Richard Feynman
2009[edit]
Why am I brought up on the names Einstein, Dirac, Heisenberg, Feynman, Weinberg, etc ....and not flippin' Yang??? Yang=Da Man.
New topic: the importance of "Kung Fu Panda".
To begin with, like a Beethoven symphony, Kung Fu Panda is meant to be accessed on multiple levels with "Believe in yourself" as the lowest.
The voice performances (w/ exception of Jolie) are all strong. Dustin Hoffman is fantastic. Jack Black solid, McShane and Duk Kim brilliant.
But what makes Kung Fu Panda the film of the decade (ergo century, ergo millenium) is that it alone tackles a central issue of science.
Driving Kung Fu Panda is the tension between dual modes of learning: Knowledge Transfer and Discovery. As innovator, Oogway is heirless.
[I know taking Kung Fu Panda seriously will lose followers....but I don't care about those eyeballs as the issue and film are too important]
So while Oogway is master to Shifu who is/was master to both Tai Lung and Tigress he chooses to elevate the ostensibly inexplicable Panda.
In fact, Panda has demonstrated two features in strapping himself to a firework propelled chair: a willingness to innovate and break rules.
The film then shows the presumed successor (Tigress) as willing to break rules but previously shows this liniage to be prestige focused.
Think of the Panda as having a major & minor advisor. The major advisor (Oogway) he meets only twice. To the minor advisor falls training.
So university based PhD advising is based on the failed Shifu-Tigress model. But great science seeks the added Oogway-Panda dimension.
Recommendation: If you must compare "Kung Fu Panda" to "Godfather I" or "War and Peace" do it on a Saturday in late August. #mytwocents
Ever heard an organized religion complain that G-d would never slap some butt ugly quartic potential on the world to give it mass?
To Dave Bacon: "Butt ugly" referred to the present motivation for the Higgs terms as intellectual spackle. Soft mass won't likely stay ugly
Higgs mass is akin to the once poorly motivated "neutral currents" rejected by Feynman as merely invoked for renormalizabilty. Now: not so.
Challenge to my physics followers: what could possibly make the Mexican Hat quartic gorgeous, natural and canonical? #daretodream
Imagine before Watson-Crick I asked you: "Go nuts. What could possibly make Chargaff's Equimolar rules gorgeous, motivated and canonical?"
Fascinated by Feynman fans who don't realize he would have humiliated them just to steal their wives at the end of the seminar.
Here's something I never got. Why did Feynman need Dyson to explain his theory? Did he? Or did he just need a non-Feynman?
Q: Was Feynman initially incapable of explaining his theory at a technical or a sociological level? (e.g. w/ Bohr, Oppenheimer)
Q1: Why did Feynman ask to be removed from the National Academy of Sciences? Q2: How common is that?
Debating whether to remind actual physicists of the role of experimenters in the Tau-Theta circus. Feynman's take: http://www.gorgorat.com/
Oppenheimer's famous repeating of Wigner's calling Feynman 'a second Dirac' somehow managed to do no service to any of these heros. #nofecta
2010[edit]
"There have been many conferences in the world since, but I've never felt any to be as important as this." -R.Feynman on Shelter Island 1947
Cost of 1947 Shelter Island Conference : $850.
Fixing Quantum Electrodynamics: Priceless.
How GREAT science really looks at the brink. Wrong/Uncredentialed/Glorious. Teller-Gamow-Feynman on genes: http://bit.ly/dcbIxa
The battle for primacy in physics between Hamilton & Lagrange was largely decided by Richard Feynman. But ZZ Top didn't hurt.
Lamentably, ZZ Top took its name from bluesmen BB King/ZZ Hill rather than a Feynman diag. scattering heavy hadrons by neutral currents.
"In what sense is what happens at one place in a string independent of what happens at another?" -Feynman's last BBoard http://bit.ly/FStrng
"Take a risk w/ your lives that you will never be heard of again, & go off in the wild blue yonder & see if you can figure it out."R.Feynman
Ron Unz was one of the smartest & most arrogant young people I met in HS.
One lunch, Feynman ate him for breakfast: http://bit.ly/aUmlvz
If I recall correctly, "Foo" in pig latin is the name Feynman used to sign his artworks. #foocamp #foo
"I detest the National Academy of Sciences. I didn't have the guts to resign as Feynman did." -Freeman Dyson ABD, (All But Dissertation)
Feynman's 10 year correspondence oddessy to resign from the National Academy of Sciences (1959-1969): http://bit.ly/9Axzu9
The subordination of the insobordinate elite: "That Feynman is becoming a real pain" http://bit.ly/moDE (as appendix F)
2011[edit]
Oddly, a mural to R. Feynman is built directly into the Ross 'dress for less' at 449 Shoppers Ln Pasadena CA, visible in Google StreetView,
2016[edit]
2017[edit]
@Aaron__FF Jim Watson rules for succeeding in science. Feynman and Einstein's prose. Double helix and 8th day of creation. Shape of space.
2018[edit]
Arguably the second greatest physicist of the 20th century as drawn by another in the top tier (some would argue, top 5). Quite an honor.
The pair (Dirac & Feynman) are pictured at right. Dirac's odd leaning posture always reminds me: introverts need space from extroverts. https://t.co/P0Bjnuy6Hu
In "Lost in Math", @skdh has written a necessary book that I've always hoped someone would never write. It lays out the argument that "Beauty" is a dangerous Siren for physics, which is almost always true. Except, unfairly, for a tiny top tier.
Beauty, it seems, loathes equity. https://t.co/t5QSsDJFyR
@rcanacci @skdh Begin with Dirac, Einstein, Yang, Maxwell, Noether, Newton, Hamilton, Stuckelberg, Feynman as principle authors of the most fundamental equations and principles. And I'm not sure I am not stretching it slightly to appear broad minded.
Was not expecting to bump into one of the most inspiring scientists of our time. Freeman Dyson’s trajectory is a life to study. In particular his defeat of Oppenheimer’s opposition to Feynman’s Sum-Over-Historys at the @the_IAS taught me a lot about how great minds spar. https://t.co/WVBS8FFSyo
If you want a great introduction to the unusual thinking and sui generis wisdom of this man, you could do worse than his article on “Missed Opportunites”:
2019[edit]
Under no circumstances should you give this material to kids:
Great Brain Series
Surely Your Joking Mr Feynman
Pippi Longstocking Series
The Double Helix
The Phantom Tollbooth
Old Mad Magazines
Songs by Tom Lehrer
All the Trouble in the World
Harrison Bergeron
The True Believer
Got to geek out on the death of Sydney Brenner.
This is one of my favorite documents. A letter from Gamow to Crick about Richard Feynman & Edward Teller contemplating homoerotic (see drawing) overlapping codon models of the as yet unknown genetic code. Brenner debunked all such!
@willwilkinson @seanilling It’s not all Feels. Look at E8 and tell me how you “feel”. Who came up with that? Killing? Freudenthal? Lie? No way. Not even Grothedieck and Witten with Feynman and Von Neumann’s help. None of us know what it is. Is hemoglobin socially constructed? Who asks this? No one I know.
2020[edit]
Thoughts on where we are and why we are stuck. Also, the parable of Feynman and the Rogers Challenger Commission. https://t.co/uSXbLAaxVV
Tom Lehrer
Noam Elkies
@LauraDeming
@MarcusduSautoy
@patrickc
@lishali88
@peterthiel
@thegoodtomchi*
@SamHarrisOrg
@joerogan
@tylercowen
@MsMelChen
James Simons
Jared Diamond
@StephenAtHome
@tferriss
@FutureJurvetson
@naval
Jimmy Kaltreider
@mkonnikova
@pmarca
Etc...
[no family]
Freeman Dyson
@brookedallas
Sydney Coleman
@adamgazz
@balajis
@stephstem
Kevin Harrington
Jordan Greenhall
Daniel Schmachtenberger
@nntaleb
@annakhachiyan
@seanonolennon
@DavidYezzi
Raoul Bott
@DouglasKMurray
@jordanbpeterson
Isadore Singer
R Gomory
R Feynman
And on & on & on...
2021[edit]
I have waited 55 years to see the richest man in the world stick it to “The Richest Man...IN THE WORLD!”
Also: imagine that the world’s wealthiest person can solve differential equations and knows what a Lagrangian is. Love this.
Mazal tov to @elonmusk for not giving a shit.
Huh. I also have a preference for Hamilton due to geometric quantization using pre-quantum line bundles to explain Heisenberg (cf Woodhouse). Legendre & Feynman not withstanding.
In LA. We should talk “beyond Mars” before 4/1. I could really use your..uh..brain. Fine either way.
We’ve never spoken. Lex and Joe have my contact info. I wanna get way outta here. Like yesterday.
“Hell, if I could explain it to the average person, it wouldn't have been worth the Nobel prize.” -Richard P Feynman
Neil deGrasse Tyson is picking on the wrong guy.
Richard Feynman was remarked upon as being very articulate & seemingly naturally gifted at everything (other than Piano), and famously had great Rhythm. Now what if he had been black?
I am sure Neil gets a lot of BS. Not from BK.
It’s tough when you see patterns invisible to the 🌎. Ask any tall woman, and she will tell you all the comments she hears every day. Or any Sikh wearing a Turban. Or any soul who is blind. Or any gay couple with kids..
Brian is well aware of Neil’s hard work. Weird interchange.
They were smart. We were smart. They had Spassky, We had Fischer. They had Shostakovich, we had Van Cliburn. Vysotsky v Dylan. Landau v Feynman.
That was a long time ago now.
Oddly, some things now actually make me miss the Cold War with Soviet Russia:
“If I could explain it to the average person, I wouldn't have been worth the Nobel Prize.” - Feynman
Feynman was not able to simply explain a great deal of things to many people. Including experts. I know that many of you find that shocking.
But Internet’s take is wrong here.
If you cannot explain something in simple terms, you don't understand it.
Even the great Feynman said a great many meretricious things about science. Mostly because he wanted to speak in a powerful and overly simplistic fashion that lay people loved. “Hey, if I can’t understand you, it’s because YOU don’t get it! Ha.”
Except that isn’t how this works.
This is a description of how Feynman’s brilliant “Sum Over Histories” technique went over at the Pocono conference in the spring of 1948. Feynman wasn’t able to explain what he was doing to even the world’s very top experts in Theoretical Physics!
And how did he explain failure?
Very simply: “My machines came from too far away.”
The Internet needs to grow out of its expectation that it can use what is possibly Feynman’s dumbest quote to dismiss those it cannot quickly understand. But it won’t. Why? Because the quote is both powerful and totally wrong.
Disagree? Great. Prove it!
Step I: Get someone who understands “The Families Index Theorem on Manifolds with Boundary” to fully explain it simply to you.
Step II: Explain it to us all!
I look forward to conceding to you. Until then? Maybe go easy on Feynman’s dumbest take?
If you still love repeating that Feynman quote despite the greater context provided, here’s some material. Ask your expository heroes to explain it.
Good luck. Because, if I’m not wrong, you’re gonna need it…
[Until then, here’s a primary source:
https://imo.universite-paris-saclay.fr/~bismut/Bismut/1990e.pdf]
🙏
Note: The quote in the original tweet has a typographical error. It should be:
"Hell, if I could explain it to the average person, it wouldn't have been worth the Nobel Prize."—Richard Feynman. As Quoted in “People”, 22 July 1985.
@Eluminat1 Witten? Dirac? Did they make the cut?
@karlbykarlsmith Not as I understand it. Feynman’s diagrams are just an indexing scheme for series terms albeit a provocative one. The apparent classical localization of position & momentum is taking place in the indexing diagram, NOT in the quantum propagator which the diagrams sum to construct.
@NukeBeach Ultimately it required more time, more conferences, and Dyson, Bethe, and Wilson to put the full Theory in a form where it was accepted.
@rolfascending @travislambirth Great. Just apply your critique in the terms you understand it to the challenge problem of the thread so I can fully appreciate the point of what you are saying. Thanks.
@theoctobear It’s a test. Show us what it means to explain a proven theorem in simple terms. So easy. Find the experts who understand it and have them explain it in these simple terms that all interested parties can understand. Piece of cake I would think.
@robnormal That’s the beginning. Then that the listeners be *highly* motivated. Also intelligent. Also, that no listeners are trying not to understand. Etc
Pretty soon it’s stone soup. You’re no longer explaining things quickly at a party but you’re now teaching QFT courses at university.
2025[edit]
This is a pretty good thread. Likely true!
Consider, however, reading it from a different angle.
Stipulate for the moment that the power of mathematics and physics was so decisively proven at Los Alamos that it is obvious that The United States needs to run a secure *permanent* well funded Manhattan project, but that it cannot do so in the open, nor at a hidden location like New Mexico. In such situations what is standard operating procedure? You typically set up a “Front Company”. But this would be a Front University. And that doesn’t exist.
So what do we see: a secure campus with billions coursing through it. The returns are cartoonish: a story but with no real explanation. The fund discourages all outside investors with sky high commitments (notice the similarity to Epstein?) and is then outright closed to outside money. It employs exactly the right specialties for military work, and interacts closely with a national lab: Brookhaven. It also interacts with one of the greatest math departments anywhere SUNYSB that is consistantly and inexplicably officially ranked well *below* the level of its faculty. The fund strategy never leaks. The co-founder comes out of Defense Intelligence.
If I were a modern day Gen. Leslie Groves tasked with building Los Alamos 2.0 all over again, I would invent EXACTLY this. And I would look for Jim to lead it. He would have been one of the top 3 picks. If I were to do it today I might chose Daniel S. Freed.
I knew Jim. He was *absolutely* brilliant. But not obviously more or less so than his colleagues at the very top of mathematics. Like Oppenheimer level impressive among Feynmans, Fermis, VonNeumanns, Tellers etc. You get used to the idea that Genius tends to collect in Math, Chess, Physics and Music.
Everyone at this level is beyond impressive. And no one else has these returns.
Try reading this thread with both explanations in mind. I myself don’t know the answer. What do you think? Does the usual story work for you? Is the alternative just too crazy even to contemplate? What would you have said if I told you something didn’t add up with a lot of brilliant theotists at an Old School out in the middle of nowhere in New Mexico in 1944?
Let me know your thoughts. Thx!
🙏
Quality Control: the scourge of Great Science.
You cannot quality control your nation to great theoretical physics. Can’t be done.
It’s about what has never been done. I could wipe out all of past theoretical physics with peer review & quality control.
“Mr Feynman: what is the measure on that integral?”
“But then your eigenfunctions aren’t in your Hilbert space.”
“Wait: why are we adding ad hoc positivity conditions again?”
“So nature just gives us this magic sector Mr Higgs because it would solve all your problems? Have you considered going into screenwriting?”
“But Dr Einstein, your equations must be wrong because they lead to singularities that can’t be removed.”
“Dr Gell-Mann: you are just randomly applying SU(3) to totally different things. Like a man with a hammer thinking everything is a nail.”
“But Paul, then the election and the proton would have the same mass. Rejected for publication I’m afraid.”
“But Dr Aharonov: surely someone would have noticed this. I’m sorry. You can’t give a talk on magical E&M.”
*electron. My bad.
Q: How do we get relocate these people at scale? How do they enter theoretical physics? It’s so bizarre.
I would like to talk to @MickWest and @michaelshermer and @francis_collins and @neiltyson and @seanmcarroll and @nytimes about the role of debunking and discrediting professionals who do not buy into narratives that are later found to be cover stories about national interest.
For the first time since JFK’s assassination nearly 62 years ago, the CIA tacitly admitted Thursday that an agent specializing in psychological warfare, George Joannides, ran an operation that came into contact with Lee Harvey Oswald before the killing. https://www.axios.com/2025/07/05/cia-agent-oswald-kennedy-assassination
We have a COVID=Wet Market narrative.
We have an Inflation and CPI narrative.
We have a Quantum Gravity narrative.
We have a Vaccine Narrative.
We have “Americans suck at STEM”.
We have a “Settled Science” narrative.
We have a “Peer Review” narrative.
We had a “Great Moderation” narrative.
We have “Independent Journalism”.
We have a “Disgraced Financier” story.
We have an “Aerospace and UFO” opera.
It’s all one thing that cannot be named:
National Interest “Managed Reality.”
We need to talk about what debunking was before it became “Covert influence operations”, “Image Cheapneing”‘and personal destruction warfare.
So let’s talk.
Are you buying into Anna Paulina Luna's narrative regarding Joannides?
Or Morley's? Posners? Ratcliffe's?
Which one do you pick, and why?
This is part of the problem with debunking.
You see, I don’t know what Covid is. Is it a science project? A miraculous spontaneous mutation? A bioweapon leak?
I don’t know.
But what I do know was that there was TREMENDOUS pressure to say something false about the Wuhan Labs.
Likewise here: I don’t know what happened in Dallas. What I feel confidence in is that we have been lying about telling all we know about what happened in Dallas.
Same with UFOs. What do I know? Very little. But what little I do know is that too many grownups in Govt are talking about something real. That real thing could be a fake program. Or cover for physics research. Or many things.
But the debunking thing has a different energy. I appreciate all you do to explain videos and sightings that have genuinely prosaic explanations. Truly.
What I don’t believe at all is that there is no use of UFO SAPs by the USG. I think we create SAPs and we ruin people’s lives around them when good folks can’t let go of the fact that they saw or experienced or interacted with something we know a lot about.
That’s my issue. Discrediting behavior targeted on individuals to protect programs with claims of national interest.
What exactly are you suggesting with this "different energy"?
That I'm just not polite enough?
Or that I'm part of a disinformation campaign?
Because I'd argue against both of those.
Something else?
I think you are avoiding the reality that at a minimum, our government(s) is/are almost certainly faking a UFO/NHI presence from time to time. That we have UFO/NHI SAPs that we deny. That UFO/NHI is used as cover for aerospace at a minimum. That we do harm to our own people by pretending that everything has a prosaic explanation.
And that you are not debunking the govt bunk (at a minimum).
My issue is treating our own people like garbage. I despise gaslighting our own people. And the energy you bring is that we don’t need to go to that layer.
Again: I’m the only guy in UFO space who has seen nothing conclusive about NHI. I’m with you on that.
But I do think there was a secret serious physics research program that was affiliated with this UFO anti-gravity stuff. I think Roger Babson and Agnew Bahnson were likely CIA or IC cutouts. I think this is all bound up in the “Golden Age of General Relativity”.
And I wish you would stop pretending it’s all innocent mistakes, coincidences, people making silly claims. A lot of it is. Sure.
But after you strip that off, a lot of what’s left is toxic NatSec gaslighting. And if you can’t face that I’d prefer you stop. Because you then hurt the people who got gaslit.
I am not avoiding that. We should absolutely look into topics like Yankee Blue, and Grusch's claims.
I don't treat people like garbage. When I engage with people I do so with facts, logic, and respect. I wrote a book on doing just that.
You're waving around a straw man.
Let’s find out if true.
Do you believe that the U.S. may have created “Craft?” Like deliberate mock ups in hangars.
I do. I think it is likely that some of our people had *real* run-ins with fake craft.
Do you believe that there are *real* stories from our top people and ordinary joes about fake aerial events? Like where we know what people saw, and yet we tell them it was nothing. Like a seagull. Or a contrail. Or Venus. Or a Mylar balloon.
I do. And that is where I part company with you often. Not because you are mean. But because I don’t want this done to our own people, and I have never seen you aggressively go after this. If I am wrong, you have my apology in advance. Happy to make it.
Do you believe that the U.S. maintained a secret zero insignia airforce that operated by descending on citizens collecting information, and destroying and confiscating equipment / data and that it physically intimidated US citizens in large empty western states near testing areas without identifying itself?
I do. And it is so unbelievable that I didn’t think this was possible until friends reported it happened to them. I believe that this had to do with the CIA office of “Global Access”.
Do you believe that @pmarca and @bhorowitz were told that entire areas of theoretical physics were taken off line by the Biden Whitehouse, while researchers have been in 52 year denied stagnation in Standard Model Physics? Which makes no sense. Why aren’t we trying new things???
I do. And there has been bizarre lack of interest for any major news desk to get to the bottom of this claim.
Do you believe that there was a giant secret anti-gravity program, attached to UAP, with many of the world’sbtop physicists within it? And that it was funded by two likely IC cutouts Babson and Bahnson?
I do. It was called the “Golden Age of General Relativity.”
Do you believe that UFOs were cover for aerospace…and that aerospace was cover for physics? And that top physics people were in and out of Aerospace where they had *no* particular reason to be other than secret research?
I do. Like RIAS in Baltimore. And Feynman’s adventures in Buffalo. And L Witten at Wright-Patt. Etc etc.
I’m fed up with being lied to Mick by NatSec incompetents. I have my PhD in this area which is strangely unusable. No one is doing real fundamental research anywhere in physics Mick. Or haven’t you noticed that this changed in 40+ years. It’s like a medieval philosophy cult now.
This is all touching physics. Not Bokeh. Not Mylar. This is largely about the magic and power of a science that gave us god like power and then mysteriously stalled, and now cannot be restarted no matter how cheap and easy it would be to do it.
This (above) is a lot about post Manhattan Project public physics bullshit. Not seagulls.
Some of it is material science. Some of it is nukes. But gravity is in this game. And who knows what else. And quantum gravity is the nonsense we can’t question. The likely cover story if you will.
I don’t care about 👽. I care about NatSec gaslighting of our own PhD level mathematicians and physicists. The children of Teller (Particle Theory), Ulam (Geometry), and Einstein (Gravity). All of whom were central to the Bomb.
Wanna debunk the cover stories? If so I’ll join ya.
"Do you believe that the U.S. may have created “Craft?” Like deliberate mock ups in hangars. "
I don't think it's impossible. I'm not sure WHY they would do it. Maybe to confuse the Russians into thinking we have advanced tech.
"I do. I think it is likely that some of our people had *real* run ins with fake craft."
Entirely possible, at least in hangers.
"Do you believe that there are *real* stories from our top people and ordinary about fake aerial events? Like where we know what people saw and we tell them it was nothing. Like a seagull. Or a contrail. Or Venus. Or a Mylar balloon."
Probably, to a degree, to cover up secret test flights of new tech. We know this happened with the U2. The degree of how much was invented and how much is just allowing organic stories to grow is unclear.
"I do. And that is where I part company with you often. Not because you are mean. But because I don’t want this done to our own people, and I have never seen you aggressively go after this. If I am wrong, you have my apology in advance. Happy to make it."
Aggressively go after what? The military saying things that are not true in order to keep secret stuff secret? Some people getting hurt? Sure, ideally that wouldn't happen. But also ideally, we'd have universal health care, the lack of which ruins many more lives than hyper-rare UFO-themed cover-ups. Yes, I'd prefer less lying and fucking with people, but forgive me if I don't get too excited about such a minor (albeit very interesting) issue.
"Do you believe that the U.S. maintained a secret zero insignia airforce that operated by descending on citizens collecting information and destroying and confiscating equipment and data and physically intimidated US citizens in large empty western states without identifying itself?"
I have no idea. Probably in the past, back when the cold war and nuke secrets were a big deal. There's the singular Bennewitz case 40 years ago (driven insane, or already part-way there?). But now? I really don't see it.
"I do. And it is so unbelievable that I didn’t think this was possible until friends reported it happened to them. I believe that this had to do with the CIA office of “Global Access”."
What happened to them? Vague stories are not helpful.
"Do you believe that @pmarca and @bhorowitz were told that entire areas of theoretical physics were taken off line by the Biden Whitehouse, while we have been in 52 year denied stagnation in Standard Model Physics? "
No. I'd like to see some evidence of this.
"I do. And there has been bizarre lack of interest for any major news desk to get to the bottom of this claim. "
It's because it's a cool but implausible-sounding story with no evidence.
"Do you believe that there was a giant secret anti-gravity program, attached to UAP, with many of the worlds top physicists within it? And that it was funded by two IC cutouts Babson and Bahnson? I do. It was called the “Golden Age of General Relativity.”"?
Sure, but the question is if they actually found anything. I'm not seeing any evidence of this. The stagnation of Standard Model Physics might simply be because the reality of physics is rather boring and incapable of actually giving us anti-gravity flying cars and starships. I've seen all the public UFO evidence, and indirectly heard about the secret stuff, and there's no strong case for gravity drives.
"Do you believe that UFOs were cover for aerospace…and that aerospace was cover for physics?"
The former, but again perhaps more "let it happen" than "make it happen"
"And that top physics people were in and out of Aerospace where they had no particular reason to be other than secret research. I do. Like RIAS in Baltimore. And Feynman’s adventures in Buffalo. And L Witten at Wright Patt. Etc etc."
Basic research is essentially speculative, especially in a practical setting. Stick a Feynman in the research department, and good things might happen. Worth a shot. It does not mean they are pushing the bounds of physics.
"I’m fed up with being lied to Mick. I have a PhD in this area which is strangely unusable. No one is doing real fundamental research anywhere in physics Mick. Or haven’t you noticed that this changed in 40+ years. It’s like a medieval philosophy cult now."
So you keep saying. But there have been lots of advances. It's sad they haven't solved gravity or anything revolutionary. But I don't think revolutions in science can simply be guaranteed with bigger and more focused funding. You ascribe this lack of progress to a conspiracy, but maybe it's just because they haven't found anything.
"This is all touching physics. Not Bokeh. Not Mylar. This is largely about the magic and power of a science that mysteriously stalled and cannot be restarted no matter how cheap and easy it would be to do it. "
Well, get Peter to do it then. If it's so easy, why doesn't he just put you in charge, solve gravity, and get to trillionaire?
"This (above) is a lot about post Manhattan Project public physics bullshit. Not seagulls. Some of it is material science. Some of it is nukes. But gravity is in this game. And who knows what else. And quantum gravity is the nonsense we can’t question. The likely cover story if you will."
There are plenty of people questioning quantum gravity. It's a model that seems to work, but has no real empirical evidence. It does not stop people trying other models.
"I don’t care about . I care about gaslighting PhD level mathematicians and physicists. The children of Teller (Particle Theory), Ulam (Geometry), and Einstein (Gravity). All of whom were central to the Bomb. Wanna debunk the cover stories? If so I’ll join ya."
You're going to have to give me some actual evidence that this is a deliberate cover story. Because I'm unconvinced.
I appreciate the thoughtful answer.
I think it come down to this. You write:
“Aggressively go after what? The military saying things that are not true in order to keep secret stuff secret? Some people getting hurt? Sure, ideally that wouldn't happen. But also ideally, we'd have universal health care, the lack of which ruins many more lives than hyper-rare UFO-themed cover-ups. Yes, I'd prefer less lying and fucking with people, but forgive me if I don't get too excited about such a minor (albeit very interesting) issue.”
If I thought that this was a minor issue I might agree with you.
I think we may have just killed millions with an escaped science experiment called “COVID”. I think the government gaslighting its own scientists and intimidating those who refuse the gaslighting is an absolutely major issue. It’s immoral. It’s illegal. And it’s potentially world altering.
Our government is likely by far the most major actor in the science bunko story. And I want bunk out of science. Starting with Nature, Princeton, the Lancet, Harvard, NSF, and Communications in Mathematical Physics.
So that is where we differ. What you are looking at with junky video analysis is helpful. But in my opinion it is the “minor (albeit very interesting) issue”. The major issue is government control of and subordination of science to NatSec disinformation and misinformation. Like COVID.
So we found the source of our issue. I take @pmarca very seriously on this. I want top scientists in the room who can restrain those NatSec people who can’t keep a virus confined to a secure laboratory meant to circumvent our participation in the bioweapns agreements. I want physicists in the room who say “Wait: why are we doing the same thing for decades that clearly doesn’t work while not pursuing other paths?” I want economists saying “But that would be faking a lower inflation number to raise taxes and slash benefits in a way that the public couldn’t grasp.”
And you are more worried about ghost stories spreading unimpeded because people see ordinary things that are just kinda misinterpreted. That’s noble. But I don’t intuit why that is the major issue.
à chacun son goût…
Thx.
Yes. I’m saying that the Jim Simons, Richard Feynman, Jim Watson, Steven Weinberg, Sidney Coleman, Ken Arrow, Linus Pauling, Isadore Singer, Joshua Lederberg, Steve Smale, Paul Samuelson, Mark Ptashne, John Milnor, model of homegrown American scientific genius is being destroyed.
Is anyone concerned about this? It sure doesn’t seem it.
Science needs academic freedom. It needs resources. It needs independence.
Fauci and Collins would have been impossible if we were healthy.
It is not safe to make scientists into mere employees.
It’s way too dangerous.
It’s as if we, the U.S., hate being the worlds premier homegrown scientific community. All it takes is reversing self inflicted damage. That’s it. That’s all.
We seem to hate our own scientists.
It makes no sense. At least to me.
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