Comments on: Guest Post: Lisa Randall on Writing Knocking on Heaven’s Door

By: John Anderson

John Anderson — Wed, 16 Nov 2011 02:23:42 +0000

How far can popularized science go?
Multiverses and M-theory will never be made comprehensible to a general
audience even by expert expounders like Randall and Greene. (I do not claim to
understand these subjects.) It results in a priesthood of technology and
science who profess concepts beyond the layman’s ken. The new elites are
practically as elevated and unassailable as Aristotle was in the Middle
Ages. This isn’t good for the current intellectual environment and it has
implications for participatory government. Can education effect this?

A thought from Percy Bridgeman in Harpers about the meaning of
uncertainty way back when it was a new idea: “The immediate effect will be to let loose a veritable
intellectual spree of licentious and debauched thinking.”

By: Länkar vecka 39 | Stjärnstoft och kugghjul

Länkar vecka 39 | Stjärnstoft och kugghjul — Sun, 02 Oct 2011 14:54:21 +0000

[...] Lisa Randall berättar om sin bok Knocking on Heaven’s Door Kommentarstråden är för sorglig. Jag längtar ibland efter fler kommentarer, men när jag väl tittar på sådana här trådar är jag glad att jag slipper. Folk klagar på grammatikfel i blogginlägget, och på att framstående fysiker ”slösar bort tid” på att skriva populärvetenskap. [...]

By: Wes

Wes — Sun, 02 Oct 2011 12:57:27 +0000

I am so glad that this book was written. It is good for my head and heart, and I’m not finished with it yet. I don’t WANT to finish – I wish it were (for the grammarians above) longer!

By: Phillip Helbig

Phillip Helbig — Wed, 28 Sep 2011 12:41:30 +0000

I’m pretty sure I replied to some comments here, but now those comments and my comments on them are gone. It would be nice if the number stays and “comment removed” (perhaps with a reason) replaced the original text.

By: Shantanu

Shantanu — Wed, 28 Sep 2011 11:36:21 +0000

Lisa, are you still sanguine that LHC will find evidence for extra dimensional models, given that nothing has been seen so far in LHC , Tevatron or other experiments designed to look for extra dimensions?

By: the lord thy god

the lord thy god — Wed, 28 Sep 2011 02:07:13 +0000

Written communication has rules, if the rules are not followed ,communication suffers.

By: melvin goldstein

melvin goldstein — Mon, 26 Sep 2011 23:49:36 +0000

Numbers are the Supreme Court of science. However Godel proved that we may not prove everything. There are Physics Foibles!! Don’t give up!!

By: Imgahn2u

Imgahn2u — Mon, 26 Sep 2011 21:34:34 +0000

Physicists, Cosomologists, String Theorists etc… know and understand the grammar of the universe (Real/Complex analysis, Group theory, Differential geometry, Lie groups, Differential forms, Homology, Cohomology, Homotopy, Fiber bundles, Characteristic classes, Index theorems, Supersymmetry and supergravity, etc…) Harping on grammer is pedantic

By: Pete Dunkelberg

Pete Dunkelberg — Sat, 24 Sep 2011 03:39:10 +0000

What a sorry lot of carping commenters! I feel like I should buy the book as a small measure of compensation. Amazon tells me it’s already on my wishlist, but they moved it to the top, so maybe I will.

By: Imgahn2u

Imgahn2u — Fri, 23 Sep 2011 19:27:06 +0000

There is nothing wrong with scientists writing popular books. Thats one way the spark of curiosity and wonder about the universe is ignited in the minds of the next generation of scientists. Writing scientific papers that push the edges of science is hard and difficult work. Taking time off, to write popular books spreading the idea of logical thinking and thought processes is very worthwhile as well. As far as grammar goes (mentioned above). Those who cannot think creatively usually rely upon rigidy and rules for a sense of comfort and a sense of accomplishment. Give a little slack to the creative genious of scientists. Most of scientists have terrible handwritting as well – but who cares? I don’t!

By: Stormy Sloane

Stormy Sloane — Fri, 23 Sep 2011 15:00:40 +0000

The standard story is indeed incorrect, and the actual issues involved with the Galileo affair were scriptural interpretation and church politics, not “science versus religion.”. http://bit.ly/ntEIob

By: Bob Flisser

Bob Flisser — Fri, 23 Sep 2011 02:21:09 +0000

I’m currently reading Warped Passages on my Kindle. I’ll definitely buy the new one when it’s released.

And yeah, what SLC said! Is this Revenge of the Tachyons?

By: SLC

SLC — Thu, 22 Sep 2011 22:49:44 +0000

OT but is Prof. Carroll or another of the bloggers on this site going to comment on the rather controversial result from CERN which claims to have detected neutrinos traveling faster then the speed of light in vacuo?

By: TimG

TimG — Thu, 22 Sep 2011 17:05:55 +0000

#18, Dr. Randall spoke correctly with regard to “effective theories”. “Effective theory” is a technical term (see for instance http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Effective_field_theory), and she was saying the concept of “effective theories” is an important one to understand.

By: Phillip Helbig

Phillip Helbig — Thu, 22 Sep 2011 15:35:42 +0000

Note that John Barrow could turn out a dozen single-author refereed-journal papers and a couple of popular books in a single year. I once asked someone who knew him how much he works, and the reply was “pretty much 9 to 5″.

By: Hill

Hill — Thu, 22 Sep 2011 05:48:37 +0000

Can you productive leading physicists — I have people like Lisa Randall, Sean Carroll, Brian Greene, Stephan Hawking in mind — justify taking away so much time from doing research to write popular science books? Wouldn’t that be a waste of time when you could be writing groundbreaking articles instead? Leave popular science writing to professional science journalists and second-rate physicists. Just how much time do you waste writing a popular science book anyway? A year or two?

By: sievemaria

sievemaria — Thu, 22 Sep 2011 01:08:22 +0000

Mama take this badge off of me
I cant use it any more
its getting dark, to dark to see
I feel Im accessing the edges of knowledge …

accessing the edges of knowledge
accessing the edges of knowledge …

By: Ray

Ray — Thu, 22 Sep 2011 01:02:21 +0000

*Yawn*

Until testable predictions are verified with copious amounts of data taken from plenty of reproducible experiments, I’m not going to give string theory, extra dimensions, et al., any consideration.

By: Thomas Barton, JD

Thomas Barton, JD — Thu, 22 Sep 2011 00:01:36 +0000

Perhaps the science superstar that Ms. Randall is , and I do not dispute that the word is has several meanings depending on which version of string theory is indisputably correct or is it verifiable ? But I digress. I think Ms. Randall who is a superstar should team up with Brian Cox who also is a science superstar and the duo that they are and always will be can star in a remake of Moonlighting in which she plays the part played by Cybill Shepperd and Brian who is a superstar of science can star as the character played by Bruce Willis. In the first episode the two superstars of science can infiltrate the LHC site and working feverishly and in secret find the Higgs Boson hiding in plain sight in all the background noise down in the 115 to 144 GEV level. They will undoubtedly win the Emmy award in the US for best science superstar couple . That is all.

By: jackd

jackd — Wed, 21 Sep 2011 23:58:37 +0000

Wow, when did Sean’s place get so infested? Aside from the grammar whiners, we also have “Roger” who is either Roger Schlafly (of Conservapaedia infamy) or a fan of his.

Dr. Randall, I’m another who has read Warped Passages and appreciated it. I’m looking forward to Knocking.

If you have the time to look back to the first book, I’m very curious which, if any, of the ideas explored there have been strengthened or weakened by results from more recent experiments?