Saturday, February 29, 2020

On the Passing Of Freeman Dyson

I always thought he was an interesting guy but it turns out he was a really interesting guy.
Some of the headlines:
Physics World
Freeman Dyson dies age 96
NPR
Physicist And Iconoclastic Thinker Freeman Dyson Dies At 96
The Register
RIP Freeman Dyson: The super-boffin who applied his mathematical brain to nuclear magic, quantum physics, space travel, and more
Swarajya Magazine
Obit: Freeman Dyson, The Genius Physicist Who Helped Bring Japan’s ‘Sacred’ Math To The World, Dies At 96
San Diego Union-Tribune
Remembering famed physicist Freeman Dyson and his La Jolla years
c|net
Freeman Dyson, famed physicist and creative force, dies at 96
Science 2.0 
Freeman Dyson. Don't Call Him Doctor. He Was Too Smart For That.

And some of our visits with the old boy:
"The Brain Is Full of Maps A Talk By Freeman Dyson"

"The Key to Everything" Freeman Dyson on Geoffrey West's "Scale..." 
Until seeing this I wasn't aware Professor Dyson was still alive. The old boy hung out at Princeton's Institute for Advanced Studies at the same time Einstein was there. He knew all the physics brainiacs of the day, Feynman in particular and was sharp enough himself that Princeton grabbed him and made Dyson a Professor despite his lack of a PhD.
This review was recommended by one of the commenters on Izabella Kaminska's last posting at FT Alphaville which we linked in "UPDATED—A Map of Every City (plus Izabella Kaminska does a drive-by)".
And speaking of Ms Kaminska, why haven't the tech boffins at the Financial Times come up with a robo-Izzy until her return?

Although Einstein was at the Institute for Advanced Studies when Dyson arrived they didn't pal around. From the Nautil.us interview with Dyson:
...There were many famous scientists at Princeton when you got there, including Albert Einstein. Did you ever get to know him?
No, and he didn’t encourage young people to get to know him. He never came to seminars, never came to lunch. We always saw him walk by every day. He was tremendously busy with affairs of the world, so he was very much in demand. People came every day. Important people came to visit, so he just didn’t have time for saying hello to the kids.

But it sounds like he didn’t want to say hello. Was it simply not part of his makeup to talk with the up-and-coming generation?
That was true. He didn’t enjoy teaching. There were two important things for him. There was his own work, which he always continued, and there was his public activity as a politician, which he did extremely well. He was a really serious player in the international game and actually had a good effect....
"Alien Civilizations and Energy"