School Daze

Gee this sounds familiar.  Dave Barry (a guy I don't usually read, but bear with me) posted an amusing rant about those crazy ideas his son is receiving at college:

And now he's calling me from college and telling me that the universe is NOTHING like my concept of it. The stuff he talks about is pretty complex, but I will try to summarize the main points, as I understand them:

Point One: Whatever you think about anything is wrong.

Point Two: There is no such thing as Point One. You THINK there is a Point One, but that just shows what a physics moron you are.

Point Three: If there are two identical twins, and one of them gets on a spacecraft going at nearly the speed of light, then one of them will grow old much faster than the other one, and that one will retire to Miami.

Point Three: There are an infinite number of possible Point Threes, and they are all equally true, and you will never understand ANY of them.

Welcome to the world year, Dave.  But I'm a little mystified.  Barry writes:

I blame college. That's where Rob is getting these ideas, which have to do with the Theory of Relativity and something called "quantum physics." Rob and his roommate, Hal, stay up all night figuring out the universe, and when they have it nailed down Rob calls me up, all excited, and starts talking about time travel, the Fifth Dimension, the Big Bang, etc.

But where does one learn this kind of thing?  Relativity I can believe, but is the 5th dimension sneaking into freshman physics by now?  Up, up, and away indeed.

Comments

[Abhimitra]

Isn't this GOOD? I thought the whole point of Quantum diaries was to get people excited about physics. Quantum physics is obviously an interesting topic and lot of people I know are really crazy about it, and spend nights trying to figure out everything from relativity to the unicity point. I find it fun myself, and being a high school student, usually encourage students in secondary school to find out more an more about these topics.

[Peter]

Absolutely! I was just expressing amazement that some of these ideas, which were seen as fairly obscure only a few years ago, are being taught in introductory courses.

[m.visaya]

us getting the beat was of prime importance to these most basic human needs. one alfred would have appreciated this; for it was his musing as i remember... (DSR-523)