It's really a matter of perspective. To say Krauss isn't relavent in his field and isn't in even the top 1% of scientists today in terms of relevance is factually incorrect. If you define powerhouse to mean a giant like Feynman, then sure, he's not, but Krauss is undeniably a brilliant scientist. His philosophy is one thing, but his work speaks for itself.

We'll also have to see, if dark matter and string theory stand the test of time in 30 years Krauss may very well have that many citations.


Fun coincidence though, the book you're referencing "Quantum Mechanics and Path Integrals" is one I picked up 2 weeks ago at Barnes and Noble and am working my way through. Nice coincidence.

This post was edited by Thor123422 on Oct 7 2014 11:30am

Troll.



Who's attacking here? Some kid is trying to aggravate people with bullshit and I'm calling him on it in the hopes he realises a troll that is known is not a troll at all and leaves.

keep in mind though that the religious nuts are widely ignored because... well, they're religious nuts! it's just easier to go full idiot on that side of the debate, so people give them less attention. Atheists are usually more restricted in the stupidities they can spew and their arguments are generally more solid (but not necessarily valid).

This post was edited by Neptunus on Oct 7 2014 11:33am

He's attacking a lot more than you, yes lol.



Yes, I'm probably exaggerating a bit. The thing is, progress in physics generally a result of one of two things: creative geniuses like Einstein or Schrodinger who single-handedly revolutionize our understanding of physics, or full-scale research organizations with many collaborators like CERN. Krauss falls into neither category and so I think he is a mere blip in physics understanding. Granted, most physicists aren't even a blip, so he's above average.

So yes, Krauss has made somewhat significant contributions to physics, and for that I respect him.

The bold is factually incorrect. Einstein and Schrodinger would have been useless without the hundreds of people before them making observations which made their breakthroughs even possible, and even ignoring that they usually have dozens of people working under them collaborating, even ignoring that every great discovery in science for the past 500 years has had others nipping at their heels. Einstein was in competition with another man who barely missed greatness by solving E = 5/8*m*c^2. One small error correction in his calculations and Einstein would have just been a blip. Schrodinger solved his problem in polar coordinates, but in the exact same year the same solution was published in Cartesian coordinates. It took some work but they were identical proofs. There are no monoliths in science, everybody is constantly afraid of being scooped. Even a more modern example, the Higgs Boson, was published in the same year by three different research groups in the 70's. Greatness is more circumstance than an individual being so much greater than his peers. The top isn't a needle point with one man on top, it's a plateau where hundreds of people fight to stay there.


But on the overall point, glad we could agree on Krauss's science.

This post was edited by Thor123422 on Oct 7 2014 11:53am

Theologians who debate atheists are not widely ignored. In fact, WLC has gotten a ton of fame because he generally demolishes the people he debates.

There is no need to call anyone a "nut". You are just avoiding legitimate arguments by calling people names.



I'm probably going out on a limb here... but you all can mentally handle my assortment of pixels I choose to use.

Hmm interesting thoughts, perhaps I give too much credence to the pop historians of science like Hawking. Many like him made it seem that Einstein developed relativity completely from a creative mental breakthrough.

Interested in the bold statements as I hadn't heard either of these before and couldn't find any info on them.



Yes, but that doesn't mean you should choose to use them

This post was edited by Voyaging on Oct 7 2014 11:56am

It's hard to dig up information on it. Schrodinger published first and his equations are much more useful so the Cartesian system is barely taught. Everybody on top can get scooped. Wake up one day and some guy across the country published the theory you've been working on for the past 5 years, and your doctoral thesis is now garbage because somebody else got to it first.

philosophy is useless though

do you remember the last time it made any practical contributions?

neither do i

people just major in philosophy so they can ask why someone wants fries with their meal

This post was edited by duffman316 on Oct 7 2014 05:18pm