tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22973357.post1729590736401264678..comments2023-09-27T07:44:19.769-04:00Comments on Sabine Hossenfelder: Backreaction: The loneliness of my notepadSabine Hossenfelderhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06151209308084588985noreply@blogger.comBlogger25125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22973357.post-71539772165640601172015-08-22T03:22:22.208-04:002015-08-22T03:22:22.208-04:00Philip/Uncle Al
Back from hard work in France, th...Philip/Uncle Al<br /><br />Back from hard work in France, thanks for your comments.martenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02423871089614417690noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22973357.post-24413686212336241622015-07-14T04:10:21.757-04:002015-07-14T04:10:21.757-04:00In my view there is never true loneliness. In the ...In my view there is never true loneliness. In the cross there seems to be absolute loneliness for a moment in eternity ("why have you forsaken me?"...) to make even more truly compelling that loneliness does not exist as something stationary, but as a moment: there is a You, and immense Other which is Truly Good. For this You, everything, absolutely everything, is possible.<br /><br />Vladimir García Moraleshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07738286649883890348noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22973357.post-12003639621424190632015-07-12T19:51:25.844-04:002015-07-12T19:51:25.844-04:00Was Democritus a "lone genius"? Yes and ...Was Democritus a "lone genius"? Yes and No.<br /><br />Same for Spinoza, Galileo, Faraday, Einstein, Mandelbrot, etc.<br /><br />But hey, if journalists say consensus model-building has replaced mavericks who think independently and provide essential course-corrections, who are we to argue.Robert L. Oldershawhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15396555790655312393noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22973357.post-36719185842167684332015-07-11T12:25:55.262-04:002015-07-11T12:25:55.262-04:00hehehe, thanks for the correction Phillip Helbig, ...hehehe, thanks for the correction Phillip Helbig, you understood me wellVladimir García Moraleshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07738286649883890348noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22973357.post-14160022876697298742015-07-11T11:17:04.556-04:002015-07-11T11:17:04.556-04:00@matteen "A human brain consumes only 10 W/h...@matteen "<i>A human brain consumes only 10 W/hour</i>" 10 W is power, energy/time. 10W/hr is acceleration. 12.6 W. Human basal metabolism is ~2 Mcal/day, 2000 Cal/day. "<i>So if a scientist works 1700 hours per year, his brain consumes a total of 17 kW which is not a lot of energy</i>" Trace your units. 17 kWh is 22.8 horsepower-hrs, huge!<br /><br />http://Uncle Alhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05056804084187606211noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22973357.post-87310805812577711482015-07-11T05:49:51.340-04:002015-07-11T05:49:51.340-04:00"A human brain consumes only 10 W/hour"
...<i>"A human brain consumes only 10 W/hour"</i><br /><br />Doesn't make sense. Watt is a unit of power, i.e. energy per time. You can say that the brain has a power consumption of about 10 watts.<br />Phillip Helbighttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12067585245603436809noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22973357.post-27195706322912825322015-07-10T21:23:01.428-04:002015-07-10T21:23:01.428-04:00Another point of note in regard of the statistical...Another point of note in regard of the statistical trends, collaborative science, gang-bang scientific papers, and the new possibilities on the good ship teamer: Isn't it reasonable to roll the eyes just a little and best spotty teenager undertones burp out "yeahh...and how is all that going in the age of conceptual desertification"? The current and previous 3 generations of people Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22973357.post-76348320712778759642015-07-10T20:56:23.243-04:002015-07-10T20:56:23.243-04:00The myth ironically is not about the genius, and n...The myth ironically is not about the genius, and not intended to be about the genius. No one seriously doubts genius, and no one seriously doubts the genius is a lonely place to be, nor that geniuses are typically loners. <br />It's not about that. It is incidentally about the contributions of those willing to isolate themselves if that's what it takes. Actual or potential major Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22973357.post-44789661892985285822015-07-10T08:31:21.132-04:002015-07-10T08:31:21.132-04:00A human brain consumes only 10 W/hour no matter h...A human brain consumes only 10 W/hour no matter how hard the intelectual work it performes. So if a scientist works 1700 hours per year, his brain consumes a total of 17 kW which is not a lot of energy. One can say that some scientists are very efficient or even very effective, but I think they nevertheless are very privileged. To try and become a scientist really is worth all the effort martenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02423871089614417690noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22973357.post-45387146747936677192015-07-10T01:29:52.260-04:002015-07-10T01:29:52.260-04:00Maurice,
It's a combination of several differ...Maurice,<br /><br />It's a combination of several different factors. First, I have no funding neither for students nor postdocs, which is one of the most common coauthor acquisitions there is. Then I'm partly working from home, plus there's nobody at my institution (nor at the adjacent university) who works on quantum gravity (not counting string theory), so there are no local people Sabine Hossenfelderhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06151209308084588985noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22973357.post-16315767685777941652015-07-09T14:25:12.270-04:002015-07-09T14:25:12.270-04:00Not counting the proposal, you wrote only one rese...Not counting the proposal, you wrote only one research paper in the last 5+ years <br />with co-authors, right?<br />This is very little even for geniuses ;-). E.g. I checked that even Steven Weinberg, who<br />also writes most of his paper as single author (including his master piece founding<br />the Standard Model), wrote at least one paper with co-authors in each of the 5 years before<br />heMauricehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16375058316648610565noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22973357.post-55949783321648393362015-07-09T07:23:46.461-04:002015-07-09T07:23:46.461-04:00"arXiv is such an unvaluable resource"
...<i>"arXiv is such an unvaluable resource"</i><br /><br />That should be "invaluable", which means "very valuable"; "in" means "not" but here the sense is that it is so valuable one can't put a value on it. "Unvaluable" is not really a word---one would probably say "valueless" or use different wording---but most would parsePhillip Helbighttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12067585245603436809noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22973357.post-19830373652273625842015-07-09T05:58:05.015-04:002015-07-09T05:58:05.015-04:00arXiv is such an unvaluable resource. If I had to ...arXiv is such an unvaluable resource. If I had to rate the most useful historical creations to spread and promote scientific knowledge, I would rate arXiv second, only after Gutenberg's invention of the print. The general public can now access the latest fruits of scientific research, and everyone can find there all material needed to start doing theoretical research. Certainly, this has madeVladimir García Moraleshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07738286649883890348noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22973357.post-161433041202495142015-07-09T02:42:45.239-04:002015-07-09T02:42:45.239-04:00Yes, the internet and arXiv have made it much easi...Yes, the internet and arXiv have made it much easier to work alone. However, this has nothing to do with collaboration. In the old days, one would have to jump through hoops to get data one can easily download in a couple of seconds today, but that doesn't mean that back then one would make the owners of the data co-authors.<br /><br />Conferences are not dying out. Far from it. However, Phillip Helbighttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12067585245603436809noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22973357.post-66261513733188517242015-07-09T02:34:42.974-04:002015-07-09T02:34:42.974-04:00"thought-trough procedures" should proba..."thought-trough procedures" should probably be "thought-through procedures"<br /><br />Glad you included the "-", though; this is one of my pet peeves: people leaving the dash out of compound adjectives, i.e. neglecting the compound-adjective dash. (That, and stuff like "only costs 20 cents" as opposed to the correct "costs only 20 cents".)<br />Phillip Helbighttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12067585245603436809noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22973357.post-84809462410114557732015-07-08T22:31:29.647-04:002015-07-08T22:31:29.647-04:00I'm afraid I don't get it. The advent of t...I'm afraid I don't get it. The advent of the internet, especially the arXiv, has meant that it is now far easier for individuals to get hold of the resources they need without interacting personally with other researchers. That is why conferences are dying out. For me personally, I find it very pleasant that the arXiv allows me to publish more of my papers alone.<br /><br />On a side noteRastus Odinga Odingahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09615544434035028500noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22973357.post-7241235016135109152015-07-08T21:50:53.383-04:002015-07-08T21:50:53.383-04:00Robert Nemiroff's note goes a long way to expl...Robert Nemiroff's note goes a long way to explain why my theoretical physics profs always appeared so gloomy in comparison to the experimentalists. Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14479459346584756683noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22973357.post-54584270667072439912015-07-08T11:29:51.507-04:002015-07-08T11:29:51.507-04:00Committee IQs sum like parallel resistors' ohm...Committee IQs sum like parallel resistors' ohms. Dissenting authors sum serially. Management counting things counters progress. New answers are interdisciplinary not insular. Phthalo Blue dissolves in boiling concentrated sulfuric acid. Dissolve it in Plexiglass? Impossible! Metallurgy creates 30 wt-% solutions in Plexiglass. Discovery is insubordination.<br /><br />"<i>most Uncle Alhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05056804084187606211noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22973357.post-35036861075871888402015-07-08T10:27:46.825-04:002015-07-08T10:27:46.825-04:00Phillip,
Thanks for spotting this, I've corre...Phillip,<br /><br />Thanks for spotting this, I've corrected it :)Sabine Hossenfelderhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06151209308084588985noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22973357.post-64779488461943021402015-07-08T10:27:26.451-04:002015-07-08T10:27:26.451-04:00Michael,
If one would plot the reliability curve ...Michael,<br /><br />If one would plot the reliability curve as a function of the number of authors, I am guessing it would increase towards the end of a large numbers. The reason is that once collaborations get really large they start putting into place thought-trough procedures for paper writing, revision, and trouble-shooting. There is a messy middle range, somewhere between 5 to 15 or so, is Sabine Hossenfelderhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06151209308084588985noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22973357.post-10364547447680979682015-07-08T07:54:01.363-04:002015-07-08T07:54:01.363-04:00I never trust a theory paper with 5 or more author...I never trust a theory paper with 5 or more authors ;).Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07408868813690406715noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22973357.post-64467280035142611172015-07-08T07:25:32.718-04:002015-07-08T07:25:32.718-04:00Thanks for defending science against the scary sta...Thanks for defending science against the scary statements that seem to be parrotted everywhere, and which simply claim that only networks exist nowadays and must prevail and grow. Such statements are only violence against individuals (that tend to think that this irrationality is a 'de facto' truth) and a major burden against genuine scientific developments that often come out of Vladimir García Moraleshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07738286649883890348noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22973357.post-16279902959370523272015-07-08T06:15:06.830-04:002015-07-08T06:15:06.830-04:00Hi Sabine,
"If you work on the average...Hi Sabine, <br /> "If you work on the average with 5 coauthors and divide up the work fairly, your publication list will end up being five times as long as if you’d be working alone." this is probably not so simple. Practically no problem allows the possibility of such a neat divide. In a fair collaboration, every author has to think the whole thing through. Good collaboration are ghonadahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01739730402827699973noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22973357.post-55821895107677222452015-07-08T04:00:45.962-04:002015-07-08T04:00:45.962-04:00Hi Sabine,as you say at some time in the scientifi...Hi Sabine,as you say at some time in the scientific enterprise it always comes down to one's own knowledge and skills with a calculation or a piece of apparatus. Nevertheless friends and colleagues help us even then. We build on the books and papers they have written, the lectures and seminars they have given, the advice they will proffer when asked. <br /><br />If you haven't already DHorganhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04073393845268613093noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22973357.post-38393749782415831532015-07-08T03:56:24.187-04:002015-07-08T03:56:24.187-04:00who shell remain unnamed ---> who shall remain ...who shell remain unnamed ---> who shall remain unnamedPhillip Helbighttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12067585245603436809noreply@blogger.com