Friday, November 19, 2010

Schrödinger's Cattiness

What I think I know about theoretical physics is a teensy tiny fraction of what an interested reader of pop science books must know, and what I actually know is of course a more embarrassing subset of that.

But I think I know mean gossip.

8 comments:

Big Bad Bald Bastard said...

Well, now I can say that I know who Lumo is.

Jim Weatherall began to write about science. And not just about science. He became a close collaborator of John Horgan - the madman who thinks that science ended in 1996 (one year before the AdS/CFT correspondence, a few years before the discovery of the cosmological constant, and I could tell you dozens of other radical discoveries that occurred after 1996).

They said I was MAD! MAD!!!

I imagine Mr Horgan has a bright future as a GOP congresscritter.

Hamish Mack said...

Yeah it's a tad personal there. He's an anti global warming fuckhead too, as well.

Smut Clyde said...

Motl is certainly convinced that anyone he disagrees with is 'brainwashed', or 'a bigot', or 'politically correct'.

Substance McGravitas said...

I guess even theoretical physics has its methods of convenience.

Hamish Mack said...

He advertises himself as a "Conservative Physicist" which is interesting. The lefty/progressive/socialinist Physicists have had it all their own way for too long. i mean all that stuff about relativity, pshaw! Give me old style Phlogiston any day

mikey said...

I'm still trying to figure out why Alan Guth would have been taking an intro to string theory class in 2004?

He wrote the original paper on inflation in 1981 and published his book "Inflationary Universe" in '97.

But then maybe this is another one of those academic things I'm just unaware of...

Substance McGravitas said...

If I was a guy at a research university doing work on string theory it'd be worth it to go to a class at Harvard and argue with the guy teaching that class about what he was talking about. It's a small club of people who do that stuff, and they're working on the orthodoxy of it while it's being taught.

Also, what the hell?

ifthethunderdontgetya™³²®© said...

James Preston Weatherall (October 26, 1929 – August 2, 1992) was an American football defensive tackle in the National Football League for the Philadelphia Eagles, Washington Redskins, and the Detroit Lions. He also played in the Canadian Football League for the Edmonton Eskimos. Weatherall played college football at the University of Oklahoma and was drafted in the second round of the 1952 NFL Draft. He was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in 1992.

Have some respect, people!
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