Why Did You Join SFN?

[For Prose]

Hey everyone,

 

As I was reading through threads on the site tonight, I found myself asking why I am a member of this fantastic community. What brought me here, and why spend valuable time that could be spent elsewhere doing other things.

 

My answer is this; I don't get the stimulation that I desire from my peers. Whether that be philosophy, biology, mathematics, or just about anything related to the sciences. It is very easy to find someone to talk to about trivial matters, or at least what I consider trivial, such as movies, eating preferences, yada yada yada, but not science. So, first off, interaction.

 

Additionally, I find the learning and teaching others actually brings me a sense of contentment.

 

What brought you here and keeps you involved?

[swansont]

I used to teach and I enjoyed it. After grad school I couldn't find a teaching position (lots of competition) and went into non-academic research. Online discussion was a way of keeping that teaching interaction going. I was active in several boards over the years, but each one succumbed to one problem or another (e.g. poor moderation, lack of support) but I found SFN and it was a good fit for me, so I stuck around.

[Nicholas Kang]

Science brought me here. I am young. I don`t very agree with my current knowledge in school. They teach classical physics that doesn`t make sense when things approach the speed of light or in microscopic scale. I used to argue with my teachers. So, I am here to expand my knowledge. I consider it to be fortunate to learn modern physics from members here, to name a few, they are Dr. Andrew (ajb), Dr. Tom Swanson(swansont), Studiot, Strange and Mordred. They are experts in their own science disciplines but they provide very useful information about astronomy and physics.

 

Enthusiasm keeps me involved. The passion to learn science has strucked my mind and etched deeply in it. I feel happy to gain and attain knowledge whenever I flip through science articles, magazines or reading materials. I never thought a 15-year-old can master relativity until I read Egdall`s Einstein`s Relatively Simple. I never thought of how a brand new symmetry in particle physics can solve the problem of uniting QM with EM science until I studied Stephen Hawking`s The Universe In a Nutshell (that was an old book published in 2001, but I only get to read it in high school now).

 

Here are some contribution from some members. Dr. Andrew taught me some principles of physics and shared quite a number of PDF files in arvix.org with me. Strange taught me some basic facts of science starting from classical physics to modern astrophysics. He helped cementing my fundamental knoledge of science and change some basic science that I thought correct since I was in primary school. Studiot, a student from top university in the UK(I have forgetten whether it is cambridge or oxford) helped answering some questions of mine in physics. He is keen to use diagrams when explaining. They are comprehensive and make sense much quicker compared to words, so as Strange. Their diagrams are equally important and infomative as those you might have seen in science books, except that they are not in digital form.

 

Dr. Tom Swanson, a moderator in this forum, has been doing his job well all the time. He never forgets to contribute some of his science knowledge apart from banning "useless" members and locking "useless" threads or spliting threads to avoid hijacking. He is quite friendly. Ophiolite is a nominee for the most humorous member in this forum. He answers your question in a very humorous way, yet they are compelling. He is an expert in geology and petroleum-related industry, I supposed.

 

Enjoy!

[For Prose]

Thank you for sharing Nicholas and I couldn't agree with you more on how helpful studiot is, especially with his diagrams.

[Moontanman]

I have an intense desire to learn but I am not suited for normal academics, this is my third science forum, I came here to learn how to learn...

[Nicholas Kang]

What are your 2 previous science forums?

[Moontanman]

What are your 2 previous science forums?

Hypography was the last, I honestly do not remember the name of the one before that, poor to non existent moderation has all but taken Hypography down, Hypography was a great forum and I did well there until the moderators lost interest. The first one was my fault for simply not being able to ask the right questions. There are others but I didn't do much with them. There is another good one I am currently a member of but I don't spend as much time there as I should but it is growing and the moderation is pretty good.

[elfmotat]

I'm an engineering student, not a physicist, so the internet is pretty much the only place I can talk to other people about physics. I'm decently active on another site as well, but it's mostly for technical questions while this site is a lot more laid back.

[ajb]

I joined because of a mixture of boredom and loneliness; I wanted to seek out others that are interested in science. I found my way here and never really left.

[Unity+]

There was no where else where I could really talk about Mathematics. So, I found this place.

[Klaynos]

Been involved in forums for a long time and I was thinking a physics forum might be fun when I started my degree. Mentioned this to Dave who I knew from another place and he pointed me here. A degree and PhD later I'm still here. Don't get as much time to write posts as I'd like but I still read a lot.

 

I find the forum is a good balance of views, backgrounds and knowledge which makes it work pretty well.

[timo]

I did a lot of programming in my free time in a time and hang around a programming forum a lot. Turned out I almost exclusively explained solutions or possible solutions to physics and math problems there. So one day when someone replied to such a question with "such a question is better asked at sfn", I had a look at this forum and ended up posting here more than on the programming forum - and eventually got stuck here. I am probably much less active than the average "resident" here, since my activity subsequently declined over the years. I'd still count myself as a "resident".

 

The reasons I still sneak around here are:

 

1) seeing "familiar faces" (even though I neither see the faces nor am personally familiar with the people), that is people whose posts I have been reading for many years now (For example Klaynos, whom I know from sfn since he was an "academic child" ).

 

2) In my early times what kept me here was the occasional interesting question that I felt challenge to understand myself and put it into a format that others could understand. I remember having spent a 5-hour train ride plus some hours at work to write an article about gravitational time dilatation for the sfn wiki from which I myself learned a lot about the effect. Particularly about the implicit assumptions and conditions that you read over when reading about it and only start to worry about once you go down as deep as trying to write up a solid explanation for others. I did, however, move on to the German Wikipedia with time-consuming high-quality texts, because the impact of a good article there is much higher than that of a good post here. So for the last, ... oh my god ... eight years or so being around sfn has been a bit more intellectually casual for me, which brings me to ...

 

3) the intellectual level which is not so high that reading posts turns into actual work, in which case I'd rather spend the time doing something with more impact than posting on a forum. But which is way above e.g. the average comments below newspaper articles (which is abysmal, but you still need to prevent your forum going down there). This mixes very well with the mix of different sciences/fields here. Something that is casual knowledge for a biologist, a computer science veteran or an engineer can still be interesting news to me. Related to this I also do like the level of moderation here a lot, which to a large degree sets this environment. And if I finally got my request for the option of setting complete sub-forum on ignore fulfilled, that would be awesome

Edited October 25, 2014 by timo

[For Prose]

I am really enjoying the responses so far.

 

I would like to add something that came to mind as I was falling asleep. SFN also serves as a type of journal for me. I have always wanted to keep a journal but found that I am not very good at it due to the large part of keeping up with it. I can look back at things I have said as I progress through my education and determine where I am at and where I have come from.

[michel123456]

Because the previous forum suddenly shut down. About 2 years of debates gone with the wind.

[Phi for All]

My education wasn't science-focused, and I didn't realize how much that affected my critical thinking skills until I was in my forties. I joined PhysicsForums, which at that time had a relationship with Michio Kaku, and I'd read some of his work so it seemed a logical choice. I learned about arguments and logical fallacies, and got hooked pretty quickly.

But PF was huge, even back then, and it was easy to get lost in the crowd. I joined SFN and found the smaller community more refreshing and engaging. I liked that the site owner was a pre-med student whose studies we all followed. Sayonara³ showed us all how to dissect a creationist argument with razor precision and wit, without fallacy or overt ridicule (not sure what he's up to now, but I am sure the British government would have me removed for even guessing). And there was this awesome physicist from the US Naval Observatory who worked with frikkin' atomic clocks, yet made the time and had the patience to discuss science with us noobs.

 

And I discovered through SFN what the power of the web really was, not just immense amounts of knowledge, but bringing me in touch with real-world perspectives from outside the US. Suddenly, I was seeing science and the world through people from all around the world, something I think is sadly lacking in most American's lives.

 

Also, you got a bag of Cheese Nips for joining back then, so I had that going for me. Which was nice.

[For Prose]

I am finding the quality of all the posts so far to greatly exceed my expectations.

 

And I discovered through SFN what the power of the web really was, not just immense amounts of knowledge, but bringing me in touch with real-world perspectives from outside the US. Suddenly, I was seeing science and the world through people from all around the world, something I think is sadly lacking in most American's lives.

 

 

Very interesting PfA. While it has crossed my mind, I haven't thought about it like this.

[michel123456]

My education wasn't science-focused, and I didn't realize how much that affected my critical thinking skills until I was in my forties. I joined ...

What a coincidence!

At the age of 40, so did I.

One beautiful summer night, staring at the full moon, I suddenly realized that I didn't know why that huge earth-like mass was hovering over my head. I thought then that I had no good knowledge of the world I am living in and decided to open books and learn about it.

I suspect it was an existential quest not to die completely ignorant.

I began opening encyclopedias, then vulgarizated science books, then some old (from the 80's) physics cursus.

The internet came as a wonderful help and I learned a lot of things.

 

Also because I was 40, I decided that I was not dumb.

I say that because when I was a teenager I really didn't know if I was dumb, smart, or simply average.

So. with the secure conviction that I am not completely dumb, it was impossible to swallow the scientific model as presented.

IOW I was not anymore a spunge able to absorb everything, I was, and still am, like a solid rock that absorbs new knowledge with hard resistance. I have a lot (a lot) of objections that I want to discuss.

Since nobody in my close environment was able, I tried a science forum, believing that science forums were the place I could find scientists.

It took me not so ong to realize that science forums were place where you find really few scientists and a lot of teenagers.

Anyway, now I am an addict.

[iNow]

I joined to spread the healing gospel of Jesus to this group of heathens, to debunk the myths of evolution, climate change, and relativity, and to evangelize the expanding earth hypothesis in favor of plate tectonics, argue against the fascist scourge of child vaccination, and share my ideas about how magnets can be used to achieve perpetual motion!

 

Kidding aside, I like hanging out with people smarter than myself and this site offers me ample opportunity to do exactly that. I'm a better, more informed, and more articulate man as a result.

[mississippichem]

But PF was huge, even back then, and it was easy to get lost in the crowd. I joined SFN and found the smaller community more refreshing and engaging.

 

I feel like SFN is large enough to offer a wide diversity of knowledge and opinion yet small enough for one to get to know the personalities of the regular posters. I like that the community is close-knit enough to have several running gags like staff cheese nips and organic chemistry innuendos.

 

It truly is the best of both worlds. There is enough expertise here that an amature or professional (from a different field of study) really does stand to grow their knowledge base by spending time here yet there is still a strong sense of community.

 

I know I don't post often anymore (work, work, work) but I'm still reading guys. You see that spooky figure in the shadowy corner glaring at you and nodding when you make a good point? That's me.

Edited October 26, 2014 by mississippichem

[MigL]

Followed Dr. Rocket here from the Science Forum.

Have learned from, and gained respect for, a lot of people.

Even those I don't agree with.

 

Still having a good time. I thank you all.

Planning to stick around.

[StringJunky]

MigL, on 28 Oct 2014 - 03:54 AM, said:MigL, on 28 Oct 2014 - 03:54 AM, said:

Followed Dr. Rocket here from the Science Forum.

Have learned from, and gained respect for, a lot of people.

Even those I don't agree with.

 

Still having a good time. I thank you all.

Planning to stick around.

I just happened to look at some of his posts last night and thought to myself he is one of the clearest explainers I've ever seen anywhere.

 

I've been coming here virtually everyday since 2009 and developed a real liking for physics because of the enthusiasm, patience and generosity shown here by the qualified members and dedicated enthusiasts. I also find the eclectic demographic of the membership constantly refreshing.

 

 

Edited October 28, 2014 by StringJunky