Comments on: Reviews!

By: jochem

jochem — Sat, 09 Mar 2013 21:14:00 +0000

Sean, as you are on the topic of reviews, I wanted to share mine with you. I *loved* from eternity to here, but ‘Particle at the end of the universe’ has the precise structure of a trainwreck. Seriously, you should find another editor. Though well written, witty, informative, etc. etc. I found it almost unreadable for of the (lack) of structure. It feels as if the Higgs is discovered several times, many passages feel like repetitions of earlier ones, etc. If you are interested I will elaborate. Otherwise, keep the good stuff, ‘Eternity’ and the blogs are really, really nice.

By: Joe

Joe — Mon, 26 Nov 2012 11:42:31 +0000

After reading Guralnick’s DPF paper again it looks like pages 8-9 have his overview of the GHK boson (massive vs. massless piece Close focuses on and Sean mentions) and his comparison of the 1964 papers.

http://arxiv.org/abs/1110.2253

Close seems to want the Nobel committee to call him directly and ask who to award the prize but he leave out several details and the above link explains.

By: Neil

Neil — Mon, 26 Nov 2012 04:50:24 +0000

I find tiresome the issues of attribution to which Close pays so much attention in his book. In fifty years, no one will care.

By: Benjamin

Benjamin — Mon, 26 Nov 2012 02:14:56 +0000

Sean, it’s too bad that certain creationists have to be so hateful when trying to get their message across. As a creationist myself, chosenbygrace also offends me. It’s quite possible the Creator could have created the universe in a “full-grown” state (like Adam; fully grown on his first day of life), but that’s not something proveable with science and/or physics. The universe did have to originate from somewhere; but none of us was around to witness it, so all we have are theories and opinions. I don’t consider non-creationists like you to be my enemy; even if you were, the Saviour still instructed us to love even our enemies. My sincere regrets, Sean, as a creationist, that far too many of us act like chosenbygrace.

By: Joe

Joe — Mon, 26 Nov 2012 00:10:23 +0000

Prizes don’t determine history. I don’t care who gets prizes either but I do think people should not be slighted from prizes when significant contributions have been made. There has been much positioning by the theory groups and “third-party” folks loking to influence the outcome (Ellis, Close, etc). Maybe the Sakurai will be the last prize for this as a result of all this positioning.

There seems to be a trend to segment the theoirsts based on publication date (not quality) – this is useful as it removes GHK who are lot 3. That said, GHK seem to have had the paper and boson completed first but were careful not to publish – too careful it seems.

Here is Guralnick APS notes from 2011 in Providence on the GHK paper, history, and their boson outlined in the paper – actually the first paper to have the boson just not published first. Oddly, without Nambu’s review the boson would never be present in Higgs PRL paper. The last point glossed over by many.

http://arxiv.org/abs/1110.2253

I like how you said the person who solves this “rule of 3″ should get the Nobel Peace Prize.

By: Dilaton

Dilaton — Sun, 25 Nov 2012 23:48:58 +0000

I’ve just downvoted the review of the creationist troll … without reading it

By: David Lau

David Lau — Sun, 25 Nov 2012 23:30:21 +0000

There will always be attacks to you from the creationists as you cannot please the whole world. I am still reading the book and so far I have found it fascinating, but I have only read 3 chapters so far as I have a presentation to prepare for next weekend at the national math convention. After that, I plan to read it and take it with me to Hong Kong this coming Xmas, or at least I can read it during the 15 hrs of plane ride. I am sure I will enjoy reading it.
Thanks for being a devoted writer and a physicist.
David

By: Wally

Wally — Sun, 25 Nov 2012 22:59:50 +0000

Yes, it is indeed true that people who write reviews sometimes don’t bother to get well acquainted with the work they try to review, if at all.

This is particularly true about reviews posted on this thing called the Internet, so I often advise anyone who wants to listen to take them with a grain of salt and to form one’s own opinions whenever possible. Checking a book from a library or even a preview on the Amazon.com website often can provide a better and fairer opinion of the book than reading someone’s review.

Anyway, good luck with the book promotion.