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The point I was trying to get across is that your question compares atoms and oranges. The problem of quantum gravity, which the Perimeter Institute was origin
by T-A 10y ago
The point I was trying to get across is that your question compares atoms and oranges.
The problem of quantum gravity, which the Perimeter Institute was originally set up to tackle, is as foundational theoretical work as you get. Yet Another Cosmological Model is not. The latter is several layers of "less foundational" further up. It has nothing to do with quantum gravity. (Neither does the article you linked; I have no idea what you're trying to say with that reference.)
You ask "why else is Turok considered more credible". More credible than what? If you mean as an expert on quantum gravity, he is not; AFAIK he has never even worked on the subject. That's the point. His appointment as director signaled a complete change of direction for the Perimeter Institute.
- selimthegrim 10y agoI see your point. What I'm saying is that I guess people's appetite for funding foundational research doesn't mean work on stuff that other people never use, even in funding proposals. My point was that he was apparently hired for some "gravitas" (more credible as a "scientific leader") because at least people on other big projects can footnote his name in their proposals and say maybe our stuff will test some of his stuff. (The article was intended to explain that point about Turok) If she had developed other lines of work so that people would scratch her back.....if you're looking at it from a faculty hiring point of view you're usually going to favor the person who "plays nice with others". Hans Bethe saved Ken Wilson's bacon at Cornell for years, until Wilson got the Nobel Prize. Peter Higgs almost got fired at Edinburgh. Gell-Mann protected John Schwarz at Caltech, etc, etc. She had no political cover.