> Isn't it like this with any serious subject? You need to have read quite a few books to get it?
No, I'd say physics/math is uniquely hard in this regard.
A lot of stuff in the humanities, you can still get the gist of a paper even if you're not precisely familiar with the field, authors, etc. Then read a couple of textbooks, a handful of survey articles, all of which is a few days' reading, and you'll understand nearly of all it.
But physics? A well-educated layperson can read a paper and not have the slightest idea what any of it means, no clue whatsoever. And a few days' reading isn't going to help much -- it's quite likely to need a couple years' of study at a minimum to understand the context of the paper.
Remember, math/physics isn't just its own subject, it's its own language. For most people, the average math/physics paper might as well be written in Chinese. While a history, sociology, or political science paper is incredibly more accessible.
On second thought this is a good point. I think of it as mathy stuff being very deep, while humanities stuff is very broad. So you can stick your feet in the math end of the pond and not reach the bottom, but wherever you stick your feet in in humanities, you'll get it, but you can still wade a long way to places you haven't been.
No, I'd say physics/math is uniquely hard in this regard.
A lot of stuff in the humanities, you can still get the gist of a paper even if you're not precisely familiar with the field, authors, etc. Then read a couple of textbooks, a handful of survey articles, all of which is a few days' reading, and you'll understand nearly of all it.
But physics? A well-educated layperson can read a paper and not have the slightest idea what any of it means, no clue whatsoever. And a few days' reading isn't going to help much -- it's quite likely to need a couple years' of study at a minimum to understand the context of the paper.
Remember, math/physics isn't just its own subject, it's its own language. For most people, the average math/physics paper might as well be written in Chinese. While a history, sociology, or political science paper is incredibly more accessible.