User:DonQuixote

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Tæ W. Son, M.S.
손 태원 (Sohn Téwon)

Studied physics at the University of Texas at Dallas.
Studied Relativity under Wolfgang Rindler.

Studied Wu Tai Chi Chuan under Johnny Qwong Ming Lee.

Proponent of the philosophy of "Critical Thinking and Peer Review".

Has a personal library of 1000+ books ranging from Literature to Computer Science.

The Philosophy of Physics (a work in progress using HTML5)

Quotes[edit]

  • "Be open-minded but not gullible. Be skeptical but not closed-minded."
  • "Knowing things doesn't make you smart, it just makes you a nerd. Being capable of honestly saying 'I don't know everything and I can be wrong' is what makes you smart."
  • "There's no such thing as 'losing an argument'; there's only 'learning something new'."
  • "'The ends never justify the means' is only half a saying. You learn the rest in Mathematics and Physics, that each step in itself must be justified."
  • "If you need to threaten, harm or kill people to get your way, maybe your way isn't that great."
  • "A 'good idea' doesn't need to be forced on people or shielded from outside influences."
  • "As far as I can tell, there are only two absolute truths: 'I think therefore I am' and Mathematics. The first is because of personal experience and the second is because mathematics transcends the physical world of the senses into the abstract world of the mind. Of course this does mean that everything around me may just be a figment of my imagination."
  • "Claiming the existence of, say, the Christian God is like claiming that there's alien life in the system of Betelgeuse. Similarly, claiming that a god-like being cannot exist is like claiming that no alien life can exist in the universe. I'll believe you when you prove it."
  • "Atheists are like people who don't believe in aliens because Star Trek is absurd, while at the same time forgetting that 'alien' also means 'foreigner'."
  • "The wardrobe from The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, the phone booth from Superman and the police box from Doctor Who all serve the same function. They're mundane, every-day objects that transport the audience into the world of the fantastic."
  • "Travelling back in time and trying to kill your grandfather is like trying to add one and one to get four (or trying to fly by flapping your arms)--enticing on paper but if you try to implement it you'll eventually run into the brick wall of mathematics."
  • "The core of Relativity is purely mathematical and therefore cannot be disproven. However, the application of Relativity is still debatable--especially if you introduce things like matter and energy, which no one fully understands."
  • "Most proponents of telepathy think that coaxing a person to receive or broadcast telepathic thoughts is like trying to get an unplugged radio to receive or broadcast radio signals. This has a possibility of being true. However, given the statistics of random association (i.e. random uneducated guessing), it is more probable that it's like trying to get a book to receive or broadcast."
  • "If you strip away all the mysticism from Tai-Chi (and Kung Fu), what you'll find is applied physics as it pertains to human motion. A physicist has a hard time not imagining free body diagrams."
  • "The problem with chemists trying to achieve cold fusion in test tubes is exactly like the alchemists' attempts to transmute base metals into gold--nuclear fusion is not a chemical process."