I love doing the absolute simplest sanity checks when doing physics. If what you're doing doesn't pass those checks, it's wrong. Sometimes doing these checks leads to some deep intuition which you didn't have before. #TheoreticalPhysics #Science
@luke_phys interesting! As a computer scientist, I do sanity checks constantly. Curious about an example of how you do this in theoretical physics.
@kristinmbranson The easiest sanity check is to simplify the physical problem into something almost trivial. This is especially useful when you are developing a new theoretical tool etc. if it doesn’t bring expected results on a well-known physical problem.. you have something strange.
@kristinmbranson @luke_phys
Same here! In fact, when I start tackling a new problem, I always start by building up my intuition of the problem space first, before diving into the literature to fill in the gaps. I find it helps me make progress and iterate much faster by reasoning from first principles where possible. (Though, I do a primary check first to make sure I'm not working on a solved problem 😂)
However, teaching students how to start doing sanity checks is...quite difficult, IMO. The one student I was able to get through to showed a huge performance boost in her exam scores and speed, but n=1 "studies" aren't worth much, lol.