8 ms·

> Loeb could not have been any more mainstream or credentialed, yet here he was, saying that maybe an alien spaceship had arrived. Speaking as a former physici

by oefrha 3y ago

> Loeb could not have been any more mainstream or credentialed, yet here he was, saying that maybe an alien spaceship had arrived. Speaking as a former physicist (but not astrophysicist), at least to us practicing physicists, someone being well credentialed hardly lends any credence to their more out there theories. I know multiple renowned professors in high energy and/or cosmology, including at least one in my department (Princeton Physics), who have been pursuing more wacky theories late in their careers that others in respective fields ignore for the most part. In fact, being well credentialed probably makes it easier to gravitate toward the fringe, since there’s no more normal career objective to pursue. No comment on this specific case.

david_draco 3y ago
His formal background is in theoretical physics not astronomy, although he has been at Harvard's astronomy department for decades now.
joe__f 3y ago
I remember when I was doing my masters I was really excited to go and see Penrose speak, and I was surprised when none of the cosmology staff I had lectures with were going to the talk. When I asked them they told me they'd looked and they couldn't see any evidence for cyclic conformal cosmology in the CMB
- oefrha 3y ago
  This reminds me of my first day as a PhD student in the department. Talked to a bunch of professors to figure out my potential advisor. Probably the most famous professor out of the bunch surprised me with his really strange BSM theories that AFAICT few people took seriously.
- ramraj07 3y ago
  It is generally true that any lecture by a Nobel laureate or a professor very late in their career is for the most part useless. Best case scenario you get a rehash of decades old research you can glean from your review. Worst case is you get what you mentioned.
  - ethbr1 3y ago
    I had an opportunity to see Stephen Hawking give a good talk ~2004, but he was probably more educator than the average. Still humorously sore about needing experimental confirmation to win a Nobel though! (As I would be if I were him)
spaceman_2020 3y ago
People should remember that Newton spent the majority of his life trying to turn lead into gold. People can be incredibly smart and still pursue crackpot ideas.
- cowl 3y ago
  In retrospective you can say that Transmutation was a crackpot idea but that was not known at that time. Many "alchemists" where very rigorous chemistry experimentalists and Ultimately it turns out you can turn lead into gold, but you need fission to do it and not transmutation that was thought to be simply a chemical process. The thing to note is that if you are not ready to risk being lost into a crackpot idea, than you are not ready to have a suffecintly transformative idea.
  - tnecniv 3y ago
    My hazy recollection was that this didn’t seem all too crazy back then since chemistry and scientific standards were either non-existent or in their infancy
    - cowl 3y ago
      Exactly, back then we didn't even know that gold and lead were two single elements. We had the concepts of atoms yes but not of different elements that were "stable" on their own or that one atom could be different from another atom. If everything is comprised of atoms the belief that you can rearange somehow the atoms of lead to create gold was not so farfetched as we know it to be today. Robert Boyle, who is considered the father of chemistry came to most of his chemical work because of his "Alchemist" research.
- jonhohle 3y ago
  They're only crackpot until they're proven. LBNL turned bismuth to gold in 1980[0], but it required a particle accelerator and more energy than could have been fathomed in Newton's day. The yield wasn't great and cost about 10 orders of magnitude more than the price of gold at the time, but it was done (theoretically), and by a Nobel prize winner, even! 0 - https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/fact-or-fiction-lead-can-be-turned-into-gold/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/fact-or-fiction-l...
hgsgm 3y ago
Tenure means you can't get fired for being crazy. It's a right to be wrong, not a guarantee of being right.

by oefrha 3y ago

david_draco 3y ago

His formal background is in theoretical physics not astronomy, although he has been at Harvard's astronomy department for decades now.

joe__f 3y ago

I remember when I was doing my masters I was really excited to go and see Penrose speak, and I was surprised when none of the cosmology staff I had lectures with were going to the talk. When I asked them they told me they'd looked and they couldn't see any evidence for cyclic conformal cosmology in the CMB

oefrha 3y ago
This reminds me of my first day as a PhD student in the department. Talked to a bunch of professors to figure out my potential advisor. Probably the most famous professor out of the bunch surprised me with his really strange BSM theories that AFAICT few people took seriously.
ramraj07 3y ago
It is generally true that any lecture by a Nobel laureate or a professor very late in their career is for the most part useless. Best case scenario you get a rehash of decades old research you can glean from your review. Worst case is you get what you mentioned.
- ethbr1 3y ago
  I had an opportunity to see Stephen Hawking give a good talk ~2004, but he was probably more educator than the average. Still humorously sore about needing experimental confirmation to win a Nobel though! (As I would be if I were him)

spaceman_2020 3y ago

People should remember that Newton spent the majority of his life trying to turn lead into gold. People can be incredibly smart and still pursue crackpot ideas.

cowl 3y ago
In retrospective you can say that Transmutation was a crackpot idea but that was not known at that time. Many "alchemists" where very rigorous chemistry experimentalists and Ultimately it turns out you can turn lead into gold, but you need fission to do it and not transmutation that was thought to be simply a chemical process. The thing to note is that if you are not ready to risk being lost into a crackpot idea, than you are not ready to have a suffecintly transformative idea.
- tnecniv 3y ago
  My hazy recollection was that this didn’t seem all too crazy back then since chemistry and scientific standards were either non-existent or in their infancy
  - cowl 3y ago
    Exactly, back then we didn't even know that gold and lead were two single elements. We had the concepts of atoms yes but not of different elements that were "stable" on their own or that one atom could be different from another atom. If everything is comprised of atoms the belief that you can rearange somehow the atoms of lead to create gold was not so farfetched as we know it to be today. Robert Boyle, who is considered the father of chemistry came to most of his chemical work because of his "Alchemist" research.
jonhohle 3y ago
They're only crackpot until they're proven. LBNL turned bismuth to gold in 1980[0], but it required a particle accelerator and more energy than could have been fathomed in Newton's day. The yield wasn't great and cost about 10 orders of magnitude more than the price of gold at the time, but it was done (theoretically), and by a Nobel prize winner, even! 0 - https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/fact-or-fiction-lead-can-be-turned-into-gold/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/fact-or-fiction-l...

hgsgm 3y ago

Tenure means you can't get fired for being crazy. It's a right to be wrong, not a guarantee of being right.