How good is Brian Cox as a science communicator?

[DarkloidNeos]

I think this is the right place for this since the other threads don't seem like a good fit. So I found this video with him and Tyson:



(PS: the electron thing in the title is only at the 17:55 mark and it's more a one off comment, the title seems like clickbait too)

But I was watching it and I'm not sure how good of a communicator he is. I mean it seemed ok with him describing a couple of the things we are doing here with science and space travel but I've also heard him mention stuff like alternate dimensions and string theory and other stuff that was kinda questionable. Tyson I thought was good here even though physics isn't his wheel house.

But what's the verdict on Cox?

 

[pinball1970]

I think this is the right place for this since the other threads don't seem like a good fit. So I found this video with him and Tyson:



(PS: the electron thing in the title is only at the 17:55 mark and it's more a one off comment, the title seems like clickbait too)

But I was watching it and I'm not sure how good of a communicator he is. I mean it seemed ok with him describing a couple of the things we are doing here with science and space travel but I've also heard him mention stuff like alternate dimensions and string theory and other stuff that was kinda questionable. Tyson I thought was good here even though physics isn't his wheel house.

But what's the verdict on Cox?

I have not watched the video but I have seen him on other programmes.

One thing I do not like is that the BBC and other network’s roll these people out because they have decided people will watch the program/series if they present them.

Perhaps they look cool, have charisma, the camera likes them and that means people will watch.

Unfortunately, this means presenters can end up presenting out of their lane, lanes they have no direct expertise in.

Brian Cox is a physics researcher and lecturer so it could be worse, sometimes the TV stations go for comedians and actors whose science education ended at high school.

 

[PhDeezNutz]

Tyson I thought was good here even though physics isn't his wheel house.

I agree with OP. It's clear that physics is not NDGT's wheel house despite him being the most popular outwardly facing "physicist" of our era.

 

[DarkloidNeos]

I agree with OP. It's clear that physics is not NDGT's wheel house despite him being the most popular outwardly facing "physicist" of our era.

This is more about Cox in the video.

 

[weirdoguy]

He is terrible.

 

[DarkloidNeos]

He is terrible.

Really? But doesn't he have a degree in the field?

 

[AlexB23]

Is he worse than Michio Kaku' popular physics? When I was young, both of those guys were on different science channels on TV back in the early 2010s. Looking back on that, both seem more like pop stars over actual physicists. For instance, Michio Kaku predicted that by the 2020s, the word computer will not be a thing anymore.

"Around 2020, the price of a
chip may also drop to about a penny, which is the cost of scrap paper. Then we will have millions of chips distributed
everywhere in our environment, silently carrying out our orders. Ultimately, the word computer itself will disappear from the English language."

- Michio Kaku in Physics of the Future

TLDR: Do not trust popular science. Read the papers, or find science textbooks.

 

[weirdoguy]

But doesn't he have a degree in the field?

He has, so what? His pop-science is terrible. Most pop-science is terrible.

 

[DarkloidNeos]

He has, so what? His pop-science is terrible. Most pop-science is terrible.

That includes the video I linked?

I know Michio Kaku is kinda...out there as far as people go. He's said some pretty wild things.

 

[Hornbein]

I once heard Michio Kaku hold forth on quantum computing on television. He spoke with confidence but it was totally wrong. He didn't know the most basic things.

 

[PhDeezNutz]

I once heard Michio Kaku hold forth on quantum computing on television. He spoke with confidence but it was totally wrong. He didn't know the most basic things.

I know this thread is about Brian cox so I’ll make a post about him soon. But Neil is even worse. In defense of trans rights he said “maybe we are gender qubits”.

regardless of anyone’s stance the science behind sex vs. gender identity is much more complex than making a stupid quantum analogy.

D

Graduate Thread 'A night with the stars (Brian Cox on telly)'

Dec 19, 2011

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b018nn7l

I did enjoy Brian Cox's program on quantum mechanics last night, but one bit left me thinking "no, that's not right!".

The gist of it was that all the electrons in the universe have to be in constant communication to ensure that no two of them are ever in the same state. If he changed the energies of electrons in a diamond, by heating it in his hand, all the other electrons in the world would have to adjust their energies too.

I think this may have been an attempt to show that entanglement follows from the Pauli exclusion principle...

• dgwsoft
• Stars
• Replies: 123
• Forum: Quantum Physics

Here’s a thread from 2011 in which Brian Cox actually posted. He was taken to task on Quantum Entanglement.