On Thursday, 13 de February de 2003 02:02, you wrote: > On Wednesday, February 12, 2003, at 05:04 PM, Andri Esteves wrote: > > Everything that could go wrong in academia and science is in Portugal. > > > > That is the background Magueijo comes from... > > I sat in a bookstore and read most of his book several weeks ago. A few > comments: > > First, I kept looking for a clear description of the theory, with > convincing details, support, etc. I didn't find it. I instead found a > lot of stuff about peeing outside a bar in some tropical place, stories > about his girlfriend, insults he delivered to editors at "Nature," and > on and on. Sort of a "Fear and Loathing on the Road to Quantum > Gravity." (Pun with Smolin's title intended.)
You still read science popularizers ? If you like science you should go to the source. I can't read many tecnhical articles, but good sinopses and conclusions give you an idea of the article's inplications. Just have to build a field mind map of an area... And after some time you get the ability to find if someone is bulshiting you on the "popularizing" front... e-print is great... > > There is a NEED for destructive purification in today's science. > > Second, I don't know about Hawking's books, but Lee Smolin is one of > the current popularizers who have done excellent jobs. I recommend both > of his books. His own "Three Roads to Quantum Gravity" is crystal clear > in describing several of the competing theories. Smolin also explains > what's really important. (Check the archives for my past comments on > Smolin and topos theory, for example, from last summer.) Never heard of him... Books are very expensive in Portugal... As the publishing houses in portugal mainly publish religious or black-magic themes... I will probably read it in english... > Hawking writes about fairly established stuff, the usual black hole > stuff. This was mostly old hat 30 years ago (which is when I took Jim > Hartle's class on general relativity). Hawking doesn't get much into > the newer theories, at least not in any of the books of his I've > skimmed. > > (One of my texts 30 years ago was the Hawking and Ellis book, "The > Large Scale Structure of Spacetime." This was heavy going, not the > popular fluff he's been turning out lately.) > > Third, I have no idea if the VSL theory is "right." Time will tell. At least there is some experimental work on it. Wich tons of theorical work in physics don't even try to achieve and with blessing of the establishment... > > Fourth, but I will say that Magueijo undercuts his arguments with his > scatological denunciations of the establishment. I'll be the first to > say that I am not always polite, but if I were publishing papers and > attempting to get math or crypto results accepted, I doubt this > approach would work: What can i say... Career or science. Are you part of the problem or of the solution?? Computers and mathematics are a bit diferent from physics, in that the materialization of your ideas can have a vast laboratory in other people's computers... You could try a diferent way of doing criptoscience if you built a diferent comunity. But if you only want the recognition of "certain individuals" and "certain establishments" what can i say?! Everybody wants 3 meals a day... It will not be me to judge that badly... One of my problems is that there could be people doing real research on their part-time and the paid-ones don't even let them be heard... > "The crypto community is filled with dumbshit charlatans. I piss on > them. I piss on Rivest. I was taking a leak outside a bar in Maracaibo > and it hit me: cyphers are just like big turds." > > Maybe he doesn't fully understand English and has some idea that > interspersing vulgarities with scientific points is the cool thing to > do. Maybe he should point out things like you did it right now... Well.. fed up portuguese are not really englishmen... But he at least gave some emotion to it? Didn't he?! :) > However, I'll bet he ends up at a U.S. university, particularly if the > VSL theory gains any kind of acceptance. He spoke of one of his > colleagues who landed at UC Davis recently. Yes, he will. Americans love collecting "things". I remember Einstein commenting why he had to receive in his office, every VIP in the IAS in Princeton: "You see, I have been bought by Mr Flesher for the IAS and he has to have some return for the investment..." Yours faithfully, Andr� Esteves
