Freeman Dyson, Visionary Technologist, Is Dead at 96 (nytimes.com) 84
darenw shares a report: Freeman J. Dyson, a mathematical prodigy who left his mark on subatomic physics before turning to messier subjects like Earth's environmental future and the morality of war, died on Friday at a hospital near Princeton, N.J. He was 96. His daughter Mia Dyson confirmed the death. As a young graduate student at Cornell in 1949, Dr. Dyson wrote a landmark paper -- worthy, some colleagues thought, of a Nobel Prize -- that deepened the understanding of how light interacts with matter to produce the palpable world. The theory the paper advanced, called quantum electrodynamics, or QED, ranks among the great achievements of modern science. But it was as a writer and technological visionary that he gained public renown.
He imagined exploring the solar system with spaceships propelled by nuclear explosions and establishing distant colonies nourished by genetically engineered plants. "Life begins at 55, the age at which I published my first book," he wrote in "From Eros to Gaia," one of the collections of his writings that appeared while he was a professor of physics at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton -- an august position for someone who finished school without a Ph.D. The lack of a doctorate was a badge of honor, he said. With his slew of honorary degrees and a fellowship in the Royal Society, people called him Dr. Dyson anyway. Further reading: Slashdot's interview with Freeman Dyson (2013).
He imagined exploring the solar system with spaceships propelled by nuclear explosions and establishing distant colonies nourished by genetically engineered plants. "Life begins at 55, the age at which I published my first book," he wrote in "From Eros to Gaia," one of the collections of his writings that appeared while he was a professor of physics at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton -- an august position for someone who finished school without a Ph.D. The lack of a doctorate was a badge of honor, he said. With his slew of honorary degrees and a fellowship in the Royal Society, people called him Dr. Dyson anyway. Further reading: Slashdot's interview with Freeman Dyson (2013).
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did he have 27 income streams from 13 side businesses, none of which produce a dime?
His vacuums [dyson.com] are a bit pricey, but seem to sell pretty well. :-)
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That's his son's company.
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Oh yeah? Well his products suck.
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Well yeah, but some of them blow too.
https://www.globalindustrial.c... [globalindustrial.com]
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You're right, that's a different family. His son is George, not James. They're almost the same age, and George has been a writer of science and technology. My bad.
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Apparently not related, at least not in a generation recent enough to matter..
At least, I wasn't able to find any connection between them.
Esther Dyson is related to Freeman Dyson, though. And I vaguely recall reading of her being rather put out that the vacuum cleaner inventor seemed to be benefiting from having the same last name.
Re:visionary? (Score:4, Interesting)
His vacuums [dyson.com] are a bit pricey, but seem to sell pretty well. :-)
Pricey because up until this week the high-end hipster market has had a lot of money to spend, even though the power source for one of those things is an entire M-class star encased in a black hole.
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"climate change skeptic" There, I fixed it for you.
Re:visionary? (Score:5, Interesting)
No, but he is the namesake for the Dyson sphere [wikipedia.org], a hypothetical superstructure that made an appearance in a Star Trek: The Next Generation episode [fandom.com] in which we see the last (canonical, TV/movie) chronological appearance of Scotty [fandom.com] from Star Trek TOS.
He may not be famous for the reasons you asked about, but he played a role in sparking this nerd's interest in space engineering (I was a member of and then eventually led my high school's Space Settlement Design [spaceset.org] team to three straight international finals at Kennedy Space Center, then went on to work three internships in the space industry during my college years). Plus, as a child of the '80s and '90s I hadn't grown up with TOS, so that episode may have been my first introduction to anyone in TOS (I didn't see McCoy's TNG [fandom.com] or Spock's TNG [fandom.com] appearances until years later, simply because I missed them when they aired). So inasmuch as he gave the writers of TNG an excuse to introduce TOS characters to me, I'm additionally grateful.
Re:visionary? (Score:4, Funny)
No, but he is the namesake for the Dyson sphere, a hypothetical superstructure that made an appearance in a Star Trek: The Next Generation episode in which we see the last (canonical, TV/movie) chronological appearance of Scotty from Star Trek TOS.
I don't know what his parents were thinking, naming their kid after a hypothetical superstructure...
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Hah! Thanks for calling me on that. I definitely used it other than how I intended, and should have referred to him as the "eponym" instead. Shame on me.
That said, in double-checking definitions, examples, and usage notes because something about it felt like I wasn't entirely off-base, I discovered that "namesake" is apparently considered valid both ways in modern English: either the giver or the recipient can be considered the "namesake". Admittedly, I wasn't consciously aware of that when I typed up the p
Amazing guy (Score:1, Insightful)
Fighter pilot, mathematical genius, physicist, technologist, writer. All in one lifetime.
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Re:Amazing guy (Score:5, Informative)
Fighter pilot? No, he helped design a new and more accurate bombsight during WWII. I have his autobiography, 'Disturbing the Universe', he was raised as a Quaker, and was very torn about working with the War Department even though he felt that the Nazis were the worse evil.
I prefer to mostly remember him for his work with General Atomics on designing the Orion nuclear spacecraft.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
A 4,000 ton spacecraft lofting a 1,600 ton payload, as opposed to the 3,000 ton Saturn V's 41 ton payload.
He later withdrew support when it was found that fallout from a launch would probably cause between 0.1 and 1.0 cases of terminal cancer. As a Quaker he was unable to accept those odds in good conscience. Werner Von Braun analyzed the Project Orion the plans and wrote a paper endorsing the nuclear spacecraft over his own chemical rockets (too late for Apollo, of course), but the military immediately classified it because of information about US nuclear weapons that it contained and now claims to have "lost" it.
An amazing person (Score:1, Troll)
What an amazing person, and a greta demonstration that it's never really too late to start anything.
Kind of a shame most people will remember him for the vacuum, but better to be remembered for something than forgotten altogether!
Re:An amazing person (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:An amazing person (Score:5, Informative)
Dyson Spheres and Dyson Probes (astrochickens) are the heart of the Fermi paradox. One way or another, we should see evidence of other intelligent species, even if they're quite rare, whether they stay home and fill up their system or send self-replicating probes to scout the galaxy.
Of course, perhaps we should remember him better for the Dsyon operator: the basic statement of how the quantum wave function evolves over time, together with the Dyson series, which is how you solve (or at least approximate) the answer to that equation.
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There is an intergalactic, yes intergalactic, not intragalactic, law. It should be obvious for everyone with more than five brain cells: any culture that dares the audacity to sent self replicating probes/robots out will be annihilated. Every single one of its species wil l be hunted down.
Or do you want your precious plant earth to be dismanteled by mining machines setting up auto factories to build the next drone swarm? Can't be so hard to grasp that no sane civilization ever will be so stupid to let self
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It takes very little materiel to build the next set of probes. That's not a seriously concern. Turns out, though, Dyson was wrong about the approach: it's actually faster to build all the probes for every star in our galaxy in our own system, and send them all from here, than to build factories along the way.
However, from a Fermi paradox perspective, all it takes is a single species that did build the self-replicating kind, just one in the past couple billion years, and there'd be a factory somewhere in o
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Fermi made his, uh, paradoxical statement about a decade before Dyson made his statements about how civilisations will always produce large amounts of waste heat.
Indeed, if the two concepts share a relationship, it is more of the form that the continuing absence of detection of Dyson structures is another expression of the Fermi paradox.
Interesting guy - source of many interesting ideas.
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Right: they're at the heart of the Fermi paradox.
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You're confusing the history of the thing with the substance of the thing, is my point. You see that a lot in undergrad science classes, too - teaching the history of the science because teaching the actual science would be hard. Whatever Fermi was thinking at the time - who cares. The paradox isn't interesting because of that. The paradox is interesting because of its substance, and Dyson spheres are at the heart of that.
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Project Orion is my first thought.
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I assume you're being facetious since the vacuum company was a completely different Dyson, but even if it weren't why would anyone on Slashdot jump to anything other than a Dyson sphere [wikipedia.org] with their first thought?
You realize that Dyson Spheres exist in a vacuum -- right? Checkmate. :-)
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Er, that's a different Dyson. [wikipedia.org]
Another great accomplishment (Score:2)
He really deserved an Oscar for his role in Driving Miss Daisy.
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You fool, that's another Freeman entirely. What you should really remember as his greatest accomplishment is his fight against The Combine.
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Dang! (Score:3)
The world is a poorer place today - a wound whose healing depends on the upcoming generations producing more like him.
(Though his daughter Esther is a darn good contribution to that already.)
Just to be clear (Score:2)
he's not the Dyson that designed the over-priced vacuum cleaners and electric fans...
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Kind of obvious when you see the ads and realize there's no way that guy on TV is 96.
Just to be clear, Freeman Dyson is the scientist of the story. James Dyson if the vacuum cleaner guy.
Of course, when I hear Freeman I think of Gordon...
Well that is embarrassing... (Score:1)
I honestly thought they were the same person! Thanks for the correction.
The last of the greats (Score:3)
Asimov, Feynman, Fuller, and Dyson - in my opinion - were the three best science fiction writers of the age. Real science with real stories behind them. I think about "from Eros to Gaia" almost daily in ideas such as his "astrochicken" for space exploration.
It is up to this generation to dream again.
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What about Clarke?
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Didn't like him as much, sorry. Did like Heinlein, though, if you want another nomination.
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I'm aware of his work...
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What about Ian Banks, John Brunner (actually, he is the best), Allistair Reynolds (sp?), Frank Herbert?
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I would imagine that the parent was referring to authors of a period of writing, and thus Herbert's work (Banks of course has universal charm, Reynolds was more miss than hit if I remember my opinions correctly) is simply too late to be considered part of the "Golden Age of Science Fiction."
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I don't think the golden age ended.
I'm just bad with names, who wrote Glasshouse and Accelerando? A great writer. There are plenty more.
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Dyson, Feynman & Fuller Wrote Science Fiction? (Score:3)
Along with that you said:
Asimov, Feynman, Fuller, and Dyson - in my opinion - were the three best science fiction writers of the age.
Isn't that four?
Just curious, I am not aware of any science fiction written by Freeman Dyson, Buckminster Fuller or Richard Feynman wrote - maybe you could point to some references.
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Asimov, Feynman, Fuller, and Dyson - in my opinion - were the three best science fiction writers of the age.
Isn't that four?
He's probably using the same math that Douglas Adams used for the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy Trilogy.
May he find the Great Dyson Sphere in the sky :D (Score:2)
A great man with great ideas has gone to the great beyond.
Re:May he find the Great Dyson Sphere in the sky : (Score:5, Insightful)
I am myself a Christian, a member of a community that preserves an ancient heritage of great literature and great music, provides help and counsel to young and old when they are in trouble, educates children in moral responsibility, and worships God in its own fashion. But I find Polkinghorne's theology altogether too narrow for my taste. I have no use for a theology that claims to know the answers to deep questions but bases its arguments on the beliefs of a single tribe. I am a practicing Christian but not a believing Christian. To me, to worship God means to recognize that mind and intelligence are woven into the fabric of our universe in a way that altogether surpasses our comprehension.
--Freeman Dyson [wikipedia.org]
Yes. With a touch of Panentheism and Gnosticism, it seems.
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yea Dyson was one of my favorite Scientists to quote.
I am a practicing and believing Christian myself unlike Dyson though but he said the following and has become one of the things that helped formed the idea that Science and Religion are not at odds with each other and anyone who believes they are, are morons not worth listening too.
"Science and religion are two windows that people look through, trying to understand the big universe outside, trying to understand why we are here. The two windows give differ
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Yes, by the context, I have to think that Dyson meant by "not a believing Christian" something like "not an automatically-believing Christian"... that is, automatically believing whatever the particular views of a denomination, or "tribe" as he puts it, are. Staying at that level of understanding without digging deeper than that.
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yea, I can agree he left that open to interpretation for a reason. I would have to read up more on his life to offer and more concrete opinions or evidence so I withhold judgement on that specifically.
I just wanted to say I liked his ideas on Science and Religion as far as the quotes go and wanted to point out that I do claim to be a believing one because I find that wording to be more accurate than a non believing one. Because while I am not an automatically believing one, I do indeed believe. That mea
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Only religious people are confused about what to believe. Their confusion comes from the part of their brain that lives in the real world disagreeing with the part that lives in the religious fantasy world where magic things are supposed to have happened long ago but never seem to do so today.
The confusion starts when you're a kid (if you're Xtian). One day you learn that Santa Claus isn't real, but you're supposed to keep believing in the invisible friend named Jesus, even though the two have similar myt
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Santa Claus was a real man, no mythology involved. ... my GF did not even know that rendeers exist, because for her it was clear: the whole thing is a myth.
It is only the US were Santa Claus got transformed into a guy with a sledge and rendeers
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wik... [wikipedia.org]
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For Jesus there is plenty of evidence that he existed ... ... but who knows.
But I doubt he considered himself a son of (a) god or wanted to found a religion.
In my book he was an atheist and wanted to abolish judaism
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Nicholas, who became Saint Nicolas, was a real man although the Church embellished his history so much that it's difficult to tell what was real and what was not. Santa Claus on the other hand is an agglomeration of a dozen different pagan traditions tacked onto the saint's name the way that the Catholic Church has always suborned and then supplanted the festivals of other religions.
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That only shows you are a dishonester person.
Christ and Santa Clause are real people. Both of these names are AKA's for the real people they are applied too.
There is historical proof of both, now the fantastic claims surrounding them are what is up for debate, but not their actual existence. But when you call both of them imaginary then you are also saying Caesar, Hittites, Aztecs, Incans, or whoever else you have to rely on written word to tell you existed did exist.
When you make such claims you are only
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Science and religion are two windows that people look through, trying to understand the big universe outside, trying to understand why we are here. (...) Dyson said the problems stem from both sides trying to claim jurisdiction over an idea and then institutes their dogmatic views to control that idea.
No, the problem is that it's a false dichotomy. Science explains mechanisms, not meaning or morality that much is true. The lie is that I need God to give me purpose and morals or else I'd have none. That we can't think for ourselves, that we can't choose for ourselves, that I need to look up the answers in ancient scrolls to find my god's meaning with my life. That I need the reward of heaven and threat of hell to behave, even though that's the attitude of someone who's only sorry they got caught. It's lik
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"No, the problem is that it's a false dichotomy."
Not True. Remember a false Dichotomy implies that there are not other alternatives to something or mutually exclusive.
When we say that Science and Religion are not at odds... that is the truth and a fact. But that also does not that that it is impossible for the moron humans running around in science or religion cannot be at odds with science or religion. The entire problem stems from people ability to fundamentally understand what something means and you
He did a pretty good job (Score:2)
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Whoosh.
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Forgetting (Score:1)
He's one of those people that have probably forgotten more in his lifetime than most learn in theirs.
Something tells me he didn't forget much.
Proof that you don't need a PhD to be smart:
Oppenheimer rewarded Dyson with a lifetime appointment at the Institute for Advanced Study, "for proving me wrong", in Oppenheimer's words.
[Dyson, Freeman J. (1979). Disturbing the Universe. Basic Books. ISBN 978-0-465-01677-8.]
Wouldcall advice roo see " een schitterend ongeluk (Score:2)
"Sphere" isn't in the blurb? FAIL (Score:1)
But then I guess this place often out the verb, so, at least it consistent...
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Is that you, Johnny Five?
An irrepressible and inspiring mind, RIP (Score:3)
Always thought he had some truly inspiring thoughts. (See my signature, which I've been using forever now)
an inspiration figure (Score:3)
Freeman Dyson continued to write until nearly the very end.
Biological and Cultural Evolution [edge.org] — 19 February 2019
Discovering his book Infinite in All Directions (1988) was one of the great moments in my young adult life. I've been reading Maker of Patterns: An Autobiography Through Letters (2018) for the past several weeks. His prose at age 18 is already sharp and assured.
I knew at his age he wouldn't be with us much longer. He had a good run, though, and made the world a brighter place.