14 comments
When I see "explanation of the Standard Model", my mind immediately goes to my favorite YT video, which is Dr Tong's talk at the Royal Institution. I started watching this video and it took me a second to recognize the voice, it's him as well!
If you want a long version: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zNVQfWC_evg
“Four hundred years ago, Galileo started piecing together the basic principles …” oh no https://aeon.co/ideas/galileo-s-reputation-is-more-hyperbole...
Indeed -- for a more detailed, incisive, and entertaining take, check out Season 1 of the "Opinionated History of Mathematics" podcast by Viktor Blåsjö https://intellectualmathematics.com/blog/the-case-against-ga...
I confess I was disappointed in the video. As someone who decades ago read Stephen Hawking's book A Brief History of Time, it doesn't substantially add to my (lame!) understanding of the Standard Model. It names the 17 entities in the model, classifies them (fermions vs bosons), makes the distinction between matter particles and force particles, chats about each of the four forces, and drops in a number of other factoids. All well and good, and if you had no previous exposure to the standard model, you'd learn a lot. But the contrast to videos in other realms I explore (3Blue1Brown in mathematics, Guitar instructional videos by folks who include tab + video of actual fingers + sound, and woodworking videos where tricky constructions are shown from many angles) casts this Standard Model video in a poor light. The visuals just recapitulate the words that are being spoken. Sigh. Maybe there's nothing else to show, but, as I led with, I ended up disappointed....
> All well and good, and if you had no previous exposure to the standard model, you'd learn a lot.
That is exactly what this video is about. If you want something to be more in-depth, this video is not going to help you. But that's okay.
Okay, but my main complaint is that the medium (video) feels very under-utilized.
Standard Model: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_Model
Mathematical formulation of the Standard Model: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mathematical_formulation_of_th...
Physics beyond the Standard Model: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Physics_beyond_the_Standard_Mo...
Story of the LaTeX representation of the standard model, from a comment re: "The deconstructed Standard Model equation" (2016): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41753471#41772385
Can manim work with sympy expressions?
A standard model demo video could vary each (or a few) highlighted variables and visualize the [geometric,] impact/sensitivity of each
Or Lean mathlib; what can GA methods like mutation and selection do with the Standard Model in Lean?
I’m so fed up with “icons and cartoons” particle physics. It’s a waste of everyone’s time.
It’s like trying to teach someone AI/ML and only ever showing them vendor logos as illustrations and never the code or even pictorial representations of the models.
It’s absurd, yet 99% of such presentations for physics look like this — unnecessarily — because it is possible to show a rendering of fields, their various properties changing over time and space, etc…
You can’t learn anything from a thousand such videos that already exist, so what’s the point of a thousand and one? It adds nothing.
PS: To gauge if the content is meaningful or valueless, just ask yourself if anything would change about its educational value if you arbitrarily but consistently replaced the icons and/or their labels. If you’re still exactly as mystified as before, then their information content was zero. “The three quarks, rock, paper, and scissors have a three-way symmetry, blah blah blah”. Congratulations, you now know the quantum theory of roshambo!
its easy to critique, but have you produced a better educational content ?
Well maybe meant for a different audience? You don't have to watch it if it doesn't appeal to you.
What educational materials would you recommend for someone dabbling?
Sure, here’s an example that isn’t just “scribbles”: https://youtu.be/Sj_GSBaUE1o?si=TfqBYfpCYcy-OsL4
As clearly stated in the video, you need to have prerequisite knowledge of quantum physics and special relativity. The quanta video can be understood by someone out of high school. Different audiences. Different goals. Just because something is all charts and animations, doesn't mean that it's bad.