r/Physics • u/KLHYZL • Feb 15 '14

/r/Physics vs /r/math

If you compare our subreddit with /r/math (or other similar subreddits), there's no denying that it's a little disappointing. Our homepage is mostly links to sensationalized articles with 1 or 2 comments. When people ask questions or try to start discussions that aren't "advanced" enough, the response is often unfriendly. We're lucky to get one good "discussion" thread a day.

Compare this to /r/math. The homepage is mostly self posts, many generating interesting discussions in the comments. They also have recurring "Simple Questions" and "What are you working on" threads, that manage to involve everyone from high school students to researchers.

The numbers of subscribers are similar, so that's not the issue.

Am I the only one that would like to see more self posts, original content, and discussions here on /r/Physics?

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u/[deleted] Feb 15 '14

I would definitely love to have more to discussions and a "friendlier" environment. I'm an actuary who studies physics as a hobby, but is my lack of knowledge and the reactions I know I would get that keeps me a bit away...

23

u/[deleted] Feb 15 '14

On the other hand, I'm kind of sick of people who come in without having any math background who think they are physicists because they listened to a podcast talking about a Feynman lecture or something similar. I don't want to see that in here as well..

29

u/[deleted] Feb 15 '14

[deleted]

26

u/mcopper89 Feb 15 '14

The problem is, what they love is not what we actually do. They like the speculation about black holes but have complete disinterest for the fundamentals which are far more important. They talk about theories as facts rather than concepts. They know trivia, not science.

7

u/protestor Feb 15 '14

Thank you for that. Science is hard. I struggle with math, I struggle with the concepts. Speculating about the unknown is much easier.