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Freeman Dyson Has Died

nytimes.com

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Re: Freeman Dyson Has Died

#241

Post by heavenlyblue »

mikedilger wrote: post #186
whack wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From his quotes, it sounds like he had a pretty strong opinion on climate science, and wasn't commenting merely on "cultural" topics. > Indur Goklany has done a careful job, collecting and documenting the evidence that carbon dioxide in the atmosphere does far more good than harm. To any unprejudiced person reading this account, the facts should be obvious: that the non-climatic effects of carbon dioxide as a sustain…

What I appreciated about Dyson's view of climate change is that he doesn't jump to the conclusion that change is bad and should be feared. I'm not myself saying it is good, but it was the point I appreciated most in his view. When I read articles about species dying, ice melting, etc, I think to myself "what would it be like to travel to and live on that strange new world, with less ice, different species, wild weath…

I also appreciate the ability of alt-righters to the question the status quo; but I am unquestionably sure about the lack of their intelligence (which is usually the same thing that feeds their confidence).

Re: Freeman Dyson Has Died

#243

Post by BurningFrog »

snowwrestler wrote: post #138
aeorgnoieang wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I interpret his point being less about denying that some people will be harmed by global warming but that most (or 'all') people will be. I agree with what I think Dyson believed: that it's NOT obvious that global warming is net-negative (long term). Another ice age would be pretty terrible too.

Global warming is a net negative for all people if the rate of change exceeds the rate at which we can adapt our society. That shows up in our economy as a cost, and when costs exceed revenue, society runs into trouble regardless of whether the atmosphere is 15% more conducive to plant growth. The most obvious cost is the threat to densely populated real estate along coasts as sea level rises. You have to build sea w…

Moving a city over a number of decades is more of an inconvenience than a disaster. You would tear down most buildings every 50 years anyway.

Some of the disaster scenarios seem to assume people would just stay as the water rose, until they all drowned, shortest people first.

Re: Freeman Dyson Has Died

#244

Post by kwindla »

The Times obituary mentions two books that give a sense of what Dyson was like as a thinker and conversationalist.

> He appeared in John McPhee’s book “The Curve of Binding Energy” (1974), a portrait of Ted Taylor, the nuclear scientist who led the Orion effort, and in Kenneth Brower’s “The Starship and the Canoe” (1978). In a memorable scene, Mr. Brower wrote of Dr. Dyson’s reunion with his son, George, who had turned his back on high technology to live in a treehouse in British Columbia and build a seafaring canoe.

Both books are very much worth reading.

Re: Freeman Dyson Has Died

#246

Post by photon_lines »

tmearnest wrote: post #196
photon_lines wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually, he was one of the main motivators for me to do something which I just finished today: to explain what Maxwell's equations mean in simple terms. I read his paper a few months ago explaining why Maxwell's equations were so hard to grasp, and I was awe struck at how great of a writer and communicator he was: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/4317784_Why_is_Maxw... Rest in piece Mr. Dyson - you're a lege…

Is this a manuscript you just finished? I’d love to read it if so.

It's actually a guide which tries to explain Maxwell's equations in a visual / intuitive manner - you can find it here: https://github.com/photonlines/Intuitive-Guide-to-Maxwells-E...

Re: Freeman Dyson Has Died

#247

Post by Daishiman »

vixen99 wrote: post #224
Daishiman wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, he's overlooking the entire field of climate science and all the associated environmental sciences that predict to an amazing level of detail the impact of climate change in each and every imaginable location in the planet. We know exactly what the Arctic is going to look like and its impacts. We have known and are observing the melting of glaciers in the Alps, Andes and Himalayas to catastrophic effects in dow…

If you read the literature it's clear that model determinations of very high climate sensitivity (4°C, 5°C, 6°C and up) have increasingly been determined to be in error. Moreover, “Contrary to popular accounts, very few scientists in the world – possibly none – have a sufficiently thorough, 'big picture' understanding of the climate system to be relied upon for a prediction of the magnitude of global warming. To the…

So? The predictions of the current heating have been spot on for models that are 20 years old.

I'm sorry but I'm not gonna take seriously people who want to criticize model sensitive as a reason to ignore climate change when the current glacial melt, the ongoing ocean acidification and all the phenomena that have already been unleashed by the existing levels of climate change continue unabated.

Re: Freeman Dyson Has Died

#248

Post by davedx »

kbutler wrote: post #205
snowwrestler wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Global warming is a net negative for all people if the rate of change exceeds the rate at which we can adapt our society. That shows up in our economy as a cost, and when costs exceed revenue, society runs into trouble regardless of whether the atmosphere is 15% more conducive to plant growth. The most obvious cost is the threat to densely populated real estate along coasts as sea level rises. You have to build sea w…

How much would you spend (or spend to convince the government to spend) to keep your billions-of-dollars-worth-of-real-estate viable? Building sea walls is a trivial cost compared to moving (and giving up the real estate to the sea). Ask the Netherlands - 26% of the country is below sea level - up to (or down to) 6.7m below.

The Deltaworks project did not have a trivial cost, and the Ministry of Water in the Netherlands is deeply concerned about how we will mitigate further sea level and river level rises.

Re: Freeman Dyson Has Died

#249

Post by DoreenMichele »

ArnoVW wrote: post #230
DoreenMichele wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It was predicted that the fires would burn from two to five years before losing pressure and going out on their own, optimists estimating two years and pessimists estimating five while the majority estimated three years until this occurred. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kuwaiti_oil_fires

You seem definitely better informed on the subject than I am (and on other subjects btw!) But I can't help but point out that the wiki quote talks about the time needed for the fires to go out by themselves, and the 6 months were for them to be extinguished. Still something to be celebrating I suppose, but less of an inconsistency.

Presumably, I'm older than you. I was actually watching this on the news at the time it was happening.

At that time, it was not framed as "if nothing is done and we stand idly by and watch it burn." It was framed as "We simply don't have the manpower to resolve this and it's likely that many of these hundreds of oil well fires will end up simply burning themselves out while we try to get to them because the scale of this is just beyond what we have capacity to try to fix."

Then crack teams from around the world converged on Kuwait and developed new techniques on the spot that were more efficient and effective.

Re: Freeman Dyson Has Died

#250

Post by InquilineKea »

john4534243 wrote: post #225
astrophysician wrote: post #5

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…

What makes some people remain sharp at old age ? My observation is it can be attributed to practicing intellectually challenging jobs continually. For example Don Kunth, Marvin Minsky are and were sharp. Is this observation a surviour ship bias or is it mostly genetics ?

Actually someone I know who knows Minsky says that Minsky wasn't really sharp towards his later years [that said, he still mentored students, and the Nectome cofounder was one of his last students]..
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