A marvelous Saturday, much of it spent studying physics, basically building up one while side of a 11 x 17 card stock while sweltering on the humid porch. I guess I could turn on the fan at some point and be less miserable. Notes came from ChatGPT, and a couple quantum field theory books I am using. ChatGPT is amazingly helpful because I can stop it and have it explain anything I don't understand, drilling down until I find the bedrock of understanding.
Today my 11 x 17 portfolio arrived by delivery that I ordered online. I'ts cheap and plastic but it will do the job for now. I can carry these card stock cards into work or wherever I go without holding them awkwardly and spilling coffee on them (which is not the worst thing to happen, but it's nice to keep things in proper order).
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| A good start to fill one-side of an 11 x 17 card with some notes. I will keep going this way using as many cards as I need. Then when I have as many as I care to have, I can look at them and see if I can make them more concise, maybe fitting them on few cards, maybe even just a single card front and back. This way of learning physics is going to work for me, I see. This is not just learning the subject of quantum field theory after thirty five years of trying. This is figuring a whole new way of learning any advanced topic. This last idea---this is what feels like a real breakthrough. Whenever I reach such a moment as this, I get get carried back to similar aha moments, including one I had while doing my optics homework on the floor of the house of a good friend of mine in Salem in the spring of 1988, on a lazy Saturday like this. It was at that moment that for the first time I thought I could be a physicist. Today reminded me of that, in a very good way. |
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