Albert Einstein

Albert Einstein was a physicist.

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Eric Weinstein

@EricRWeinstein

It is an interesting question as to who inspires us in physics. Here is a list of 20th century giants whose work inspired me that might work as protagonists with interesting stories that deserve to be considered along with the best known Einstein/Hawking/Oppenheimer/Etc.:

CN Yang (with Lee and Simons)
Paul Dirac
Ernst Stueckelberg
Madame Wu
David Bohm
Abdus Salam
Ken Wilson
Emmy Noether
Ettore Majorana
Carlo Rubio
Shin'ichirō Tomonaga
Lev Landau
Simon Van der Meer
Freeman Dyson
Julian Schwinger
Paul Ehrenfest
John VonNeumann
Feza Gursey
Wolfgang Pauli
Louis and Edward Witten
Hans Bethe
George Sudarshan
Vera Rubin
Gerard 't Hooft

Not all of those stories are…uh…simple.

Would be curious to hear names from others.

4:54 AM · Jul 23, 2023

Sam Altman

@sama

i was hoping that the oppenheimer movie would inspire a generation of kids to be physicists but it really missed the mark on that.

let's get that movie made!

(i think the social network managed to do this for startup founders.)

5:48 PM · Jul 22, 2023

Eric Weinstein

@EricRWeinstein

But let’s face facts: inspiration is not the issue. Fundamental Physics needs to be a good life. What is holding us back is:

A) Terrible Pay.

B) Worse Odds of Survival

C) Decoupling of Success at Physics from Success in Physics

D) The Matthew Effect.

E) Math and Physics Pricks

F) Tyranny of large programs over individuals.

G) Multi Decade Stagnation

H) Un Scientific And even Anti-scientific behavior.

I) The Matilde Effect

J) The Sudarshan Effect

K) Ethics Collapse

L) Needlessly long pedagogical sequence (e.g. intro physics -> Classical Mechanics -> Grad Classical Mechanics -> Symplectic Geometry) driven by history.

M) Socializing physics into a team sport in areas dominated by individuals and iconoclasts.

N) Tolerance for Program level failure (e.g. *obsessive* use of toy model physics to evade a reckoning).

O) Intolerance for individual error and failure by those in programs.

P) Failure to reward early contributions (e.g. *Abelian* Chern Simons QFT).

Q) Atrocious MSM journalism distorting the public understanding.

R) Relentless discussion of woo physics in public and 3-5 real topics (e.g. somebodies cat).

S) Learned Helplessness coming from over-learning Ken Wilson.

T) Inability to support motherhood of female physicists.

U) Inability to keep physics marriages easily together with jobs.

V) DEI loyalty oaths and loss of autonomy.

W) Flooding of markets with disposable labor and abuse apprenticeship as labor.

X) Kicking up on attribution.

Y) Overpaying for cherry topping.

Z) Fetishizing the quantum when innovation in classical field theory remains the heart of QFT.

4:55 AM · Jul 23, 2023

Eric Weinstein

@EricRWeinstein

But lastly, if outsiders want to fund and fix movies, you will find that going to the “Leading physicists” won’t work. Peer review can’t work when the leadership *is* the problem. You get more failure.

You need to hold meetings where you get disagreement. So choose the leaders and iconoclasts with great care. Patrick Collison isn’t terrible at this. B+. Best I have ever seen. Start there. Good luck. 🙏

4:55 AM · Jul 23, 2023

Eric Weinstein

@EricRWeinstein

So you have my list. It is incomplete and idiosyncratic. I’d love to have your corrections and additions.

So….Where is yours? Thanks again.

5:14 AM · Jul 23, 2023

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