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Freeman Dyson Has Died

nytimes.com

61–70 of 267 posts

Re: Freeman Dyson Has Died

#61
post #24

Noted physicist slain by oldest foe, gravity: "Mia Dyson says her father, at the age of 96 still regularly went to his office at Princeton University. On Wednesday, on such a visit, she says he suffered a fall and died of his injuries Friday morning." TBIs and elder falling are a terrifying source of morbidity and mortality. So many old people start their terminal decline when they fall, for no particularly good reas…

Or to look at it from a different angle, their fall is caused by their old age decline which in turn triggers their terminal decline. I've seen it throughout my family, once confined to bed at old age one's decline accelerates quickly. It's perhaps that the lack of movement that has some spiraling effect on their health. More and more people should not stop doing sports when they get older, they should do sports less…

I wonder how much of this depends on how big a change there is in movement?

Would a lifelong couch potato for whom their post fall movement is only a few percent less than what it was before the fall be less affected than someone who had been very active before their fall and had to cut their movement by 95%?

Re: Freeman Dyson Has Died

#62
post #2

“It is remarkable that mind enters into our awareness of nature on two separate levels. At the highest level, the level of human consciousness, our minds are somehow directly aware of the complicated flow of electrical and chemical patterns in our brains. At the lowest level, the level of single atoms and electrons, the mind of an observer is again involved in the description of events. Between lies the level of mole…

That quote is mindblowing. I don't think I've ever heard an argument for free will on a sub-atomic level. It never crossed my mind that that was a position someone could conceivably hold. But it's weirdly comforting- it almost feels religious- and I'm now thinking about how that would affect emergence.

Re: Freeman Dyson Has Died

#63
post #28

Started writing "later” in life: “Life begins at 55, the age at which I published my first book,” he wrote in “From Eros to Gaia,” Never got his PhD. Taught physics at Cornell. Thoughts on climate change: "Relishing the role of iconoclast, he confounded the scientific establishment by dismissing the consensus about the perils of man-made climate change as “tribal group-thinking.” He doubted the veracity of the climat…

I was able to see him speak recently in San Diego, he will be missed!

Re: Freeman Dyson Has Died

#64
post #46

I really feel like it's worth having this discussion: the black bar for Freeman Dyson, but not for Katherine Johnson who died earlier this week. At the time I thought it was likely because she wasn't _directly_ involved in computing and tried to write it off, but Freeman seems to be as related to the page as her. I bring it up because it really does speak to how a community decides who they want to include or not. Un…

I imagine the distinction is that one was a human calculator, and the other was a unique and brilliant mind. I don't see how their gender and/or race has anything to do with it.

My guess is if you're looking for sexism and 'unwelcoming signals' you're going to find them everywhere.

Re: Freeman Dyson Has Died

#65

About 4 years ago, I was a grad student in astrophysics at Princeton. Dyson worked at the Institute for Advanced Study which, while not officially part of the university was essentially an extension of the various departments (shared colloquiums, any researcher there was a valid thesis adviser, etc.). The grad students have a tradition (or used to) called “Thunch” (Thursday Lunch) where they invite someone to come ha…

I've met him and his other daughter. They are/were wonderful people. There were a lot of "solutions" using nuclear weapons looking for a problem. There was a proposal to blow a new canal through nicaragua, to blast harbors into Alaska, etc. My roommate's father showed me his paper that anticipated fracking: drill a deep well in oil shale, through a small nuclear weapon in the bottom, blow it up and watch as the press…

Nuclear fracking was tested as part of the larger series of tests called Operation Plowshare. You can read about the first gas extraction test here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Gasbuggy

If I remember correctly, the tests worked, in that they produced a large amount of gas from tight rock formations. However the gas was mildly radioactive and it was thought that it would not be marketable.

Re: Freeman Dyson Has Died

#66
post #17

"When I listen to the public debates about climate change, I am impressed by the enormous gaps in our knowledge, the sparseness of our observations and the superficiality of our theories" "We have no reason to think that climate change is harmful if you look at the world as a whole. Most places, in fact, are better off being warmer than being colder. And historically, the really bad times for the environment and for…

What is important is that Dyson has quotes, but I'm not aware of any published work by him on the problem (by "published", I don't mean peer-reviewed, arXiv etc would be fine too). This means that he probably never really put his hands on the problem as a working scientist.

I'd rather remember Dyson for his significant contributions to physics, rather than for something he did not contribute to.

Re: Freeman Dyson Has Died

#67
post #46

I really feel like it's worth having this discussion: the black bar for Freeman Dyson, but not for Katherine Johnson who died earlier this week. At the time I thought it was likely because she wasn't _directly_ involved in computing and tried to write it off, but Freeman seems to be as related to the page as her. I bring it up because it really does speak to how a community decides who they want to include or not. Un…

I imagine the distinction is that one was a human calculator, and the other was a unique and brilliant mind. I don't see how their gender and/or race has anything to do with it. My guess is if you're looking for sexism and 'unwelcoming signals' you're going to find them everywhere.

What a fucking joke, reducing Katherine Johnson to "a human calculator" while the climate change sympathizer is "a unique and brilliant mind".

If Katherine Johnson isn't a "a unique and brilliant mind", there was never such a thing.

I don't know if your problem is sexism or racism or a healthy dose of both but it's infuriating to see.

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The idea that someone can say this and be well supported but calling them out is taboo, is the kind of stuff that makes me ashamed to be a black person in tech.

Why should I work alongside people who think we're in a post-racial era and don't care that minorities are underrepresented because to them even implying that there's value in having people from different walks of life is valuable enough to actually actively try to fix the situation is taboo

Re: Freeman Dyson Has Died

#69
post #60
post #28

Started writing "later” in life: “Life begins at 55, the age at which I published my first book,” he wrote in “From Eros to Gaia,” Never got his PhD. Taught physics at Cornell. Thoughts on climate change: "Relishing the role of iconoclast, he confounded the scientific establishment by dismissing the consensus about the perils of man-made climate change as “tribal group-thinking.” He doubted the veracity of the climat…

>> Excess carbon in the air is good for plants, and global warming might forestall another ice age. How is it not "rooted in science" that excess carbon is good for plants? We're already seeing significant global greening, and yields are up. Excess CO2 also reduces the amount of water the plants need.

He's gone, so this isn't really the place for this discussion at all.

However, I'm glad this is mentioned and how it shows that there are a lot of intelligent people who have concerns with the current science debate. Consensus isn't science, it's politics, and challenging ones ideas is how we both reinforce the truth as well as dispel myths.

Re: Freeman Dyson Has Died

#70
post #2

“It is remarkable that mind enters into our awareness of nature on two separate levels. At the highest level, the level of human consciousness, our minds are somehow directly aware of the complicated flow of electrical and chemical patterns in our brains. At the lowest level, the level of single atoms and electrons, the mind of an observer is again involved in the description of events. Between lies the level of mole…

That quote is mindblowing. I don't think I've ever heard an argument for free will on a sub-atomic level. It never crossed my mind that that was a position someone could conceivably hold. But it's weirdly comforting- it almost feels religious- and I'm now thinking about how that would affect emergence.

Conway (yep, that Conway) and Kochen elaborate on this in the Strong Free Will Theorem:

https://www.ams.org/notices/200902/rtx090200226p.pdf

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