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RIP Freeman Dyson

I was just having a furtle around on the Reddit electric universe sub, and they have mentioned his passing. Albeit, claiming that Dyson spheres couldn't work, as they would stop the star from being powered by intergalactic currents, and it would therefore shut down!
 
Probably the most widespread exposure of his Dyson Sphere idea was in the Star Trek:TNG episode where they entered one ("Relics"). As the story went, they really lost an opportunity by not exploring the interior -- they could probably have gotten a season's worth of episodes out of it if they'd planned it right! But of course, the focus was on the special guest star appearance of Scotty, and I have no problem with that.
 
The spheres got his name, but I actually found that in climate science, something he got wrong was actually hugely influential in a clear pathway we can potentially get right.

This is because in the process of working it out that you can't actually plant enough trees to solve AGW, you actually reveal so many complex interactions that could indeed be used along with planting trees to solve AGW. In an interview I saw of Dyson, he publicly announced he was in fact purposely taking the contrarian position just to force a more robust science. He actually stated he was too old and not interested enough to delve into that complexity himself, but was throwing it out there for others to finish.

Pure genius.

Because indeed it has managed to spark exactly the scientific conversation he visioned. And in fact the very proof he was specifically wrong has opened up ways his general idea may be right!

Planting enough trees alone may not be capable of solving AGW, but most certainly biomes can substantially mitigate! The grassland biome in particular is indeed capable of sequestering vast quantities of carbon in the soil.

So it turns out he had the right idea but the wrong biome.

To me that's the real indicator of a scientific genius. Even when you are wrong, just the rigor required to falsify your hypothesis advances the science!

I'll say it again. Pure genius.
I'll end this homage of a great man with my favorite quote from him:

"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 different views, but they look out at the same universe. Both views are one-sided, neither is complete. Both leave out essential features of the real world. And both are worthy of respect. Trouble arises when either science or religion claims universal jurisdiction, when either religious or scientific dogma claims to be infallible. Religious creationists and scientific materialists are equally dogmatic and insensitive. By their arrogance they bring both science and religion into disrepute. The media exaggerate their numbers and importance. The media rarely mention the fact that the great majority of religious people belong to moderate denominations that treat science with respect, or the fact that the great majority of scientists treat religion with respect so long as religion does not claim jurisdiction over scientific questions." Freeman Dyson
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Rest in Peace Freeman.
 
It's a shame he trashed his reputation with global warming. The "I can't be arsed working this out so I'll just be a contrarian on a moral issue because that's how I roll" attitude is intellectually bankrupt.
 
Red Baron Farms said:
The spheres got his name, but I actually found that in climate science, something he got wrong was actually hugely influential in a clear pathway we can potentially get right.

This is because in the process of working it out that you can't actually plant enough trees to solve AGW, you actually reveal so many complex interactions that could indeed be used along with planting trees to solve AGW. In an interview I saw of Dyson, he publicly announced he was in fact purposely taking the contrarian position just to force a more robust science. He actually stated he was too old and not interested enough to delve into that complexity himself, but was throwing it out there for others to finish.
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The way to create more robust science is to contribute to the science or to find major contradictions that point science in a new direction. Trying to do this without delving into the complexities does not end well.

His idea on trees was to bioengineer them to produce nob-biodegradable leaves. He never delved into complexities like what damage would be done by not returning nutrients to the soil or how you stop the trees once CO2 levels are back to normal.

While he made great contributions in his own field, one very big takeaway from his later life should be that if you don't understand the complexities of a given field you should listen to the people who do when you discuss that field.
 
lomiller said:
The way to create more robust science is to contribute to the science or to find major contradictions that point science in a new direction. Trying to do this without delving into the complexities does not end well.
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You underestimate his influence in finding that new direction.
 
I've heard it said he should have shared the Nobel Prize with Schwinger, Tomonaga and Feynman (only three names allowed for a single prize, though).

Regarding his contribution to QED, see this from wikipedia:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freeman_Dyson
In 1949, Dyson demonstrated the equivalence of two formulations of quantum electrodynamics (QED): Richard Feynman's diagrams and the operator method developed by Julian Schwinger and Shin'ichirō Tomonaga. He was the first person after their creator to appreciate the power of Feynman diagrams and his paper written in 1948 and published in 1949 was the first to make use of them. He said in that paper that Feynman diagrams were not just a computational tool but a physical theory and developed rules for the diagrams that completely solved the renormalization problem. Dyson's paper and also his lectures presented Feynman's theories of QED in a form that other physicists could understand, facilitating the physics community's acceptance of Feynman's work. J. Robert Oppenheimer, in particular, was persuaded by Dyson that Feynman's new theory was as valid as Schwinger's and Tomonaga's.
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Another bit that I find interesting about him (quote also from wikipedia): "Dyson joined the faculty at Cornell as a physics professor in 1951, though he still had no doctorate."

As a science fiction fan I have a special fondness for Project Orion, which he was an integral part of. Reading the book by his son George Dyson led me to believe it could have worked, too, though whether or not it should have is another question entirely.
 
lomiller said:
His idea on trees was to bioengineer them to produce nob-biodegradable leaves. He never delved into complexities like what damage would be done by not returning nutrients to the soil or how you stop the trees once CO2 levels are back to normal.
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There is actually an entire geologic period, the Carboniferous, initiated in part by trees evolving lignin which was resistant to decay.
 
Darn. For a sec I thought this said Neil "don't call me Mike" Tyson.
 
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