Talk:Alan Guth

message: This appeared on my talk page, in defence of the claim that Guth is an atheist.  It seems more appropriate here:
:Here is a site map of the website; http://www.bowness.demon.co.uk/index.htm .
:It is even critical of Christianity.
::Okay, it seems non-creationist.  :-)  But the claim still seems ill-sourced, apparently being based on Guth's biography "The Inflationary Universe".  I don't recall any atheist affirmation in it, although he does say something, somewhere (where?, I can't remember) about preferring beliefs to be empirically based.  Guth sounds like an atheist to me, but I'm sure many religious people would disagree -- miracles are meant to be empirical, aren't they? 
::Just give us the page number from his bio. --Michael C. Price talk 01:29, 20 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  Whether or not he's an atheist, can we get some citation from a WP:RS that documents it? I'm going to go ahead and tag the whole article as needing to cite its sources. Wellspring (talk) 12:58, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

text: All I know is that he certainly is a practicing Jew.  He is taking off this Thursday from MIT to celebrate Yon Kippur.  Clark3934 (talk) 23:36, 7 October 2008 (UTC)
replies: text:  :-) --Michael C. Price talk 06:57, 8 October 2008 (UTC)
replies: text:  I had heard he was a non-practicing Jew. But that's what I've heard, so it's not realiable. He is critical of creationism and intelligent design, as are most scientists (hell, even most religious philosophers), regardless of thier views on religion. You have to remember he's a String Theory proponent, though, they have no view on God as they see it sould be entirely possible he (or it) exists, and it could be possible that he does not. It is not a question they generally like to concern themselves with. I guess that's Apatheism. 98.198.83.12 (talk) 08:45, 28 June 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Alan Guth the atheist? 

message: Hello.  My first Wikipedia comment.  I enjoyed reading this entry on Alan Guth, but feel I should point out that there are quite a few grammatical errors, missing words, and questionable word choices which a careful reading will reveal.  I won't wield the hammer and nails myself because it's past my bedtime, and I'm not sure I know how to go about it anyway.  I leave it in your capable hands.  All the best.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.116.131.81 (talk) 07:24, 10 June 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: 11 years having passed without your bedtime nor motivation having become more amenable, mebbe it's time for a review at the moderately capable hands of a grown-up physicist and experienced editor.--JerzyA (talk) 14:44, 30 August 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  Entry needs editing 

message: Seems to me like the article is written very colloquially and is far from satisfying the NPOV guidelines. Throughout, there is pretty much a judgement and/or and opinion interjected with every fact. 
Example 1: "MIT was easier for him than high school because all his courses were science and math. One reason he did this was because he was worried about the draft. He certainly was not a big fan of the Vietnam War, because in 1970 he participated in some speeches at political activities"
--> What does this undocumented speculation have anything to do with anything?
Example 2: "Ironically, much of that theory had been developed by graduate students at Princeton, but Guth had been too wrapped up in his own ideas to notice what was going on around him. When Guth discovered this he felt embarrassed that he was paying no attention to what his colleagues were doing. Since his time at Princeton had been wasted, he had to find another postdoc job in any way that was available to him, such as reading notices on bulletin boards and called acquaintances who worked in physics departments."
--> This is downright meant to degrade Alan Guth. What is its relevance and significance in this article?
In agreement with the comment above, it is in need of serious work. Evilmathninja (talk) 18:34, 14 November 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree the whole tone and style of the article is awful (the result of one editor's rewrite).  The best thing would be to revert back. --Michael C. Price talk 21:39, 14 November 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  NPOV 

message: As others have noted, this article needs serious work. One thing that really stuck out to me was all the phrases like "Alan Guth believes..." and "Alan Guth's main beliefs about the universe are..." This makes him sound like a guru rather than a scientist. The whole thing is written like some kind of junior high school fanboy paper.75.83.69.196 (talk) 14:36, 15 May 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: I have tried to make the article sound more encyclopedic, removing much uncited material, which was probably based by somebody on interview(s) with the subject.  Interviewers typically lard up their articles with attempts to make the subject sound like a guru; this is NOT the fault of the person being interviewed. If there are good reliable published sources out there, I hope somebody will use them to make the article even better. betsythedevine (talk) 01:33, 3 October 2010 (UTC)
thread_title: not encyclopedic

message: The discussion of his early career fails to mention that when he graduated in 1971 it was during the Ph.d. Glut that hit in 1970 in Physics and other sciences. So the inability to get a tenure track job and the repeated postdoc positions was the most likely fate of the Physics graduate in that era.  The key thing is that things switched from boom to bust very quickly, whereas today things have been pretty tough for Physics grads for 40 years (with some interludes of improvement). It also would help to contrast Guth's achievements as a postdoc with all those who got tenure track jobs before him, because it would illustrate the repeated pattern the failure to recognize scientific talent. Einstein being the most know example given that he could only get a job as a Swiss patent clerk, a job he continued to be employeed at even after the publication of his famous 1905 papers. 205.189.194.208 (talk) 17:10, 31 August 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm not sure it's that relevant - after all everybody was in the same boat. -- cheers, Michael C. Price talk 13:49, 28 July 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Missing the context of the 70's Ph.d. Glut and the inability of Universities to recognize talent 

message: My first kick didn't yield any sufficient list.Any suggestions?
(The current "one item" list is way incomplete.) Josh, linguist (talk) 07:44, 12 October 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Publications 

message: OK, since 's good faith edits have now been reverted twice, once as vandalism and once because of some notion of consensus, let's try and establish then what the consensus is on changing the opening paragraph. In the opening paragraph, we have two sources purportedly claiming that Guth is the "originator" of the inflationary model. The PBS Mysteries page is a secondary source, possibly reliable (haven't looked into this), and actually uses the exact term "originator". The New York Times, a reliable secondary source, credits Guth as the "inventor" of the "inflationary theory". Neither of these makes any reference to claims of priority or sole invention, they are simply silent on the issue.
From the other two sources, the scientific american paper (a reliable, secondary source) does not say that Starobinksi was the originator of the inflationary theory, just mentions that he provided the first realistic model of an inflationary universe. It does specifically credit Linde as "one of the originators" of the inflationary model. The second citation is a primary source that doesn't talk about claims of priority. None of the sources mention any contention about scientific priority.
It seems to me that the way it is now it's original research and WP:OR and WP:UNDUE to put these into the lede of the biographical article on Alan Guth. Maybe the claims of scientific priority are relevant in the article on inflationary theory (probably still WP:UNDUE, honestly), but explicitly pointing out that we can find two sources that say different, seemingly contradictory things in the lede of the biographical article here seems clearly inappropriate.
In 's version, the entire issue is sidestepped because the Kavli prize citation explicitly calls all three men - Linde, Starobinski and Guth - originators of the theory. You'll note that this is not actually inconsistent with the other sources, which each called at least one of them an originator of the theory. It is only a problem if we try and assign priority, and since we have no reliable source explicitly saying who had priority over whom (or that anyone even cares about this), it seems best to de-emphasize the whole thing, as  explained above, and executed in his edit. As such, I think it is clear that we should use 's edit as at least a starting point, and that the article should, in general, shy away from getting into these priority claims, which are not explicitly reflected by the sources. 0x0077BE [talk/contrib] 01:33, 29 July 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: Knock the bs, time to call a spade a spade: you're just a gang of manipulators who disregard previous consensuses, proclaim "forbidden references", "banned words", remove neutrality from intro and overall, etc. The IP guy perhaps didn't have the best approach, but he was basically right, unfortunately. Holybeef (talk) 01:40, 29 July 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: While I find your claims of ever having consensus on this page dubious and overstated at best, that's completely irrelevant because consensus can change, so you still need to make your case and "I already got consensus on this matter" has no bearing on the matter. 0x0077BE [talk/contrib] 01:45, 29 July 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: Again you with misreading of the rules. The very same rule you now cited says: "Editors may propose a change to current consensus, especially to raise previously unconsidered arguments or circumstances. On the other hand, proposing to change a recent consensus can be disruptive." Neither SCZenz nor you has proposed a change but instead went on to edit out the previous consensus-reached edit. The rule further says: "Editors may propose a consensus change by discussion or editing. That said, in most cases, an editor who knows a proposed change will modify a matter resolved by past discussion should propose that change by discussion" I was being civil by not referring to previous consensus up until now. So you were disruptive according to the very rule you cited to me! Go and report yourself, will you. Holybeef (talk) 21:13, 29 July 2014 (UTC)

text: @ - FWIW - I *entirely* agree with your *excellent* analysis of the situation - esp re WP:OR and WP:UNDUE - and - agree that the SCZenz edit be restored as "at least a starting point" - hope this helps in some way - in any case - Enjoy! :) Drbogdan (talk) 01:56, 29 July 2014 (UTC)

text: *Support - neutral claims are best, and since the article is about Guth himself (and not "the founder of inflation theory") it should read that he was one of the pioneers (regardless of who was the "first").Primefac (talk) 12:51, 29 July 2014 (UTC)

text: *Support - yes, neutral claims are best - I agree with the comments by Primefac above - Enjoy! :) Drbogdan (talk) 13:08, 29 July 2014 (UTC)

text: *Oppose You started the Guth 2015 Nobel campaign already? Good luck. By the way: his failed inflationary theory is the only theory Guth is notable for, otherwise most of the article all this time wouldn't be talking about inflation, but him personally and/or his other theories/discoveries. So it's clear where the focus should be when seeking neutrality also. Speaking of his other theories/discoveries: there's a total of exactly 0 of those. That also speaks volumes about the (lack of) genius of a guy who's about to retire. Holybeef (talk) 20:34, 29 July 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Opening section - priority claims 

message: It seems like we have a very strong consensus about what to do here and on Laura Mersini-Houghton, but unfortunately I believe that dealing with 's disruptive comments and edits has created a false impression that there is a legitimate content dispute on this page. I have brought this to AN/I here in an attempt to resolve the issue, as I think we've exhausted the other standard dispute resolution mechanisms here. Hopefully, when this is resolved we can have the temporary full-protection downgraded to temporary semi-protection and make the appropriate changes to the article. 0x0077BE [talk/contrib] 16:10, 29 July 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: There's no consensus on anything, except on a fact that you're trying to overhaul an already reached consensus and are using all sorts of dirty tricks to that effect. Don't imagine people aren't reading this. You'd be surprised. Holybeef (talk) 20:38, 29 July 2014 (UTC)

text: Yes, I think a little delay is in order.  Followed by us cleaning up the talk page and looking over the article to see if there are more general improvements we can make.  Thanks for your work on this!  -- SCZenz (talk) 13:28, 30 July 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/Incidents#Disruptive_editing_and_conduct_by_Holybeef|AN/I Report]] regarding [[User:Holybeef|Holybeef]]'s behavior. 

message: In his Cosmology (advanced graduate textbook/treatise) Weinberg summarizes the origin of inflation as follows:
Footnote 1 is to papers by Starobinsky (1979), Kazanas (1980), Sato (1981).  Footnote 2 is to Guth (1981).
Weinberg goes on to mention Guth found it solved several puzzles in cosmology, but he and others soon realized it had a fatal flaw:
Footnotes 3 and 4 are to various 1982 papers. Choor monster (talk) 22:26, 30 July 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Steven Weinberg]] on the origin of inflationary cosmology 

message: Alan Guth suggests partial inflations on the vastness of space. When inflation at a region reaches lightspeeds (read wiktionary - lightspeeds means close or faster than the speed of light, because space itself can expand faster than the speed of light), then we have a pocket "big bang". If space itself expands faster than light, not relativistically [not if we compare afar galaxies] but absolutely [each single point of a space patch expanding faster than light], all that energy is transformed into matter. So "Alan's Rip" is an updated rip. We must include Alans predictions on the subject, through time he has evolved many thoughts. We shall include all his views but mostly his nowadays opinions and short formulas... The main article is not complete! Even if I said something you consider a mistake - simply find Alan's view on the subject and add it. That is the point. To make that article thorough!  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2.84.220.197 (talk) 07:12, 25 September 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Guth's ideas about Big Rip not explained on the main article 

message: Guth focuses on smaller and smaller frames of reference. That is a mistake due to Heisenberg's uncertainty principle. The previous universe did expand faster than the speed of light and provided the energy of the Big Bang. So the old Guth's minuscule focus is out of date. Wikipedia is not a science magazine, thus we should add only Guth's response to that claim. By the way Alan is not so negative about that, ask him. We should add newer stuff but we have to ask him personally to depict his original views. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.72.172.8 (talk) 21:27, 12 December 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: Keep in mind that this article is about Alan Guth, and that the physics topics themselves have their own articles that are probably more up to date. Could you please suggest exact changes and provide reliable sources? Thank you. --Dodi 8238 (talk) 22:55, 12 December 2015 (UTC)
thread_title: Guth's mistakes and Guth's critic over his critics

message: Alan Guth claims that the universe was vastly smaller, Planck sized, thus we have a homogeneous universe nowadays. Some of his students claim that quantum fluctuations if enlarged wouldn't produce the homogeneous universe we observe! If the pro big-bang universe was behaving like a degenerate quark-gluon plasma, the more degenerate, more dense state is to have a single particle. The guts of a single particle due to chromodynamics, are way more random than asymptotic quark freedom. So the universal homogeneity has been proposed to be instead the result of a dying universe, where the rate of expansion shrinked from relativistic light-speed distancing of afar galaxies, to all points light-speed expansion, and due to the characteristics of the void itself, homogeneity was a result of the "default initial space", and that makes more sense than distorting the actual asymptotic chromodynamic visceral chaos inside a particle (the smaller the scale, the more jitters we have on the chromodynamic medium, and more extreme turbulence can never be the reason of homogeneity). By the way Alan Guth is open to that alternative. We should ask him to add more data. It is an extremely crucial issue that the main article doesn't mention.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2A02:587:4104:3D00:781B:6484:AF81:A967 (talk) 23:50, 21 January 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: Wikipedia is not the right place to write about Guth's students' proposals for the first time (see the Wikipedia:No original research policy). Once you have reliable sources to back up what you would like to add to the Wikipedia article, be bold and do so yourself (help is available). If you are affiliated with the topic, please see our conflict of interest guideline. --Dodi 8238 (talk) 08:21, 22 January 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  "Default initial inflating spatial homogeneity" Guth students proposal 

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thread_title:  External links modified 

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thread_title:  External links modified 

message: No way am I going to read all of the trash like I just remedied in one small nbrhood of the accompanying article. I am only a BA/cum-laude math/physics major from the '60s, but the smells of bullshit and other forms of incompetence have been changing, since then, at rates incomparably lower than the speed of light! Perhaps professional physicists who deserve the respect of their peers will bring to bear their expertise here, lest the flaneurs who have fouled the nest with the few usages I replaced in my edits today continue to edit unchecked on matters where they lack any insight nor perspective. I can't claim professional competence, but the professionals would not be wasting their time by acting as the Man with Muckrake, or rather driving out the fan-boys and self-anointed dabblers from our modern physics articles. 
precisely  — Preceding unsigned comment added by JerzyA (talk • contribs) 16:25, 30 August 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  Trash 

message: I propose that the location of the Guth's discovery of inflation be changed to SLAC from Cornell.
From Guth's book "The Inflationary Universe", Guth and Henry Tye were working on ways to suppress magnetic monopole production in the early universe.  That work began at Cornell and continued when Guth moved to take another postdoc at SLAC in the fall of 1979.  This is covered in Chapter 9, "Combatting the Magnetic Monopole Menace".  Guth and Tye believed that a delayed phase transition would "ward off the glut of magnetic monopole production" in the early time of the Big Bang universe (page 167).  Guth sat down on the evening of December 6, 1979, to check that "the expansion rate of the universe would be unaffected by the supercooling" (page 165).  Then, "after a few of the most productive hours I had ever spent at my desk, I had learned something remarkable.  Would the supercooled phase transition affect the expansion rate of the universe?  By 1:00 am I knew the answer:  Yes, more than I could have ever imagined."  (page 176).  Guth realized that inflation "would not only wipe out magnetic monopoles, but it would also solve the flatness problem that I had learned from Dicke's lecture the year before."  (page 176).  A few weeks later, the "horizon problem" was explained to Guth by Marvin Weinstein during lunch at SLAC.  "Having learned about the horizon problem at lunch, I went home and thought about it.  Eureka!  The exponential expansion of inflation would obliterate this problem, too."  (page 184).  Then, ... "I view the official debut of inflation as the seminar that I gave at SLAC on January 23, 1980.... There was also the fear that I would reveal my status as a greenhorn cosmologist.  To shore up my general background in cosmology, I had crammed from Steven Weinberg's excellent popular-level book, The First Three Minutes."
It seems clear that Guth believes he discovered his version of cosmological inflation while he was at SLAC, not Cornell.  Strangely, or perhaps not, this same statement about Cornell is made in the wikipedia page on Cosmological Inflation.  Guth and Tye were working on a particle physics problem, magnetic monopole overproduction, and as a happy byproduct Guth ended up "solving" two major cosmological problems while at SLAC.  AFAIK Tye did not share in the major awards Guth has received for this work.  Guth essentially changed his field of study from particle physics to cosmology on the night of December 6, 1979.  
Therefore I propose that the location of the discovery be changed to SLAC from Cornell.  --Bluepost22 (talk) 16:21, 26 November 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  Inflation Discovered at SLAC not Cornell