Beyond The Blackboard: Fill & Download for Free

Have you watched Ant Man and the Wasp ?Minor spoiler alert…just so you know.Recognize this scene ?Yes…that’s the “quantum realm”.I appreciated the scene, it’s beautiful to see, and I really admire those who write stories and use advanced scientific theories and technologies as part of the plot.It kind of gives science a life outside of research groups and laboratories, and I mean…it does look and sound cool when pure fiction almost seems like something that could be real.Though…it’s total fiction. I mean…on par with Star Wars, just with more smart modern physics jargon.But to answer your question. This is what kind of went through my mind sometimes during the movie :Are those quantum fields ?! Coooool ! But what field is represented here? In what theory ? Yukawa? [math]\lambda\phi^4[/math] ? Is this still classical “coordinate space” ? Is this an EM field ?How the hell are photons scattered and detected ? This scene should actually be…pure darkness. Dull.“Beyond the quantum vacuum”. Wtf does that even mean…?Oh no please…telepathy and entanglement, again ???Is the ghost like … in a macroscopic superposition of alive and dead ? But she interacts so much I would expect some rapid decoherence. She’s an interesting being, and would show macroscopic realism is not a thing.Who cares about the “quantum tunnel”. If I were the physicist, I’d totally test some nice Leggett-Garg correlations on her !Did you recognize the density matrices on the blackboard in the scene where they go see the professor played by Laurence Fishburne?So coooool ! I’d be thrilled to be invited to write down some quantum calculations on a board that will be seen by millions of people. Do they actually get paid for that ?If I weren’t into physics, maybe it wouldn’t have grinded my gears each time they said “quantum”. But hey…it was still cool.So anyway. I do appreciate it when “science takes the spotlight” for a while, when being a “nerd” actually leads you somewhere, instead of just having huge arms, a deep voice, big guns and a car with a flaming hood.But yeah…please don’t forget all of this is fiction. I mean, not even remotely plausible.Especially things that are less obviously fictitious, such as telepathy and entanglement of minds or souls or whatever many crackpots say are possible thanks to the mysterious “quantum realm”, are just complete poetry.There is no harm in appreciating fictional creations, they are beautiful.But don’t take what’s beautiful for what’s real.

You can bottle fame. Anyone with Snapes talent can achieve fame beyond even Lockhart.You can brew glory. Liquid Luck is one of the most difficult potions. And if done properly can help you achieve glory beyond your wildest dreams.You can put a stopper on death. You would be able to brew a potion so potent and strong that it would be able to fight any poison and even prevent a curse that is meant to kill painfully from taking full effect for a year.Snape was more than capable of doing all of these things. He rewrote a potions text book in his 6th year. He taught his students in a way that when Slughorn resumed his position even students who were above Average under Snape were doing poorly. Only Harry came close to brewing the Draft of Living Death. And that was because he was being taught by Snape. Now the argument could be made but he was teaching directly from the textbook. But every time he taught a class he always told them that the instructions are on the blackboard. I don’t recall a single time in Snapes class where it was described that the students were learning from the textbook. And even a stingy by the book person such as from Hermione would assume that any instructions placed on the blackboard by teacher would be directly out of the textbook and so wouldn't check to verify.With all this Snape upon graduation at the age of 18 could’ve easily been published and more likely than not replace the current required potion textbook. So it’s not that Snape couldn’t achieve fame and glory, he easily could have. It’s that he didn’t desire fame and glory. and more importantly because he lives his life in regret over his past mistakes and poor choices. And he blames himself for the death of the only person he cared about. He most likely felt that he does not deserve fame and glory. So everything that Snape said was in fact true and he proved himself more than capable of doing all three. He just didn’t want to do it for himself. He had more important work to do.

During my senior year of high school, I took AP (advanced placement) Calculus.My teacher was a man named Dr. John Smith (I’m not protecting identities, that was actually his name), and he had what might be the most brilliant mathematical mind with which I have ever had the privilege to interact. He was the epitome of English in every respect. He had trained RAF pilots in Bahrain. He was a pianist of the highest order.And he could swim through the sea of Mathematics like a fucking marlin.Math(s) was a language in which he was utterly fluent. He loved being able to do complex calculations in his head faster than we could type them into our calculators, and he would always write his answers out to decimal places that went beyond the capacity of our calculator screens to display.He was a wonder to behold at the blackboard.With only one exception, we all used the TI-83, which at the time was (and may still be) the standard calculator for high school calculus classes.But there was this one kid, who I’ll call Bobby (now I am protecting identities). Bobby had the more expensive TI-84 Plus. It had just come out and his dad had bought it for him.He wouldn’t shut the fuck up about that calculator. At least once per class, he would find a way to mention that he was using a more advanced calculator than the rest of us. He once made a remark to me about how I shouldn’t complain that my parents didn’t put in the extra money for a TI-84 Plus. He was such a fucking suck-up.Now maybe there is someone out there who is intimately familiar with the functional difference between the TI-83 and the TI-84 Plus and who can help me be more accurate and specific, but the way I remember it is that the TI-84 Plus allowed the user to plug in complex calculus problems whole and would work through steps on its own, while the rest of us needed to break problems down to less complex calculations to get the answer.However it works, the TI-84 Plus had a flaw: a certain type of calculation that it couldn’t work out on its own, and Dr. Smith knew it.Dr. Smith found Bobby obnoxious to the highest degree. He had grown up on slide rules and mathematical principles, and here was this fucker whose daddy bought him a fancy calculator and who thought he was a genius. On top of that, he was a sycophant, which Dr. Smith could not tolerate in the least. Nonetheless, it was difficult to do anything about it because his calculator was indeed faster than the rest of ours, so he was always the first hand up.One day, Dr. Smith spent an entire class on problems that couldn’t be solved on a TI-84 Plus without breaking them down.That was no problem for the rest of the class. We’d had to learn the principles of differentiation and integration from the ground up since the start of the year. Bobby had not. He’d just typed everything into his calculator.For a whole day, everyone but Bobby had their hand raised to answer every question, and for a whole day Dr. Smith called on Bobby to answer every single one. He’d sit there looking at the error message on his screen, laughing nervously and trying to act legitimately confused while every other student in the class had his hand raised.When the class was drawing to a close, Dr. Smith wrote up one final problem and said he only wanted Bobby to answer and everyone else should keep their hands down.The whole class sat silently while Bobby nervously laughed at another error message.In his calmest and most dignified English accent, Dr. Smith said:“Bobby, graphing calculators are nothing next to the human mind. If you wish to be a mathematician, you will have to learn the principles of mathematics. Class dismissed.”I don’t know if I’ve ever respected a math teacher like I did that day.It was awesome.