Soldato
It's an excellent channel even though most of it goes over my head.
As a (Lady) friend of mine said
Brian Cox=Billions and Billions! (And Billions)
He does present it reasonably well though!
(PS Calling Hawking out as a "Pop Scientist" is a bit harsh. I am going to want you to justify that!)
Well has he ever actually made a significant contribution, he tends to take stuff that's already been done and regurgitate it with his own style. But it's not new.
Soldato
Of course they know how the double slit experiment works, what are you smoking? Quantum mechanics is an extremely developed field.
Soldato
What's your definition of significant? He advanced his field and earned his PhD. That's a contribution to science.
That depends on your PhD really, some of them are rewrites.
Soldato
His PhD seems to have been about supernova neutrino and diffraction scattering in Gamma P collisions.
Sounds useful, but completely uninteresting for the average person.
Soldato
Soldato
This video is very relevant for this thread. Enjoy. Well worth a watch.
I know/knew several people with PhDs in physics, I knew them as undergraduates and while doing their PhDs. So I know what intellectual level they are on. Bright enough, good workers, capable, good at studying, interested in the topic. But nothing anybody else couldn't do, you just have to interested otherwise like anything else it would bore you to death.
That was fascinating, pity it didn't go on longer.
Soldato
It asking a lot to say that he didn't. He wrote and spoke quite a bit so nobody here is likely able to say he's never said such a thing. But I do know that he came up with Hawking Radiation (oddly enough) and exclaimed "Black Holes Ain't So Black!". (Hawking radiation is the energy emitted from the event horizon of a black hole and thus introduces new energy into the Universe out of nothing). He also talked about the Big Crunch. Both of these things are sort of against the 'endless dark' approach to our future. But really, there's so much yet to know.
Soldato
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Sparked from what? When there is nothing left but ever faster expanding space and increasingly dispersed photons thats it. Heat death of the universe, 3rd law of thermodynamics.
If we or or our descendents are still around they'll have found a way to transfer to another universe by then, or face oblivion.
Do people with PhDs in Physics know everything?
Is it possible for people with PhDs in Physics to speculate on things that they can't be sure of?
Does some of this speculation turn out to be wrong?
Answers on a postcard.
Btw "science is the new religion" is very true these days. A lot of people expect a certain amount of reverence be given to "scientists"... and this does in fact mirror the kind of authority the priest classes had years ago. Even the language of modern TV programmes is perceptibly deferential to anyone calling themselves a "scientist".
It's fairly easy now to simply have in your "documentary" programme phrases such as "scientists believe" and "scientists predict" and that's good enough. No evidence necessary; just pick some random guy who has a theory or a thesis, call him a "scientist" and label everything he says as truth.
Mainly it's because a large number of people don't want to think for themselves. They previously relied on the priest classes to tell them what to think; now it's any random guy on the TV so long as the narrator calls him a "scientist". Could have a degree in gender studies for all we know
Soldato
Soldato
Dunno, but I bet he knows the difference betwixt axles and driveshafts and how WD40 works.
Soldato
Do people with PhDs in Physics know everything?
Is it possible for people with PhDs in Physics to speculate on things that they can't be sure of?
Does some of this speculation turn out to be wrong?
Answers on a postcard.
Btw "science is the new religion" is very true these days. A lot of people expect a certain amount of reverence be given to "scientists"... and this does in fact mirror the kind of authority the priest classes had years ago. Even the language of modern TV programmes is perceptibly deferential to anyone calling themselves a "scientist".
It's fairly easy now to simply have in your "documentary" programme phrases such as "scientists believe" and "scientists predict" and that's good enough. No evidence necessary; just pick some random guy who has a theory or a thesis, call him a "scientist" and label everything he says as truth.
Mainly it's because numerous people don't want to think for themselves. They previously relied on the priest classes to tell them what to think; now it's any random guy on the TV so long as the narrator calls him a "scientist". Could have a degree in gender studies for all we know
Never said any of that. My point was people are so quick to dismiss those who do this stuff for a living, while their expertise is... what, exactly? Even better when it's criticising what someone knows when all he's doing is making it fun and easily digestible for the kind of audience who are then criticising him for it!
If you're going to be calling him out, at least bring something substantial to the table (showing you know what you're talking about) versus the hand waving dismissal observed in this thread thus far. Clearly, if you have a problem with how he's presenting the material on TV then you're probably not the audience the show was made for.
Make sense? Never said he couldn't be criticised, but some people are admonishing his entire character just because of what he does on TV while likely knowing nothing of how he is in his professional working life outside of TV.
Man of Honour
Nobody knows, why care?
That sounds dismissive, but I'm serious. The length of time involved renders it utterly irrelevant to us. If (and it's a very big if) humanity lasts long enough for any of it to become relevant, the far, far descendants of humanity won't be human any more and nobody can say what they might or might not know or be able to do. A problem with cosmology is that the scales involved are literally incomprehensible. So people tend to compress them, intentionally or not, and that makes irrelevant things seem relevant in some way.
We don't even know how the universe exists. Current understanding starts after the universe started. An extremely short time after, but after. For all we know, at a certain stage in the cycle the universe reboots.
What he's worked at cern that speaks for itself lol I think that beats your job as a bugger flipper
