Physics vs Biology

Hah ! No this is not some controversial post as to my opinions on which is the better science (if there is such a thing as the "better science").

I recently showed my support for Jeff getting his Ph.D (well, it was a given that he'd get it, but it's just plain wrong to not be there for your friends on an important day like this!), and I had the best time ever in a defense.

Mind you, I understood maybe 3 words total in his defense but it was a great learning experience for me. Why?

Firstly he is (was?) a String theory guy and I just know what that theory wishes to accomplish..don't know any of the details at all.

In anycase, the only words I actually understood were :

1. His name.

2. "a"

3. "and"

4. "Rutgers University"

5. you get the drift...

But this isn't a post of the stuff that I didn't understand - see this for example (most of his slides were like this)

So as I was sitting there hearing words which may as well have been Greek (wait..some of them were, I remember a µ_{Ø !!)}

Anyway, here were my main thoughts and the reasons for the title of this post:

1. Physics is technical : Its all terms, letters, abbreviations. Biology presentations are normally technical.

2. Physics is understood in levels of education: A Master's student in the same field as Jeff wouldn't probably understand a word of what he was talking about. According to Haile and Jeff, physics is exceptionally hierarchical in terms of education i.e. depending on how specialized you are, you may or may not understand most of what's going on. As you gain more experience you'll understand more and more things. Now this seems rather obvious - more experience = more understanding. But that's not what I mean. For e.g. in Biology, the basic principles of life, the way a cell works and is organized are essentially conserved. You could be a molecular biologist, a virologist, an epidemiologist, a microbiologist and you would still be working on the same principles, the same base information, the same background. Sure, the details of various subjects would be different and maybe unknown to the other specialist but the crux of the information remains the same. So if I were to attend another biologist's presentation (not from my field) I will still be able to take away a lot from the talk in terms of what was new, what was done, how it mattered. I don't feel it's the same in Physics and this is unfortunate. A handful of people understand and can contribute in a particular field in physics but this doesn't apply to biology. Since the background is the same; many can understand and perhaps be easily made to understand and this allows for advances in the subject by leaps and bounds!!

3. Contribution : Perhaps this is the same as my previous point but one thing I noticed that questions during the talk were basically asked only by Jeff's professors while most others (whether in the same field of study or otherwise) remained silence. Now this could be because they didn't want to later be beat to death by Jeff or because the data were unquestionable or perhaps it could be that no one in the room understood enough to ask questions. If it's the last scenario then it is truly unfortunate.

4. I haven't been to many defenses, but they made Jeff do equations on the blackboard !!

5. "The universe was not overdosed" - yes indeed !

6. This was probably just specific to his defense, but there was no closed session. This is normally after the presentation and after the general audience has asked their questions. Then the committee kicks out everyone and holds the closed session in which they reserve 5 different kinds of hell for the candidate. In this case, they grill him on the spot, in front of everyone.

Finally, Physics is about the details. It is beautiful because it tries to describe the world around us in a universal manner. Biology tries to describe the world as we know it.

I am totally proud to know Jeff and he completely and utterly deserves his Ph.D. Congratulations Dr. Fortin !