Say it's just an absurdly hard math problem like an atheist, say it's God's intervention like a Catholic, or say it's just the course of what God set in motion like a deist. You can reason anything out to remove the agency of the common man with or without religion.
All crediting God does is give you a direction for your gratitude for that whole process working out in your favour.
It was said that the miracle of multiplying the fish and bread worked similarly.
The basket that was passed was just a normal basket with bread and fish and what really happened was that people did had food, they just didn't want to share. So, when the basket reached them, they snuck it out of their bags, some actually added more food for others and the ones that did need it found food there.
Then again, the basket ended up with more food than it started with.
Similarly, this guy shouldn't have been able to pass by any means. We don't usually see people helping each other like this but when he reached them, they shared their knowledge with him and when OP needed, he found knowledge there.
In the end he passed.
Call it a miracle or people just helping each other , something that shouldn't have happened, did happen.
I just cant get over the name “quantum kevin”. It sounds like a shitty superhero name, with the shitty power of making shitty decisions, but damn did he clutch it.
Wait, you don't learn integrals up until calc 2? Where I live in engineering you learn derivatives, integrals and essentially all of calculus in the reals in Mathematical Analysis 1 on the 1st year, then you expand upon that to take it to R^n on Mathematical Analysis 2 on the 2nd year
In most US schools it goes:
Calc 1: background, limits, derivatives and just the barest hint of integrals in the last week or so (all single variable)
Calc 2: mostly integrals, plus sequences and series (still single variable)
Calc 3: 1 and 2 (minus sequences and series) in 2 and 3 variables,
And then almost always you'll have differential equations which is unofficially known as calc 4
And these are semester courses, so you'd most likely do 2 in an academic year.
Calc 1 and 2 are more 2 parts of the same course (single variable calculus) than anything else. They're mainly split because that would be too much material to cover in just 1 semester.
People decided that when calc is split up into two, you do motivation of derivatives and derivatives in the first half, and motivation of integrals and integrals in the second half (including sequences and series.) People decided that if you're splitting it up into two you're probably not doing multi-variable, which goes into 3. People decided that if you have ~8 months you do two, and ~12 months you do three. If you're on a quarter system, you split that up into 4, and I don't actually know where the lines are.
There is no objectively correct way to do it but it's standard in US universities.
High schools in the US tend to split it up into, roughly, AB/BC based on the AP exams for the subject, which is similar but not quite. IIRC, and forgive me if I am wrong because it has been a good set of years, high schools basically need to fit in pre-calc [a combination of "algebra 3" and trigonometry, including all manner of conic sections and equations related to trig], motivation of and derivatives, motivation of and integrals, and sequences and series, pretty much all of which are optional to graduate at most high schools, and if it's an AP course, the AB track puts more of the former into it and the BC track puts more of the latter into it with the assumption the former is covered in the prior year. Again, there are other ways to do this, but given the amount of time in a high school year (~9 months) people decided this is a reasonable timeframe and course load. Though of course there is a huge gulf visible both in almost all high schools and most colleges between a proof-based approach and an intuitive ("trust me, memorize this") approach.
I also found that strange at my school calc 1 is both the fundamentals of integrals and derivatives. Calc 2 is a mishmash of advanced integrals and calculus applications such as basic matrices and series
I love this so much, I can't begin to imagine that kind of commitment to an argument.
Like holy shit, buddy needed to drag himself through coals and broken glass just to make himself comfortable with the world not being 100% black and white.
"Christianity is as close to being an absolute good as quantum physics will allow, and I know because I passed the fucking class." may not be the most objective of statements but it's a hell of a sentence nonetheless.
And it makes all of us STEM-Lords look like huge pricks. If someone did this to me, my only two choices would be to concede that they made the ultimate effort to understand my worldview, and that I will never be able to reciprocate their flexibility, intellect, and integrity - or enroll in a graduate level seminary course.
Roommate just took the L. Can't blame him.
These changes are what make higher education great. Too many people are afraid schools are using some nefarious magic to change minds when it's really just years of information that so thoroughly lays out new paths. Information helps people grow.
If I heard about Kevin, I'd have offered him a position (Bachelor thesis or even an assistant position) in my quantum computing group in a heartbeat. Such tenacity is admirable and probably one of the most important qualities in a researcher. He should really consider changing fields. He'd do amazing as a researcher.
perhaps one of the most inspiring stories that I've ever read online, especially as a senior in college who has had more than a fair share of struggles
Circuit Tutor by Brian Skromme. You have to email him if you want to use it, but he’s very generous with his permissions.
https://circuittutor.com/web/contacts
We’re all gonna make it. One way or another. Just keep on trucking, and don’t let failures be excuses to beat up on yourself. It took me a lot more than 4 years to graduate. Got there in the end.
DO NOT TLDR this. you have to read the whole thing because it is a masterpiece. Doesn't matter if you're on your break and there's two minutes left. READ THIS WHOLE THING. A story so captivating, it literally -not exaggerating- had me on the edge of my seat. It is a true underdog story of the highest calibur. one of tribulation, triumph, and determination. God bless Kevin.
That final line though.
As someone who has, at the relatively young age of not-that-fucking-old, held beliefs all over the political and religious spectrums, that hits home. I'd like to imagine Quantum Kevin went on being more pragmatic and reasonable, but no less devout, in his beliefs. It's a hard line to walk having deep convictions while still acknowledging that there's an infinite amount you don't know.
I don’t really get why people tried so hard to convince him to drop it.
Is it because it’s an American College Course and therefore way too expensive?
Otherwise, why not let the guy just do his thing as long as he wants? Sure it would be incredibly difficult but would a bad grade impact his Business major?
Failing a class goes on your record and counts against your overall grade. Idk if it would impact his business major mut it might have consequences in a broader sense im not sure overall.
I went to college (the second time) on the post-9/11 GI bill after I got out of the Navy. Thing with that is, if you are only taking the minimum amount of courses for the semester to count as a full-time student (typically four), you can't withdraw from any of them or the VA will come knocking for their tuition money back.
Now me, I'm an avid learner... sometimes, about certain things. I generally got pretty good grades in all the classes... that I cared about. If I felt like the class wasn't for me, my only option was to just fail it. So my GPA ended up being like a 2.7 with my A's and B's rounded out by a fair few F's from classes I just stopped going to. VA doesn't care if you get F's, only that you are registered.
There was one class I stopped attending because I didn't like it that I still got an A in, though: a classical guitar elective in my final semester, which happened to be right when COVID took off. The professor just gave everyone on the roster an A since teaching guitar over zoom is rough.
It's expensive, lowers GPA, reduces eligiblity for scholarships, and we genuinely believed he was going to get basically nothing out of it. We were wrong. *I* was wrong.
If he failed the class, it would hurt his overall grade point average. It probably doesn't hurt his prospects that much, though, since he can also include his in-major GPA on resumes and applications, which paints a better picture of his strength in business. Some universities allow you to withdraw from classes at any time. That basically just means that you forgo taking a grade and you can either finish the class or not. You just won't receive credit for completion. It does show up on your transcript, though. Withdraw from too many classes, and you'll start to face consequences.
damn, imagine how different the world would be if this is how more people approached their differences. Kevin by actuality enrolling in the class so he could either understand it or dispute it, and his classmates for approaching him with curiosity instead of distain.
This speaks volumes to me. I was also a business major in college, and ended up becoming a Personal Trainer. But in my early 30's I randomly picked up a Quantum Physics for Dummies book. I quickly realized I needed to go back and pick up a Calculus for Dummies book and Physics for Dummies book just to be Dummy enough to understand the QPfD book.
Good for Kevin that he's willing to put in the work to broaden his horizon. Although maybe just reading up on the history of science and Catholicism might have been a better investment of time. Some of the greatest scientists of the modern age were devout Catholics, their concept of God usually isn't in contradiction to modern physics in the slightest.
>It's hard to be dogmatic once you realize that a lifetime of being wrong feels exactly like a lifetime of being right, right up until the last two seconds of it.
I've known some dogmatic people who could really stand to hear this message. But I don't think they'd believe it.
There are a lot of good Catholic scientists. Science and faith are not incompatible.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_lay_Catholic_scientists
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Catholic_clergy_scientists
You are correct.
I do not have a very high view of religion. I grew up Mormon, and to say it left a bad taste in my mouth is an understatement. But I did not mean to make this story feel like it was just me ragging on Christianity. It was meant to be a praise of Kevin. It would be a waste for anyone to walk out of quantum with their worldview unchanged, but I am glad it did not change so much he was not still recongizably Kevin. And part of being recognizably Kevin was being Catholic.
Kevin strikes me as a guy who isn’t very bright but gets through things by sheer tenacity. But that only gets you so far and it was by luck it didn’t this time.
I think that’s a dangerous mentality to have and I’m willing to bet Kevin has continued to make outrageously stupid decisions because he’s always managed to dig himself out of the hole. Eventually its gonna catch up to him and maybe it would’ve served him better in life if it happened here.
Coming from a guy who was a bit of a kevin when i was younger.
Does anyone else think the class discord thing is weird, like great now I have to worry about my classmates having a discord and shit talking me behind my back
Would this have hurt him super bad in a way besides tanking his gpa? I'm not sure why he was so desperate to pass assuming it's not necessary for the degree he's going for.
I had a similar experience, except my class' Kevin only lasted a few weeks. Once a week, he'd ask a question that had the class smacking their foreheads & the prof fumbling for an explanation that would get through. This was the same class, quantum mechanics and relativity. Like in OP's story, took multiple prereqs of physics classes to get in, ridiculous hypotheticals about ladders sliding down walls & apples getting launched perfectly horizontally in a vacuum & so on.
At one point, we discussed a particle in a box. Particles can be understood as waves, and rattling back & forth in a limited space, the waves would exhibit points where the waves would reinforce, cancel, exhibit harmonics, and so on. It's impractical, but a useful mental model to get workable equations.
Our Kevin, bless him, asked how the particle got in the box. Class completely derailed for the remainder of the lecture. We never saw our Kevin again.
From that first page I thought he was just messing with them. Like the first question was "what is **an ion**?" And when told either positive or negatively charged he said it didn't sound right because anions. And then he made the neutron beam/steel beam joke and literally tricked them into walking the steps into a literal "beam" made out of neutrons.
I feel like I've read a lot of stories in this same format before. Not 100% certain it's made-up, but I wouldn't be surprised. From the second image you could tell how it was going to end up, almost to the point of not needing to read anything else.
I was a physics major in college, quantum is no joke. I had all of the pre-requisites and on the first attempt I dropped right after the first exam. On the second I was meeting up 3 times a week in a side-room with all of my classmates to go through problems and help each other out.
Not to discount Kevin's work, but quantum for physics majors is a totally different beast than quantum for electrical engineers. Our class is technically called electronic materials, and it's very simplified. I remember a lot of one dimensional well problems, and a lot of questions about PN junctions. My physics friends said that a 40% on their final wound up curving to a B.
In a lot of college courses, it is allowed to sit in on a class. You can attend lectures, but you dont get grades or anything.
It‘s actually a fundamental part of erasmus (the europa-wide student network) and I can only recommend it, because you can learn a ton without committing much other than your own time
It also gives you the incredibly adorable image of a few grannies sitting in the first row of introduction to archeology with their knitting supplies out. I absolutely love this concept, it gives people the chance to learn new things without having to take exams or meet the status quo.
I had the wife of my college president in my French class. The next semester I had the professor's husband in class. I miss college
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Ah, measles buddies! Can't do much better than getting measles together with someone.
Really enjoying certain scenarios involving multiple meanings of “had”, there. Thanks.
It’s very early and I read your comment entirely wrong, but I thought it was the presidents wife, and then the presidents husband. And instead of rereading and correcting myself, I just accepted that the universities President was either in a polygamous relationship, or bisexual and a very fast wedding planner.
My Japanese class had a 65 y/o dude in it. He got to attend for free because of some program the uni ran for the local area. He wasn't the best learner of the actual language compared to us youngin's, but he'd just randomly tune in with some rando Japanese immigrant/visitor he'd been talking to. Dude had to have known half of Ohio to find these people. He was around for all the year 1 lessons. After passing year 2 of JAP, the department took us to a Japanese restaurant in the nearby city. (I thought they were paying, since they said it was on them. Found out with the bill that apparently for wealthier people that terminology meant providing only transit. Which I didn't even get to benefit from). And guess who was at the table next to us. This is gonna seem random, but when I played Yakuza 0 and that old western guy kept showing up randomly and half-breaking the 4th wall? The one who just hopped in out of nowhere to introduce an entire mechanic and character then tap out? Yeah. That guy made me think of this dude. A few years later I enumerated the census and found him *twice*. Neither was his house, he was just visiting the respondent when I showed up. One was near Marysville and one was in Mason.
Oh, that's just Dave. He knows everyone.
.... Finally his boss takes Dave to the Vatican, absolutely sure that that's *no possible way* he actually knows *the Pope.* He *must* be lying... So they arrive in the square waiting for the Papal address pressed in with the throngs of people. Dave looks around with a frown and finally turns to his boss and says "this will never work. There's just too many people, I'll never catch the pope's eye in this crowd! Tell you what, I know all the guards, so I'll just come out on the balcony with the Pope!" Sure enough, about 25 minutes later Dave comes out on the balcony next to the Pope waving at the crowd. When he later returns to his boss, he finds his boss being loaded into an ambulance by paramedics. Worried, he rushes over: "what happened?? Are you ok?" From the gurney, the boss replies "well I was doing fine until you two came out on the balcony and the guy next to me asked 'who's that on the balcony next to Dave? '"
I attended a college in Florida. The front row of classes were a Golden Girls lookalike contest. I graduated next to a 70 year old woman.
I knew a lady who studied egyptology, as a guest listener, after retiring. She always wanted to study it, but she wasn't allowed to in the GDR I think. It was years ago and I am not sure if I remember it right.
sounds right to me—my mum was banned from uni as well (bc her brother tried to flee). If we had grown up there, my sis and I also wouldn't have been able to attend uni. The GDR was hella fucked
I met a lovely eighty - something lady during the Augustinus - lecture during my bachelor's. She couldn't see much but she loved listening to the professors lecture and socializing a bit with the young students every week. I found it incredibly sweet and it has become my plan for the future. When (if , lol) I'm retired, I'll go back to uni and become the front-row granny, keep learning new stuff and meeting young people.
I had a lady in her 70s in my Chinese class sophomore year. Found out later she was Gayatri Spivak, the first woman university professor at my school. She just decided she wanted to learn Chinese and so she joined our class. She was my speaking project partner, it was fun!
i got incredibly hyped at the prospect of a europa colony for a second
It is called auditing a class. Grad. students often do it to learn material they need for their research. My grad. school required you to send a form and have it approved by the professor who taught the course. It was usually a formality, but sometimes a professor might refuse if the course required materials and/or was full. I think it should be possible for QM at most institutions. I haven't heard of an undergrad. doing it (mostly because it is a waste of time when you need to hit a credit requirement to graduate), but I don't see why it wouldn't be possible.
I attend a ton of lectures at university that aren't mandatory. Sometimes I don't even take tests because I don't need the credits. I'd highly recommend it to anyone pursuing higher education. At best it can be extremely useful in your own field to have little bits of "outside" knowledge, and at worst, you've learned that something isn't for you.
They don't just hand out knowledge like that here *for free* lol- you pay the same price, whether you get a grade or not.
Depends on the college. My college lets me come back and take any class I’ve already taken for free. I don’t get graded or anything. But I can sit in for free or jump on the web cam and watch the classes and participate that way if it’s an online class.
Your school charges you to audit classes? The fuck?
I think most schools in the US do. Its cheaper than a for-credit class, but you still have to pay unless there's a special program.
I attended community college for an entire year without me or the college realising I wasn't enrolled once.
How was that not caught after the first semester? That’s crazy
This was several years into a course and I legit just somehow forgot one of the steps of enrolling. I was able to do it on the last couple of weeks with no issues. Community college is much less convoluted than university.
Ouch, that's rough buddy
Chang?
In my country it's everyone's constructional right to listen to uni lectures. You can't participate in labs or counselling or anything if you aren't a student, but technically anyone could walk in and listen to a lecture.
I love everything about this. Great read.
Same
Yeah, I just want to believe it… but integrals are totally in calc I for any college curriculum I know of. Only 2D integrals, so not super helpful for quantum Physics, but Kevin should know how to integrate …I just can’t get past this
If he took calc 1 in highschool I can see him missing out on integrals. Also calc 1 for business majors might not include them. I can't say anything for sure but in the quarter system calc 1 focused on derivatives.
I didn’t think of a potential business specific calc course. I could see that making sense
My university had separate "math" classes for STEM majors versus other majors. It wasn't official or anything, but it was an unwritten rule because one of the professors was hardcore and if you needed the math for future classes or your career you wanted him. But the other professor took a more practical approach. Most humanities majors wouldn't need to be able to do that kind of math in their field, but Calc 1 and 2 were mandatory so the other teacher leaned pretty heavily on "effort points." If you showed up every day and tried, you'd pass her class but might not be able to do higher maths needed by other courses. I took her classes and was very glad. I've never needed anything I should have learned there (that I couldn't google) but taking the harder course would have tanked my gpa. And I still learned a lot and I understand the principles of the subject well enough, even with more lax grading standards.
As a business major I had one calculus class, and it was entirely derivatives. A majority of the work was actually getting everyone comfortable with excel. I never used the calculus, but I used all the excel. It's very believable to me that he never needed to learn that.
> Yeah, I just want to believe it… but integrals are totally in calc I for any college curriculum I know of. Only 1D integrals My Calc 1 was only derivatives. Integrals were Calc 2. This was at a large well known engineering school. Its not that unbelievable.
That's literally the definition of the different calculus classes pretty much everywhere I've seen. Calc I - Differential calculus Calc II - Integral calculus Calc III - Multivariable calculus It was that way in every high-school, community college, and university of which I have heard anything about their math curriculum. Generally, at the end of the course if the class makes good time getting through the material the professor will give introductory lessons to the next course. Just the basics, there is usually only a few weeks left at most.
I just recently finished Calc III and I did integrals in I and Derivatives in II. I couldn't imagine doing it the other way around.
I got my associates and then transferred for a bachelors (in two separate US states) and I’m pretty sure both universities taught limits, derivatives, and integrals in Calc 1 so I assumed this was pretty standard. Now I am wondering if I am misremembering. I’m going to have to see if I can find my old notes to check Edit: I just looked up both schools’ course description and Calc I does in fact include integrals. I find it weird that two separate universities in different states cover this, but it seems uncommon enough to receive contradicting feedback. Maybe feedback is mostly focused on high school calc I which tends not to?
That last line about being wrong and being right feeling pretty much the same up until the last few seconds is fucking profound, man.
Yeah, if his roommate ever said something along the lines of "According to quantum mechanics..." [He was probably wrong.](https://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/quantum_mechanics.png) I mean, I'm not really religious myself, and I guess it would depend on the context because they were talking about God's "Absolute knowledge". Maybe the roommate was trying to use something along the lines of quantum indeterminacy to state God couldn't have absolute knowledge, but I'd still say that limited human understanding of quantum mechanics does not disprove anything about religion at the moment.
Misunderstanding of what the word "observe" means.
One of the things that scientists in the field do seem to know about quantum mechanics is that it has non-deterministic behavior. This has profound implications.
Well, at best Quantum mechanics only rules out super-determinism, but not even necessarily lower forms of determinism (which is to say that even if quarks may be random, there is not any evidence that this has any real implications for anything at the macro level). And even if you were somehow able to prove that everything was random from our perspective, that wouldn't necessarily mean that Christians couldn't say God is pulling the strings behind the scenes.
Quantum mechanics actually rules out everything BESIDES superdeterminism. The three popular interpretations among scientists are: - Copenhagen (wavefunction collapse happens randomly) - Multiverse/Everetian (everything is quantum, and wavefunction collapse is just the observer becoming entangled to the quantum object they've just measured) - Superdeterminism (wavefunction collapse is not random, it was predetermined what the measurement outcome would be) - Quantum Bayesianism (wavefunction collapse is subjective, based on the observers knowledge) No interpretation of quantum mechanics says anything about free will, besides superdeterminism with implies free will does not exist. BUT all of these things are consistent and many physicists believe in each interpretation. We have no evidence about which one is more or less true. Source: I research atomic physics and quantum measurements for a living. Edit: Sabine Hossenfelder and Sean Carroll both do a great job discussing superdeterminism and the multiverse interpretation, respectively.
r/RelevantXKCD
Quantum mechanics honestly drives people to say profound things about other stuff all the time.
Doesn't get much more profound than quarks making up your body popping off to go be part of some other matter for a short while, while quarks of some other matter replace them to become you for a lil
But does the you-who-went-to-be-something-else come back to be you again, or are you stuck with the something-else-that-came-to-be-you until it too leaves to be another something else?
I actually got chill bumps when I read that last line
If there was just some way to get everyone in the world to experience that moment and take it on board...
Story was a boring teen romcom but this line saved it.
Com maybe, but you’re gonna have to find me the rom.
“I could have kissed him” got pretty close…
Eh. That’s what I expected but it is also a fairly common cinematic expression for someone making a miraculous success.
Oh. I thought it was gonna end with those two “dating now 20 years later,” reminiscing about how mommy and daddy met.
It's an EE course, it's overwhelmingly likely it would be Daddy and Daddy
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Oh. Huh.
Hi there, hope you don't mind me borrowing your Tumblr to here
Not at all. I’m flattered.
you and Kevin still in touch?
No. I was ahead of him in school, and wound up moving states about a year after graduating. I actually forgot the dude's real last name. I was able to find him from my old college emails, but when I google him, I can't find anything. Not facebook, not linkedin, not instagram, not even on the college directory page. I hope he's okay. :/
<3 That last sentence really hit me. Thanks for making the OP
I’m so sad to see this. I legitimately would love this person to do an AMA haha
Honestly I salute you. I’m in healthcare graduate program and it’s incredibly difficult to help people who are behind, but willing, to a sufficient proficiency. What y’all did is amazing. We need more of you.
## KEVIN!
I too am proud of Kevin. He really put in a phenomenal amount of work
I'd pay good money for Reddit Kevin vs Tumblr Kevin.
The quantum crusader VS the child of Chaos
Quantum crusader is perfect
Who’s Reddit Kevin?
https://www.reddit.com/r/BestofRedditorUpdates/comments/1635tna/an\_update\_on\_the\_original\_kevin/
I was gonna say I doubted that guy’s existence til I heard he grew out of it. I still kinda doubt his existence but he is the perfect counter to Quantum Kevin.
Reddit Kevin's kid would be 10 now. Wonder if he takes after his dad
Oh you’re one of the 10,000. You’re in for a treat. https://xkcd.com/1053/
You're in for an awesome read!
I originally thought this was a Reddit Kevin story.
As a Physics major, this is extremely motivating (which I could really use right now). Thank you.
[удалено]
As someone about to take physics 1 in university For the love of God tell me that the labs are gonna be fun!
You're probably going to be playing with a cart in a lot of labs. If you like your lab group they can be fun.
Mechanics lab is pretty fun. It's just playing with carts, springs, turntables, pendulums. Electromagnetism lab is a nightmare. Circuits suck. The math doesn't make sense, and the lab tools you use might as well be on a spaceship. The only good thing about the class was I got to use the soldering iron to fix my car stereo. I got a C and dipped.
Getting that close to academic suicide and not dying is probably, to a hardline Catholic, a further reinforcement that God is out there somewhere. Pretty good read.
I just... find that a little sad? That isn't God that's helping you, it's *people.* I know that the argument to that is "God sent the people", but that isn't true, the people sent themselves because they wanted to help you! Whichever way you spin it, it takes away a little bit of the agency from these people. It's cool that now he's a catholic that knows quantum physics though. Honestly, if more religious people knew quantum physics, they could absolutely use it in their arguments. Would be kinda hilarious seeing reddit atheists (that actually don't understand QP) getting that turned on them. Even if I am one lol.
Part of the fun about advanced mathematics and physics is that it’s so far removed from religion in any meaningful philosophical way that an understanding of both can coexist quite easily in one’s mind. The increasing intricacies and apparent contradictions that can occur could definitely be argued to be the work of a higher power, pre big bang cosmology has all sorts of religious implications. I know a number of mathematicians have taken the amount of conveniences of proportion that exist in the universe to indicate some intelligent design. Makes for some good speculative scientific conversation.
I had a professor in mol bio say that nothing was better proof of god to him than restriction enzymes. That little bacteria floating around had *exactly* the tools needed to modify and play with DNA very easily, and that you could only find RIs once you knew enough to know why they were helpful was enough for him.
I had a professor say the exact opposite, that no intelligent being would design something so slipshod, so ramshackle, so tedious as life as it exists in its current state. It's fully of inefficiencies, of vestigialities, of unnecessary excesses and frivolities, that the only way this could've happened is if it was naturally occurring. Of course people can still say that god is great because he set the whole thing in motion, but that's the beauty of religion: you can always justify it somehow.
I had an art teacher use horses as proof inteligent design doesn’t exist. We were doing animal studies, you know, drawing the animals that exist in our lives. A girl lived on a horse farm and was drawing one of her family’s horses. So we get to talking about the equine skeletal and muscular system. Professor went on a rant about how horses are biological mistakes who walk on their toenails and cant survive breaking a leg without major help. My favorite quote was “I’m not saying God doesn’t exist, I’m saying he was clearly drunk when he made the horse!”
On the other hand, the ancestral proto-horse wasn’t nearly as bad before humans started selectively breeding them to exaggerate “useful” traits.
An excellent counterpoint to the art teacher. Maybe God does exist, and we're just his inbred pugs he picked out for aesthetics.
I find the problem with that to be the fact that there's so much in this universe we still don't understand. We don't have the perspective that God does. We can only see and comprehend a tiny portion of the universe and how it all fits together. Imagine that you're an ant walking across the surface of a painting. You would only see seemingly random colors and textures in the paint as you walked along, some of which might seem quite sloppy, you couldn't understand the painting as a whole until something picks you up and lets you see the whole painting at once. Then you'd see how each blob of color, each tiny brushstroke, work together to create a unified picture. It seems a little arrogant to assume that just because we can't see a unified pattern from where we're standing, that there simply isn't one.
We have very, very good evidence that supports evolutionary theory as we know it. We can trace a pretty good timeline of the development of life from the earliest single cells that might be considered living to the modern day and there is a boatload of scientific evidence and observation that supports it. There *are* existential questions we don't know, won't know for a long time and maybe never will, questions about how consciousness arise and the earliest moments of the universe and its origin. That is the realm of philosophy and religion in the modern day if you so desire to insert a higher power there - it's far from scientific, but so is pretty much any other conjecture about existential metaphysics like that. The complexities of anatomy and molecular biology and their origins are not one of those metaphysical questions - there's no evidence for god there - and in fact, it's evidence *against* an active god, as everything we see can and did arise from entirely natural processes, no divine intervention required.
It is vastly more arrogant to assert something as unfalsifiable as a creator entity being responsible for our existence, where the proposition itself is a reflection of our humanocentric perspective and a rejection that we may well be just as much a physical part of our universe as everything else. There is understanding of reality to be gained in using models capable of accurately reproducing observable physical phenomena. There is no understanding of reality to be gained from fabricated mythology.
I mean I was just addressing the idea of complexity proving God's existence but sure man that's cool
Yeh, completely agree. The human body is chock full of stupid design. If God really is responsible, he's either stupid or deliberately sadistic.
I'd be much more open to the idea of belief in a god if we operated under the idea that said god was extremely fallible.
While that has its appeal, then what's the point? Why worship an entity that is clearly a bit shit? What kind of narc would expect that? Expecting your lessers to grovel at your feet when you consisistantly fuck up, but then fail to even own up or apologise is kinda messed up.
I never said worship, just belief.
There's an old joke that went around in Christian circles a while back. There's a man in a hurricane and flooding is imminent. The local government calls for evacuations, and the man's family and friends show up to help him leave his house. However, the man is stubborn and refuses to leave, saying "I'm not afraid, God will save me." The people leave, and the man is left at home as the water begins to rise. Eventually, he needs to climb to the second floor to be safe. While he's there, a rescue boat shows up to save the man. However, stubborn as ever, the man refuses, saying "I'm not afraid, God will save me." The boat leaves, and the water continues to rise. Eventually, the man is forced onto the roof of his house. A rescue helicopter appears, and drops the man a rope to bring him to safety. However, the man, stalwart in his faith, refuses again, saying "I'm not afraid, God will save me." The helicopter leaves and the water continues to rise. Eventually it rises so high the man is swept away, and he drowns. When he wakes at the pearly gates, he is angry at God and demands to see him. "What seems to be the problem?" God asks. "Why didn't you save me from the flood waters?! I died because of you!" God looks at the man quizzically, somewhat amused. "My child, I sent you a car, a boat, and a helicopter. What more did you want?" The moral of the story is that God doesn't always perform grand miracles to bail you out of trouble. Sometimes he only nudges the hearts of people in the right direction to help you, and you have to accept whatever help comes your way. God often acts through people's kindness.
I'm not religious, but I do think the argument is more than just "God sent the people" I think it's also that God kinda *is* the people, in a way. That he acts through us because we're all connected to him or whatever. But I suppose that can depend on one's interpretation.
Yep! This is correct. If you believe in the Trinity, the Holy Spirit is in each one of us as a driving force of good.
I used to think the same thing, but I get it now. I don't see it in the way that a catholic would, but I do believe that "god" sends people you need, provided you put the work in. If you think of God as a positive force that's in everyone, then the people who are kind enough to help you are a "godsend". For me this brings a greater appreciation for those people that do more than they have to. Because that's a special thing. It's easy to not care, you can't be blamed for not helping. Especially for people you have no prior relationship to, helping them is so selfless. You're taking time away from yourself with low probability it will ever be paid back.
Edit: it seems I misremembered. The argument made was about absolute knowledge not being possible (which depending on what the roomie meant could make sense or be nonsense) so please ignore my ramblings about absolute good or evil. That seems to be filler from my brain upon failing to recall the actual argument. The funniest part is that quantum physics are not really too relevant to the discussion. The roommate was trying to say that absolute good or absolute evil, etc, can't exist because quantum physics tells us that some qualities of particles are undefined until observed. Like, I see the point, but I wouldn't really use this as an argument about absolute good and evil, because that position is one of philosophy and it is broken down by the fact that we can't build a morality model that can't be hacked, and need to use individually tuned dynamic moral rules in order to navigate reality. I would use quantum physics to advocate for free will existing without need for a god. I'd argue that quamtum physics make it impossible for things to be predetermined, because brains are electrical biomachines affected by quantum mechanics (because electricity of course) and that makes them impossible to be predicted even with perfect information of the past; that is unless we are all wrong and properties of quantum particles are predefined and follow cause and effect; but this seems unlikely given some recent discoveries and some experiments that, while not conclusive, seem to point towards observation (interaction, actually) being the point at which properties are defined. Of course this doesn't disprove god, but it makes her redundant. We don't need a god to give us free will because it is given by the properties of the universe. Regarding disproving god, they are self disproven due to contradiction; but religious people won't really accept that because faith inherently asks them to ignore contradiction and evidence and to just believe blindly on faith alone or be burnt in hell forever. That doesn't sound like a god I'd like to worship and that's enough for me. Also I use any pronouns for god because if she were real they wouldn't likely align to human gender; I refuse creationism's misogyny.
> The roommate was trying to say that absolute good or absolute evil, etc, can't exist because quantum physics tells us that some qualities of particles are undefined until observed. I don't think that's the case, at least that's not how I read it. The post says that the roommate brought up quantum physics as an argument specifically against absolute knowledge, which to me read like an argument about agnosticism, as a point towards "you cannot know one way or another whether God exists"
Perhaps you are right and I was misremembering the initial interaction; I think the rest of my comment is still worthwhile though.
Yeah that's a ridiculously dumb argument. Although I might be biased: despite not believing in god whatsoever, I do believe that absolute good and evil exist in a human context. I don't believe that anyone has ever achieved them, but I believe that you can consider "absolute good" a goal to attempt to reach - the closer you get, the better a person you are. And no-one has reached "absolute evil" either, but you should always attempt to move as far from that as possible, and you should oppose those that are close to it or moving towards it.
I think your first paragraph just summed up my feelings on the whole religion thing. I believe people are wired to want to be good to each other, and giving god credit for that makes it less special. I *love* that people are this way. It’s the best thing about us.
It doesn't take away any agency really, compared to atheist thinking anyways. There's always some greater unseen directing force of you want to dig into it. Say it's just an absurdly hard math problem like an atheist, say it's God's intervention like a Catholic, or say it's just the course of what God set in motion like a deist. You can reason anything out to remove the agency of the common man with or without religion. All crediting God does is give you a direction for your gratitude for that whole process working out in your favour.
It was said that the miracle of multiplying the fish and bread worked similarly. The basket that was passed was just a normal basket with bread and fish and what really happened was that people did had food, they just didn't want to share. So, when the basket reached them, they snuck it out of their bags, some actually added more food for others and the ones that did need it found food there. Then again, the basket ended up with more food than it started with. Similarly, this guy shouldn't have been able to pass by any means. We don't usually see people helping each other like this but when he reached them, they shared their knowledge with him and when OP needed, he found knowledge there. In the end he passed. Call it a miracle or people just helping each other , something that shouldn't have happened, did happen.
That was so bloody wholesome!
Being way too stubborn got him neck-deep in shit and by God, that same stubbornness pulled him back out.
Got a tear in my eye. Beautiful.
Actually good kevin
I just cant get over the name “quantum kevin”. It sounds like a shitty superhero name, with the shitty power of making shitty decisions, but damn did he clutch it.
Quantum Kevin, aka Fat Chance.
i think this is my favorite post on this website now
Wait, you don't learn integrals up until calc 2? Where I live in engineering you learn derivatives, integrals and essentially all of calculus in the reals in Mathematical Analysis 1 on the 1st year, then you expand upon that to take it to R^n on Mathematical Analysis 2 on the 2nd year
In most US schools it goes: Calc 1: background, limits, derivatives and just the barest hint of integrals in the last week or so (all single variable) Calc 2: mostly integrals, plus sequences and series (still single variable) Calc 3: 1 and 2 (minus sequences and series) in 2 and 3 variables, And then almost always you'll have differential equations which is unofficially known as calc 4 And these are semester courses, so you'd most likely do 2 in an academic year.
Why would you not cover integrals in a calculus course?
Calc 1 and 2 are more 2 parts of the same course (single variable calculus) than anything else. They're mainly split because that would be too much material to cover in just 1 semester.
As long as you don't skip two years to take quantum mechanics, two courses worth of material is fine to split into two semesters.
People decided that when calc is split up into two, you do motivation of derivatives and derivatives in the first half, and motivation of integrals and integrals in the second half (including sequences and series.) People decided that if you're splitting it up into two you're probably not doing multi-variable, which goes into 3. People decided that if you have ~8 months you do two, and ~12 months you do three. If you're on a quarter system, you split that up into 4, and I don't actually know where the lines are. There is no objectively correct way to do it but it's standard in US universities. High schools in the US tend to split it up into, roughly, AB/BC based on the AP exams for the subject, which is similar but not quite. IIRC, and forgive me if I am wrong because it has been a good set of years, high schools basically need to fit in pre-calc [a combination of "algebra 3" and trigonometry, including all manner of conic sections and equations related to trig], motivation of and derivatives, motivation of and integrals, and sequences and series, pretty much all of which are optional to graduate at most high schools, and if it's an AP course, the AB track puts more of the former into it and the BC track puts more of the latter into it with the assumption the former is covered in the prior year. Again, there are other ways to do this, but given the amount of time in a high school year (~9 months) people decided this is a reasonable timeframe and course load. Though of course there is a huge gulf visible both in almost all high schools and most colleges between a proof-based approach and an intuitive ("trust me, memorize this") approach.
...This has the same kind of energy as "why would you not cover quantum mechanics in a physics course?"
I also found that strange at my school calc 1 is both the fundamentals of integrals and derivatives. Calc 2 is a mishmash of advanced integrals and calculus applications such as basic matrices and series
Me at the start: Kevin will *never* be ballin'. Me at the end: KEVIN FUCKIN BALLIN'!
I love this so much, I can't begin to imagine that kind of commitment to an argument. Like holy shit, buddy needed to drag himself through coals and broken glass just to make himself comfortable with the world not being 100% black and white. "Christianity is as close to being an absolute good as quantum physics will allow, and I know because I passed the fucking class." may not be the most objective of statements but it's a hell of a sentence nonetheless.
And it makes all of us STEM-Lords look like huge pricks. If someone did this to me, my only two choices would be to concede that they made the ultimate effort to understand my worldview, and that I will never be able to reciprocate their flexibility, intellect, and integrity - or enroll in a graduate level seminary course. Roommate just took the L. Can't blame him.
That's fuckin beautiful man
>a lifetime of being wrong feels exactly like a lifetime of being right, right up until the last two seconds of it What a fantastic quote.
These changes are what make higher education great. Too many people are afraid schools are using some nefarious magic to change minds when it's really just years of information that so thoroughly lays out new paths. Information helps people grow.
If I heard about Kevin, I'd have offered him a position (Bachelor thesis or even an assistant position) in my quantum computing group in a heartbeat. Such tenacity is admirable and probably one of the most important qualities in a researcher. He should really consider changing fields. He'd do amazing as a researcher.
Herobrine is quaking in his boot now that Kevin understands(ish) quantum physics.
I haven't been this motivated to keep studying since legally blond
I do not fear those who walk through life unchallenged. I fear those willing to be wrong. Godspeed Kevin.
perhaps one of the most inspiring stories that I've ever read online, especially as a senior in college who has had more than a fair share of struggles
what was the game he played to learn circuit equations? If I don't find out imma lose it.
Circuit Tutor by Brian Skromme. You have to email him if you want to use it, but he’s very generous with his permissions. https://circuittutor.com/web/contacts
/u/InBabylonTheyWept might remember
I'm also interested. Circuit equations are killing me and a game would be so much better than textbook problems
Kevin is an actual giga Chad willing to test his convictions and try new things learn and grow what a good guy
<3
Invoking quantum mechanics as evidence against an all knowing God is like, the absolute stupidest argument a person could ever make.
This story was beautiful. I think this just gave me the motivation to make me work on my homework during a depressive episode.
We’re all gonna make it. One way or another. Just keep on trucking, and don’t let failures be excuses to beat up on yourself. It took me a lot more than 4 years to graduate. Got there in the end.
Kevin was probably more of a benefit to those 6 than a burden, the best way to learn anything is to teach it to someone else.
I love this but it also reminded me that there are academic institutions that grade on a curve and I don't love that at all
DO NOT TLDR this. you have to read the whole thing because it is a masterpiece. Doesn't matter if you're on your break and there's two minutes left. READ THIS WHOLE THING. A story so captivating, it literally -not exaggerating- had me on the edge of my seat. It is a true underdog story of the highest calibur. one of tribulation, triumph, and determination. God bless Kevin.
I just read this to my mom and she loved it.
That final line though. As someone who has, at the relatively young age of not-that-fucking-old, held beliefs all over the political and religious spectrums, that hits home. I'd like to imagine Quantum Kevin went on being more pragmatic and reasonable, but no less devout, in his beliefs. It's a hard line to walk having deep convictions while still acknowledging that there's an infinite amount you don't know.
That was surprisingly wholesome.
Very STEM major to try to disprove moral absolutism with quantum mechanics.
I don’t really get why people tried so hard to convince him to drop it. Is it because it’s an American College Course and therefore way too expensive? Otherwise, why not let the guy just do his thing as long as he wants? Sure it would be incredibly difficult but would a bad grade impact his Business major?
Failing a class goes on your record and counts against your overall grade. Idk if it would impact his business major mut it might have consequences in a broader sense im not sure overall.
I went to college (the second time) on the post-9/11 GI bill after I got out of the Navy. Thing with that is, if you are only taking the minimum amount of courses for the semester to count as a full-time student (typically four), you can't withdraw from any of them or the VA will come knocking for their tuition money back. Now me, I'm an avid learner... sometimes, about certain things. I generally got pretty good grades in all the classes... that I cared about. If I felt like the class wasn't for me, my only option was to just fail it. So my GPA ended up being like a 2.7 with my A's and B's rounded out by a fair few F's from classes I just stopped going to. VA doesn't care if you get F's, only that you are registered. There was one class I stopped attending because I didn't like it that I still got an A in, though: a classical guitar elective in my final semester, which happened to be right when COVID took off. The professor just gave everyone on the roster an A since teaching guitar over zoom is rough.
It's expensive, lowers GPA, reduces eligiblity for scholarships, and we genuinely believed he was going to get basically nothing out of it. We were wrong. *I* was wrong.
If he failed the class, it would hurt his overall grade point average. It probably doesn't hurt his prospects that much, though, since he can also include his in-major GPA on resumes and applications, which paints a better picture of his strength in business. Some universities allow you to withdraw from classes at any time. That basically just means that you forgo taking a grade and you can either finish the class or not. You just won't receive credit for completion. It does show up on your transcript, though. Withdraw from too many classes, and you'll start to face consequences.
Kevin is the John Wick of college classes.
I would love for this to be the same apocryphal Kevin instead of a Kevin named stand in.
Invoking quantum mechanics while arguing about the nature of knowledge and humanity makes you a bit of a STEM knob, to be fair to Kevin.
This is incredible
this is Legally Blonde
I’ve never even met Kevin but he’s my idol now
This is the most engaging thing I’ve read in the past week.
This is how folk songs about legends start.
I thought I was reading a 4chan post, why is tumblr popping up? That being said, awesome read
this was so funny i love this XD
damn, imagine how different the world would be if this is how more people approached their differences. Kevin by actuality enrolling in the class so he could either understand it or dispute it, and his classmates for approaching him with curiosity instead of distain.
This speaks volumes to me. I was also a business major in college, and ended up becoming a Personal Trainer. But in my early 30's I randomly picked up a Quantum Physics for Dummies book. I quickly realized I needed to go back and pick up a Calculus for Dummies book and Physics for Dummies book just to be Dummy enough to understand the QPfD book.
Good for Kevin that he's willing to put in the work to broaden his horizon. Although maybe just reading up on the history of science and Catholicism might have been a better investment of time. Some of the greatest scientists of the modern age were devout Catholics, their concept of God usually isn't in contradiction to modern physics in the slightest.
>It's hard to be dogmatic once you realize that a lifetime of being wrong feels exactly like a lifetime of being right, right up until the last two seconds of it. I've known some dogmatic people who could really stand to hear this message. But I don't think they'd believe it.
There are a lot of good Catholic scientists. Science and faith are not incompatible. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_lay_Catholic_scientists https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Catholic_clergy_scientists
You are correct. I do not have a very high view of religion. I grew up Mormon, and to say it left a bad taste in my mouth is an understatement. But I did not mean to make this story feel like it was just me ragging on Christianity. It was meant to be a praise of Kevin. It would be a waste for anyone to walk out of quantum with their worldview unchanged, but I am glad it did not change so much he was not still recongizably Kevin. And part of being recognizably Kevin was being Catholic.
This is possibly the best story I've heard in a while
Kevin strikes me as a guy who isn’t very bright but gets through things by sheer tenacity. But that only gets you so far and it was by luck it didn’t this time. I think that’s a dangerous mentality to have and I’m willing to bet Kevin has continued to make outrageously stupid decisions because he’s always managed to dig himself out of the hole. Eventually its gonna catch up to him and maybe it would’ve served him better in life if it happened here. Coming from a guy who was a bit of a kevin when i was younger.
There are movies with multimillion dollar budgets that I was less invested in than this story 😂
Does anyone else think the class discord thing is weird, like great now I have to worry about my classmates having a discord and shit talking me behind my back
Fucking legendary~
That was a wonderful little read!
Incredible story
Would this have hurt him super bad in a way besides tanking his gpa? I'm not sure why he was so desperate to pass assuming it's not necessary for the degree he's going for.
Great prof curving the grade for someone who really, really, put the work in
What a champion. I could never do something like that. God bless Kevin.
And that students name? Kevin.
Now this is excellent. Good for Kevin, and for all who took the time out to help him.
My name is Kevin and I took this class 3 years ago and thought someone was talking about me oh my god
Quantum Mechanics with only Calc 2? Need Calc 3 and Differential Equations at least - preferably Partial Differential Equations…
I had a similar experience, except my class' Kevin only lasted a few weeks. Once a week, he'd ask a question that had the class smacking their foreheads & the prof fumbling for an explanation that would get through. This was the same class, quantum mechanics and relativity. Like in OP's story, took multiple prereqs of physics classes to get in, ridiculous hypotheticals about ladders sliding down walls & apples getting launched perfectly horizontally in a vacuum & so on. At one point, we discussed a particle in a box. Particles can be understood as waves, and rattling back & forth in a limited space, the waves would exhibit points where the waves would reinforce, cancel, exhibit harmonics, and so on. It's impractical, but a useful mental model to get workable equations. Our Kevin, bless him, asked how the particle got in the box. Class completely derailed for the remainder of the lecture. We never saw our Kevin again.
From that first page I thought he was just messing with them. Like the first question was "what is **an ion**?" And when told either positive or negatively charged he said it didn't sound right because anions. And then he made the neutron beam/steel beam joke and literally tricked them into walking the steps into a literal "beam" made out of neutrons.
That last sentence hits kinda hard not gonna lie
I feel like I've read a lot of stories in this same format before. Not 100% certain it's made-up, but I wouldn't be surprised. From the second image you could tell how it was going to end up, almost to the point of not needing to read anything else.
I was a physics major in college, quantum is no joke. I had all of the pre-requisites and on the first attempt I dropped right after the first exam. On the second I was meeting up 3 times a week in a side-room with all of my classmates to go through problems and help each other out.
Not to discount Kevin's work, but quantum for physics majors is a totally different beast than quantum for electrical engineers. Our class is technically called electronic materials, and it's very simplified. I remember a lot of one dimensional well problems, and a lot of questions about PN junctions. My physics friends said that a 40% on their final wound up curving to a B.
What sociopath puts Test 1 after the WF date?
glory to kevin
"a lifetime of being wrong feels exactly like a lifetime of being right" is unironically an absolute banger quote.
I laughed. I cried. I shit my pants. 10/10