Freeman Dyson - Could gravity vary with time? (109/157)
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- To listen to more of Freeman Dyson’s stories, go to the playlist: • Freeman Dyson (Scientist)
Freeman Dyson (1923-2020), who was born in England, moved to Cornell University after graduating from Cambridge University with a BA in Mathematics. He subsequently became a professor and worked on nuclear reactors, solid state physics, ferromagnetism, astrophysics and biology. He published several books and, among other honours, was awarded the Heineman Prize and the Royal Society's Hughes Medal. [Listener: Sam Schweber; date recorded: 1998]
TRANSCRIPT: The question was raised by Dirac, I think in 1936 or thereabouts: Could gravity be varying with time as the universe evolves? And the motivation for Dirac was he didn't like the fact that gravitational interaction is so weak as compared with other kinds of interactions, so if you take a dimensionless ratio which is Gm2/hc, where G is the gravitational constant of Newton, m is the mass of a proton, h is Planck's constant, and c is the velocity of light - that's a dimensionless number; it happens to have the value 10-39, and Dirac considered that to be ugly; that in the laws of physics there's this enormously small quantity which appears to be just arbitrary and put in by God into the laws of physics, and he said any self-respecting god wouldn't have done that, so that there must be some reason for this very small number appearing. So Dirac's argument was that if you assume that gravity goes down with time, like 1/T from the beginning of the universe, and you measure time in units of the proton Compton wave length, which is sort of the natural unit of time - no, not the Compton wavelength but the Compton frequency, the Compton wave length divided by velocity of light - then the unit of time is about 10-22 seconds, and the universe has existed for about 1017 seconds, so the ratio between the present age of the universe and the natural unit of time is 1039. So that's an interesting fact. So Dirac's hypothesis was that - so this small number merely is indicating the particular age at which we live in the history of the universe; in the natural units we are 1039 units from the beginning of time. So if you assume that gravity goes like 1/T, then you don't need to write this small number into the laws of physics. Well that was a very attractive notion to Dirac. He had this very strong belief in the power of aesthetics to divine the laws of nature, but then it's a question whether that's experimentally true. Well after that, then... Dirac's hypothesis remained a hypothesis for 40 years. Nobody had good enough observational data either to confirm it or to contradict it. So it remained quite possible that Dirac was right. In the meantime I think it was Edward Teller who proposed that the same thing might be true for the fine-structure constant, since that's also a rather small number, not as small as the gravitational coupling constant, but it's still... it's e2/hc, that's 1/137, and that looks like a logarithm. If you take the logarithm of Dirac's number, the natural logarithm of 1039 is about a 100, so it's about a 100 powers of e, so you might imagine that 137 is the logarithm of the time. And so Teller proposed the hypothesis that the electromagnetic interaction is also weakening with time, but going like 1 over logarithm. So that was also a very interesting question and that... Teller proposed that, I think - I don't remember exactly when, around 1950 or so - I mean it was some time after Dirac. And that was clearly much easier to test because we have much more accurate information about the electromagnetic interaction than we do about gravity. So... attention then was immediately concentrated on the fine-structure constant rather than on gravitation. And the first response to Teller, I think, came from Denys Wilkinson and he showed that in fact Teller couldn't be right, and he did that by looking simply at the decay rate of uranium in ancient rocks. That if you observe isotopes of uranium and isotopes of lead into which they decay in ancient rocks you can... by - it's a fairly circular argument, but you can in fact more or less prove by looking at these different kinds of rocks that the decay rates have remained pretty constant over the last 109 years or so, within 10%, something like that. I mean, there hasn't been a huge variation in the decay rate. Well, if you take the rate of the outer decay of uranium 238, it's actually extremely sensitive to the fine-structure constant because it... the alpha particle has to come out of the nucleus over a very high Gamow barrier, and the Gamow formula for the lifetime has an exponential with the fine-structure constant in it, since the fine-structure constant determines the Coulomb interaction between the alpha particle and the rest of the nucleus. [...]
Read the full transcript at www.webofstori...
What a man Prof. Dyson was. at soon 93 he fluently talks about complex formulas as if he was in his late twenties. Remarkable! And how great to see age is not a limiting factor (but sickness such as dementia, etc., might be). Sadly Prog. Dyson died more than a month ago at an age of 97. May he R.I.P.
Yes, he could even remember the numerical inputs and results long into old age.
Yeah, but on the other hand he'd been thinking about this stuff for a really long time, no wonder it was drummed into his head.
(Just kidding, he's amazing, you're absolutely right. Very impressive guy.)
This interview was actually 20 years ago.
@@purefatdude2 Very hard to understand that. Thanks for the heads up, appreciate that!
I'm going to just sit in depression realizing I could have met him in New Jersey but my dam studies distracted me.
Oh, that last line! “It was enough to demolish Teller” was oddly satisfying.
I think I have found my favorite physicist !
Agree!!
Try William Happer also. And Richard Feynman!
try David Bohm...utterly underrated genius
@@fwcolbFeynman would laugh at the idea Happer is a respectable scientist, as would anyone with any sense. Although if you meant that in the sense that both him and Dyson are a couple of jackasses, then I would agree, anyone that reveres Dyson might like Happer
I wish I had as much physics in my soul as Freeman Dyson had.
Me too
That is a beautiful sentiment. :)
Gotta put it in there
I was gonna say that but Dyson beat me to it, thanks a lot uncle Freeman.
Lol
"any self-respecting God wouldn't have done that" Dirac (on why gravity force is so weak) lol
It was about fine tuning, not simply the weakness of gravity
I wish I knew 10^-37 as much as Dyson did
@Bruce Holmstrom Me too, sir, me too.
There is nothing stopping you from such knowledge other than your own will,
Why wish?, go do it
Great talk but good lord the interviewer’s breathing into the mic and shuffling around!
Very educated and intelligent man I wish I knew half that he knows
Half of what Freeman Dyson had is orders of magnitude more than all of us here combined. Of course, I only say that as a perhaps ill defined indication of the magnitude of Dyson's unique genius.
Quite a number of ratios pointing towards gravity being variable... good point on Dirac’s thoughts in 10 to the -39.
Brilliant.
Brilliant.
Brilliant.
.
Imagine a thousand AI machines with this level of knowledge and brainpower.
Quick answer: It could, but it doesn't. Really love to listen to Professor Dyson's fuller explanations. It may come as a surprise, but Einstein could also explain things adequately in terms mere mortals can understand.
That ability (to effectively explain the most complex things to wide and uninitiated audiences) stems from a truly deep understanding of the subject matter.
He didn't say that it doesn't. He said that the fine structure constant doesn't; but that was a separate hypothesis made by a separate person.
Amazing man. True genius.
So the answer to the actual question is, 'I went off on a tangent and answered a similar question about the Fine Structure Constant instead'
1:22 Wait, why is the inverse of the Compton frequency of the proton a natural unit for time? Just because the proton has the largest mass and hence shortest Compton wavelength?
it is just a made up concept on which this theory is built...it is always the same no matter other physical interactions
@Dr Deuteron If it exists.
It's just defined that way actually. Physical meaning: nothing whatsoever.
These series of interviews are much better if you use the playlists the publisher created.
*the Freeman Dyson playlist*
th-cam.com/video/rs1jGsn61p8/w-d-xo.html
*and of course all the playlists:* th-cam.com/users/webofstoriesplaylists
If G changes, not with time, but with the density of matter in the universe, then you remove the awkwardness of density of matter going to infinity in a black hole. As you fall into a black hole your time changes such that as you look back from where you came you see the universe expanding faster and faster such that just as you would arrive at the event horizon the universe would have expanded to zero density and capital G would also be zero. In other words your fall never gets there and your mass never gets to collapse to zero size.
So as we enter a blackhole,as light {photons} beyond the event horizon,for instance when one flashes a light at each time in a blackhole overtime this signal is lost as it takes longer to reach the outside observer. And as we enter a blackhole the object world line stops and as the light cone gets reversed you only experience the future as past and past as future where you see the future of blackhole as past and future. So what happens here is one never sees the arrow of time function normally in the external universe that does have increasing entropy.
But also isn't there a point within the blackhole where everything is destroyed and even blackholes are subject to entropy and even after it releases its matter via hawking radiation,the information is retrieved so in a way you return to the external universe
4:28 Watch his eyes. A circular argument indeed. In a nutshell, "The decay of uranium must be fairly constant, because we already know the age of these rocks...based upon radiometric dating...and evolutionary dogma."
Hell yes-- Gravity WEEKENDS WITH TIME Placement motion !
how can gravity weaken if its a fold in spacetime? also what is gravity over time? gravity doesn't travel does it? if it does, what is the speed of gravity?
Sabine Hossenfelder has suggested that the search for beauty or elegance in the mathematics of physics has led the field astray.
Some things you wish were not true : (
@@MikinessAnalog Don't worry: didn't you hear, she has just 'suggested'. It's bad enough believing things just because someone says it's true, but much worse than if you do that when someone just suggests.... Next you'll be believing each of Trump's massive changes of 'mind'.
This is not what Sabine is talking about. This is a a description of what is currently a miraculous coincidence, that Dirac is suggesting is more than just a coincidence, and is begging an explanation.
G weakening with time explains the increased rate of expansion on space at least
There is no expansion.
@@dreamdiction How then to explain red-shift of observed galaxies proportional to their distance>?
@@profile1251 Light slows down by 30% while travelling through glass. Light slows down in proportion to cosmic distance because space is an imperfect vacuum.
@@dreamdiction But that doesn't create a red shift, does it ? only light moving away from us could do that as far as i know
I have a Dyson. Keeps my carpet's fine structure just the same as it's always been.
Very interesting, informative and worthwhile video.
So is that a yes or no ?
Yes, it's definitely a maybe. Or possibly not.
Do I have to show you the math? It was not a definite maybe. Latest experiments show that it is a absolute maybe.
We don't know, but we know Teller(or whatever the other guy was named) was wrong, so Dirac might have been wrong too.
Could diminishing strength of gravity be the reason why the expansion of the universe is accelerating?
Could be that the accelerating expansion of the universe is what weakens gravity. But, as I understood it, there is little evidence that gravity is weakening much. Not as much anticipated. What Prof Dyson says is that gravity is such a weak force it is hard to get evidence of weakening.
Love you Freeman
I didn't understand it but I'm sure he's right. :)
Lovely.
I used to think that a constant was an arbitrary math fix that makes the math work for no reason that has anything to do with reality, but then I found the gravitational constant. I'm keeping it. it's in my closet.
A constant is typically fixed by the variables being used. Basically different variables are related to each other, but not exactly equal. The constant turns the relationship into an equation. Also different variables = different constant.
@@puppetmaster8514 That means it is not really dealing with reality. The constant is exactly what I said, a fudge factor. It is not real. It limits the entire concept to being an analogy at best due to choices in variables. The variables that they choose may not even be causal. The curve created by the variables may be analogously similar to reality, but the constant forces it to fit and seem exact. Every scientist alive today is ok with merely describing something with math rather than actually understanding it. Rote memory of a description does not mean that you understand it. Even the gyroscope is the right-hand rule and a conservation law, but no one can explain how that works without saying "This vector does this and this vector does that." It's all math with a rote memory concept to put a dress on it.
@@jnhrtmn That's highly doubtful. I'm sure that most if not all physicists have a very deep understanding of physics. If you ask them a question, about gyroscopes or whatever, the answer you'll get is an attempt to use words that _you_ might understand, and may even include so-called "lies to children". Remember, having knowledge and imparting that knowledge are two different things. And really deep physics flies in the face of human understanding anyway, so for all intents and purposes you may as well do as -Feynman- _Mermin_ suggested; "shut up and calculate".
I have wondered about this (indirectly) before. Since being near an extremely large gravitational source affects time, and giving there is duality in everything, why shouldn't gravity be affected by time? + / -- , North South magnetic poles, light and lack of light (dark), up & down, left & right, forward & back etc...
yup, maybe there are beings living in 4 dimensions of time but only 1 dimension of space!
Is that mean that we have time of time ?
Dirac was right in implying that if a theory is beautiful, it almost by definition, offers deep insights. An ugly theory only offers very limited insights. And is, almost always, a waste of time and effort.
Michael Keeshan Maybe it is ugly in base ten, but another base, like 2 or 12 or some other number might make the numbers compliment themselves better.
Yeah like the standard model. Ugly as hell and the best established model in the history of physics. No insight gained there.
Super Awesome Cool Video
Long live freedom and democratic equality
Gravity is by far the wimpy player of all the known forces...drop a coin on the floor and realize how easy it is to pick up...it's you verses the gravity of our massive earth...you win hands down...one of the great unsolved mysteries of the universe.
Is gravity a function of Phi?
If so with a 10 World Universe which effects Phi
Hence Tiamet/ Nibiru people isolated on Tephireth who mutate due to zPhi this could indicate the gravity on Tiamet/Nibiru
As against gravity on z
Tephireth (Giai)-Earth!!
MBraithwaite zYorkshire
Viking
So, was Paul Dirac right or not?
He was wrong as far as we know.
I know right, went off on a tangent and didn't answer the question...
@@marcushendriksen8415 He would answer if he knew it
As Chou En-Lai said of the influence of the French Revolution, "It is too early to say."
Legend
Look up Electric Universe theory. Even here on YT.
The gravitational constant is called a constant for a reason.
It is reasonable to assume that it does not vary until otherwise proven.
To experimentally prove any of the possibilities in this matter, you need to leave the universe. Because every piece of matter in the universe affects the readings.
very good
+sub
Not mentioned is the observable 10% variation (as he rightfully mentioned alters the lifetime by the 500th power of the fine-structure constant) in just the past hundred years makes it clear that the assumption of decay constants is hyper fallible because the element purity, formation structure, and a host of unknown environmental variables could easily throw off the calculated decay rates by ridiculous multiples, which has, in itself, profound implications not only for our understanding of basic mineral materials in and around our planet, but also the decay rates of carbon atoms, for example, which are heavily depended upon to try to date very old things because we currently use various labs to check the work and ensure accuracy, but if they are all using flawed formulas then even consistent results are nothing more than consistently wrong figures, which is a bit scary as we attempt to build more and more on what may yet still prove to be very false premises.
He mentions a 10% margin in decay at 5:10 , is that the variation you refer to?
Mind you that's 500th power PER percentile. Thus "very sensitive test" which he deems to have "demolished Teller" - which is somewhat debatable, but we'll leave that to the professionals.
Yes, you’re thereby giving creation “scientists” firmer ground to stand on and say that radio-carbon or other radio-nuclide “dating” is all rubbish. Can you provide a reference to some elementary technical articles discussing these “attacks” on decay constants? Unrelated remark: I agree, “demolishing Teller” is rather hyperbolic language!
Autonomous Publishing Incorporated I’m not “afraid” of them, I deal with one creationist in a class I am a student in very nicely and supportively, but without withholding valid criticism. All scientists are human and to deal totally objectively is actually classical absolutism, and not possible. All science is subject to review and “paradigm shift” subtly small or large.
I only hold two degrees in Physics, but was admitted to Doctoral Candidacy by a colleague of Albert Einstein from his Princeton days and perhaps prior, Nandor Balazs, and a respected graduate student of Geno (Eugen) Wigner, Leonard Eisenbud. My sponsor was Harold Metcalf, whose lab employee shared a Nobel Prize in 1996 for laser cooling and trapping of atoms, William Phillips. That doesn’t make me a scientist, but i do have unpublished results documented on Wordpress about 1) Rubiks Cube Mathematical modeling 2) thé fundamental radioactivity problem of nuclear fusion in the lab, which can possibly be overcome and 3) climate change and the role of the Ozone Hole over Antarctica
If it varies with time then it should also vary with distance. This could provide a way to look at dark matter and energy...
it _does_ vary with distance it grows weaker with distance via the inverse square law
@@fuseteam I think what he’s saying is, if we can observe a galaxy a million light years away, that means the structure we see should reflect the gravity in that galaxy as it was a million years ago.
@@Avicenna697 not really
Eloquent indeed :)
Yall miss the fact that people like this man know and understand that God is real and the unseen is understood by the tangible and measurable. (Romans 1:20 kjv ) people who overlook this fact get tossed to and fro by this mathematical jargon. Ever learning but never coming to the knowledge of the truth..
If the forces of nature vary with time indeed, it is quite possible that the legends and myths of magic-wielding entities is true; these fields they manipulated may be cyclical in strength with time.
Gravity did vary at one time.
Short answer, no. But it’s a circular argument, sort of.
could they found another interviewer , dam spanish flu symptom soundssssssssssss
Only a theory
However, it's been experiment, again and again, otherwise, it would be chucked out
My level of thinking a good man.
And if time also varies with time?
Yes, time oscillates and become uncertain
Not Dirac, but another Swiss scientist by the name of Burri hypothesized that time varied with time at the rate of 1 second per second. Another coincidence?
Maybe gravity is a liquid polymer which is mixing heterogeneously with one or more other substances?
So stars would have been impossible until a few million years ago...
? Utter nonsense. Can the creatonists please fuck off of logic and fact based debates! Go into your temple and whorship your Grandfather with beard in the sky. That's the amount of "logic" creeps like you are able to digest.
@@FutureChaosTV i see no creationist argument here :p
For 20 years I've held that reality is metaphor. Since gravity won't yield up its secrets, maybe its true identity is acceleration. We can't tell the difference if we close our eyes. Acceleration is baked into our DNA, it's the way populations grow.
Interesting...so both Dirac & Teller had a form of superstitious belief...something we all suffer from, but in their fields a bit "human".
Yes, the preference for a "beautiful" or "elegant" formula, even if the experiment suggests otherwise.
It's not that at all. Dirac pointed out two curious coincidences, that he suggested begged explanation. Dyson is focusing too much on the number itself, and not the fact that it can be produced independently from these two sources. That apparent coincidence is what Dirac was actually interested. There was also a second coincidence, that the square of this number can be produced from another related but independent source.
I think Dirac was onto something, and I think that these are more than just coincidences, and point to some fundamental understanding relating quantum mechanics to the scale of the universe.
It's not really a superstitious belief. They don't say a theory is true because it's beautiful, they say they search for beautiful theories and hopefully can prove them
You're making assumptions when you presume the universe is evolving?
and similarly, you're making assumptions presuming the universe is not evolving.
@Dr Deuteron he said I was right. Don't assume/rule out anything.
The word "evolving" merely means changing. It is an observable certainty that the universe is evolving.
Not really. The first stars were hydrogen-helium, and they cooked up all the chemicals for the next generation of stars. Galaxies merge and grow. The Universe is definitely evolving. You only have to look at the night sky to gather evidence.
When he says "the universe" he means "the laws of the universe". And yes, it's a big assumption to say that the laws of the universe are changing over time.
Most of physics rely on the assumption that the laws of the universe are... well... universal (which often means "not changing over space and time").
10 to minus 39 is an ugly number . No beauty.
So Dirac basically said, "I don't like this. Hey, here's another number which is close to this other number. Assuming they are related somehow we get gravity that gets weaker over time!' That is, at best, an unsound way to get to a hypothesis.
That'd be kind of like me saying, "I don't like quantum mechanics. If we substitute gremlins for all this probability nonsense we get a result that I like better!"
Since an hypothesis is by definition a groundless assumption, i see nothing unsound
@@johnholmes912 Gremlins it is.
It's totally fine to formulate a theory by drawing inspiration from any system of belief one might have. What's nice about science is that a single piece of data can destroy that theory in a second and nobody will ever look back. That is unlike other realms of the human endeavor, where certain beliefs stick around stubbornly even after being proven wrong 100 times over...
"Any self respecting god wouldn't have done so ..." ... lol ... well ... so that's the final fruit of 4 centuries of enlightment ...
A Black Hole is not weak. Gravity is created by mass. It does not wear down over time as long as mass does not diminish.
Stop telling God what to do!
jesus christ is God
Gravity is consequence of mass , time is consequence of the cosmos the two are separate , Freeman Dyson is a nut job
Gravity is consequence of time.
@@leimococ NO its not , gravity is a consequence of mass, time is part of the fabric of the cosmos , ego leads man to think that our universe is the beginning of anything.
Gravity effects slows down time , even just orbiting the earth speed , time speeds up because gravity has less influence even in orbit.
Its not hard , idiots like freeman just want fame , their not interested in the truth.
You should probably attend General Relativity, if your smart enough for tensor calculations
Prince Charles look like!
He has at least double the IQ of Charles.
@@johngeier8692
Triple
If your really smart and you put in the time can you know what this guy knows, or is this guy special?
Nobody's special. Do you think Freeman Dyson would be where he is today, if he hadn't dedicated his life in learning about physics? I think not. Same goes for Einstein, Feynman and everyone else.
@@longlostwraith5106 your talking up yourself, just cause you dedicate your life to basketball it does not make you Micheal Jordan. Same for physics but keep it up smart boy I am sure you will get there. The question was tongue in cheek rhetorical.
@@das8771 If I was practicing as much as Michael Jordan, I wouldn't be much worse than him, height would be the only real difference. Talent doesn't exist.
@@longlostwraith5106 Stop talking nonsense "not much worse than him" by definition gives him an edge in talent, it is the same for capacity to do specific task, or have a brain wired to understand what others can not.
@@das8771 Being taller isn't a "talent"... You seem to equate talent with advantage.
So these theoretical physicists are basically numerologists??
That’s not what Dyson says. He says theoretical physicists look for clues in the magnitudes of values, particularly in cases where those values seem very much different from other values that might otherwise seem theoretically similar.. But, and this is the big difference with numerologists, the physicists go on to work out the implications of their speculations for empirical observations of the natural world that can be made and verified. Among scientists, speculation is fine, a starting point for the rest of the scientific process, but speculation by itself is of little value. One of a theoretician’s jobs, Dyson makes this clear with his example, is to turn speculation into testable hypotheses. Testable hypotheses means, you have to make predictions about the real world based on your speculation, predictions that can be tested by observation. Until hypotheses are tested against nature, speculations remain speculations.
If I may, nature is what it is and our ability to describe it is more or less connected with our vanity. Nothing wrong with that, it's our nature. To be wrong, in the near term, can be just as important as being right, again in the near term. What is paramount is the ultimate description, independent of who did what and when. In the future, people will recognize that discoveries are not the single-handed inventions we like to assign to each other but years of collective works integrated into an "aha" moment, if you will. Trophies, in all forms, from little league to Nobel prizes, will be looked upon as nothing more that an earlier tug on daddy's pant leg for attention.
Green Sombrero our ability to describe nature is directly related to our knowledge and perceptiveness about the relevant facts. Stating that these are the same as vanity trivializes the contributions of dedicated and intellectually gigantic individuals. (Aside: Yes, there are times when folly appears to rule in either science or politics, but that is only known in retrospect.). As an example, Einstein contributed to physics in many other ways than the one for which he received his Nobel Prize, more ways than most people realize or even care to know.
Alternatively, reality is mathematics.
Nope.
Like a politician he did not make clear reply. Gravity vary with time, but not the way scientist think. the current understanding and models are wrong.
Full information in my 1975 Bremen Summerhouse notes or by official permission / request of Madam chancellor Angela Merkel I will instruct their release. Ferydoon Shirazi. MG1
Sure, next you'll say you have a time machine in your possession
JustAdreamer Forgood, response to you sarcastic remark . No, Time machine do not exist. But I have access to a GMR. if science progressed to be able to build time machine It will not work correctly. The out put will be a mixture of original. Mankind dose not know correct understanding of nature. If they did, they would know, Time is man made as a reference to control and synchronize actions. Real time in nature is events. Evens are localized, but each local event has different time scale. Therefore you need infinite number of machine for each element needed to time shift for a single moment in time. Take water, H2O. Hydrogen can be created far quicker than Oxygen. You need two machine to produce H2O molecule. When hydrogen is ready, you mast wait for oxygen before you combine them. Now consider how many machine needed to make a single living cell. You must not forget each element age is also has a effect. Are you still with me? If you are then don’t be disappointed. one can access past times and someone else’s past time which may appear another man’s future. My visitor have such technology. It work on principal of electromagnetic and Gravity. Principal is simple. When man began communicate over distance, they used whistling. One frequency modulated with another. Then came Morse, telegraph, phone, radio, TV. These are taking advantage of combining number of frequencies. Any matter has a specific EM resonance. A molecule has combination of the elements. A cell has combination of molecule. And you have combination of all your cells. GN,s machine is capable of detecting it. By combining the information with current gravity and putting it in reveres, it can look into my past. Knowing the gravity evolution. It can give approximation of my future. Some my call it time machine, but we call it” gravity modified resonance GMR”. America claim they can take a picture of past. It is based on theory of reflected light. We checked. they can not. Their motto is if you can not make it, fake it. That is why they would say that. Ferydoon Shirazi. MG1
Set playback speed to 1.5 before watching, you’re welcome.
Freeman Dyson deserve no quarter. He never earned a Ph.D and it shows. He has never learned to internalize self criticism that peer review teaches. He was thrown of the office of Enrico Fermi and other reputable intellects who would not "suffer fools". Why is this even posted on TH-cam? He could not see science fiction in his own work, e.g. the Dyson Sphere. He denounced the Ph.D.
Equivalently why did he not ask 'does electric charge vary with time'? Do the fundamental constants vary with distance? Space and time are connected. The greater the distance the further back in time we look. Dyson is asking an ignorant question. Let's make a positive assertion about the beginning of time, where popular science gets confused. Various independent measurements of the age of the universe vary over a distribution of 25 million years. That means there is no testable way to distinguish Big Bang Cosmology from the Big Crunch when the diameter of the universe was a maximum of 25 million light years. I offer this simple analysis as an example of how the ramblings of an unlearned person are not equal to a Ph.D.
David Naugler, Ph.D.
"Dyson is asking an ignorant question" - it was not Dyson's hypothesis, it was Dirac's. Maybe you should go verify whether Dirac actually had a Ph.D., then tell us how a legend like that could come up with such an "ignorant question". Suggest you delete your comment, makes you look like a clown (with a Ph.D.).
Culture shock! It's funny how in the American world the PhD has come to be the pinnacle of academic achievement.
In German academia, where the PhD came from, the PhD was an "inaugural dissertation," which marked the BEGINNING of recognition as a serious scholar. An aspiring professor would go on to work on a second dissertation for "habilitation." However, even Einstein had only a plain PhD.
English snobbery for a long time inhibited scholars in the arts from seeking a PhD, because it was a foreign import. Oxford and Cambridge had something along those lines anyway, in the form of the dissertation which Dyson wrote to get his Fellowship at Trinity College, Cambridge, though that may be more at master's level.
In the UK, there is no "habilitation." Higher doctorates (DD, DSc, DLitt, LLD, DMus etc) CANn be obtained submitting a body of published work, but may sometimes just be awarded to a successful scholar, as they can be dished out to judges, bishops and composers.
The real question about Dyson is why he never got a Nobel prize for his work on Quantum Electrodynamics. Was it because he would have been number four, and the prize can't be split between more than three people?
Yet he had many PhD students. How did Bethe judge Dyson? He was a world-class academic, please also note a fellowship at Cambridge and FRS are well above a lowly PhD
Dr Simon Lillystone
Remember God Perfects strength in weakness.
Any more empty phrases?
There is no god. No matter how strong you believe reality does not care about your delusions.
Add he makes sure the fairies maintain the teapot in earth orbit. And gives innocent children Onchocerca volvulus either to 'test' our faith or - praise be the Lord - miraculously cure us! Sounds like the mythical creature can't lose...