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stellar_muddleAn interesting article from Freeman Dyson (via Boing Boing). Not certain I completely agree or disagree with him, but he is right with respect to complexity and the need for the occasional heretic to liven things up and make people think. Whether they end up agreeing or disagreeing with them is another matter, as long as it makes people think about the subject.
He visited Canterbury Uni in 2000 (if I remember correctly for about a month or so). A very good speaker and nice guy. The only person I have met who can do a full hour long lecture with only 1 OHP sheet of equations and still keep the (mainly physicist) audience enthralled. And his public lectures (which some of you may remember) were also very good. A trifle disconcerting to have him recommend not doing a PhD to a room full of graduate students, but he did have good taste in SF authors - had met and recommended Octavia Butler. It is worth reading his book "Disturbing the Universe".
I keep thinking he must be older than 84 because he looked as though he would blow away in the wind in 2000 - a not altogether implausible prospect when talking to him in the carpark outside the 1m building at Mt John.
Nice to see he is still going...
He visited Canterbury Uni in 2000 (if I remember correctly for about a month or so). A very good speaker and nice guy. The only person I have met who can do a full hour long lecture with only 1 OHP sheet of equations and still keep the (mainly physicist) audience enthralled. And his public lectures (which some of you may remember) were also very good. A trifle disconcerting to have him recommend not doing a PhD to a room full of graduate students, but he did have good taste in SF authors - had met and recommended Octavia Butler. It is worth reading his book "Disturbing the Universe".
I keep thinking he must be older than 84 because he looked as though he would blow away in the wind in 2000 - a not altogether implausible prospect when talking to him in the carpark outside the 1m building at Mt John.
Nice to see he is still going...
