4 ms·

I give it well under 1% odds that he's right, but boy would I like to see him have a conversation about it with a critic that understands what he's talking abou

I give it well under 1% odds that he's right, but boy would I like to see him have a conversation about it with a critic that understands what he's talking about.

nxpnsv 6y ago
Like this one? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N_aN8NnoeO0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N_aN8NnoeO0 (at about 1h in)
- akvadrako 6y ago
  The rebuttal starts at 1h 9m. I don't think you can consider Sabine a critic that understands what [s]he's talking about. She is a popularizer of science but hasn't produced anything to suggest she's near the top of her field. And she has some really fringe ideas, like the support of super-determinism. I do think her guest poster Timothy Nguyen came across as knowing what he's talking about.
  - nxpnsv 6y ago
    I completely agree.
  - jfengel 6y ago
    I'm not Hossenfelder's biggest fan, but she is more than qualified. She's best known for her popularizations -- as is the case for practically every living physicist you've ever heard of -- but her work on quantum gravity is real. She's as qualified as pretty much anybody else who's going to appear in public to talk about such things. She's better known for her criticism of the process of physics, a thing which is both correct and somewhat irritating (because it's not really a secret and she's not offering useful solutions). But she is a genuine physicist as well as a popularizer.
    - akvadrako 6y ago
      I didn't say she's a fake physicist, just that I don't think she's a very good one. > She's as qualified as pretty much anybody else who's going to appear in public to talk about such things. Not at all. There are thousands of people who clearly have a much deeper understanding of fundamental physics and some of them are popularizers too. Lenny Susskind is a good example. Peter Shor, who sometimes comments on her blog. There are plenty of bloggers who aren't famous.
      - jfengel 6y ago
        I suspect when somebody's coming out of nowhere offering to solve the whole shebang of physics, any advanced physicist is likely to be as good as any other. Weinstein is not, as I understand it, building off of the most cutting-edge work, but offering a new approach. Having deeper understanding of the state of the art may not be a benefit. It is almost certainly rubbish, and anybody could probably tell him that. It's probably not worth the time of anybody anywhere near the cutting edge, just a blogger who wants the attention. On the off chance it's actually correct, the person to affirm that it's correct is almost certainly not a popularizer at all. It'll be some obscure academics who see the merit and fill in the details -- which will be read by the popularizers and translated. But if I were one of them I wouldn't start sharpening my pencils yet.
        akvadrako 6y ago
        > any advanced physicist is likely to be as good as any other It certainly matters how well they understand the material for being able critique a new approach. And there is a big difference in understanding throughout the field – people are not interchangeable. Sabine hasn't said anything that would indicate she knows why Erik's theory won't work, unlike the post by Nguyen.

I give it well under 1% odds that he's right, but boy would I like to see him have a conversation about it with a critic that understands what he's talking about.

nxpnsv 6y ago

Like this one? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N_aN8NnoeO0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N_aN8NnoeO0 (at about 1h in)

akvadrako 6y ago
The rebuttal starts at 1h 9m. I don't think you can consider Sabine a critic that understands what [s]he's talking about. She is a popularizer of science but hasn't produced anything to suggest she's near the top of her field. And she has some really fringe ideas, like the support of super-determinism. I do think her guest poster Timothy Nguyen came across as knowing what he's talking about.
- nxpnsv 6y ago
  I completely agree.
- jfengel 6y ago
  I'm not Hossenfelder's biggest fan, but she is more than qualified. She's best known for her popularizations -- as is the case for practically every living physicist you've ever heard of -- but her work on quantum gravity is real. She's as qualified as pretty much anybody else who's going to appear in public to talk about such things. She's better known for her criticism of the process of physics, a thing which is both correct and somewhat irritating (because it's not really a secret and she's not offering useful solutions). But she is a genuine physicist as well as a popularizer.
  - akvadrako 6y ago
    I didn't say she's a fake physicist, just that I don't think she's a very good one. > She's as qualified as pretty much anybody else who's going to appear in public to talk about such things. Not at all. There are thousands of people who clearly have a much deeper understanding of fundamental physics and some of them are popularizers too. Lenny Susskind is a good example. Peter Shor, who sometimes comments on her blog. There are plenty of bloggers who aren't famous.
    - jfengel 6y ago
      I suspect when somebody's coming out of nowhere offering to solve the whole shebang of physics, any advanced physicist is likely to be as good as any other. Weinstein is not, as I understand it, building off of the most cutting-edge work, but offering a new approach. Having deeper understanding of the state of the art may not be a benefit. It is almost certainly rubbish, and anybody could probably tell him that. It's probably not worth the time of anybody anywhere near the cutting edge, just a blogger who wants the attention. On the off chance it's actually correct, the person to affirm that it's correct is almost certainly not a popularizer at all. It'll be some obscure academics who see the merit and fill in the details -- which will be read by the popularizers and translated. But if I were one of them I wouldn't start sharpening my pencils yet.
      - akvadrako 6y ago
        > any advanced physicist is likely to be as good as any other It certainly matters how well they understand the material for being able critique a new approach. And there is a big difference in understanding throughout the field – people are not interchangeable. Sabine hasn't said anything that would indicate she knows why Erik's theory won't work, unlike the post by Nguyen.