Prerna’s Reviews > Lost in Math: How Beauty Leads Physics Astray > Status Update

“The difficulty, of course, is that you don’t have to settle these issues,” Weinberg continues. “I’ve had a whole career without knowing what quantum mechanics is. I tell this story in one of the books that my colleague Philip Candelas was referring to a graduate student whose career essentially disintegrated, and I asked what went wrong and he said, ‘He tried to understand quantum mechanics.’ He could have had a perfectly good career without it. But getting into the fundamentals of quantum mechanics is a losing game.”
(If you quote this, you can be the first person to quote someone quoting someone quoting himself quoting someone.)

I won't quote this, so as not to be the first person to quote someone quoting someone quoting himself quoting someone. Maybe I'II change my mind if someone quotes me, so I can quote indefinitely, depending on the number of those quoting me. You have priority.

But you haven't actually quoted it, so this infinite series of quoting hasn't even started. Yet. Theodore, you're such a party pooper.

You know the saying - ladies first.

Very fitting for a book with "Lost" in the title... Although perhaps more appropriate for a book on set theory? LOL

I took my time to get the who-quoted-whom. It was fun. :D

Goatboy wrote: "Very fitting for a book with "Lost" in the title... Although perhaps more appropriate for a book on set theory? LOL"

Not sure about just set theory, but as much as I love it, 'lost' would be befitting for any book on math. Sadly, we don't seem to have as many pop-math books. I have difficulty thinking of math as existing on its own in an abstract space, although I do this all the time with physics, especially with quantum mechanics. Aaaaaaa, perhaps that's why I don't get Tegmark.

Anyway, 'Lost' is definitely apt for this book, because I am currently in the sixth chapter and the author seems so frustrated and LOST! In a good way.

RoshReviews wrote: "I took my time to get the who-quoted-whom. It was fun. :D"

To be honest, I didn't even completely absorb the who-quoted-whom bit because my brain saw the 'you can be the first person...' and went 'YES!'