Are you smarter than me?

[Michael-5]

TruckOSaurus said:

Michael-5 said:

bananaking21 said:

Michael-5 said:

I know, but Rocket Science is one of the easiest fields to get a PhD in that involve Physics. I never understood that figure of speech.

Most work is done in Physical Chemistry now, constructing nanotube, graphite chips for computers, exciting electrons into conduction bands for solar cells. We should say "Smart then a Phys Chemist."

I guess that doesn't sound as good......well I got my degree in Astrophysics, so that sounds pretty smug LOL

how about i just say smarter then sheldon cooper then?

I was going to explain why Sheldon Cooper isn't as smart as the show makes him out to be (a lot of the concepts he explains, and forumlas derived are undergraduate level, and basic in nature), but....

It's better then saying a rocket scientist.

I'd rather go with "smart then steven hawking." or Einstein. Einstein had a brain deformity, the gap between his left and right hemisphere were closer then they should have been, so he actually did think faster then most people.

My guess is that the expression was coined back when space travel was something new, when it captured the imagination of the average joe. Back then, someone who would be able to build a vessel that transported humans in space would be regarded as incredibly smart.

Yes, probably. Rocket Science was a new field of science which only came into existance in the 30's. Rockets were one of Germany's early power sources in WW2, and post WW2, with the Space Race, there was a lot of money being spent on aerospace engineering, and rocket science.

Plus back then, it was a bit more difficult. They didn't have complex computer programs which could correct trajectories, and designing new fuels which are efficient in propulsion, that's harder then it sounds. I mean, do you know how unstable solid fuel rockets are? Once they start burning, there is no shut off switch, and you have to control how it burns, you don't want an explosion.

However nowadays, rocket science is mostly based on energy conservation, which is a bigger field. Ion rockets source their energy from solar cells, E&M, and proposed manned spaceships are powered by nuclear rockets.