For those of us in the post-Soviet space, the word fiziki carries a specific weight. In the 60s and 70s, being a fizik was the ticket out. It was pragmatic, heroic, and safe. You didn't go to university to "find yourself." You went to MIPT (the "Phystech") to build reactors, design lasers, or crack quantum field theory.
I was reading Landau’s Course of Theoretical Physics the other day (humble brag, I know), and it struck me: The most beautiful solutions aren’t the ones that add the most details. They are the ones that strip reality down to its essence . fiziki
Are the best fiziki actually failed liriki ? For those of us in the post-Soviet space,
Curious_Mind_42 Forum: The Observatory (General Science Discussion) Date: Just now You didn't go to university to "find yourself
Maybe "Fiziki" aren't the opposite of humanists. Maybe we are just humanists who are too stubborn to admit that we are in love with the grammar of the universe rather than the vocabulary of the soul.
We tend to separate the world into two camps: the (lyricists, humanists) and the Fiziki (physicists, hard science people). But lately, I’ve been wondering if that division is a lie we tell ourselves to feel safe.
Think about Feynman (drawing, bongo drums). Think about Kapitsa (his letters home are pure literature). The act of doing physics is not mechanical. To propose a new law of nature requires imagination —the same imagination Pushkin used to write Eugene Onegin .