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In undergrad I did physics so I used to tenuously be aware of this debate but I can't comment on the substance because I didn't go on to do my PhD in physics. B
by almostgotcaught 2y ago
In undergrad I did physics so I used to tenuously be aware of this debate but I can't comment on the substance because I didn't go on to do my PhD in physics. But they're not colleagues in any meaningful sense. I don't ascribe any value to tenure or professorship but Woit is a "senior lecturer", which is basically an adjunct that's been around a long time, not a professor. For a long time his blog said he was the IT person for the department if I recall correctly. So Woit and his blog and lesswrong has absolutely always been more about click bait than substance to me. Greene isn't a paragon of scholarship either though - again, superficially, for many years now he's been a popsci celebrity rather than a real, actual, string theorist (much like Michio Kaku).
- photon_lines 2y ago'Greene isn't a paragon of scholarship either though - again, superficially, for many years now he's been a popsci celebrity rather than a real, actual, string theorist' - Working at Cornell and Columbia, doing research on string theory and writing best-selling books on physics today qualifies a person as a pop-sci physicist? What would you have grouped Einstein as when he was working at the patent office? No really - serious question.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- lupire 2y agoEinstein published his work on relativity on 30 June 1905 in the German physics journal Annalen der Physik, not a pop science book
- photon_lines 2y agohttps://inspirehep.net/authors/1007642 https://inspirehep.net/authors/1007642
- lupire 2y agoIT person for the department is at the bottom of his list of professional responsibilities. He was in fact an assistant professor of mathematics at Columbia before his current role as senior lecturer. Is suspect that Woit would argue that they are colleagues because Greene is also a mathematician and former physicist. https://www.math.columbia.edu/~woit/ https://www.math.columbia.edu/~woit/