How Michio Kaku, Alex Filippenko, Laura Danly, et al. earn their pay

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The discussion centers around the phenomenon of "6 second scare soundbytes" (6SSS) popularized by physicists like Michio Kaku, which aim to engage viewers by dramatizing scientific concepts. Participants share humorous and exaggerated quotes from physicists, illustrating how these soundbites simplify complex ideas for mass appeal, often at the expense of accuracy. While some express concern that such statements can mislead the public, others argue that they serve to inspire interest in science. The conversation touches on the balance between entertainment and education in popular science media, with critiques aimed particularly at Kaku for his sensationalism. There is also a recognition that while these physicists may sacrifice depth for viewership, their work can still spark curiosity and encourage further exploration of scientific topics. Overall, the thread reflects a mix of amusement and frustration regarding the portrayal of science in popular culture.
  • #51
Kaku does worse. He calls unified field theory "the theory of everything," I believe he even went as far as to call it "the mind of God" I never quite understood that.
 
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  • #52
phinds said:
not sure what you are referring to here.



The problem is that they do NOT share great science ! They "share" stuff they have made up that is incorrect in terms of actual science.

I was referring to our elements coming from stars, which is true. And it's great science, in that it excites people to study more.
 
  • #53
mathskier said:
I was referring to our elements coming from stars, which is true. And it's great science, in that it excites people to study more.

This is a great example. It is NOT entirely true but is presented as gospel as being exactly true.

Let me ask you ... how much of the human body is water?

How much of water is hydrogen?

How much hydrogen is created in stars?

When you follow this through you find that we are NOT all star-stuff, we are just mostly star-stuff. This is the kind of detail that they ignore on television because it sounds SO much more cool when you leave out the correct details.
 
  • #54
Julio R said:
Kaku does worse. He calls unified field theory "the theory of everything," I believe he even went as far as to call it "the mind of God" I never quite understood that.

Yes, this is the kind of thing that has caused me to say repeatedly that Kaku is in a class all by himslelf when it comes to making ridiculous statements. I think it is completely unfair to equate the others to him.
 
  • #55
Since I stopped watching those years ago. Does Garret Lissi still do them or has he resigned to doing research?
 
  • #56
I don't see what the issue is.

As long as they are correct, then there is no harm. All it does is potentially entice people to studying Physics or at least be more interested in it.
 
  • #57
The issue is that these physicists stop doing real research and just hop from TV show to TV show. They become more interested in being famous and delivering silly one liners then doing work.

Yes, it is good to inspire and that is best done thru hype. Just like a coach revs up his team in the locker room.

Pop sci books are all they produce or maybe a slightly more insightful overpriced Teaching Company lecture. To me that is not acceptable and they are cutting themselves very short.

I would like to see them deliver some Arnold one liners like: RUN, GET TO DA CHOPPA!

:)
 
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  • #58
Those shows make physics seem a lot different to what real physics is.
 
  • #59
I believe the interesting thing is that there aren't any generalizations. Once you begin to generalize the universe or world into these simple, easily explained, categories. This makes the universe boring and plain. If there aren't any intricacies, nothing is exciting.
 
  • #60
CFDFEAGURU said:
The issue is that these physicists stop doing real research and just hop from TV show to TV show. They become more interested in being famous and delivering silly one liners then doing work.

Is this a joke?

And even if you're right, who is to say what they should be doing with their time?
 
  • #61
I just watched this movie last night on Netflix called "Chain reaction" (with Morgan Freeman of course). In the beginning of the movie, a physicist is giving a lecture and holds up a glass of water (about 12 ounces) and states, "there's enough energy in this glass of water to power the city of Chicago for weeks!"

Is this a true statement?

Also, kind of funny, but when I was watching the opening credits it said that Brian Cox was in the film. It came out in 1996. I thought, wow, Brian's in a movie from 1996? I kept looking for him to no avail, though. Found out it was a different Brian. Lol.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_Cox_(actor )
 
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  • #62
SnapDragon said:
Is this a joke?

And even if you're right, who is to say what they should be doing with their time?

No, it is not a joke. Why would it be a joke?

Yes, you are right I have no busy to tell them what to do with their time. Really? Do you think they are reading this. However, when Carroll complains about not being tenured at Cal Tech in his blogs, I understand why.

Those of us that agree with each other have used these physicists textbooks, read their research papers and were inspired by those alone. We have had to watch them change into something else; no textbook updates, no new research papers and the only new work is a pop sci book that might have a single simplified equation in it.
 
  • #63
SnapDragon said:
I don't see what the issue is.

As long as they are correct, then there is no harm. All it does is potentially entice people to studying Physics or at least be more interested in it.


But they are NOT correct. That is the whole point of this thread. Have you not read the other posts in the thread?
 
  • #64
phinds said:
But they are NOT correct. That is the whole point of this thread. Have you not read the other posts in the thread?

Actually, as the OP of this thread, the point initially was just to have fun with the corny lines these guys say on TV. But it's OK that its scope has spread out a bit. What I actually think is funnier than anything are the statements which are so obviously correct that it is absurd to even say them.

Like, "If there were no electrons, there would be no you, no me, and no Earth." I mean, c'mon, this is hysterical, to see these otherwise erudite physicists say something like that cracks me up.
 
  • #66
SnapDragon I am not disputing that they did do research. All I am saying is that the tv shows they are on and their silly one liners have tarnished their reputations. This thread was just for fun and you might be taking it too seriously.
 
  • #67
I've thought about it more and I've realized that pop science, while it won't harm academia, it might actually contribute to ignorant snobbery in our society.

If you've ever browsed a website like reddit, you might have noticed that the users there have a real hard-on for "science". You'll see posts about how much they love science and logic. They do "science" by merging quotations by popular physicists on to images of space. Subreddits like /r/atheism are notorious for this. Their perception of what academia/science actually is, is totally wrong.
 
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  • #68
DiracPool said:
Actually, as the OP of this thread, the point initially was just to have fun with the corny lines these guys say on TV. But it's OK that its scope has spread out a bit. What I actually think is funnier than anything are the statements which are so obviously correct that it is absurd to even say them.

Like, "If there were no electrons, there would be no you, no me, and no Earth." I mean, c'mon, this is hysterical, to see these otherwise erudite physicists say something like that cracks me up.

Fair enough. It offends me (what they do) but I see your point.

What I DO find hilarious (in VERY small doses) is Ancient Aliens. If you really listen, you'll notice that they NEVER actually say they believe ANYTHING. Everything is an over-the-top staggeringly stupid conjecture, like this:

"And if, as Ancient Alien theorists believe, the existence of the pyramids proves conclusively that aliens have visited Earth in the past might is also be true that they are still among us?"
 
  • #69
I don't think it's fair to lump Sean Carrol in with some of these people. He recently delivered a popular science talk at my university sponsored by our physics department. It was very good and was very well attended by a lay audience as well as faculty and fellow graduate students.

I also think it's important to note that these TV shows probably interview these people for much longer than you'd expect. Then they snip out little sound bites that seem amazing, even if they are out of context. I am not defending any of the misinformation they sometimes spew, it is indeed nauseating at times. But I think it's worth noting that ANYTHING on television is designed, first and foremost, to obtain viewership through entertainment. Unfortunately, anything educational is just gravy on the top, not the primary goal.

Personally, I have a (perhaps too soft) spot in my heart for these kinds of ventures. As a high schooler I became enraptured by popular science accounts by Brian Greene. While I now scoff at the slight inaccuracies and mis-portrayals found in The Elegant Universe, as well as the gross overstatement of the acceptance of String Theory, if I hadn't encountered his books I may have never gone into science at all. While I long ago abandoned wanting to do research in high energy physics (I now find studying theoretical condensed matter physics to be far more interesting/rewarding), I don't think I am alone in having been inspired by gratuitously stylized accounts of science.

I wish the these populizers would state things more carefully (Sagan and Feynman come to mind as scientists able to strike a fine balance between awe and accuracy), these folks serve a necessary role in drumming up support for scientific endeavors.
 
  • #70
ZombieFeynman said:
I also think it's important to note that these TV shows probably interview these people for much longer than you'd expect. Then they snip out little sound bites that seem amazing, even if they are out of context.

I don't think for a second that any of these people (save Michio) would just say these things off the cuff, and then the producers isolate those clips. These lines are obviously coached by the producers for commercial appeal. They probably say things like, "less technical, say something that the audience can relate to their daily lives." And then they come up with these stupid one-liners. Either that or the one-liners are actually given them to say specifically as a script.

My guess is that they are probably as embarassed to say them as we are to hear them, but, hey, its a chance to get on TV, and they probably think, rightly so, that any serious physicist knows that they are coached to say these things. That's why I don't really hold it against them, I just like laughing at them making clowns of themselves.
 
  • #71
phinds said:
Fair enough. It offends me (what they do) but I see your point.

What I DO find hilarious (in VERY small doses) is Ancient Aliens. If you really listen, you'll notice that they NEVER actually say they believe ANYTHING. Everything is an over-the-top staggeringly stupid conjecture, like this:

"And if, as Ancient Alien theorists believe, the existence of the pyramids proves conclusively that aliens have visited Earth in the past might is also be true that they are still among us?"

I actually have a thread on the History channel with a lot of funny comments on ancient aliens.
 
  • #72
The problem is behind these stupid TV shows that bring on the same physicists and astronomers to everything, even when it isn't their specialty.

I adored the show The Planets, primarily because they had experts in their respective fields commenting on something that they clearly knew.

Are we discussing volcanism on the moons of Jupiter? Let's bring in the first person to discover a live volcano somewhere else in the universe.

Are we discussing the characteristics of Venus's surface? Let's bring in a prominent space geologist.

Instead, channels like Discovery and History and whatever else do this:

So, Michio, what do you think about volcanoes in space??!?

So, Michio, what do you think about Venus?

So, Michio, [insert a question asking about something other than string theory, which is all he knows]?

It's pitiful.
 
  • #73
I want to see popularized math shows. Did you know that the well ordering lemma implies the existence of an uncountable well ordered set where every element only has countably many predecessors - THIS MEANS THE WORLD IS ENDING! And omg how bout Urysohn's lemma? That's bound to change the face of the universe as we know it - ALIENS! Lol it would be great. Unfortunately it is hard to make up random crap about math like it is for physics and get away with it.
 
  • #74
WannabeNewton said:
I want to see popularized math shows. Did you know that the well ordering lemma implies the existence of an uncountable well ordered set where every element only has countably many predecessors - THIS MEANS THE WORLD IS ENDING! And omg how bout Urysohn's lemma? That's bound to change the face of the universe as we know it - ALIENS! Lol it would be great. Unfortunately it is hard to make up random crap about math like it is for physics and get away with it.
I read "lemmings" and I was confused.
 
  • #75
Evo said:
I read "lemmings" and I was confused.
If we weren't divorced I would say awww that's so adorable, here are some very expensive diamonds. Too bad you divorced me.
 
  • #76
WannabeNewton said:
If we weren't divorced I would say awww that's so adorable, here are some very expensive diamonds. Too bad you divorced me.
Wait, you divorced ME! <takes the diamonds>
 
  • #77
Evo said:
Wait, you divorced ME! <takes the diamonds>
Woah! So is this what the courts are going to hear? YOUR LIES? Good thing I have micromass as my backup. He can bore them to death with his thesis topic on non commutative geometries.
 
  • #78
Michio on Einstein's General relativity theory...

"If there were one data point out of place, we would have to throw the ENTIRE theory out."
 
  • #79
What about Neil Tyson? I've recently come across him, mentioned by a few friends. He is currently the head of the Hayden Planetarium and from what it seems, pretty popular.
 
  • #80
Mentalist said:
What about Neil Tyson? I've recently come across him, mentioned by a few friends. He is currently the head of the Hayden Planetarium and from what it seems, pretty popular.

Being popular doesn't mean that he has to be a catchphrase-slinging fool :wink:
 
  • #81
Mentalist said:
What about Neil Tyson? I've recently come across him, mentioned by a few friends. He is currently the head of the Hayden Planetarium and from what it seems, pretty popular.

Neil is actually super-cool. I think he gets away with being a popularist because he doesn't pretend to be anything else. He doesn't present himself as a serious physicist, he's an astronomer, and not only that, but an astronomer PR guy for the Hayden Planetarium. Of all the people mentioned in this thread, I think he gets a pass. He really has to be able to communicate with children as well as a mass of ignorant adults at the planetarium, I'm guessing, so he probably breathes corny lines in his sleep. In addition, he's probably the best discussion moderator "us physicists" have, if you've ever seen him in action. Not a bad skill to have keeping all the prima donnas in check.

Michio Kaku, on the other hand, gets no pass. Why? Because he does present himself as a serious physicist and former whiz kid as is witnessed by the fact that everytime he gives a talk, we are forced to be reminded of the Tevatron he build in his parents garage when he was a kid.
 
  • #82
WannabeNewton said:
NO! Stop ruining my image of the author of one of my most favorite GR texts :frown:

You see, they're more like celebrities now.

I'm glad some of you feel the same way, I can't stand all that Kaku worship.
 
  • #83
DiracPool said:
Neil is actually super-cool. I think he gets away with being a popularist because he doesn't pretend to be anything else. He doesn't present himself as a serious physicist, he's an astronomer, and not only that, but an astronomer PR guy for the Hayden Planetarium. Of all the people mentioned in this thread, I think he gets a pass. He really has to be able to communicate with children as well as a mass of ignorant adults at the planetarium, I'm guessing, so he probably breathes corny lines in his sleep. In addition, he's probably the best discussion moderator "us physicists" have, if you've ever seen him in action. Not a bad skill to have keeping all the prima donnas in check.

Michio Kaku, on the other hand, gets no pass. Why? Because he does present himself as a serious physicist and former whiz kid as is witnessed by the fact that everytime he gives a talk, we are forced to be reminded of the Tevatron he build in his parents garage when he was a kid.

Neil is like the black Carl Sagan :biggrin:

He's less showy than Kaku, but still showy by far.
 
  • #84
CFDFEAGURU said:
I have read blog posts by Carroll where he states that writing his GR textbook was a horrible decision because it took him away from research. Yet he wastes who know how much time with those horrible TV shows and pop sci books which don't really do much in the way of teaching.

Writing a textbook, a horrible decision? Guess what, it probably was, textbook wasn't so great anyway.

Can't believe Carroll said that.
 
  • #85
mathskier said:
But that is also true... Why shouldn't great scientists share great science to get people excited?

It's like getting excited over the latest Star trek, it's just another form of entertainment, like what TED has become.
 
  • #86
SnapDragon said:
CFDFEAGURU said:
The issue is that these physicists stop doing real research and just hop from TV show to TV show. They become more interested in being famous and delivering silly one liners then doing work.
Is this a joke?

And even if you're right, who is to say what they should be doing with their time?

Oh, they definitely love to be on TV. But they're probably better at popularizing than doing research.

Hmm, their mothers? Or fathers?
 
  • #87
ZombieFeynman said:
I don't think it's fair to lump Sean Carrol in with some of these people. He recently delivered a popular science talk at my university sponsored by our physics department. It was very good and was very well attended by a lay audience as well as faculty and fellow graduate students.

I also think it's important to note that these TV shows probably interview these people for much longer than you'd expect. Then they snip out little sound bites that seem amazing, even if they are out of context. I am not defending any of the misinformation they sometimes spew, it is indeed nauseating at times. But I think it's worth noting that ANYTHING on television is designed, first and foremost, to obtain viewership through entertainment. Unfortunately, anything educational is just gravy on the top, not the primary goal.

Personally, I have a (perhaps too soft) spot in my heart for these kinds of ventures. As a high schooler I became enraptured by popular science accounts by Brian Greene. While I now scoff at the slight inaccuracies and mis-portrayals found in The Elegant Universe, as well as the gross overstatement of the acceptance of String Theory, if I hadn't encountered his books I may have never gone into science at all. While I long ago abandoned wanting to do research in high energy physics (I now find studying theoretical condensed matter physics to be far more interesting/rewarding), I don't think I am alone in having been inspired by gratuitously stylized accounts of science.

I wish the these populizers would state things more carefully (Sagan and Feynman come to mind as scientists able to strike a fine balance between awe and accuracy), these folks serve a necessary role in drumming up support for scientific endeavors.

Wow, I didn't know that Brian Greene had such...power.

I don't think it drums up support, it's just a form of entertainment, a form of get-together.


Just give Sean Carroll a while more. He'll leave his desk for the studio, that's for sure.
 
  • #88
Of course outside the popularisation area, within strict science, there is nothing remotely reminiscent of sleb cult is there? o:)
 
  • #89
tade said:
Just give Sean Carroll a while more. He'll leave his desk for the studio, that's for sure.

I agree. Just wonder how soon it will be.
 
  • #90
How about Morgan Freeman? He's not even a physicist yet he narrates a show that is as bad as Kaku's pop sci talks. He can be excused though because he does not know better he's only an actor yet the other guys know about physics yet they blab cheesy lines.
 
  • #91
I think a lot of these physics celebrities do more harm than good to the public understanding of science and physics in particular. I think it even goes as far as to encourage public distrust of science, I even had a PhD student in immunology who had seen a lot of Stephen Hawking ask me jokingly on the subject of the twin paradox and time dilation "but this doesn't REALLY happen right?". All this romanticizing of some specific consequences of relativity or QM taken to their extreme hypothetical regimes do a huge disservice, I think they're making it even easier for the public to drop support of fundamental physics research altogether, if it isn't in the gutter already.

Cosmos was as good as it gets. IMO the only reasonably faithful modern documentaries out there right now are Jim Al-Kalil's "Atom" (not any of his other ones, as far as I'm aware), but even that one stretches things a bit.
 
  • #92
Lavabug said:
All this romanticizing of some specific consequences of relativity or QM taken to their extreme hypothetical regimes do a huge disservice, I think they're making it even easier for the public to drop support of fundamental physics research altogether, if it isn't in the gutter already.

That's a good point Lavabug. It really rubs me raw how the only thing you see on these popular shows is what? Wormholes, warp drive through bending space, and teleportation through quantum entanglement. These things take up 85% of the programming time, and are technologies that will NEVER come to fruition. At least never in the lifetime of the current viewing populace or even their grandkids. It's almost as if a fraud is being put over on the public, and when people find out that these things aren't going to happen, it might compromise the science budget.

The sad thing is that the things that science is actually making possible today and in the near future is wondrous and fascinating, but not necessarily "sizzling" like quantum teleportation, so you never hear of them on popular TV.
 
  • #93
Julio R said:
How about Morgan Freeman? He's not even a physicist yet he narrates a show that is as bad as Kaku's pop sci talks. He can be excused though because he does not know better he's only an actor yet the other guys know about physics yet they blab cheesy lines.

They ain't too different. Kaku's just milking his screen time.



Lavabug said:
I think a lot of these physics celebrities do more harm than good to the public understanding of science and physics in particular. I think it even goes as far as to encourage public distrust of science, I even had a PhD student in immunology who had seen a lot of Stephen Hawking ask me jokingly on the subject of the twin paradox and time dilation "but this doesn't REALLY happen right?". All this romanticizing of some specific consequences of relativity or QM taken to their extreme hypothetical regimes do a huge disservice, I think they're making it even easier for the public to drop support of fundamental physics research altogether, if it isn't in the gutter already.

Cosmos was as good as it gets. IMO the only reasonably faithful modern documentaries out there right now are Jim Al-Kalil's "Atom" (not any of his other ones, as far as I'm aware), but even that one stretches things a bit.
I miss the good ol' days of Nat Geo. They actually produced some pretty good engineering documentaries.

But TV producers think the masses will find this boring, so they opt for fanciful entertainment.


Kalili does a lot of hosting for BBC Horizon. That series looks awesome cinematically, but it is actually a major waste of time. They stretch 10 mins worth of content into one hour.
 
  • #94
epenguin said:
Of course outside the popularisation area, within strict science, there is nothing remotely reminiscent of sleb cult is there? o:)

Hopefully not :-p
 
  • #95
Six posts in a row, Tade. Not bad, not bad at all :smile:
 
  • #96
  • #97
Neil deGrasse Tyson is amazing. I love his analogies. His analogies are logical and truthful, where you will learn an idea and never forget it.
 
  • #98
collinsmark said:
Speaking of Neil deGrasse Tyson and quotes,
If you removed all the arteries, veins, & capillaries from a person's body, and tied them end-to-end...the person will die.
-- Neil deGrasse Tyson​
[Source: https://twitter.com/neiltyson/status/73426843239333888]

:smile:


If Thor's hammer is made of neutron-star matter, implied by legend, then it weighs as much as a herd of 300-billion elephants.
-- Neil deGrasse Tyson​
 
  • #99
bp_psy said:
If Thor's hammer is made of neutron-star matter, implied by legend, then it weighs as much as a herd of 300-billion elephants.
-- Neil deGrasse Tyson​

No wonder the Hulk could not lift it in The Avengers :eek:
 
  • #100
bp_psy said:
If Thor's hammer is made of neutron-star matter, implied by legend, then it weighs as much as a herd of 300-billion elephants.
-- Neil deGrasse Tyson​


It seems to have been Marvel comics legend. Well, I guess their mythology is about as good as their science.
 

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