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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.
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?
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.
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?
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.
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