5 ms·

Reader mode to the rescue... This whole article reeks of artificial academic elitism. Not the entire content of it, but just sprinkled in here and there.

hprotagonist 5y ago
it’s not artificial, anyway: he came by it honestly. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerard_%27t_Hooft https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerard_%27t_Hooft
xjf934jdifj9pl 5y ago
Given his achievements, I would give him the benefits of the doubt that it's just a grumpy person who's seen enough polished turd having a rent. I don't know if theoretical physics is particularly susceptible to producing the type of "bad" people that the OP writes about: but of all type of scientists I have worked with in the past, it appears that theoretical physicists do have higher tendency of doing those "bad" things described in the article. On a personal level, I am biased because I have quit a job due to exactly the type of behavior in question, where everyone thought what we were doing was the greatest thing in history and they remained undeterred no matter how many times I said what we were doing is a pile of shit. Our competitors were like that, too.
- maverick-iceman 5y ago
  > On a personal level, I am biased because I have quit a job due to exactly the type of behavior in question, where everyone thought what we were doing was the greatest thing in history and they remained undeterred no matter how many times I said what we were doing is a pile of shit Perception is reality. If there is one thing more complicated than theoretical physics is predicting human reactions to ideas, theories and events.
dpwm 5y ago
I studied Physics, and I ended up doing some computational work around High-Energy Physics. All the postdocs I worked with received a lot of insane emails about crank theories. Many were more silly ideas, but some of the proposers had put in serious effort. IIRC they were getting the same emails, like they were on a list. They were a magnet for this, particularly as high-energy physics was in the news a lot. The people who seemed to get it worst were the particle-physics phenomenology people. I would imagine they start out funny, but could after several years get tiring.
- ISL 5y ago
  The "list" is self-organizing. When nobody listens to a purveyor of a poor theory, the proponent casts an ever-wider net. Eventually, they have the bright idea to scrape the web pages of physics departments for emails. At least in my case, they started sending email within a few months of starting grad school. The truly ambitious can decide to simply show up at the lab/building. A common refrain is, "here is my theory, tell me why it is wrong". No amount of countervailing evidence will be sufficient, usually because such a person will have critical misunderstandings of a fundamental concept or three and an intuitive sense that they are correct. Don't invite them into your office and attempt to help them resolve said misunderstandings in a youthful desire to save them from wasting their time; they might not leave. Do, however, give them the references they might need in order to see the light.
- Borrible 5y ago
  There's a buck to be made: https://aeon.co/ideas/what-i-learned-as-a-hired-consultant-for-autodidact-physicists https://aeon.co/ideas/what-i-learned-as-a-hired-consultant-f... https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12268362 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12268362
  - yesenadam 5y ago
    That aeon story is about Sabine Hossenfelder doing a "talk to a physicist" job. She sounds awesome at it, very impressive!
mannykannot 5y ago
I just cannot find it in me to get upset by the notion that a group of people who have tried hard to understand something, including by trying to rip apart their own and their colleagues' ideas, might know something, and also might have grounds to be irritated by being harangued by people who have done neither. On the matter of the presentation of this web page, however...
anon_tor_12345 5y ago
lol people don't understand that science at gerard 't hooft's level is just as petty and vulgar as your local bar. what i mean is very accomplished scientists brag and sneer and bluster all the time - they feel entitled to and we worship and empower them to. examples abound; read any of feynman's books; landau had a scale by which he measured other scientists; von neumann would chew people out who couldn't keep up with him; the cat fight right now around Mochizuki's proof; etc etc etc. if you've never been around these people you think they're saints when in fact they're almost universally assholes. it's not unlike ultra-wealthy people competing with each other for the greatest monument to their wealth... i'm sure someone will respond to me to say something like they need to be this way to accomplish (just like with the slavish worship of the ultra wealthy) what they've accomplished and to this i always present to them john bardeen, who won two nobels and still managed to be a good neighbor.
- katmannthree 5y ago
  To be fair to one of those examples, > von neumann would chew people out who couldn't keep up with him Imagine what that experience was like from his perspective, constantly explaining simple things to people too lazy to put in the work necessary to have a proper discussion about whatever before ultimately wasting his time. Over and over and over again. That gets old quickly no matter what level you're operating on.
  - anon_tor_12345 5y ago
    Lol this is exactly what I preemptively alluded to - how we (as a culture) enable this kind of behavior. It becomes even worse when you realize that at least the ultra wealthy pay people for the right to abuse them and von Neumann et al are abusing, frequently, poorly paid junior scientists. >That gets old quickly no matter what level you're operating on. If you can't handle being around people that are differently abled from you then the answer is not to take your frustrations out on them. The answer is to stop being around people. No community/culture/society owes anyone, not even people at this level, some kind of pampered sphere of existence that revolves around them.
tobmlt 5y ago
Yeah, the tone is harsh. He’s trying to deal in mass with a whole pile of cranks wasting his time. Compare with his “how to become a good theoretical physicist”: https://webspace.science.uu.nl/~gadda001/goodtheorist/index.html https://webspace.science.uu.nl/~gadda001/goodtheorist/index....

hprotagonist 5y ago

it’s not artificial, anyway: he came by it honestly. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerard_%27t_Hooft https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerard_%27t_Hooft

xjf934jdifj9pl 5y ago

Given his achievements, I would give him the benefits of the doubt that it's just a grumpy person who's seen enough polished turd having a rent. I don't know if theoretical physics is particularly susceptible to producing the type of "bad" people that the OP writes about: but of all type of scientists I have worked with in the past, it appears that theoretical physicists do have higher tendency of doing those "bad" things described in the article. On a personal level, I am biased because I have quit a job due to exactly the type of behavior in question, where everyone thought what we were doing was the greatest thing in history and they remained undeterred no matter how many times I said what we were doing is a pile of shit. Our competitors were like that, too.

maverick-iceman 5y ago
> On a personal level, I am biased because I have quit a job due to exactly the type of behavior in question, where everyone thought what we were doing was the greatest thing in history and they remained undeterred no matter how many times I said what we were doing is a pile of shit Perception is reality. If there is one thing more complicated than theoretical physics is predicting human reactions to ideas, theories and events.

dpwm 5y ago

I studied Physics, and I ended up doing some computational work around High-Energy Physics. All the postdocs I worked with received a lot of insane emails about crank theories. Many were more silly ideas, but some of the proposers had put in serious effort. IIRC they were getting the same emails, like they were on a list. They were a magnet for this, particularly as high-energy physics was in the news a lot. The people who seemed to get it worst were the particle-physics phenomenology people. I would imagine they start out funny, but could after several years get tiring.

ISL 5y ago
The "list" is self-organizing. When nobody listens to a purveyor of a poor theory, the proponent casts an ever-wider net. Eventually, they have the bright idea to scrape the web pages of physics departments for emails. At least in my case, they started sending email within a few months of starting grad school. The truly ambitious can decide to simply show up at the lab/building. A common refrain is, "here is my theory, tell me why it is wrong". No amount of countervailing evidence will be sufficient, usually because such a person will have critical misunderstandings of a fundamental concept or three and an intuitive sense that they are correct. Don't invite them into your office and attempt to help them resolve said misunderstandings in a youthful desire to save them from wasting their time; they might not leave. Do, however, give them the references they might need in order to see the light.
Borrible 5y ago
There's a buck to be made: https://aeon.co/ideas/what-i-learned-as-a-hired-consultant-for-autodidact-physicists https://aeon.co/ideas/what-i-learned-as-a-hired-consultant-f... https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12268362 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12268362
- yesenadam 5y ago
  That aeon story is about Sabine Hossenfelder doing a "talk to a physicist" job. She sounds awesome at it, very impressive!

mannykannot 5y ago

I just cannot find it in me to get upset by the notion that a group of people who have tried hard to understand something, including by trying to rip apart their own and their colleagues' ideas, might know something, and also might have grounds to be irritated by being harangued by people who have done neither. On the matter of the presentation of this web page, however...

anon_tor_12345 5y ago

lol people don't understand that science at gerard 't hooft's level is just as petty and vulgar as your local bar. what i mean is very accomplished scientists brag and sneer and bluster all the time - they feel entitled to and we worship and empower them to. examples abound; read any of feynman's books; landau had a scale by which he measured other scientists; von neumann would chew people out who couldn't keep up with him; the cat fight right now around Mochizuki's proof; etc etc etc. if you've never been around these people you think they're saints when in fact they're almost universally assholes. it's not unlike ultra-wealthy people competing with each other for the greatest monument to their wealth... i'm sure someone will respond to me to say something like they need to be this way to accomplish (just like with the slavish worship of the ultra wealthy) what they've accomplished and to this i always present to them john bardeen, who won two nobels and still managed to be a good neighbor.

katmannthree 5y ago
To be fair to one of those examples, > von neumann would chew people out who couldn't keep up with him Imagine what that experience was like from his perspective, constantly explaining simple things to people too lazy to put in the work necessary to have a proper discussion about whatever before ultimately wasting his time. Over and over and over again. That gets old quickly no matter what level you're operating on.
- anon_tor_12345 5y ago
  Lol this is exactly what I preemptively alluded to - how we (as a culture) enable this kind of behavior. It becomes even worse when you realize that at least the ultra wealthy pay people for the right to abuse them and von Neumann et al are abusing, frequently, poorly paid junior scientists. >That gets old quickly no matter what level you're operating on. If you can't handle being around people that are differently abled from you then the answer is not to take your frustrations out on them. The answer is to stop being around people. No community/culture/society owes anyone, not even people at this level, some kind of pampered sphere of existence that revolves around them.

tobmlt 5y ago

Yeah, the tone is harsh. He’s trying to deal in mass with a whole pile of cranks wasting his time. Compare with his “how to become a good theoretical physicist”: https://webspace.science.uu.nl/~gadda001/goodtheorist/index.html https://webspace.science.uu.nl/~gadda001/goodtheorist/index....