I'm an experimental physicist who did an undergraduate before my PhD and had to fight tooth and nail for my grades and did all that petty nonsense like going to class and after school tutoring and such. I'm not a rockstar, but I'm not a joke either -- I would give myself a "B" rating -- I definitely don't struggle for fellowships, but I'm not Nobel material.
I know from the inside that _these_ actions are the most probable path to success. If some hot shot high school student reads his note, I can see them deciding that they are "brilliant mind" material and then start pursuing this course of action seriously. In my opinion that is a borderline surefire path to failure. College campus is _the_ place to learn physics: you learn physics from casual bar discussions about the fluid dynamics of beer, telling a pretty girl why stars twinkle and planets don't, explaining to stoners why cigarette smoke is blue off the cig and then grey when you exhale, pre-exam pizza binges, adding strobe settings to your dorm lights, and late night campus laser graffiti with your mates and professors. Not from lone wolfing down a textbook with a blackboard.
It's perfectly possible for him to convey his message without "ordinary", "childish", "noisy", "rudimentary", "tiny portions" etc. And if he's just putting together a guidebook for entertaining your interest in Physics, then that's cool. But saying this is the way to get a Nobel is ridiculous... hence my original comment about dripping sarcasm.
Also my original comment was just getting down voted (and someone asked for clarification) so I expounded.
You're right that Professor 't Hooft is being sarcastic but you've got the wrong target.
He's not aiming this at practicing physicists. He says early on that, if you want to be a physicist, you should enroll at a University. He says in the Questions section that you'll eventually need a degree.
This is aimed at people who can't or won't. The sarcasm is intended to appeal to the "well intended but totally useless" amateur physicists that regularly send him crackpot theories. It's a common refrain from such individuals that they are held back by the establishment.
What he's trying to convey is the amount of information that one needs to master to be taken seriously as a theoretical physicist. His intention is both to put off those that have read a popular science book and now know it all as well as encouraging those that are actually serious by giving them some structure to their learning.
I know from the inside that _these_ actions are the most probable path to success. If some hot shot high school student reads his note, I can see them deciding that they are "brilliant mind" material and then start pursuing this course of action seriously. In my opinion that is a borderline surefire path to failure. College campus is _the_ place to learn physics: you learn physics from casual bar discussions about the fluid dynamics of beer, telling a pretty girl why stars twinkle and planets don't, explaining to stoners why cigarette smoke is blue off the cig and then grey when you exhale, pre-exam pizza binges, adding strobe settings to your dorm lights, and late night campus laser graffiti with your mates and professors. Not from lone wolfing down a textbook with a blackboard.
It's perfectly possible for him to convey his message without "ordinary", "childish", "noisy", "rudimentary", "tiny portions" etc. And if he's just putting together a guidebook for entertaining your interest in Physics, then that's cool. But saying this is the way to get a Nobel is ridiculous... hence my original comment about dripping sarcasm.
Also my original comment was just getting down voted (and someone asked for clarification) so I expounded.
And no, I got a ride through college.