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Interviews: Ask Freeman Dyson What You Will
Famous for his work in math, astronomy, nuclear engineering, and theoretical physics, Freeman Dyson has left his mark on almost every scientific discipline. He's won countless awards, and written numerous books on a wide range of topics both scientific and philosophical. One of his biggest contributions to science was the unification of the three versions of quantum electrodynamics invented by Feynman, Schwinger and Tomonaga. 10 years after moving to the U.S. he started working on the Orion Project, which sought to create a spacecraft with a nuclear propulsion system. STNG exposed the idea of a Dyson sphere to the masses, and his hypothetical plan for making a comet habitable with the help of genetically-engineered plants is a personal favorite. Mr. Dyson has graciously agreed give us a bit of his time in order to answer your questions. As usual, ask as many as you'd like, but please, one question per post.
When weighted against population, it appears that there are fewer "Renaissance men/women" than there have been historically. I've heard many regular people opine about how fields require more depth and learning to make progress in them but, as a polymath yourself, what is your opinion on it?
My work here is dung.
Why did you take a fellowship at Cornell and stay in the United States? There's plenty of world renowned institutions in the United Kingdom and you were a pilot in the RAF -- what appealed to you about the United States? Do you have any comments or opinions on H1-Bs and the United States' current stance on immigration?
My work here is dung.
In the past you've been cited as a noted skeptic of man-made global warming. Has any of the recent events made you change your mind? Events such as the Arctic becoming completely free of ice, or Britain having snow-free winters?
Okay those events haven't actually happened yet, but eminent climate scientists have ran computer models and they say these things will happen very soon. Are you alarmed enough to change your stance on global warming?
How has your education helped or hindered you? You are the "ideal" educated man. In our (American) culture, we don;t seem to be producing people devoted to learning, discovering, thinking, inventing, etc. What in your opinion can an educational system do to foster what you've become?
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"First things first -- but not necessarily in that order"
-- The Doctor, "Doctor
I notice that you've long had an interest in climate studies and have proposed novel ideas for removing carbon dioxide. Are there any good texts on the current state of engineering solutions to the symptoms of the problem of anthropogenic global warming? Also, in regards to engineering fast growing plants to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, wouldn't these be a scourge on the land and interfere with crops and food sources much like algal blooms and kudzu?
My work here is dung.
Are you saddened by the fact that fears in the general populace prohibit the use of nuclear technologies for space exploration?
Given that we finally seem to have a vital and growing private space industry, what do you think the likeliest successful target for long term space industrialization/exploitation/habitation is? The Moon, near earth asteroids, Mars?
What scientific theory do you believe despite the lack of evidence?
Elon Musk seems to be someone with big dreams who then makes them happen. But the biggest and most difficult dream seems to be his desire to colonize Mars. In what realm of possibility would you put his goal of a self-sustaining Mars colony starting with 10 and scaling to 80,000 people?
Professor Dyson
I had the pleasure of listening to you speak at Caltech in the 1980s about the Nuclear Freeze Movement. You were a supporter even though you indicated that since the number of nuclear weapons was decreasing (at that time), keeping the current number of nuclear weapons was not desirable.
Thirty years have passed. Do you think this movement accomplished any of their goals?
Thank you.
What are your thoughts on social engineering as it applies to near future changes in human relationships.
In your considerable opinion, does this allow for species change in a positive or negative fashion when relating to extra planetary exploration?
I loved you in Terminator 2 and your vacuum cleaners are second to none
"When life gives you lemons, don't make lemonade. Make life take the lemons back!" -- Cave Johnson
Consciousness is unlike anything I've encountered in any of the sciences. How should we direct our efforts in explaining this glaringly evident fact in the world?
Your book The Sun, the Genome and the Internet was published in 1999. In the past 15 years, what specific progresses have been made towards your vision of a future in this book? Have we taken any divergent roads? Have there been any unexpected blockers that have arisen in that time? Are you still that optimistic about our future?
My work here is dung.
I like the idea of this question but I think we need to reword it. Dyson is not a skeptic of global warming – he does believe we are having an impact. IIRC he holds the following views:
You can drive a mac truck though the holes in current models – but that is o.k. because Climatology is a young science and is still developing. What it does mean is that the error bars should be set way further apart and the long term impacts are uncertain.
Because the models are poor, it is hard to come up with specific advice and course of actions. For example, should biomass be encouraged as a energy source? The fuel itself is carbon naturel but production often takes places on marginal lands – where farming could increase greenhouse gases.
So, current plans are huge, expensive, and of unknown value to solve for a future problem with unknown costs.
The future will offer better models that will give better specific advice. Future technology will lower the cost of implanting a fix.
Balance that against current problems with known impact and known costs to cure – for example – world poverty (poor education, unclean water, etc.)
The answer therefore is to wait (If I understand what Dyson has been saying I agree with most of what he says – expect that I think that the future costs will grow faster than the advance of future technology so we should start now – but I am not an optimist).
In my understanding, the concepts of nuclear pulse propulsion that were investigated in the Orion Project had the highest real potential for generating enormous energies required for "faster" travel in space than anything we have, even today. I have always felt that it is a tragedy that this research couldn't be taken further into our modern realities of exploration.
Today, we have NASA exploring the potential (on a very small scale) of faster than light (FTL) travel using ideas such as the Alcubierre drive. In common discussion, we now hear about things such as: dark matter, quantum teleportation, FTL particles in the form of cosmic rays, the likely discovery of the Higgs Boson, spacetime, etc. These appear, to the layman like myself, to be serious discussions, with new realities and new possibilities being discovered every day.
The entirety of the NASA space program as we know it has developed within the last 60 years.
Given the advances in technology we have made in such a short time, the laws of physics, and the realities of the politics of our world, do you think it is feasible that we will develop the ability for very fast, near or faster-than-light travel in the next 60 years, and which direction seems the most feasible to you?
Thank you for your contributions to science, I am humbled to be able to ask this question of you!
Perhaps this has been asked already (throughout the various interviews, engagements, etc that you have had hitherto), but what are your general thoughts on the Singularity movement, transhumanism, and Ray Kurzweil's overall philosophy on human progress? Are these folks realistic, optimistic, or pessimistic? What are your beliefs about the current state of human advancement, and what we must work on as we careen toward the future?
NASA has a small research project going looking at some fundamental aspects of a warp drive based on the theories of Miguel Alcubierre. Many people openly deride such an effort, others are merely skeptical, a smaller number curious, and even fewer cautiously optimistic.
Where to do fall in this spectrum and why?
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
It always seemed to me that you were positive about our future prospects and chances of surviving even during the darkest days of the cold war. Were you, and are you still? If you changed your point of view, what caused it to change?
What do you view as the most realistic way for humanity to get its space legs (in a permanent fashion)? Drag an asteroid into orbit and use it to build cyclers? One-way Mars settlement missions? Something else?
I've heard a lot of cool ideas about things we could do once we're in space (Dyson spheres, etc) but we lack anything more than a toehold on the lowest rung of a long, long ladder and it seems like a chicken-and-egg problem.
...apparently there's a problem
PEBKAC identified.
Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
You've seen technology shift dramatically in your lifetime. Humanity had barely launched its first rockets when you were born, and you got to see humans walk on another planet (or at least, moon). What do you think I will be able to see before I die?
The fringes of science are filled with all sorts of disreputable, crackpot ideas. Most are worthless, but every now and then one turns out to be true (e.g. Wegener's continental drift). Are there any such "cocktail party theories" that you intrigue you, and that you believe might deserve further investigation?
Q: What does the "B." in Benoit B. Mandelbrot stand for? A: Benoit B. Mandelbrot
In your article The Question of Global Warming, you make the point that the Earth's vegetation acts as a big carbon sink, and suggest that genetically engineered plants might do an even better job -- thus becoming the first person in history to make environmentalists angry by suggesting that top soil management is important. I have a few questions about this: (1) you mention the fanciful-sounding notion of "carbon-eating trees", but aren't there technologies that already exist that might do the job? There are claims that "no till" agriculture via the dreaded "roundup ready" plants reduce greenhouse gas emissions substantially. (2) A big part of the argument against immediate reductions in CO2 emissions is economic. Do the analyses you've seen really make an effort to capture all the costs and benefits associated with a move like banning coal burning completely? The annual deaths estimated from coal pollution seem big enough to make it worth doing even before you put global warming on the table.
Looking back over your career throught most of the 20th centruy and into the 21st, have you ever observed certain knowladge, techniques or disiplines fade away over time?
Are there ways of doing or thinking about physics and mathematics which were prevalent in the past, but which are no longer common knowladge? How do you compare the abilities and backgrounds of modern professors and graduates to those of the past?
May the Maths Be with you!
While space travel is important for human survival in the long term, the more I think about it, the more it seems that developing a human style, scalable, artificial intelligence has for more potential to provide humans with rapid access to a much larger set of useful answers in the general domain of practical, solvable problems.
The investment should be, relatively speaking, trivial, and we already have 7 billion or so working models, so I think it's fairly certain that this can be done.
Given a choice, would you advocate more resources be allocated to space travel, or AI?
Please do not read this sig. Thank you.
(So, the above question got me to thinking on how science is communicated, and since only a single question is allowed per post.)
Often society is faced with technically complex, nuanced issues. In cases where the evidence is incomplete, technical experts have yet to reach a consensus, yet broad public support is needed. Is there any practical course of action you would like to see? Better science education? Depolarizing the issues by delegating authority to blue ribbon panels staffed by experts?
I am asking because I see your view on climate change being simplified to the point of distortion. You also experienced J. Robert Oppenheimer, security hearing in 1954, where there is speculation that the inquire was triggered not because of security concerns but by rival scientist.
Actually, I've been thinking that a Dyson Sphere might look for all the world(s) like a brown dwarf star. Such a sphere would be unlikely to be a solid object, but clouds of gravitationally and electromagnetically bound computational devices collecting solar energy then passing it back as waste heat, each successive layer lengthening the wavelength of the energy that came form the star and turning the difference into useful computational work. What spills out the last layer is tepid by any reasonable measure, and would probably live in the microwave or radio region, creating the appearance of a warm body... a brown dwarf. Problem is that brown dwarves are the small fuzzy mutts of the universe and trying to distinguish a Dyson Sphere from one would be a serious challenge at a couple hundred light years.
Of course from the civilization looking to go undetected, the more you look like an uninteresting brown dwarf the better. Worth considering.
In 1993 you participated in the dutch VPRO television series 'Een schitterend ongeluk' ('A glorious accident'), with a very long, interesting and openhearted interview and an encounter with 6 top scientists of different disciplines. I recently watched the series again, and it totally lived up to the fond memories I had from 20 years ago. I can't remember any other non-fiction television making such an impression on me!
What recollections do you have from the interview and the encounter? Did it have some impact on your (scientific) views?
Thank you
The early to mid 20th century was one of the most dynamic times to ever happen in physics, with massive shifts in thinking and incredible applications of science that led to some of the greatest achievements of mankind. For a variety of reasons, it seems as though progress recently has been more incremental, collective, and focused on confirming the big ideas of previous thinkers. What attribute do you think is most needed in the upcoming generation of physicists to usher in the next era of scientific progress?
What is your educated guess on whether NP=P, or not.
NASA is currently conducting experiments to see if they can make microscopic warps in space-time sufficient to be detected by an interferometer. What technologies do you see expediting interstellar travel a few centuries from now, and what technologies do you see as being dead ends.
Dear Dr. Dyson,
You're obviously a person who knows how entice yourself into doing something - even when that something has become boring and routine
Would you mind sharing with us in what way you encourage yourself to carry on in what you have been doing, and in overcoming fears of the unknown when you are about to do things that you have never done before (facing new challenges) ?
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
I am of the opinion that without economical fusion, humanity will not last more than a few thousand years. I am also of the opinion that most fusion research funding is targeted at projects with little or no application to economical fusion (I see no evidence that tokamaks or inertial confinement will ever be economical. In fact, all evidence seems to suggest they will never be economical). What are your views on the current state of fusion research? Is funding misplaced? Disproportionately allocated?
Thanks! I 'man aspiring scientist, and you're one of my personal hero's, so it's quite incredible to have the chance to ask you a question (even if it only has a small chance of being answered).
You're daughter Esther is one of the most incredibly inspiring women role models alive today. Do you have any parenting advice for those of out here with kids of our own who would like them to become similarly active, positive, and brilliant adults?
i ~ Celebrating Science, Cyberspace, Speculation