I certainly didn’t intend to give that impression.
aceplace57, while I suppose one might argue that the atomic bomb was the first practical application of special relativity (I’d argue otherwise, but one can at least make the case), the definitive experiment proving it was actually done before Einstein published (though he didn’t seem to know about it at the time). Incidentally, Michelson also won the Nobel Prize, but his win wasn’t for that work, either (rather, it was for a general recognition of his work in precision measurement, especially as used in defining new standards for units).
I’m not sure where you got that idea from the posts in this thread. I and Chronos merely pointed out that he was a popularizer, and didn’t put any value judgement on it. I myself am more of a popularizer (science writer and exhibition specialist) rather than a research scientist.
Some scientist may indeed look askance at some popularizers for, let us say, “going Hollywood.” But I don’t think either Gould or E.O. Wilson were less regarded in the scientific community because they published popular books.
Mentioning that they were popularizers was merely to point out that the reputation of such scientists may be perceived to be much higher by the general public than it is among their peers. There’s no value judgement implied.
Writing a popular book and appearing on The Simpsons will get you well known to the public. It just won’t win you a Nobel Prize.
Perhaps it would be better then if you noted that not only was he a popularizer of science but that he was a legitimate scientist himself as the Director of Research at the Centre for Theoretical Cosmology within the University of Cambridge and that that counts for something.
Why should I mention that? No one (especially me) has questioned that he was a legitimate scientist. And I specifically said that he was like Sagan, Gould, and Diamond in being “respected scientists with important contributions in their fields.”
You’re swinging at a straw man that has zero to do with anything that I said or implied.
septimus, I’m sure you’re aware that political jabs are against the rules in General Questions since you’ve been warned for it before. This is an official warning. If you continue to do this, you will find your posting privileges in jeopardy.
It’s damning with praise - he was undoubtedly one of the most important physicists of the late twentieth century and that’s unconnected to his popular books.
Hawking went from being the leading expert and a significant innovator in general relativity to being the leading expert and a significant expert in quantum gravity all before Brief History of Time was published.
I have a great deal of respect for popularizers. I wish I could have done it, but my specialty is just not ready for it, or else I don’t know how. Does the name John Conway ring any bells. He wasn’t exactly a popularizer, but a fine mathematician who invented the game of life and was known for that. Although that had a serious mathematical purpose too: to get people with access to computers to find certain constructs with which he could prove the existence of a self-reproducing cellular automaton.
I once asked a doctor why Hawking could live so long when on average sufferers of ALS lived no more then two years. The answer I got was that ALS is not a single disease and he must have had a rare form of it.
I think people conviently forgot that the success of A Brief History of Time was built largely on his formidable reputation as a physicist. A Brief History… wasn’t particularly good as a popular physics book.
I think it’s not illegitimate to assume that people already know Stephen Hawking was a great scientist. It wouldn’t be true all the time, but it would be true enough of the time.
From your post I am guessing your specialty is mathematics. If so then it has been popularized. There is a well visited and well regarded YouTube channel called Numberphile. It’s pretty great. Give it a look.
Sorry if “respected scientist with significant contributions in his field” wasn’t effusive enough for you.:rolleyes:
Again, why should I? The TV appearances help explain why he was so well known to the general public. You seem to find mentioning them somehow demeaning. I do not.
As I said, I myself am a popularizer rather than a research scientist. I have great respect for popularizers. It just something different than recognition by the scientific community.
I apologize sincerely. I did know the rule. (Or, since it was an obit, maybe I thought we were in Mundane Pointless. Even in that forum, however, my snide remark would be out of line.) Sorry.
If I need further excuse I’ll invoke Imp of the Perverse or Tourette Syndrome.
Your interpretation (and those of others), as I said before, has absolutely nothing to do with what I posted. You are reading into them things that aren’t there.
I have the greatest respect for Hawking both as a scientist and as a popularizer. I was merely offering an explanation for why he is perceived differently by the general public and scientists.
