So, let’s rewind to me, a thirty-something student diving back into uni, a bit like tossing myself into the deep end of a pool of physics equations. I’d picked physics as an elective, probably as a form of self-imposed academic boot camp, but I’d basically had to teach myself maths from scratch during COVID. Imagine me spending every day wrestling with symbols and concepts that felt like a foreign language, just to get a grip. And then I thought, hey, let’s throw in some early ChatGPT models, 3 and 3.5, and see if they can help me out.
Now, I definitely had this hope that the AI would just magically read my mind and solve all my physics woes. Spoiler: it didn’t. Instead, it was a bit like having a well-meaning but slightly scatterbrained tutor. It never quite nailed the maths, especially when I was trying to use it for intro physics problems. It was always close but never spot on, and that’s when I realised it was basically just predicting what number might come next instead of doing the boring old-fashioned maths. But hey, it was a great way to ask all those questions I was too embarrassed to ask an actual human.
These days, I’m not asking it to solve my physics problems directly. I'm more likely to get it to write a bit of code so I can peek under the hood and understand how the calculations are done. I’m still not a physics whiz, but I’ve got a whole lot more appreciation for the journey. Funny how that works, right?
Anyway, if you’re reading this and you’re thinking, “Geez, that sounds a bit familiar,” maybe it’s because this post was delivered to you from a decade in the future by someone who’s still figuring it out, but now with a bit more hindsight and a working steam wand.