Friday, October 15, 2010

Quotes For Our Times

From Peter Woit of Not Even Wrong:




As for the “paradox” that business leaders see a shortage of the kind of trained scientists and engineers they would like to hire at the wages they would like to pay, it appears to be the same paradoxical shortage I regularly encounter of first-class plane tickets to Paris available at the price I would like to pay for them.
... Peter Woit, The Gathering Storm: Category 5 10/14/2010




From the all-time Master of Melody:


"Too many people preaching practices, too many waiting for that lucky break.
Too many people holding back, I said "Maybe, baby, it's not too late.'"
... Paul McCartney, "Too Many People", "Ram" 1971



From Lubos Motl of The Reference Frame:

Prizewinner Lubos Motl receiving the Richard J. Plano Award Dissertation Prize in Physics and Astronomy from Graduate Program Director Prof. Jolie Cizewski at the April, 2002, Rutgers Departmental Awards Banquet.

After all, [Tawanda Johnson] is both female and black, so who could dare to suggest that she is just a hired gun with no comparative advantages who would have no business to be a relevant part of any serious scientific institution under any normal circumstances? Well, I will surely do that: this woman should be at most a janitor in APS, not a person whose reply is considered "enough" to "neutralize" important messages about the very structure of the APS such as the letter from Dr Lewis. And if you have approved this reply, Mr Callan, I am deeply disgusted by your immoral methods. You just suck.
... Lubos Motl, APS thinks that Tawanda may teach physics to Hal Lewis 10/13/201


Paul again:


"That was your first mistake. You took your lucky break and broke it in two.
Now what can be done for you? You broke it in two."
... Paul McCartney, "Too Many People", "Ram" 1971




From Chad Orzel of Uncertain Principles:




The wheels on the bus go round and round,
round and round, round and round,
The wheels on the bus go round and round,
All through the town.

Heisenberg's on the bus, or maybe not,
maybe not, maybe not...

Schrödinger's cat on the bus is alive and dead,
alive and dead, alive and dead...

Einstein on the bus says "Don't play dice,"
"Don't play dice," "Don't play dice,"...

The Feynman on the bus plays bongo drums,
bongo drums, bongo drums...

Gell-Mann on the bus says "Eightfold Path,"
"Eightfold Path," "Eightfold Path,"...

Dirac on the bus says " ,"
" ," " ," ...

The baryons on the bus say "Quark quark quark,"
"Quark quark quark," "Quark quark quark."...

The fermions on the bus have spin-1/2,
spin-1/2, spin-1/2...

All the bosons on the bus are in one state,
in one state, in one state...

The neutrinos on the bus have almost no mass,
almost no mass, almost no mass...

The speed of the bus is less than c,
less than c, less than c...

The monkeys on the bus, they type Shakespeare,
type Shakespeare, type Shakespeare...

... Chad Orzel, The Physics Bus 10/11/2010

4 comments:

Luboš Motl said...

Cheap politically correct imbecile,

I assure you that the Plano Dissertation Award

http://www.physics.rutgers.edu/grad/prizes/plano_phd.html

is not being chosen by a black female spokesgirl but by Rutgers physics faculty most of whom are white males.

Cheers
LM

Steven Colyer said...

Cheap politically correct imbecile,

Considering the source, I'll consider that a badge of honor, even though I feel the same way about honors as our mutually admired Feynman. I also share the same views you do of "political correctness", Communism, and Totalitarianism, so at least half of those four words are incorrect.

As far as "cheap" goes, I am, but look who's taking, and as far as "imbecile", if by that that you mean "ignorant", I fully admit that as a limited single organism, I am massively ignorant of all that is known, but as a corporeal "cell" of that greater "thing" called Humanity, it would be morally irresponsible of me not to seek out knowledge of that which interests me from experts such as yourself.

I like that picture of you, btw, which is why I put it up. At Rutgers, I spent a lot of time at Serin Physics Lab, Hill Center, and especially the Engineering bldg.

I think the Richard J. Plano Dissertation Prize is very notable, and congrats to you on the well deserved award, as well as being chose by Harvard Physics to be a professor there. That was your lucky break, but also one that was well-earned.

I also linked to your article because I feel exactly as you do regarding APA's response to Dr. Lewis' resignation letter, although it is hoped with better language. A janitor, Dr. Motl, really? Was that necessary? I guess you thought so, since you strike me as one who fancies himself the Don "Mr. Warmth" Rickles/Howard Stern of Physics. M'kay, you certainly entertain me, and a host of thousands. Maybe tens of thousands.

But however many, picking on a flunky in an office who was more than likely just following orders and trying to keep her job is a bit excessive, even for you, you think?

In short, the tone of your article isn't nearly as important as the content, which is very important. So I would advise keeping the heat on, minus janitorial comments. My two cents.

Phil Warnell said...

Hi Steven,

I just noticed you had that most eloquent of all past and present Czech scientist drop by to depart some wisdom on you. You should be flattered as he has the habit of singling out only the finest calibre of people to give such attention.

As to the issue at hand, the one thing that can’t be denied, is it being something that is driven more by politicians as opposed to scientists, whose skill of taking advantage of the easily to be panicked masses in recent time has almost reached perfection. The other thing I’m certain of being, if one looks at those politicians and associated lobbyists you will find the majority don’t practice what they preach and as such as being not a scientist, yet rather simply one who find value to their philosophy, I find truth needs to be reinforced by means of observation.

In the end however the way I have it figured, is in this case what does it matter, that is if it all just happens to be a lie, the worst result is the CO2 levels in the atmosphere will decline a bit and yet the rich will have no fears of not getting richer, so then what has actually changed, as I thought this how things have been for some time. That is as P.T. Barnum reminded, there is one born every minute, so I would advise we stop wasting time with such concerns as one might escape our notice:-)

Best,

Phil

Steven Colyer said...

Hi Phil,

As Bob Park said in my latest quote on "Incontrovertible" in Physics, Lewis' good points on APS politics were unnecessarily clouded by his bringing his brand of manmade climate change denial into his letter. He deserved a better response from APS, certainly one with an actual name attached. In this I agree with Lubos, that APS acted shabbily.