Steven Weinberg - Disney Science | More Heroes,Less Prophets

[Hasmashti]

Excellent finish, we need more heroes

[sbergman27]

It's premature to hypothesize a Multiverse. The only reason we have for invoking the anthropic principle & hypothesizing a Multiverse, is the suspiciously fine-tuned nature of our physical constants, combined with the Copernican principle. But until we understand *how* the physical constants got the values they did, we can't say whether they are fine tuned or not. It may well be that they *had to* have the specific values that they do, for reasons entirely separate from the anthropic principle.

[Icemario87]

@sbergman27 "It's premature to hypothesize a Multiverse. The only reason we have for invoking the anthropic principle & hypothesizing a Multiverse, is the suspiciously fine-tuned nature of our physical constants, combined with the Copernican principle. "

This is false. Physicists working on the problem of "what was the universe like before the expansion" have many working mathmatical models and some of the best theories all suggest the possibility of a multiverse. Heard it in a Weinberg video.

[sbergman27]

@Icemario87 In the intervening time between when I made the post you are responding to, and today, I have read Brian Greene's latest book: "The Hidden Reality: Parallel Universes and the Deep Laws of the Cosmos"

It's quite good, And it's all about this particular topic. You are correct. Many different aspects of the consensus cosmology converge upon suggesting different types of multiverses. The nice thing about studying science is that there is no shame in admitting having been wrong. :-)

[Icemario87]

@sbergman27 way cool, makes me wanna read it

[DuBarryFilms]

The man's an idiot!

[arumugamyau]

Correction: what I meant is "Steven Weinberg is not ONLY a great physicist but also a great humanist".

[BenG549]

@arumugamyau I completely understood what you meant, the world ALSO in that sentence made it pretty clear!

[arumugamyau]

Thanks for sharing . Steven Weinberg is not a great physicist but also a great humanist . The so-called prophets and their followers have been poisoning the millions of innocent and gullible people worldwide... It si certainly an insult to human dignity

[JesusGodDamnRocks]

@arumugamyau Where do you come up with him ...a nobel prize laureate not being a great physicist? You just don't know it's ok just go on making yourself look ingnorant online! we laugh!

[arumugamyau]

@JesusGodDamnRocks

Steven Weinberg is one of the greatest physicists we have had. Just because I left out a word „Only" you come to conclusion that I am a ignorant person. If my comments had been diligently, anyone would have understood what I had meant. Don’t laugh but try to understand! By the way you haven’t spelled the word „ignorant" properly.

[8saturn9]

Vote Steven Weinberg for next US president?!!!

We need GREAT men like this to teach us that, in fact, we do not need leaders at all.

Hate to say it, but the best of us (our elderly, great scientists) are letting all of us down by not evolving themselves more in matters administrative, legislative, and judicial.

Weinberg is a super-high-quality human being. The entire world needs to listen to him for days...and days and days and days. It would be a better Earth in one months time, no?

[aryah47]

I would suggest some errata is noted in the info of this video; just wasted time repeating what was already noticed re Brahe.

A comical side-note then: the story (not true as I understand it, but often repeated) of Brahe's death is that he really really had to go to the toilet, yet his good manners wouldn't allow him to raise from the banquet table before the king did so. Following that, he developed urinary problems. Far less heroic ^^

[Nevyfling]

google Doe's Account.

[pcuimac]

Instead of repairing hubble we could have sent many more hubbles into orbit if there had been no humans in spacesuites ever been sent into orbit. The ISS is a big waste of money that hinders science. Steven Weinberg is one of the real heros.

[Scruffylazy]

no prophets...

Create a new physical theory about anything and tell it to some "scientist".

He is going to tell you:

Do you think you are a genius? There were people smarter than anyone I know concerned by this theme. Therefore you can´t be right. ... and so on

Because for scientist, who does not understand his job, the only way how to avoid garbage to spoil science, is to believe that people like Steven Weinberg are also prophets...

[sbergman27]

@Scruffylazy Nice straw man argument. But no, he and other members of the scientific community are going to check whether your ideas are logically consistent, and explain the body of experimental data that the current consensus theory does, while either making fewer assumptions or making testable predictions which experimentally test true. Chances are, your theory is not going to succeed at this. You may be too naive to understand why. But if you study, you will be able to see for yourself.

[EnderTheBest]

@sbergman27 Straw man argument? :-) History is full of examples when good, true theories were rejected by members of the scientific community. Hard to say, but true... Scientists are not going to behave in the ideal way you have described.

[sbergman27]

@EnderTheBest Concrete examples, please? Good theories often show up before the data which shows them to be better than the current model. e.g. Lemaître had to wait for Hubble's work before his cosmic egg view was accepted. But that's how science is *supposed* to work. Individual scientists are only human. But the scientific body is far less susceptible to bias and pettiness. Someone in the crowd *will* pick up a worthy theory and do the experiments to either validate it or not.

[EnderTheBest]

@sbergman27 Examples? De Broglie, Einstein, Stueckelberg,...Einstein could not work as a physicist, therefore he worked like a bank clerk, STR faced a big, irrational defiance among scientists...I am talking about one of the best physicist, he should not have problems like these. But yes, scientists really do not let absurd theories pass their journals. That's all.

[sbergman27]

@EnderTheBest DeBroglie? The Nobel Prize winner of '29? New theories are met with skepticism. That's how science is supposed to work. Experiment yielded evidence in support, and a consensus around particle/wave duality eventually formed. Your statements about Einstein are simply false. Due to a poor economy, he worked as a patent (not bank) clerk from '03-'09, and published on the PE effect and Sp. Rel. And he too had to defend his theories with evidence. I'm not as familiar with Stueckelberg.

[TheBlackwaterDemon]

Words of wisdom from one of the luminaries of 20th century physics. Absolutely delightful to listen to.

[DiggumSmack77]

Sounds like Egon from the Ghost Busters.

[GuerrillaForce]

Always so well-spoken and succinct. Weinberg is a great man indeed.

[Chiangmai007]

Where there is a Sagan, there is a Gingerich. Where there is a Weinberg, there is a Polkinghorne. Fortunately there are eloquent representatives from both sides of the atheist / believer debate. What's unfortunate is when morons from either side are propped up by their opposition as being representative of a viewpoint.  Its just intellectually lazy, really.

[GoblinXXX]

I hate to disagree with the old smart guy... But "no one in this room will stand on the moon"- EVER- As long as we aren't SENDING PEOPLE THERE. Let's actually apply some of this science and get off this one little rock.

[CplBronson]

Dr. Weinberg is the man

[Sapien6x]

pirsa . org / 04100000 /

The complete brilliant Weinberg lecture is above.

[tmcthree]

it should be "fewer prophets" not "less prophets"

[forza599]

hahaha I was just thinking that...

[kubikmaster]

well, there are levels of prophethood. i.e. Moses leading a whole nation, and Muhamed fucking underage maids....science was more advanced in the times of Muhammed so he is a lesser prophit, i mean prophet. ROFL

[theogeny]

hehe, that gave me a good chuckle.

[VforVendetta333]

What do you get by abusing such personalities????Why can't you talk in a decent manner???Why do you have to break the hearts of any body who reads this????????????I wish that may you be enlightened.Amen

[ogirv101]

First of all Steven Weinberg is an Agnostic, he leaves the idea of God very open, he shows his surprise of the Universe among the accuracy of the proportional laws of phsyics, examples include berrylium isotopes and vacuum cancelations. All scientists contain different view on God and religion, Charles hard Townes is a Nobel laureate like Weinberg and is a protestant, Max Planck considerably the father of quantom mechanis was a protestant, Eisntein was a Deist, penrose is a platonist.

[AdiZetaFunction]

There are at most 5 distinguished Nobel Laureates who believed in a religious God. As for Einstein, he was a pantheist, not a deist. He said he believed in Spinoza's God. God is a metaphor for the physical laws of the universe.

Steven Weinberg is an atheist. He was interviewed in the famous "Atheism tapes" by Jonathan Miller. You should learn a lot before making ignorant comments.

[geodesicks]

Weinberg is a Jewish atheist. He considers himself culturally Jewish, but doesn't believe in the nonsense from the desert. How do I know? I spoke to him the day before yesterday at CERN.

And WTF is the "proportional laws of physis", "quantom mechanis" or "berrylium" or "vacuum"? Going by YouTube comments, why is it that people like you who cannot spell (yeah, say they're all typos) are typically the religious ones? It says something about your level of education or intellectual capacity.

[henrikthedj]

Brilliant guy...

How come everyone is so civilized discussing a Weinberg video?

Some of the other interesting stuff got all these creationists going wild...

Scientia est lux lucis

[forza599]

Creationists couldn't make it through the first bit of the video...big words and all that.

(Hehe, my uncivilized 2 cents)

[KaptajnKold]

Tycho Brahe wasn't burned. He died i Prague after having participating in a banquet, presumably either from an infection or from mercury poisoning.

[Absurdity360]

Not burned in the literal sense.

[philhellenes]

You are correct Kaptajn. I think Weinberg got Brahe confused with Giordano Bruno.

Nobody's perfect. :)

[lakumbar]

It baffles me why majority of westerners despite their great achievements in science and living standards still cling onto a primitive ideology they called religion, on par with your Muslim cousins. Philosophical arguments and logical discussions are always conveyed in great depth and clarity in universities and public forum but when it comes to religion you are just as deluded as the Arabs. The question is why do you still remain suckers to this day?

[gigimc]

freedom of choice?

[GegoXaren]

re: "freedom of choice?"

that is the words of an illogical person,

religion is the number one reason of death in this world, no logical person can call religion "good" when you look at the statistics...

ok now i am hypocritical, but what the hey?

[gigimc]

I just stated a fact~ no religion involved at all... we always have freedom to choose. my choice to make the comment, your choice to respond to it, and mine to respond to the response. Nobody's going to shoot us in the in head for typing on youtube.... As far as arguing about religion, as we all can see there will always be a deadlock because both sides refuse to bend. Circular indeed... Plenty of other things to do, frankly...

[starrynightuk]

who on earth is this 'you'?! Organized religion is on the decline in Western Europe and has been for some time. As for believing in bullshit in general, I suspect that you'll find that that's something that makes humans human whatever society they're in!

[nmoo07]

True, but there's no need for you to single out Muslims or Arabs.

[ananiasacts]

I don't know about you, but I sort of like the fact that people who can bring themselves to believe in religion are proud of it and readily inform the rest of us. Its fair warning that they are morally challenged and emotionally immature.

[sbergman27]

@lakumbar Ignorance and apathy, stemming from an underlying complacence. Americans literally believe that the US' traditional superiority in many areas is god-given and can't be taken away. So they watch too much TV and hold cavalier attitudes towards education. Especially subjects that "everybody" hated in school, like math and science. Reality is already catching up with us. And it's a vicious cycle, so I don't see it improving. People blame the government. But the brain-rot is fundamental.

[zeldarooles]

Wow, what an amazing speech.

[reclusivesage]

What did he mean by Tycho Brahe being "burned for his pains"? (I think that's what he said)

[iv1498]

Koran and Bible...

How about the Tora?

[xsetafirex]

Tora Tora Torrance?

[Anhelain]

Imagine there's no countries

It isn't hard to do

Nothing to kill or die for

And no religion too

Imagine all the people

Living life in peace

[rayabe]

great video-wow

[dfarmer26]

oops. Weinberg, who IS a hero of mine, makes a substantial mistake in this talk at about minute 5:00:

He says that it was Tycho Brahe who postulated the stars are suns etc, and that Brahe was burned for it. That's wrong. I am sure he meant Giodorno Bruno rather than Brahe. Bruno WAS burned at the stake for his cosmology, just as Weinberg describes. Brahe, the astronomer who provided crucial data to Kepler, on the other hand, died of a burst bladder during a mammoth bout of beer drinking.

[HenryDavidThoreauII]

You paid close attention, and you're right. The great Weinberg misspoke: It was Giordano Bruno (not Brahe) who was burnt at the stake in 1600. Galileo Galilei was the other person who came close to also being burnt. Two things saved him: his stature by the time the Inquisition came for him was substantial enough; and he also kneeled, from what we're told, and RECANTED his "blaspheme".

[approximator]

Galileo was right and the church was wrong. So who blasphemed? Clearly the church forced Galileo to bear false witness, to break a commandment, then they said he recanted. You seem to be experiencing a wierd kind of glee over the burning of a human. What is it with you?

[Stanley1969]

Thanks for posting.

[gjk0005]

awesome... heroes, not prophets

[jimbot72]

Awesome.

[daleshankins]

Beautiful. Thank you for posting.

[samten54]

What a wonderful message. Thank you.