2023年12月15日 星期五

Freeman Dyson (1923~2020): The Scientist as Rebel《反叛的科學家》.〈從量子力學到太空文明——思索人類未來的人〉casually wise, surprisingly earnest, and always attuned to the multiple layers of our human existence. The Sun, the Genome, and the Internet資 21世紀三事

〈從量子力學到太空文明——思索人類未來的人〉
普林斯頓高等研究院，少數頂尖學者方能受邀進駐的學術殿堂。在這裡不須教書、不須產出論文，完全不受俗務干擾，只須專心思考；愛因斯坦、馮·紐曼、哥德爾、狄拉克、包立、李政道與楊振寧、……等大破大立的科學巨擘都曾在此駐足。在這柏拉圖天空的繁星之中，卻有一位連博士學位都沒有，而且不像其他學者來來去去，他一待就超過一甲子，直到2020年過世為止。
這位與眾不同的科學家就是今天恰逢百歲冥誕的戴森（Freeman Dyson）。他於1923年12月15日出生在英格蘭一個人口不到萬人的小鎮，自小嶄露數學天份，四歲時就曾試圖計算太陽有多少原子；他姊姊記得年幼的他總是被百科全書包圍著，不時埋首在紙上做計算。
戴森於1941年進入劍橋大學三一學院，但因第二次世界大戰戰情吃緊，他也加入空軍擔任分析師，直到戰爭結束後才重返校園取得大學文憑。1947年，戴森到美國康乃爾大學留學，跟著德裔物理學家貝特（Hans Bethe）做研究。戴森就是在這裡認識了大他五歲，卻已經擔任教授的費曼，兩人從此成為至交。
當時物理學家想要結合量子力學與狹義相對論，建立量子電動力學，以便正確描述光與帶電粒子間的交互作用，但是在計算過程中卻會產生無限大的數值，顯然與實際不符。為了解決這個問題，費曼在1948年發展出費曼圖來表述路徑積分，成功透過重整化抵消無限大。但是這種圖解的方式與傳統數學大相逕庭，令當代的物理學家感到愕然而難以接受；當時唯一的知音就只有戴森。
在此同時，哈佛大學教授施溫格（Julian S. Schwinger）與日本的朝永振一郎教授也各自以正統方法，發表重整化的方程式，只不過相當複雜。戴森很快看出他們的方程式和費曼圖可互相對應，兩者其實是一體的兩面，他於1949年發表論文，闡述兩者的連結，為量子電動力學的完備性補上臨門一腳。
最後費曼、施溫格與朝永振一郎三人共同獲頒1965年的諾貝爾物理學獎。施溫格與楊振寧都為戴森沒有得獎而大抱不平，但戴森自己倒是不以為意，他說：「如果你想贏得諾貝爾獎，就應該長期專注於某個深刻而重要的問題，至少十年不放。這可不是我的風格。」
是的，戴森在普林斯頓高等研究院中猶顯得風格迴異。院長歐本海默於1953年提供他終身職時，大概以為聘到一位量子力學的理論物理學家，不料三年後他就和氫彈之父泰勒一起合作，為通用動力公司設計絕對安全的核反應爐 TRIGA (因為溫度上升時，所使用的鈾氫鋯核燃料的反應速率反而會下降)。至今這種反應爐仍在世界各地的醫院、大學和研究機構使用中（我國清華大學校園內的核反應爐也是這型）。
1957年，戴森乾脆請假一年，跑去參加民間發起的獵戶座計畫，幫忙設計以核能為動力的火箭，用來探索太空。不過這計畫後來因為1963年的《部分禁止核試驗條約》國際公約而終止；戴森自己正是推動這項公約的主要人物之一，因為他見到美蘇的核武競賽越演越烈，寧可放棄核能的發展。
但戴森從未放棄探索宇宙的熱情。他除了寫過中子星、脈衝星等天文物理的論文，他還拋出許多極具創意的點子，例如在彗星上種植基因改造的樹(「戴森樹」，Dyson Tree)；只有一公斤重、可利用星塵為材料進行自我複製的自動機(「星雞」，Astrochicken) 適合漫長的太空旅行；還有將整個恆星包圍起來的「戴森球」(Dyson Sphere)，如此便可汲取恆星的所有熱輻射做為能源，供人類進行大規模的太空移民。
戴森曾引用哲學家柏林（Isaiah Berlin）的比喻，將偉大的科學家分成兩種：狐狸與刺蝟。他說：
「狐狸對每件事都感興趣，總是輕易地從一個問題跳到另一個問題。刺蝟只對少數他們認為是基本的問題感興趣，而且會花上數年或數十年的時間在同一個問題上。偉大發現大多是刺蝟找到的，多數小發現則是狐狸找到的。科學需要刺蝟也需要狐狸才能健康成長，刺蝟深入挖掘事物的本質，狐狸則探索我們這神奇宇宙的複雜細節。愛因斯坦是隻刺蝟，費曼則是隻狐狸。」
戴森當然也是狐狸，而且是隻眺望未來、思索人類文明何去何從的狐狸。
按：本文改寫自收錄於《 #科學史上的今天》的〈科學需要刺蝟，也需要狐狸〉
所有心情：
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Through his correspondence, the renowned physicist revealed himself as a different sort of thinker—casually wise, surprisingly earnest, and always attuned to the multiple layers of our human existence.


NEWYORKER.COM

Freeman Dyson’s Letters Offer Another Glimpse of Genius
Through his correspondence, the renowned physicist revealed himself

2020.2.29

Freeman Dyson (15 December 1923 – 28 February 2020)
Obituaries











Freeman Dyson Dies at 96; Wrestled With Questions of Physics and Morality

Over his extensive career, Dyson applied elegant mathematics to aspects of nuclear engineering, biology, astrophysics and solid state physics — the study of solid matter.


In popular culture, Dyson is most famous for his thought experiments on space travel and future civilizations.





PBS.ORG

Pioneering theoretical physicist Freeman Dyson dies at 96


We're saddened by the death of prominent physicist Freeman Dyson. We want to help celebrate his life and his work by sharing this story he wrote for us in 2006. In it, he recalls the time he spent developing analytical methods to help the British Royal Air Force bomb German targets during World War II.










Prominent physicist Freeman Dyson recalls the time he spent developing analytical methods to help the British Royal Air Force bomb German targets during World War II.













TECHNOLOGYREVIEW.COM



A Failure of Intelligence










Here are some of our favorite quotes from Freeman Dyson, one of the foremost physicists of his generation who died Friday, at the age of 96.










One of the 20th century’s foremost physicists died today.













TECHNOLOGYREVIEW.COM



Freeman Dyson in his own words






2017.12.27
Ben Chen



紀念廣義相對論誕生一百年，Freeman Dyson的致詞。

量子力學，向前看！廣義相對論，向後看？


“Roughly speaking, quantum mechanics describes the universe when you look forward into the future and the theory gives you probabilities. General relativity describes the universe when you look backward into the past and the theory gives you facts. Probabilities describe the future. Facts describe the past. Quantum mechanics and general relativity together give us a coherent view of nature with all its magical beauty and diversity. General relativity is half of the picture, and to my taste the more beautiful half.”

















A Toast to Einstein


Christmas Day, 1942, was the three hundredth birthday of Isaac Newton. I was then an undergraduate at Trinity College, Cambridge. Since Newton was our most famous fellow, the college organized a meeting to celebrate his…


IAS.EDU





Freeman Dyson




Freeman Dyson: A ‘Rebel’ Without a Ph.D.
A wide-ranging interview with the legendary mathematical physicist Freeman Dyson in which he discusses his work…
YOUTUBE.COM


Freeman Dyson: Heretical Thoughts About Science and Society

Uploaded on Mar 30, 2010
Freeman Dyson with dry wit and self-effacing good humor explains that by heretical he means ideas that go against prevailing dogmas, and that in his self-appointed role as heretic, he is unimpressed by conventional wisdom.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8xFLjUt2leM#t=139

Freeman Dyson的著作，漢譯約7~8成。日本約9成。
我去年讀此書，主要目的是研究作者高中化學老師(後來創York 大學)。今天讀3篇，很精彩。晚上還比較一下日譯本。

The Scientist as Rebel By Freeman J. Dyson，New York Review Books (September 9, 2008)

Freeman  Dyson (弗里曼·戴森)著《反叛的科學家》(The Scientist as Rebel) 蕭明波、楊光松譯 ，杭州：浙江大學出版社，2013，

  • 『叛逆としての科学 本を語り、文化を読む22章』 柴田裕之訳、みすず書房、2008年6月。ISBN 978-4-622-07389-5。科學作為一種"反叛"-----日譯本較早，有索引，不過比漢譯本少七篇。
英文版在《我的偶像崇拜》一文漏印一段；而｢中國大陸近年翻譯出版的圖書質量已低劣到觸目驚心的程式。｣  (蕭明波《譯後記》，頁395)

From Publishers Weekly

Starred Review. In an eclectic but deeply satisfying collection, Dyson, a prize-winning physicist and prolific author (Weapons and Hope), presents 33 previously published book reviews, essays and speeches (15 from the New York Review of Books). Dyson expresses his precise thinking in prose of crystal clarity, and readers will be absolutely enthralled by his breadth, his almost uncanny ability to tie diverse topics together and his many provocative statements. In the title essay, Dyson writes, "Science is an alliance of free spirits in all cultures rebelling against" the tyranny of their local cultures. In a 2006 review of Daniel Dennett's book, Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon, Dyson, himself a man of faith, takes issue with Dennett's quoting of physicist Stephen Weinberg that "for good people to do bad things—that takes religion." The converse is also true, says Dyson: "for bad people to do good things—that takes religion." Three of the best chapters (reprinted from Weapons and Hope) deal with the politics of the cold war. And his writings on Einstein, Teller, Newton, Oppenheimer, Norbert Wiener and Feynman will amuse while presenting deep insights into the nature of science and humanity. Virtually every chapter deserves to be savored. (Dec.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.


The Scientist as Rebel book cover

From Booklist

Distinguished physicist Dyson is a clear and compelling writer, gifts highlighted in this collection of 33 previously published and frequently updated essays and reviews. Organized into sections on contemporary issues in science, war and peace, history of science and scientists, and personal and philosophical ruminations, these works demonstrate Dyson's far-ranging interests and skill in writing for educated and curious generalists, qualities that ensure this volume's wide appeal. Some readers may feel a thrill reading Dyson's comments on military strategy; others may prefer Dyson's thoughts on such physics-related people and issues as Isaac Newton, Edward Teller, J. Robert Oppenheimer, Richard Feynman, Norbert Wiener, and string theory. But whatever a reader's passion, Dyson's emphasis on rebels within science rather than upholders of the status quo makes the book especially satisfying. Steve Weinberg
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.


Freeman Dyson - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

 反叛的科學家 [平裝]~ 弗里曼•戴森(Freeman Dyson) (作者), 肖明波(譯者), 楊光松(譯者)出版社: 浙江大學出版社; 第1版(2013年6月1日)叢書名: 啟真•科學平裝: 396頁語種： 簡體中文開本: 16

《反叛的科學家》

內容簡介：從伽利略到今天的業餘天文觀測者，科學家們都有反叛精神，戴森如是說。在追求大自然真理時，他們受理性更受想像力的指引，他們最偉大的理論就具有偉大藝術作品的獨特性與美感。戴森以生動優美的語言講述了科學家在工作中的故事，從牛頓專心致志於物理學、煉金術、神學和政治，到盧瑟福發現原子結構，再到愛因斯坦固執地反對黑洞觀念。他還以切身經歷回憶了他的老師和朋友特勒與費曼等聰明絕頂的科學家。書裡充滿了有趣的逸事和對人心的深刻體察，反映了作者的懷疑精神。這組文章出自卓越的科學家同時也是文筆生動的作家之手，展現出對科學史的深刻洞察，以及當代人探討科學、倫理與信仰的新視角。

  內容簡介：

《反 叛的科學家》內容簡介：從伽利略到今天的業余天文觀測者，科學家們都有反叛精神，戴森如是說。在追求大自然真理時，他們受理性更受想象力的指引，他們最偉 大的理論就具有偉大藝術作品的獨特性與美感。戴森以生動優美的語言講述了科學家在工作中的故事，從牛頓專心致志于物理學、煉金術、神學和政治，到盧瑟福發 現原子結構，再到愛因斯坦固執地反對黑洞觀念。他還以切身經歷回憶了他的老師和朋友特勒與費曼等聰明絕頂的科學家。書里充滿了有趣的逸事和對人心的深刻體 察，反映了作者的懷疑精神。這組文章出自卓越的科學家同時也是文筆生動的作家之手，展現出對科學史的深刻洞察，以及當代人探討科學、倫理與信仰的新視角。
作者簡介：弗 里曼？戴森（Freeman Dyson，1923－），出生于英國。他早年追隨著名的數學家g. h. 哈代研究數學，二戰后去了美國，師從漢斯？貝特和理查德？費曼等人，開展物理學方面的研究工作。他證明了施溫格與朝永振一郎的變分法方法和費曼的路徑積分 法相互等價，為量子電動力學的建立作出了決定性的貢獻，是量子電動力學的第一代巨擘。后來，費曼、施溫格和朝永振一郎因為在量子電動力學方面的成就獲得了 1965年的諾貝爾物理獎，而戴森卻因獲獎人數的限制而與諾貝爾獎失之交臂。
圖書目錄：目　　錄
譯本序（尹傳紅） 1
作者序 1
第一部分　當代科學中的問題
1　反叛的科學家 13
2　科學可以合乎道德嗎？ 31
3　現代異教徒 46
4　未來需要我們 53
5　好一個大千世界！ 68
6　一場悲劇的見證 83
第二部分　戰爭與和平
7　炸彈與土豆 89
8　將軍 94
9　 俄羅斯人 112
10　和平主義者 125
11　軍備競賽結束了 144
12　理性的力量 150
13　血戰到底 157
第三部分　科學史與科學家
14　兩種歷史 177
15　愛德華 特勒的《回憶錄》 186
16　業餘科學家禮贊 192
17　老牛頓，新印象 205
18　時鐘的科學 219
19　弦上的世界 231
20　奧本海默：科學家、管理者與詩人 247
21　看到不可見的東西 263
22　一位天才人物的悲慘故事 276
23　智者 291
第四部分　個人與哲學隨筆
24　世界、肉體與魔鬼 309
25　實驗室里有上帝嗎？ 327
26　我的偶像崇拜 338
27　百萬分之一的可能性 344
28　眾多世界 35
29    從局外看宗教
第五部分
書目注解
附錄: 一個保守的革命者
譯後記

目次

序

第1部　科学における現代の諸問題
第1章　叛逆者としての科学者
第2章　現代の異端者
第3章　未来は私たちを必要としている
第4章　なんと精妙な世界だろう!
第5章　悲劇の目撃者

第2部　戦争と平和
第6章　将軍たち
第7章　ロシア人たち
第8章　平和主義者たち
第9章　理性の力
第10章　最後の最後まで

第3部　科学史と科学者
第11章　二種類の歴史
第12章　アマチュアを称えて
第13章　時計仕掛けの科学
第14章　今ひもとかれる世界
第15章　科学者、管理者、詩人としてのオッペンハイマー
第16章　見えざるものを見る
第17章　ある天才の悲劇

第4部　私的小論と哲学的小論
第18章　世界と肉体と悪魔
第19章　神は研究室にいるのか
第20章　100万回に1回
第21章　多世界
第22章　外側から見た宗教

訳者あとがき
初出一覧
原注
索引


《反叛的科學家》，弗里曼·戴森著，肖明波、楊光松譯，浙江大學出版社2013年6月出版
■尹傳紅
跟斯蒂芬·霍金和幾年前過世的約翰·惠勒類似，今年已九十歲高齡的弗里曼·戴森身上雖沒有諾貝爾獎的光環罩著，但在物理學界卻也是大師級的人物，其地位和影響與諾獎得主相比絲毫不差。
早些時候有一種說法，認為戴森在量子電動力學理論方面所做的重要工作，理應獲得諾貝爾獎，至少應該獲得比現在更高的榮譽。
當然，不乏另外一種解讀。一部介紹普林斯頓高等研究院及其科學大師們的著作《誰得到了愛因斯坦的辦公室》，對戴森有這樣一番議論：“他不能投注全部心力只做一件事。他既是粒子物理學家，又是天體物理學家，還是理論數學家。”
而戴森本人則這樣為自己開脫：“我腦子沒有年輕人快，跟他們一起湊這個熱鬧（指超弦研究）不太明智，所以，我選擇做一點不太時髦的工作，比方說研究生命的起源。”有一次他還向人發問：“你去過劍橋嗎？那兒到處都是瘋子——一幫怪物和獨行客，成天琢磨著幹一件很難卻又能名垂青史的大事。他們瘋狂有什麼不對嗎？大自然就是瘋子。我倒希望高等研究院能多一些瘋子。”

戴森的幾部作品——《宇宙波瀾：科技與人類前途的自省》、《全方位的無限：生命為什麼如此復雜》、《太陽、基因組與互聯網：科學革命的工具》、《想像中的世界》和《反叛的科學家》，都有了中譯本，而且頗受歡迎。其文字優雅飄逸，思想深邃奔放，個人風格印記彰顯。

戴森很注重也很善於講“故事”。他論述的主題往往由自己的一段親身經歷或體驗展開，有時甚至還鋪以相當翔實的細節描述。他說過，“要明白科學以及它和社會互動的本質，你必須檢視個別的科學家，以及他面對周遭世界所抱持的態度。研究由科學所衍生之倫理問題的最佳途徑，是實地了解科學家所面臨的一些進退兩難的現實窘境。再則，鑑於第一手資料往往是最可信賴的，我就由自己的親身經歷寫起”。

戴森喜歡拿科幻小說來說事講理，做案例分析，並以此比照和評價科學事實，這也是其作品內涵豐富、可讀性強且頗具啟發意義的一個十分顯著的特色。他把自己從事的科學稱為“自己的領域”，而將科幻小說當做“我的夢想家園”。他認為科幻小說比科學本身更能讓人明白易懂，且可以“顯示有人情味的輸出”。這通常要“比任何統計分析都高明，因為真知灼見需要想像”。

我想，戴森其人及作品之所以富有情趣、魅力十足，主要是因為：第一，他對科學的本質洞察入微，對科學的思維方式也有精深的理解；第二，他涉獵廣泛、視野開闊、思想曠達；第三，他具備深厚的哲學素養和濃郁的人文情懷；第四，他個性鮮明、見解獨特，而且善於表達。

作為一位深具遠見卓識與人文情懷的智者，戴森常常還拋開職業褊狹與門戶之見，在作品中探討戰爭與和平、自由與責任、希望與絕望等事關人類前途和命運的倫理問題，時有發人深思之論、促人警醒之語。他相信，在科學進步的同時如果沒有倫理的進步，那麼科學注定要把巨大的困惑和災難帶給人類。儘管他往往是從自己熟悉的科學角度記述和描繪未來，但他並不主張科學是唯一有權威的聲音。他告誡說，科學與宗教一樣，其權力也常常被濫用。 “只有宗教的呼聲與科學的呼聲加到一起時，倫理所關心的事情才會超越人類眼前的利益。”

戴森還在其多部作品中“檢討”科學的過失，感慨科學與技術的發展結果難以預料，我們都缺乏高瞻遠矚的智慧來判定哪條路會通向滅亡與沈淪。他甚至坦言，科學應該為一些嚴重的社會問題乃至罪惡的產生承擔責任——這是他的大多數科學家同行不願意接受的觀點，但戴森為人著文思想境界之脫俗、高遠，由此可見一斑。
《中國科學報》 (2013-06-21 第14版讀書)












The Scientist as Rebel

Freeman Dyson
There is no such thing as a unique scientific vision, any more than there is a unique poetic vision. Science is a mosaic of partial and conflicting visions. But there is one common element in these visions. The common element is rebellion against the restrictions imposed by the locally prevailing culture, Western or Eastern as the case may be. The vision of science is not specifically Western. It is no more Western than it is Arab or Indian or Japanese or Chinese. Arabs and Indians and Japanese and Chinese had a big share in the development of modern science. And two thousand years earlier, the beginnings of ancient science were as much Babylonian and Egyptian as Greek. One of the central facts about science is that it pays no attention to East and West and North and South and black and yellow and white. It belongs to everybody who is willing to make the effort to learn it. And what is true of science is also true of poetry. Poetry was not invented by Westerners. India has poetry older than Homer. Poetry runs as deep in Arab and Japanese culture as it does in Russian and English. Just because I quote poems in English, it does not follow that the vision of poetry has to be Western. Poetry and science are gifts given to all of humanity.
For the great Arab mathematician and astronomer Omar Khayyam, science was a rebellion against the intellectual constraints of Islam, a rebellion which he expressed more directly in his incomparable verses:
And that inverted Bowl they call the Sky,
Whereunder crawling cooped we live and die,
Lift not your hands to It for help,
   —for it
As impotently rolls as you or I.
For the first generations of Japanese scientists in the nineteenth century, science was a rebellion against their traditional culture of feudalism. For the great Indian physicists of this century, Raman, Bose, and Saha, science was a double rebellion, first against English domination and second against the fatalistic ethic of Hinduism. And in the West, too, great scientists from Galileo to Einstein have been rebels. Here is how Einstein himself described the situation:

When I was in the seventh grade at the Luitpold Gymnasium in Munich, I was summoned by my home-room teacher who expressed the wish that I leave the school. To my remark that I had done nothing amiss, he replied only, “Your mere presence spoils the respect of the class for me.”
Einstein was glad to be helpful to the teacher. He followed the teacher’s advice and dropped out of school at the age of fifteen.
From these and many other examples we see that science is not governed by the rules of Western philosophy or Western methodology. Science is an alliance of free spirits in all cultures rebelling against the local tyranny that each culture imposes on its children. Insofar as I am a scientist, my vision of the universe is not reductionist or anti-reductionist. I have …

Dancing With the Stars



By GEORGE JOHNSON
Published: January 7, 2007

In June 1948, as Jack Kerouac was recovering from another of the amphetamine-fueled joy rides immortalized in “On the Road,” Freeman Dyson, a young British physicist studying at Cornell, set off on a road trip of a different kind. Bound for Albuquerque with the loquacious Richard Feynman, the Neal Cassady of physics, at the wheel, the two scientists talked nonstop about the morality of nuclear weapons and, when they had exhausted that subject, how photons dance with electrons to produce the physical world. The hills and prairies that Dyson, still new to America, was admiring from the car window, the thunderstorm that stranded him and Feynman overnight in Oklahoma — all of nature’s manifestations would be understood on a deeper level once the bugs were worked out of an unproven idea called quantum electrodynamics, or QED.


William E. Sauro/The New York Times
“One brick at a time”: Freeman Dyson at Princeton, 1972.

THE SCIENTIST AS REBEL

By Freeman Dyson.
360 pp. New York Review Books. $27.95.

Readers’ Opinions

Forum: Book News and Reviews

Dyson recounted the journey years later in “Disturbing the Universe,” contrasting Feynman’s Beat-like soliloquies on particles and waves with the mannered presentations (“more technique than music”) he heard later that summer from the Harvard physicist Julian Schwinger. On a Greyhound bus crossing Nebraska — Dyson had fallen in love with the American highway — he had an epiphany: his two colleagues were talking, in different languages, about the same thing.
It was a pivotal moment in the history of physics. With their contrasting visions joined into a single theory, Feynman, Schwinger and the Japanese scientist Sin-Itiro Tomonaga were honored in 1965 with a Nobel Prize, one that some think Dyson deserved a piece of.
In “The Scientist as Rebel,” a new collection of essays (many of them reviews first published in The New York Review of Books), he sounds content with his role as a bridge builder. “Tomonaga and Schwinger had built solid foundations on one side of a river of ignorance,” he writes. “Feynman had built solid foundations on the other side, and my job was to design and build the cantilevers reaching out over the water until they met in the middle.”
Drawing on this instinct for unlikely connections, Dyson has become one of science’s most eloquent interpreters. From his perch at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, he followed “Disturbing the Universe,” a remembrance of physics in the making, with “Infinite in All Directions,” his exuberant celebration of the universe, and other books like “Weapons and Hope,” “Imagined Worlds” and “The Sun, the Genome and the Internet” — speculations on how science and technology might one day ennoble humanity, eliminating war and poverty, if only we can avoid blowing ourselves up.
Science, Dyson says, is an inherently subversive act. Whether overturning a longstanding idea (Heisenberg upending causality with quantum mechanics, Gödel smashing the pure platonic notion of mathematical decidability) or marshaling the same disdain for received political wisdom (Galileo, Andrei Sakharov), the scientific ethic — stubbornly following your nose where it leads you — is a threat to establishments of all kinds. He quotes the biologist J. B. S. Haldane: “Let him beware of him in whom reason has become the greatest and most terrible of the passions.”
It’s debatable whether anyone’s book reviews — even those as thoughtfully discursive as Dyson’s — belong embalmed between covers, but “The Scientist as Rebel” can be perused for a sampling of his iconoclastic takes on a science that sometimes seems to be turning into an establishment of its own. So much has been written about the grand quest to unite quantum mechanics and general relativity into a theory of everything — “to reduce physics,” as Dyson puts it, “to a finite set of marks on paper” — that it’s bracing to consider his minority view: that the existence of a compact set of almighty equations may be a dogma in itself.
“As a conservative, I do not agree that a division of physics into separate theories for large and small is unacceptable,” he wrote in a review republished here of Brian Greene’s book “The Fabric of the Cosmos.” “I am happy with the situation in which we have lived for the last 80 years, with separate theories for the classical world of stars and planets and the quantum world of atoms and electrons.”
It’s jarring at first to hear the Scientist as Rebel describing himself as a conservative. But that’s Dyson: as resistant to categorization as the universe his colleagues are trying to mathematicize. “In the history of science,” he writes, “there is always a tension between revolutionaries and conservatives, between those who build grand castles in the air and those who prefer to lay one brick at a time on solid ground.”
Dyson, the brick layer, comes down on the side of Baconian science, built piecemeal from scraps rather than deduced through pure Cartesian thought, a science driven more by new tools — microscopes, particle accelerators, gene sequencers — than new ideas. In contrast to the science of Athens, as he drew the distinction in “Infinite in All Directions,” he prefers the science of Manchester, where Ernest Rutherford, cobbling together a picture of the nucleus, complained of theorists who “play games with their symbols” while “we turn out the real facts of Nature.”
In a science of unifiers, Dyson prides himself as a diversifier. “I gazed at the stars as a young boy,” he once wrote. “That’s what science means to me. It’s not theories about stars; it’s the actual stars that count.”

George Johnson’s books include “Strange Beauty: Murray Gell-Mann and the Revolution in 20th-Century Physics.”
21世紀三事 台北:商務 贈送品

這本21世紀三事的翻譯或原文
在提到Richard Tawney 是有問題的
因為標準的名字是
Tawney, R. H. (1880-1962). Tawney made a significant impact in four interrelated roles, as Christian socialist, social philosopher, educationalist, and economic historian. In 1908 he became the first tutorial class teacher in an agreement between the Workers' Educational Association and Oxford University. The classes he took became renowned for their excellence. As a socialist, he wrote Secondary Education for All (1922), which informed Labour policy for a generation. His two most influential books, The Acquisitive Society (1921) and Equality (1931), exercised a profound influence on socialists in Britain and abroad and anticipated the welfare state. Tawney was also a professor of economic history from 1931, having made his reputation with Religion and the Rise of Capitalism (1926).




The Sun, the Genome,
and the Internet

by
Freeman Dyson

To purchase The Sun, the Genome, and the Internet

Title: The Sun, the Genome, and the Internet
Author: Freeman Dyson
Genre: Science
Written: 1999
Length: 134 pages
Availability: The Sun, the Genome, and the Internet - US
. The Sun, the Genome, and the Internet - UK
. The Sun, the Genome, and the Internet - Canada
. Le soleil, le génome et Internet - France
. Die Sonne, das Genom und das Internet - Deutschland

  • Tools of Scientific Revolutions
  • Based on Lectures given at the New York Public Library in 1997, and published in conjunction with the NYPL.

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Our Assessment:
B : interesting ideas, well conveyed -- but far too little.
See our review for fuller assessment.


Review Summaries
Source Rating Date Reviewer
Nature A- 29/4/1999 Walter Gratzer
New Scientist A- 26/6/1999 Marcus Chown
Technology Review A- 9-10/1999 Wade Roush

From the Reviews:
  • "You may not always agree with Dyson's view of the future, but this fascinating book by one of the great scientific visionaries of our time will certainly make you think" - Marcus Chown, New Scientist
  • "Dyson's arguments are illuminating even if his strictures are sometimes less than just," - Walter Gratzer, Nature
  • "It's been a long time since a respectable scientist voiced such grand aspirations in print, making Dyson's book refreshing and thought-provoking, if a bit farfetched." - Wade Roush, Technology Review

Please note that these ratings solely represent the complete review's biased interpretation and subjective opinion of the actual reviews and do not claim to accurately reflect or represent the views of the reviewers. Similarly the illustrative quotes chosen here are merely those the complete review subjectively believes represent the tenor and judgment of the review as a whole. We acknowledge (and remind and warn you) that they may, in fact, be entirely unrepresentative of the actual reviews by any other measure.
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The complete review's Review:
We have always admired Freeman Dyson highly. A talented scientist with many interests he has also managed to convey his interests and thoughts in his thoughtful and accessible writing. From the brilliant (and brilliantly titled) Disturbing the Universe to the present he has never failed to be provocative and insightful -- and to express himself well.
This small book, based on lectures given at the New York Public Library in 1997 again allow him to share his interesting thoughts with a wider audience. Meandering about through three chapters Dyson discusses the tools of scientific revolutions (so the subtitle of the book). Suggesting how science advances and could advance in the future, as well as the unexpected consequences of advancement, Dyson offers his broad and unusual perspective on significant questions facing the world.
Dyson's greatest asset as a scientist and thinker is his openness to all possibilities. He understands that the unexpected is often the most likely of outcomes, and he is prepared to entertain that and most other possibilities. Dyson does not insist on being right, as so many scientists do, or get bogged down in a single idea. He truly is interested in the big picture, and is more than willing to acknowledge when he strays down the wrong path (as he does here in cheerfully recounting his 1985 guesses as to the three most important technologies of the coming century).
Dyson is also a humanist in the broadest sense of the word. His writing always shows his humanist background (nowhere more clearly than in Disturbing the Universe, though it is also evident hear). In addition (though perhaps one should suggest that it is something that one should expect from a scientist, as well as a humanist) his great concern for the true betterment of the human condition comes to the fore here. For Dyson one of the marvels of science is that it can make life so much better for so many, and one of his goals is to help in that regard. In this small book he also gives some examples of what has been -- and what can and should be -- done to better the conditions of the world's population.
Dyson's thoughts are always intriguing, his examples well-chosen and fascinating. He is an admirable fellow, and this is an admirable book. Our one regret is that there is so little of it, that he breezes through these topics, touching on them but not going into great detail. Nevertheless, we can recommend it for anyone interested in the future, and the possibilities before us.
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The Sun, the Genome, and the Internet:
Reviews:
Freeman Dyson:
Other books by Dyson under review:
Other books of interest under review:
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Freeman Dyson is Professor Emeritus of Physics at the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton University. Winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award, he has written numerous works. He is also the father of Esther, who gets a lot of press of her own. In 2000 he was awarded the Templeton Prize for Progress in Religion -- a payday worth almost a million dollars.
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