smokeandmirrors
Banned
I don't know if you're joking or not but this is beyond ridiculous. Absolutely no way to attribute the development of the computer to Tesla.
Tesla fanboys are the worst.
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Stephen Hawking is a mediocre scientist
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I don't know if you're joking or not but this is beyond ridiculous. Absolutely no way to attribute the development of the computer to Tesla.
Tesla fanboys are the worst.
Einstein was a moron too. He was totally wrong about quantum mechanics.
Amazing how many so-called brilliant scientists turn out to be mediocre has-beens when you look at their work today.
Right? David Bowie plays you once in a mediocre movie and suddenly you're the favorite scientist of the Internet.
Ugh.
phisheep
NeoGAF's Chief Barrister
Speaking of Sir Isaac, he spent a lot of time studying alchemy. Such a hack. Also, why didn't he use mathematical notation? His long-winded texts are so very confusing
Er, he did use mathematical notation. It just happened to be good ole-fashioned geometry rather than new-fangled algebra.
Well, in Principia at least - not so much in Opticks.
Orbis Tabula
Member
I'm sure he's a smart guy, but I do hate how much people think that whatever he says is gospel. They're literally missing the entire point. Especially when he said that thing about AI potentially ending humanity. It's not any more likely just because Stephen Hawking thinks its possible. Everyone knows it could be possible.
Einstein was so wrong he was right. His explanation for why quantum mechanics makes no fucking sense set the framework for the field's formative interpretation. Dudes read his paper and went "exactly!"
That's like the option select of science.
Appeal to authority may be a logical fallacy, but it can also be a useful heuristic. If a lot of smart people whose work I respect say that we should be looking into xyz, then I would at least consider looking into it. If I take a cursory look and think it's bullshit, I'd at least want to know what basis the smart people had for thinking it was important, rather than immediately writing it off as "guess they're not that smart."
Obviously this would be more the case in someone's actual domain of expertise than in general stuff, as others have mentioned.
Krappadizzle
Member
Exactly. I've read how many teachers in the 50's and 60's said you had to be Einstein to understand what he meant, which isn't very great science, but it didn't stop his(Einstein's) discoveries from being any less valuable.
Na, I think most reasonable people know you can't just lump greatest in a top 10 list. A lot of discoveries are built on the shoulders of others so it's hard to pin down one discovery/or scientist over another as far as importance I'd say. You could argue some are more important. But no one needs to be the winner. The real winner is science.
And then in trying to prove that QM was false, he went on to draw attention to one of its most significant features (quantum entanglement).
He also laid the groundwork for the invention of the laser.
Game, set, match, other scientists.
Any list without Darwin is instantly invalid, sorry.
hahaha yeah that title is total total clicktroll.
Orbis Tabula
Member
Certainly. I have no problem with appealing to authority when it's all I've got. What irks me is people who are already skeptical about AI research using Stephen Hawking's concerns as justification to slow or halt research. The reasoning seems to be "I think a thing. So does a guy who is famously smart. So I'm right!" I'd love it if people heard that story and, as a result, looked more into the works of Stephen Hawking to determine whether his opinion on the matter is worth listening to. Or, even better, if they looked into the field of AI more and learned what professionals were doing on the subject. But I don't think that's how people react when they hear him. They think "Why aren't we listening to this guy? He's smart!"
Krappadizzle
Member
If we listed results from Einsteins work, we'd be here all day.
D
Deleted member 80556
Unconfirmed Member
Also a great scientist. He was one of the scientist who discovered water on Jupiter's Europa, theorizing that it could be a good place to look for life.
Some of his patents were used in the creation of the transistor.
Of course, it's simplifying, so no need to call people who like Tesla the worst. I'd say climate change deniers are the worst, rather than people who admire a scientist and inventor.
EDIT: Also, lol at people calling The Prestige mediocre. Sculli is coming for y'all. And to be honest, my appreciation towards Tesla was before I watched that movie.
NYCmetsfan
Banned
I think it was more a take on the "Hawkings got his theory disproved so he's not that smart".
Newton was wrong though, his theories on motion don't apply to everything. They're a useful short cut for most of what humans use though.
Thanks to Einstein, Interstellar
showed the masses that our children could become older than us.
Krappadizzle
Member
Newtonian physics aren't an exact description of nature. It was accurate for it's time and it breaks down when laws of nature start shifting when speed and gravity are changed. I don't think he could account for that.
I'd say that it's very likely that Einsteins theory's will break down in very much the same way that Newtons did when we start actually testing in meaningful ways.
Epsilon-delta
Banned
GPS is overrated.
Krappadizzle
Member
Yeah, we shoulda just stopped with Star Charts.
Walk her through the "light clock on a moving train" example. It's very visual and easy to demonstrate.
NYCmetsfan
Banned
Eh, Darwin leans on others (who doesnt though, its not really a knock, but if we're doing greatest), his biggest contribution was popularizing it. Wallace though up the same thing and ideas similar to natural selection were around before darwin.
De Vries and Mendel really showed the mechanisms for evolution and made it indisputable
Tallshortman
Member
So OP is attacking hawking's scientific credentials because the man decided to express his opinion on a subject not in his field of expertise? I'm sure the various awards and being one of the youngest scientists ever to become a fellow of the royal society speak for nothing.
He never said he was an expert in AI, OP seems angsty at people who take his word for fact rather than the man's words which makes the attack on him even more pointless.
He never said he was an expert in AI, OP seems angsty at people who take his word for fact rather than the man's words which makes the attack on him even more pointless.
Krappadizzle
Member
I tried. Even with a video she didn't get it.
I tried the pitcher on a moving truck.
Guy on a bench and in a car.
I think she understands in theory but is having a hard time grasping it in a practical way.
Delta Assault
Member
I thought Einstein explained it best:
Put your hand on a hot stove for a minute, and it seems like an hour. Sit with a pretty girl for an hour, and it seems like a minute.
Granted, she might have to use her imagination a bit with the pretty girl part.
We still got monkeys tho
We all know Darwin was a glorified Dora the Explorer, not a scientist.
I don't know if I could sort them in ranking, but any top list has to include Maxwell, Faraday, Schrodinger, Boltzmann, Newton, Leibniz, Einstein, Tesla, Edison, da Vinci, Mendel, and a few of the mad geniuses who established correlations in my major.
Would be curious to know what this is...
teh_J0kerer
Member
Well, I think I can give an educated opinion on this topic: I'm a theoretical physicist, I've written a couple of papers on black hole thermodynamics, and I have had dinner with professor Hawking when he visited my research group.
The truth is, the work that he is famous for was done a long time ago. For example, he has 8 papers cited over 1000 times (a very impressive number), but the last of these was written in 1983. His best work was absolutely top notch, and he has contributed a lot of really creative ideas that have been hugely influential. Since he has worked on issues that are difficult (maybe impossible?) to test experimentally, it is hard to decide where to place him on a list of historical physicists. But if Hawking radiation were to be measured, then he would be certain to win the Nobel prize. There is not so much doubt theoretically that Hawking radiation really exists, but measuring it from a real black hole doesn't seem possible, unfortunately. In any case, looking just at the quality of his best work, I think he can hold his own against any living physicist. The notion that his life's work would warrant calling him a "mediocre physicist" is laughable.
Now, that said, in truth his work is not so great anymore, and that 2 page paper referred to in the OP was indeed kind of odd. I can speculate a bit about this:
The popular media view of Hawking is as someone who has essentially conquered a difficult illness, and whose genius shines through despite his disability. My guess is that this is actually, sadly, not true. When I met Hawking his illness was shockingly severe. You get the wrong impression if you just see his media appearances.
He used to be able to use a finger to click a button and type out sentences, but he has lost that ability (this is as of at least 7 years ago when I met him). He was only able to kind of scrunch up his cheek a bit as a replacement for the button pushing. Needless to say, this was not especially accurate, and he would have to make many corrections on his way to constructing sentences. With no exaggeration, it would take him about 10 minutes to type out a short sentence. With no ability to write out mathematics, and very little ability to communicate with the outside world, it seems to me more or less impossible for him to do much in the way of detailed physics. I suppose he can give others suggestions of things to try, but that can only go so far.
The reality is that, during the period when he was doing his best work, his illness was far, far less advanced. He was able to speak to some degree, and he was apparently able to type about 10 times as fast. So I think the situation is really more tragic than the triumphant story that is usually told; this is a brilliant guy who I'm sure would have continued to contribute amazing things if it hadn't been for his devastating illness.
The truth is, the work that he is famous for was done a long time ago. For example, he has 8 papers cited over 1000 times (a very impressive number), but the last of these was written in 1983. His best work was absolutely top notch, and he has contributed a lot of really creative ideas that have been hugely influential. Since he has worked on issues that are difficult (maybe impossible?) to test experimentally, it is hard to decide where to place him on a list of historical physicists. But if Hawking radiation were to be measured, then he would be certain to win the Nobel prize. There is not so much doubt theoretically that Hawking radiation really exists, but measuring it from a real black hole doesn't seem possible, unfortunately. In any case, looking just at the quality of his best work, I think he can hold his own against any living physicist. The notion that his life's work would warrant calling him a "mediocre physicist" is laughable.
Now, that said, in truth his work is not so great anymore, and that 2 page paper referred to in the OP was indeed kind of odd. I can speculate a bit about this:
The popular media view of Hawking is as someone who has essentially conquered a difficult illness, and whose genius shines through despite his disability. My guess is that this is actually, sadly, not true. When I met Hawking his illness was shockingly severe. You get the wrong impression if you just see his media appearances.
He used to be able to use a finger to click a button and type out sentences, but he has lost that ability (this is as of at least 7 years ago when I met him). He was only able to kind of scrunch up his cheek a bit as a replacement for the button pushing. Needless to say, this was not especially accurate, and he would have to make many corrections on his way to constructing sentences. With no exaggeration, it would take him about 10 minutes to type out a short sentence. With no ability to write out mathematics, and very little ability to communicate with the outside world, it seems to me more or less impossible for him to do much in the way of detailed physics. I suppose he can give others suggestions of things to try, but that can only go so far.
The reality is that, during the period when he was doing his best work, his illness was far, far less advanced. He was able to speak to some degree, and he was apparently able to type about 10 times as fast. So I think the situation is really more tragic than the triumphant story that is usually told; this is a brilliant guy who I'm sure would have continued to contribute amazing things if it hadn't been for his devastating illness.
phisheep
NeoGAF's Chief Barrister
We need to be a bit careful about how we characterise theories - it isn't about exact or not, or (usually) about right or wrong.
Newtonian physics is a robust, reasonably accurate description of the physics of moving bodies within quite wide boundaries. Better theories are better because of having wider limits, greater accuracy or greater robustness. Those things don't make them right or Newton wrong.
Aristotle was wrong though - because neither robust nor accurate.
Edit: nice post jokerer. And rings true too. Theoretical physics seems very much a young person's game (cf Einstein 1905), and we're lucky both in physics and in terms of inspirational stories that hawking did that rather than, say, history or politics. So, probably, is he.
D
Deleted member 80556
Unconfirmed Member
That's what I thought, J0kerer. Truly a depressive illness to take such a mind so soon from science.
But you'd also need an infinite amount of time to know what shit is correct!
But you'd also need an infinite amount of time to know what shit is correct!
Thank you for this insight.
Whatever, dude is still a genius and managed to write a book about astrophysics that the layman could both understand and not be bored by. He practically made knowledge about a very critical feature of our history, namely the genesis of the universe, a part of pop culture (the Big Bang Theory). That's a helluva a lot more impactful (and cost effective) than anything most theoretical physicists do.
However, what the OP describes isn't some phenomenon unique to Hawking. It's the same logic that almost made Mitt Romney president: if you get really rich doing something, you must be good at everything.
However, what the OP describes isn't some phenomenon unique to Hawking. It's the same logic that almost made Mitt Romney president: if you get really rich doing something, you must be good at everything.
The Hermit
Member
I know the "this is gaf, everyone has hater and defenders" meme but this actually surprised me.
And seeing a post of top 10 scientist is something I didn't expected to see in my life, so yeah
Btw OP the dude has one of the worst diseases known to human being and he was able to live (much longer than anyone I´ve ever seen with ALS and create those theories
Thanks for that!
I don't think these are particularly closely related. There's a sort of GOP logic that says if you're good at running a company, you'd be good at running government. I doubt Republicans would want to elect an intelligent scientist to a government position.
Darwin put together comprehensive evidence for his theory of natural selection, but he wasn't the only one who thought of it at the time. He's important mainly because of the extensive evidence he gathered to support the theory, as well as the way he articulated it to the public eye. Wallace may have thought of the same idea, but it was only long after Darwin had researched it; Wallace proposing the same theory was what motivated Darwin to finally publish.
Mendel should definitely be near the top. He extensively defined the particle model of inheritance, and he meticulously tested everything. It's bonkers to think how he was working purely with a phenotype frame of reference.
Epsilon-delta
Banned
Andrew Wiles tho.
SirMossyBloke
Member
Sigh....so sick of people abusing the "PSA" tagline for bullshit like this. This is not a public service announcement, its a damned opinion. People will be making every thread with PSA now just because they ate a sandwich they liked.
A Fish Aficionado
I am going to make it through this year if it kills me
No love for Sidney Farber?
smokeandmirrors
Banned
uncredited male
Member
I would vote da Vinci based on Assassin's Creed II alone.
terrisus
Member
terrisus
Member
Having much of my cancer treatment at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, I'm definitely a fan.
Euler perhaps, but I'd admit Dirac before Feynman.
The truth right here. We need a PSA thread to end all bullshit PSA threads.
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