Most Insightful, Clearest-Thinking Physicist?

[inflector]

Who do you think is the most insightful clearest-thinking physicist alive today?

I nominate: http://www.platonia.com/" .

I placed this in the philosophy section because I want the analysis to be based on philosophical principles and I find Julian's thinking to be most strongly grounded in philosophical principles. I am no expert, but I see a clear contrast in his thinking and exposition as compared with other physicists I have read.

 

[dx]

Leonard Susskind.

 

[inflector]

Leonard Susskind.

What, in particular, do you like about Leonard Susskind? Two or three sentences would suffice.

 

[humanino]

I would nominate John Archibald Wheeler, from the list of his students.

 

[inflector]

I would nominate John Archibald Wheeler, from the list of his students.

I might agree with you but it's two years too late for Wheeler to be alive today.

 

[yrreg]

Who do you think is the most insightful clearest-thinking physicist alive today?

I nominate: http://www.platonia.com/" .

I placed this in the philosophy section because I want the analysis to be based on philosophical principles and I find Julian's thinking to be most strongly grounded in philosophical principles. I am no expert, but I see a clear contrast in his thinking and exposition as compared with other physicists I have read.

I would like very much to know from you what you know to be the philosophical principles which Julian thinking is most strongly grounded on.


Allow me to take this occasion to thank the owner and operator of this forum for allowing discussions on philosophical grounds in this physics forum.

I cannot say that for so many socalled science oriented forums which right away close down a thread, if not ban anyone, for so much as going into the philosophical underpinnings of scientists' ideas and views and consensus teachings.

That certainly indicates a heart and mind that are already self-closeted from any possibility of philosophical considerations of scientists' ideas, opinions, and consensus teachings.



In another forum with this message the thread would already be closed or I be banned.




Yrreg

 

[qsa]

T.Padmanabhan

reality is about statistical mechanics. i.e. numbers

 

[dx]

What, in particular, do you like about Leonard Susskind? Two or three sentences would suffice.

Making conceptual progress in quantum gravity requires extraordinary clarity of thought and a very deep understanding of physics. He is the leading figure in a field which most physicists are not even capable of thinking sensibly about, let alone contribute to. All the good ideas in quantum gravity (UV/IR, black hole complementarity, stretched horizon, string theory, holographic principle) can be traced to him in some way.

 

[inflector]

I read Susskind's The Black Hole Wars shortly after I read Wilcek's The Lightness of Being and the contrast in the two authors was remarkable. I found Susskind to be much more lucid than Wilcek. He also seemed far humbler about the limits of knowledge in physics. I have found humility to be a marker of extreme intelligence in other areas.

 

[Freeman Dyson]

Most insightful and philosophical physicists alive...two names I think of are Freeman Dyson and Paul Davies. Dyson is particuarly good about the history and philosophy of science. I consider him the closest thing to the polymath scientists of old. Feynman is great of course, though dead, and a pupil of Wheeler like Dyson.

Great scientists come in two varieties, which Isaiah Berlin, quoting the seventh-century-BC poet Archilochus, called foxes and hedgehogs. Foxes know many tricks, hedgehogs only one. Foxes are interested in everything, and move easily from one problem to another. Hedgehogs are interested only in a few problems which they consider fundamental, and stick with the same problems for years or decades. Most of the great discoveries are made by hedgehogs, most of the little discoveries by foxes. Science needs both hedgehogs and foxes for its healthy growth, hedgehogs to dig deep into the nature of things, foxes to explore the complicated details of our marvelous universe. Albert Einstein was a hedgehog; Richard Feynman was a fox.

-Dyson

 

[inflector]

Thanks again everyone for the nominations.

I just read http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/14/science/14wheeler.html" . If he was still alive, I think he'd get my vote too.

My favorite lines:

I confess to being an optimist about things, especially about someday being able to understand how things are put together. So many young people are forced to specialize in one line or another that a young person can’t afford to try and cover this waterfront — only an old fogy who can afford to make a fool of himself.

If I don’t, who will?

 

[inflector]

I would like very much to know from you what you know to be the philosophical principles which Julian thinking is most strongly grounded on.

What I really like about Julian is how he thinks so clearly and deeply about the foundational issues of theoretical physics: time, Mach's Principle, the nature of general relativity, etc.

He seems to me to approach his work with the idea of finding the core principles which guide theory. I have gained a lot of new insight by reading him as compared to other physicists.

I believe his perspective is one that Einstein and Wheeler both shared: that one should build ideas on a philosophical foundation and then develop the math around those ideas to arrive at a successful theory.

 

[wuliheron]

I would nominate Wheeler as well if he were alive. Besides his many famous students and crucial insights he also inspired people in other ways. I often use his request to the AAAS to expel parapsychology as "pseudoscience", despite his own personal beliefs, as an example of real scientific integrity.