Big Think Interview With Freeman Dyson | Big Think

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Big Think Interview With Freeman Dyson
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A conversation with the physicist and writer.
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FREEMAN DYSON:

Freeman J. Dyson is Professor Emeritus of Mathematical Physics and Astrophysics in the School of Natural Sciences at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton. He has taught as a professor at the Institute since 1953, prior to which he was a professor for two years at Cornell University. His work on quantum electrodynamics marked an epoch in physics, with the techniques he used in this domain forming the foundation for most modern theoretical work in elementary particle physics and the quantum many-body problem. He is also celebrated as an author on science and related topics; his books include "Disturbing the Universe" (1966), "Weapons and Hope" (1984), "The Scientist as Rebel" (2006), and "A Many-Colored Glass: Reflections on the Place of Life in the Universe" (2007).
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TRANSCRIPT:

Freeman Dyson: So my first name is Freeman and my last name Dyson and my title, Mister. I’m a physicist, but also a writer.

Question: How did you first become interested in science?

Freeman Dyson: Yeah, it’s hard to tell of course, but I’ve been interested in science certainly from a child. I was mostly interested in numbers. I was calculating things at a very young age. I just fell in love with numbers and then it spread from there to the rest of nature and I became… I remember the total eclipse of the sun, which happened when I was three, and I was furious with my father because he wouldn’t take us to see it. It would have meant about awhole day’s driving and anyways, so he said no, you can’t see the partial eclipse and that’s it, and I thought that was terribly unfair.

Question: What was your science education like?

Freeman Dyson: So, well I never learned much science in school. That was I think an advantage in the old days. I grew up in England and we spent most of the time on Latin and Greek and very little on science, and I think that was good because it meant we didn’t get turned off. It was… Science was something we did for fun and not because we had to.

Question: What was your experience of World War II like?

Freeman Dyson: Yes, well I was 15 when the war started, so for a long time I just stayed in school, but then so I was lucky. I had only two years of the war and so I went to work for the Royal Air Force when I was 19, which was already just two years before it ended, so I went to the **** headquarters and that was July ’43, and so I had just two years of it, the last two years and I was working as a statistician mostly just collecting all the information about the Air Force operations, particularly the bombing of Germany, so I had a sort of front-row seat view of that. Of course it was a total shambles, the whole campaign. It was a great tragedy for both sides and, well, there was nothing I could do about it.

Question: How did the physics community react after the dropping of the atomic bomb?

Freeman Dyson: Of course they talked about it incessantly. That was the main subject of conversation for many years and so people had very strong feelings about it on both sides and people who thought it was the greatest thing they'd ever done and people who thought it was just an unpleasant job and people who thought they should have never done it at all, so there were opinions of all kinds...

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What a humble, gentle, wonderful man.

MrPoutsesMple
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I love you Freeman Dyson, source of infinite inspiration!!!

jdtaramona
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It's a pity he and his views aren't more popular.

NennadS
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R.I.P. freeman you will always be in my memory

robertimmanuel
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My heart melts down the whole I am hearing him. Lots of Love...

firstprinciples
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What a great man! I love his views on Physics and Theology! Bravo!

milesbateman
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Hey BIG THINK. Some folks work and listen to the interviews in the background - can't watch. Having the questions appear in print makes this hard to listen to. Why not just ask the questions. Skipping this one - can't spend almost 40 minutes figuring out what he's asnwering.

AuburnCreed
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It's not so much the numbers he has a problem with, it's the predictive models they plug those numbers into. I saw a lecture of his where goes into detail about it, and he has some valid points. The popular models focus heavily on just a few well studied aspects and ignore or trivialize some of the less well understood factors which may have significant effects on the outcome. An intelligently formed alternative opinion is never a bad thing in science as it encourages further investigation.

possumverde
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A beautiful mind... Yes! Indeed, a very beautiful mind: It seems that in a four-fold exciting message, Dr. Dyson wants to state something not easy to grasp about the near impossibility to detect a graviton and that enchants me. What would that be?

mariorqmsilveira
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The Orion ship design featured as a "final option" in the Larry Niven / Jerry Pournelle novel Footfall. Excellent book and a worthy interpretation of the design and its implications.

GothAlice
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merci pour votre incroyable travail et oeuvre. J'espère sincèrement qu'on réussira à construire un essaim de dyson .Votre talent de visionnaire continuera de nous inspirer.

igorimiola
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so glad i found this clip, thanks bigthink ^^

RiamWaewalee
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Ramanujan's divergent series' study provides a new perspective to reality, like strings (1+2+3...=-1/12) etc. Dyson was encouraged to pursue these series and became a master of the new perspective. Physicists are catching up and are discovering a new weapon/tool to frame new mathematics. Dyson did provide some insight, not well investigated. He should have been given the Nobel prize for this work alone.

naimulhaq
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Thats who i want to be, be someone in life make great contributions to humanity and have great stories of key events.

DannyOvox
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Oh wow. Did u hear at 15:00???? That's crazy.

qigong
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You know it's pretty funny that when I talk to people who actually work in science with computer models and ask if they would be confident in predicting future of a planet size system on which no tests can be run, how confident are they on a prediction of two hundred years with a mathematical model. I always get the same knowing look and the "yeah it's pretty bizarre" type of an answer.

So I don't know, I think it is pretty sad to hear the confidence in these "the numbers say this and that".

Loomr
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He was born in Berkshire, England, and has lived for the last 50 years in Princeton.

Crumplepunch
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I would like to call him my grandpa. Love you and rest in peace!

firstprinciples
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its nice to hear someone intelligent talking; and accepting my stupidity.

SirMrMcMsMrs
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Great Video! only over 1, 200 views, 2 comments? Come on!?

Tonicwine
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