Talk:Freeman Dyson

message: I removed the "on tv" section because it repeats what was already said in the part about the dyson sphere.  Also, this article is about FREEMAN Dyson, NOT the Dyson Sphere.  There IS a difference, and while the Dyson Sphere was shown on Star Trek, the physicist was not...unless i recall that episode entirely wrong.  Either way, it's still repetitive.
Archtemplar 08:20, 16 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Many of these questions are answered in a long interview with Dyson on YouTube, which has been downloaded broken up into 157 segments. The book he thinks G H Hardy donated anonymously to his school was the "Cours d'Analyse de l'Ecole Polytechnique" by Camille Jordan. He was taught by Hardy when he went up to Cambridge in 1941: there were only about five students in his class, so they all sat around a table in a small room for the lectures. NRPanikker (talk) 02:50, 16 June 2020 (UTC)
thread_title: Dated discussion

message: Dyson was an original thinker, no doubt about that. The problem with the text is that the selection you've chosen makes FD seem like an eccentric. What about mentioning his work for the military? - that would give a boost to his down to earth credentials. 
Like many theorists, Dyson had a philosophical turn of mind. He never felt at easy about the existence of dimensionless constants derived from fundamental physical constants. Dyson speculated that alpha  (approximately equal to 1/137) was really a variable proportionate to the age of the universe.
There is more that I could mention, and perhaps I will..
--Philopedia 18:05, 20 Jun 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Emphasis, etc 

message: The article incorrectly said Dyson served on the faculty at Princeton University.  In reality, he was a professor at the Institute for Advanced Study (IAS), where he is now professor emeritus.  IAS is in Princeton, NJ but is wholly independent of Princeton University.  I have made the correction.
::Freeman Dyson was on the Physics faculty of Princeton University during the 1960s.Lestrade 01:47, 18 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Institute for Advanced Study, Not Princeton! 

message: How could one introduce into the article the fact that Dyson totally supported the German bombers who were destroying British cities? He stated that his hatred of British colonialism resulted in his unstated support of Nazi aggression.Lestrade 14:44, 9 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: "The events of September 11 brought to mind another vivid and uncomfortable memory. I am sixteen years old, lying in bed at my home in London on a noisy night in September 1940. I am violently hostile to the British Empire and everything it stands for. I hate London, the citadel of oppression, with its grandiose buildings sucking the wealth from every corner of the world. I lie in bed listening to the bombs exploding and the buildings crumbling. What joy to hear, after each explosion, the delicious sound of buildings falling down, the great British Empire audibly crumbling. The joy far outweighs any fear that my own home might be hit, or any pity for the people in the falling buildings. How many sixteen-year-olds all over the world are now seeing on television the pictures of the World Trade Center buildings collapsing, and feeling the same joy that I felt in 1940. I find it easy to imagine the state of mind of the young men who so resolutely smashed those planes into the buildings. Almost, I could have been one of them myself." 
Lestrade 19:58, 9 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm pretty sure that I am not misreading that quote. Clearly he is saying exactly what he is saying, not what User:RussNelson thinks that it would be nice for him to be saying.Lestrade 13:32, 22 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Why don't you ask him? RussNelson 19:10, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

text: It is very simple to ask Dyson.  Just send him an email.  The reason to ask him is equal parts courtesy and accuracy.  Courtesy is making him aware of this before doing anything and making sure he has no objections to being so categorized.  Accuracy is making sure what is said in the article is representative of his present views.  I think Freeman deserves at least that much respect. Michaelbusch 00:16, 27 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The quote is from the prestigious Edge Foundation website. This leads me to accept it as being accurate. The thoughts that are communicated in the quote are as utterly clear as pure spring water in a crystal chalice. There is no ambiguity and no obscurity.Lestrade 00:28, 27 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: When it comes to Freeman's opinions, the only source I trust is Freeman himself.  I have sent him an email.  I will let you know if/when he responds. Michaelbusch 00:44, 27 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Freeman does not object to having this material included in the article.  However, it must be very clear that he did not support the Nazis: he merely hated the British empire. Michaelbusch 16:51, 27 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Fliegernsympathie

message: I saw Prof. Dyson on Wednesday. He is a small, frail, kindly-looking elderly man with a pleasant, polite manner. The photo of him in the article looks like it is out of a 1934 James Whale movie.Lestrade 12:58, 24 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Much better, IMHO. Kla'quot 02:04, 28 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Ghastly Image

message: This entry does not do justice to one of the great original minds of the 20th century. Freeman Dyson is, I think, far more interesting than, say,
Buckminster Fuller, Stephen Hawking, Alvin Toffler. And he really knows modern physics.
I should add that Dyson wrote re 9/11, quoted above, was probably very honest, but still dismays. His reaction to the bombing of London was a lot like the reaction of most Irish to the fact that Germany and England were at war; they secretly hoped for a German victory. To fail to see that a Nazi victory over the UK was a far greater evil than the British Empire is deplorable in the extreme. It is also easy to forget that hundreds of Pakistanis, presumably all Muslim, died in 9.11.
It would seem that Dyson has a radical streak. If so, why did he do so much work on nuclear weapons and missiles? And does anyone out there know that Dyson is a devoted Presbyterian?
The 2004 Tarski biography discusses the affair between Georg Kreisel and Dyson's first wife, Verena Huber, who went on to be quite friendly with Tarski himself.
Only today did I read that Freeman was the son of composer George, one of whose works I have performed. George Dyson was a solid workaday tonal composer, not much performed nowadays, and probably destined to be forgotten. The son far, far outstrips the father.202.36.179.65 10:18, 1 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Could we please reserve this talk page for discussion of the article? — goethean ॐ 20:34, 1 April 2006 (UTC)

text: Olaf Stapledon came up with his, similar, concept earlier than Dyson did in the book Star Maker. As he wrote this in 1937 he couldn't have been basing it off anything Dyson said unless Dyson thought it up when he was 14 and somehow managed to tell Stapledon. (This seems unlikely) However Bob Shaw had a Dyson sphere in his book Orbitsville and in his case he was inspired by Dyson.--T. Anthony 06:12, 25 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Okay I dealt with that.--T. Anthony 06:17, 25 June 2006 (UTC)

text: Pete Tillman 01:50, 17 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Much should be added to this entry 

message: ::::this is actually a CITIZENSHIP issue, not ethnicity - his nationality/ethnicity is English - nationality=ethnicity - not citizenship, which is a legal status  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 50.111.9.62 (talk) 01:37, 1 March 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: Article now describes him as "an American theoretical physicist and mathematician, of British origin". I presume from this that he has taken Amrican citzenship. Anyone know when? It's a thing worth mentioning. Otherwise he would surely be a British theoretical physicist who has done most of his work in the USA.Nickpheas (talk) 12:46, 16 December 2019 (UTC)
replies: text: This is not addressed in the article. If he was an American citizen, it needs to be referenced properly. Otherwise, he was an Englishman working in the States. 50.111.9.62 (talk) 01:33, 1 March 2020 (UTC)
thread_title: Ethnicity

message: It would be good to have more about Dyson's views, scientific and otherwise. He is one of the great thinkers of our time, IMHO (although I disagree with him strongly on the urgency of climate change). His views require some context and explanations, so I'd rather not add them randomly. I'm starting a workshop page here for working on them. Please add to: 
/Freeman Dyson's Views
- Clayoquot Sound 05:24, 13 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Workshop page for expanding this article 

message: Of course as a scientist, Dyson is skeptical about everything. Yes, he has questioned the models of climate change and, yes, he has said we have bigger problems. However, his own words are include,
I'm not saying the warming doesn't cause problems, obviously it does." We have to be conservative when  assigning categories to living people. Kla'quot 18:38, 25 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't think that including people into categories should be biased - or "conservative", as you say. I think you misunderstand what it means to be a global warming skeptic - look at this page. Prof Dyson fits in between others very smoothly. Concerning your comment that a scientist is skeptical about everything - well, yes, this is the point of being a scientific skeptic. If someone is not a global warming skeptic, it means that he is not a scientific skeptic in the climate context. The number of the people who have abandoned the scientific method in the context of the climate is huge, these people are very irrational, but Freeman Dyson is not one of them. He is a global warming skeptic, and your out-of-context quote about "causing problems" can't change anything about it. He has opinions very much like I have, and I am a clear skeptic. The models can't be trusted, the media hysteria about it is scientifically unfounded and exaggerated, and the very concept of focusing on the global character of the climate, instead of the local research, is fundamentally flawed. This is global warming skepticism. I ask someone who reads these sentences to return the category. --Lumidek 19:36, 25 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Please be mindful of WP:COI when assigning people you believe agree with you to categories. Michaelbusch 19:55, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

text: I'd be more comfortable with it if the page :Category:Global warming skeptics listed its  criteria for inclusion. The category currently includes right-wing politicians, creationists, etc. whose skepticism is on a wholly different level from Dyson's. We are required by WP:BLP to be careful about including information about a living person that can be seen as negative. Kla'quot 20:03, 25 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I think that only extremely unreasonable people would think that it is negative to be a global warming skeptic. And the list of global warming skeptics is mostly list of rather exceptional decent people, scientists, economists, journalists, former US presidents, Czech presidents, and so forth. Not sure what "creationists" are being discussed here. Concerning Michael Busch: I am absolutely certain that I am not violating any rules, and your indication otherwise is an unsubstantiated insult. I am just emphasizing that there is a mistake on Freeman Dyson's page caused by people who have an agenda, as they admitted, and I ask someone else to correct the error later when the dust settles. --Lumidek 19:13, 26 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I was not implying that you were violating the rules.  I was simply requesting that you be mindful of them. Michaelbusch 20:06, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

text: Your claims about global warming and climate are uninformed and factually erroneous, and that is affecting your descriptions of Dyson. Rejecting the scientific consensus is not scientific skepticism, it's crackpottery. As Dyson admitted, "[m]y objections to the global warming propaganda are not so much over the technical facts, about which I do not know much" -- his calling it "propaganda" is intellectually dishonest, as is his stated basis for his objections: "but it's rather against the way those people behave and the kind of intolerance to criticism that a lot of them have" -- which is purely ad hominem ... and is the sort of skewed crackpot perspective that is often seen from uninformed ideologues whining about the reactions of people who actually know what they are talking about. Jibal (talk) 01:28, 3 January 2023 (UTC)

text: "Freeman admitted he was a skeptic on global warming. His problem was not change in the climate. 'In the long view we ARE changing the climate.' He felt that climate was hugely complex, that we understand very little of it and many people are reducing this unknown complexity into one data point -- the average temperature somewhere. Until we understand what kind of changes we are making in our 'solutions' he says he believes the best action on global climate change right now is inaction." 
Maybe the solution is to create a new category of skeptic tailored to what Dyson himself believes? We could all agree that Dyson is pretty unique.
betsythedevine 13:14, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

text: I have emailed Freeman concerning this matter.  He does not object to being called a gloabl warming skeptic, but as you say his views are heretical from many different viewpoints, so creating him his own subcategory would work. Michaelbusch 16:52, 27 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: How about a new category "Critics of climate change models" or the existing category :Category:Climate change assessment and attribution?Kla'quot 05:41, 28 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I rather like the last one, but that seems to be reserved for the ICCC and reports on climate change. Michaelbusch 06:05, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

text: Agree, though I'm sympathetic to the argument that skeptic != derogatory.
Cheers, Pete Tillman 15:43, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

text: Aren't both of those articles the same thing? RussNelson 17:47, 1 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Sorry if someone has already seen it. But is there any controversy about the statement that Dyson's opinions about the climate are more or less identical to other skeptics such as Michael Crichton? What's exactly the difference? I think that the attempt to remove the category from Freeman Dyson is an attempt of proponents of the global warming theory to pretend that skepticism among well-known scientists is smaller than it actually is. --90.176.185.73 07:02, 2 September 2007 (UTC)

text: Here we are seven years later and we are still here. Freeman Dyson is being quoted as he is now 90 years old. Do a Google-search on [CO2 plants freeman dyson 2014] for many hits, including  and a three minute video of Dyson explaining about science. — Charles Edwin Shipp (talk) 20:06, 8 April 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Category: Global warming skeptics 

message: In the opening paragraph, the article presently reads: "He is a lifelong opponent of nationalism..."
I just finished rereading the Stewart Brand and Monte Davis interviews, my own notes on some of his books, other online resources, and thumbing through Disturbing the Universe, which happens to be the only Dyson book at hand. I don't find any support for such a bald statement. Am I missing something? Surely there should be some documentation in the article for this.
Similarly, "... and proponent of nuclear disarmament and international cooperation" seems so oversimplified as to be cartoonish. I know we're struggling here to present an accurate summary of Dyson's complex views... 
Perhaps we need a more neutral statement to replace this sentence.
 Pete Tillman 05:24, 17 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Dyson's views on nationalism

message: The article seems to imply he thinks English academics are "gloomy", when the cite provided says he thinks that of all Western academics. Why is England singled out?
::"Gloomy" is an adjective that reflects someone's point of view. It has no objective value in a sentence. Maybe some English academics are gloomy, maybe some are merry, maybe some are cheerful. It depends on when you look at them. Who can get inside their minds and know for sure what mood they are in?Lestrade (talk) 00:01, 2 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  On English academics 

message: Dyson also has some credits in Elementary number theory. His concept "Dyson's transform" led to one of the most important lemmas of Olivier Ramaré's theorem that every even integer is a sum of at most six primes.
I think the above should read, "...that every even integer can be written as a sume of at most six primes."
It seems to imply that no even integer is a sum of seven primes, for example.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 20.132.68.133 (talk) 21:03, 2 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Done. Michaelbusch 21:26, 2 November 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Dyson's Transformation? 

message: I'm responding to the inclusion of the Wild River Review article (external link and biographical note added). I'm new to Wikipedia so if there is a better way to post this please advise. Mr. Dyson is socially aware of how science should be used and encouraged. Knowing something about his parents background is useful. His parents were not scientists. His mother was socially active. The WWR article/interview illuminates some of the reasons he's socially active, some of the things he'd like to see science do, one of the projects he's working on (Quarkpark - finished now) to make science more accessible and why he loves mathematics. josephglantz@yahoo.com —Preceding unsigned comment added by Josephglantz (talk • contribs) .
:The problem is that Freeman gives so many interviews that we can't possibly include all of them.  So a reference that doesn't provide substantial new information shouldn't be added.  See Wikipedia:Notability and WP:BLP. Michaelbusch (talk) 18:44, 18 November 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Dyson's media appearances

message: I do not believe Dyson ever worked on the development of nuclear weapons - he was, as the article reflects, a strong advocate of nuclear disarmament.
Dyson has/had close friendships and working relationships with notable physicists who worked on nuclear weapons, such as Ted Taylor and Feynman, and worked on several famous pursuits in
nuclear engineering during his time at General Atomics, including Project Orion and the TRIGA, so that's perhaps where the confusion arises from.
I think he might have briefly visited the Livermore Lawrence lab, after working with Taylor at General Atomics, and he might have investigated nuclear explosive design for Orion use - but I doubt very strongly that he ever contributed to the development of nuclear explosives as weapons systems.
AWeishaupt (talk) 23:35, 13 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Nuclear weapons design. 

message: "Hence, it is not the electromagnetic repulsion between electrons and nuclei..."
Er, there is an electromagnetic attraction between electrons and nuclei.  Perhaps "electromagnetic repulsion between atoms" was meant? -CKL  —Preceding comment was added at 16:28, 7 April 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Work on the exclusion principle 

message: I notice that this article is using loads of cquotes, which according to Template:Cquote are "meant for pull quotes", i.e. "to lead readers into an article and to highlight a key topic".  Also according to Wikipedia:Manual of Style#Quotations, cquote should only be used for pull quotes, not for quotations.  A proper template for quotations is quote or quotation. Ulifahrenberg (talk) 11:58, 21 May 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Use of Cquotes 

message: ″The three components of the vision are all essential: the sun to provide energy where it is needed, the genome to provide plants that can convert sunlight into chemical fuels cheaply and efficiently...″
well, it's happening Read this article
: This page is not a blog; it's purpose is for improving the associated article on Freeman Dyson. And please sign your comments. -- Jibal (talk) 01:37, 3 January 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  cheap fuels 

message: I'm completely baffled by this statement.
On Esther Dyson, his daughter:
“	The main advantage she had was being neglected. We had two other children [then], one older and one younger, who were real problems. She wasn't a problem, and so she didn't get much attention. She always knew what she wanted, and she was very quiet and easygoing.[7]
I am not questioning that he said it, but as far as I can tell Esther Dyson is his first child and also her mother's first child. Was there another? Otherwise, Dyson is simply mistaken (or someone has misquoted him). Esther is two years older than George. 
Who would Esther's older sibling have been?   Eperotao (talk) 16:05, 4 April 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: You're right, it's puzzling. I confirmed the quote is at the cited source. I'll just remove it, since this is a pretty quote-heavy article. Best, Pete Tillman (talk) 03:51, 5 April 2009 (UTC)
replies: text:  More clarification on the three children Dyson is talking about can be found at Verena_Huber-Dyson#Children. HouseOfChange (talk) 15:14, 17 May 2021 (UTC)
thread_title: Dyson's Family

message: Is Dyson actually a U.K. national? He holds dual-citizenship? 78.105.234.140 (talk) 09:52, 3 May 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Special:Contributions/217.218.247.4 Hmmm? 78.105.234.140 (talk) 16:31, 4 May 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: He is quoted as saying that he has 'abjured his allegiance'. This presumably means he has given up UK nationality.- (User) Wolfkeeper (Talk) 11:48, 12 July 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Nationality in infobox 

message: Should this be added even though Dyson never finished?  I mean, Bethe was his doctoral advisor wasn't he?
Savagedjeff (talk) 14:15, 13 October 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Hans Bethe as doctoral advisor? 

message: This article, at the time of writing, contains 21 quotes from Dyson, which make up a considerable portion of the article. While there's no specific limit on how many quotes to include, I think this is too many - Wikipedia is not Wikiquote. Many of these quotes are included to show Dyson's position on a certain matter, but it shouldn't be necessary to do so - in most cases we can simply describe or summarise his views rather than having to quote them directly. In fact, this article does exactly that in a few places, like 'Dyson opposes the Vietnam war, the Gulf War, and the invasion of Iraq. He supported Barack Obama during the election and The New York Times has described him as a political liberal.' This approach could be extended to make this article look less like a list of quotes. Other quotes could perhaps be removed entirely - what exactly is the purpose of Freeman Dyson#The role of failure and Freeman Dyson#On English academics? They don't seem to add anything to his biography.
For those quotes are to be retained, the  template should not be used - it specifically advises not to use it for block quotes in article text, for which the smaller  is preferred. Robofish (talk) 00:03, 10 November 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: I think the reason there are a lot of quotes in the article is that Dyson is unusually -- almost uniquely -- articulate, for a scientist of his stature, and he's very quotable. In general, I think it would weaken the article to paraphrase his quotes, which would almost certainly weaken the language, and not convey Dyson's views as accurately as his own words. Cheers, Pete Tillman (talk) 00:56, 10 November 2009 (UTC)
replies: text:  I will go further, I thought this "quotefarm" tag was pretty silly, so I deleted it.  There's no reason you shouldn't use a bunch of quotes if it makes it a better article.  I would take it under advisement that the article might "flow" better if the quotes were embedded in some more explanatory text, but it hardly deserves to be dismissed as a "quotefarm".  -- Doom (talk) 02:14, 17 April 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: I looked through the article (first time in awhile) for quotes & format. I disagree that the  is being misused (tho some pruning wouldn't hurt) -- again, because Dyson is such a quotable writer, I think we're justified in calling out more quotes than would ordinarily be recommended. --Pete Tillman (talk) 02:56, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

text: I'm sorry, but I agree with the original poster; there are too many quotes, and we have wikiquotes for a reason.  I also question (unfortunately) the current assessment. Viriditas (talk) 08:32, 25 May 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Too many quotes? 

message: : Some 30 years (or so) ago I came across a paper by Dyson in the Physical Review in which he discuused the Green function for  the simplest atom - taking advantage of the additional symmetry (over and above spherical symmetry) implied bt the existence of the Runge-Lenz vector since it is inmany resspects typical of Dyson's way of approaching problems - might it not deserve a mention? Hair Commodore (talk) 12:01, 16 November 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Paper on hydogen atom 

message: It seems to me that the following is incorrect:
"He then worked as an analyst for RAF Bomber Command at RAF Wyton for the remainder of World War II, where he would come to create what would be later known as operational research.[7]"
This suggests that, at the tender age of +- 17 years old, Dyson single-handedly "created" the discipline of OR. As a PhD graduate in the 70's in this domain, it was certainly not my impression that the discipline was "created" by a single individual. I was under the impression that, if anything, it was "created" by the British military establishment. It was under their initiative that groups of scientists were gathered together to address problems relating to military operations---hence the nomenclature "operations research" (or, in the UK, "operational research"). The idea was that such scientists would attack the problem at hand using the domain skills that they had acquired in their specific field of science: physics, maths, or what-have-you.
Although I have never heard of Dyson's work in this regard, it is possible that (even at the age of 17) he might have been one of the scientists who engaged in this "research into military operations".
I notice that reference [7] renders the facts differently: It reports Dyson as saying: 
"I began work in the Operational Research Section (ORS) of the British Royal Air Force's Bomber Command on July 25, 1943. I was 19 years old, fresh from an abbreviated two years as a student at the University of Cambridge. "
Thus, even by this rendering, he was no "creator" of OR. Moreover, this was in 1943, and not, as ambiguously suggested in the text, in 1939-1941.CarlosChio (talk) 07:16, 28 February 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: The person with the best claim to have originated Operations Research is almost certainly A.P. Rowe whilst he was working at Bawdsey Research Station (BRS) before the war. The technique was originated by Rowe to improve the management of information arising from the early Chain Home early warning radar system, and to allow this information to be passed on to the end users (the RAF fighter squadrons) in the most efficient and useful form. The BRS later became the Telecommunications Research Establishment (TRE), and civilian OR Boffins from TRE were frequent visitors to some RAF operational stations, such as RAF Defford.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.4.57.101 (talk) 09:33, 5 August 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Dyson as "creator" of operations research 

message: Helios (propulsion system) i belive is the propulsion system that makes sense its a intresting way of creating energy into propulsion. (from other sources they have already made a type of engine on aireoplanes) using nuclear fission or fusion or even both to create massive amounts of energy to propulsion, would be the "future of are future" in space travel and or other types of travel. i  can understand why the idea was shelfed but maybe using different idea's desgins and materials would inprove the chance of its success.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 94.8.122.2 (talk) 02:31, 8 April 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Helios (propulsion system) 

message: ====About Dyson====
I notice that there are a number of external links on this page, e.g. 
•  "The Scientist as Rebel", 2005 interview at Wild River Review
 
•  NPR interview of Freeman Dyson, audio, All Things Considered, November 2, 2004 
•  Google video: interviewer: Robert Wright, video, 44:55, June 30, 2001
Please consider adding this link to an in depth video of Freeman Dyson telling his life story.  The video is freely available on the Web of Stories website (http://webofstories.com):
* Freeman Dyson video at Web of Stories
Fitzrovia calling (talk) 09:38, 6 August 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  External links 

message: I notice that there are a number of external links on this page, e.g. 
•  "The Scientist as Rebel", 2005 interview at Wild River Review
 
•  NPR interview of Freeman Dyson, audio, All Things Considered, November 2, 2004 
•  Google video: interviewer: Robert Wright, video, 44:55, June 30, 2001
Please consider adding this link to an in depth video of Freeman Dyson telling his life story.  The video is freely available on the Web of Stories website (http://webofstories.com):
* Freeman Dyson video at Web of Stories
Fitzrovia calling (talk) 09:38, 6 August 2010 (UTC)
thread_title: About Dyson

message: I don't know Dyson's work in this area but I believe the 1-D Ising model does not have a phase transition.Paulhummerman (talk) 01:22, 30 June 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  One dimensional Ising model 

message: It seems like the addition about growing space habitats [diff] needs a reference.  HyperCapitalist (talk) 18:20, 1 December 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Growing space habitats 

message: There are two issues with this particular section. First, the existing quote is slightly out of context, misleading the reader to believe that Dyson suggests that there may be fish on Europa. Including the lines directly following would clarify that he recognizes this to be a "fanciful notion":
"Freeze-dried fish orbiting Jupiter is a fanciful notion, but nature in the biological realm has a tendency to be fanciful. Nature is usually more imaginative than we are. [...] To have the best chance of success, we should keep our eyes open for all possibilities."http://www.theatlantic.com/past/docs/issues/97nov/space.htm], additional text.
Second, the quote itself is less about general space exploration as it is specifically about the search for extraterrestrial life on Europa. I suggest that the section be expanded and that existing quote be included as a supplement to - not a summary of - Dyson's views on space exploration.
CA Jim (talk) 08:30, 28 December 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Dyson's Views on Space Exploration 

message: This article is of poor quality, badly-written, not written from a neutral point of view, emphasizing ludicrous things like Dyson's lack of a Nobel prize (what on earth would Dyson be awarded a Nobel prize for?), not objective, generally a poor article. JoshuSasori (talk) 22:20, 23 July 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: Just for the record, many of his peers in physics thought that his work on Quantum Electrodynamics should have been awarded a Nobel. Freeman, on the other hand, has denied that it was seminal enough for the Prize.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.223.130.32 (talk) 00:47, 30 May 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Poor article 

message: Dyson has recently co-authored an important paper (with William H Press) on the Prisoner's Dilemma problem in Game Theory.  It is said, by people who claim to understand it, to overturn existing assumptions about optimal strategies in 'iterated' games.  Press, a biologist, is the lead author, while Dyson has been quoted as saying he 'just did the math'.  I do not understand the paper myself, but in due course presumably someone who does understand it should add a section.109.157.151.8 (talk) 17:01, 29 July 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: Do you have secondary sources that cover this? IRWolfie- (talk) 18:43, 29 July 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: This seems to be breakthrough paper. The secondary sources: http://edge.org/conversation/on-iterated-prisoner-dilemma and more precise summary in PNAS "Extortion and cooperation in the Prisoner’s Dilemma" by Alexander J. Stewart and Joshua B. Plotkin. To cite: "Press and Dyson (1) dramatically expand our understanding of this classic game by uncovering strategies that provide a unilateral advantage to  sentient players pitted against unwitting opponents. By exposing these results,  Press and Dyson have fundamentally  changed the viewpoint on the Prisoner’s Dilemma, opening a range of new  ossibilities for the study of cooperation."  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.45.94.21 (talk) 14:36, 19 August 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Game Theory 

message: In our Warfare and weapons section we have this statement:
:He supported Barack Obama in the 2008 US presidential election and The New York Times has described him as a political liberal.[6]
It seems a misfit there, and I don't think we ordinarily include political views of prominent scientists in their wikibios, unless they are also political activists. Comments? --Pete Tillman (talk) 20:55, 6 March 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: The epithet public intellectual applies to Dyson, so I think the political views are relevant. Issues like nuclear weapons and climate change are part of mainstream political debate. Itsmejudith (talk) 08:27, 7 March 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Dyson's politics a misfit? Not needed here? 

message: Dyson is well-aware that his "heresy" on global warming has been strongly criticized.
Yes, Dyson keeps asserting he is being pelted with rotten tomatoes for holding unpopular views, but is this really true? People do complain he is pushing hard on an already open door (researchers know models are inexact, yet they continue to improve). He often gets defensive during interviews, especially if you have the tenacity to press him on details. His interview with Steve Connor is most extraordinary. It appears he wants to be perceived as a heretic, and if you do not play along, by identifying areas of agreement, before pressing him for specifics on points of contention, he reacts badly. How many people have actually called him a heretic compared to the number of times he pronounces himself one. Has that number ever risen above 1? I get the same impression with his disapproval of Richard Dawkins.  It's as though heresy is a badge of honour and Dyson is clumsily trying to pin his own. The sentence should be edited to read: Dyson says his "heresy" on global warming has been strongly criticized.  — ThePowerofX 21:34, 5 April 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Global warming heresy 

message: I cannot find the quote in the cited article (Wired.com).
You can't possibly get a good technology going without an enormous number of failures. It's a universal rule. If you look at bicycles, there were thousands of weird models built and tried before they found the one that really worked. You could never design a bicycle theoretically. Even now, after we've been building them for 100 years, it's very difficult to understand just why a bicycle works – it's even difficult to formulate it as a mathematical problem. But just by trial and error, we found out how to do it, and the error was essential.[48]Northfox (talk) 13:02, 6 May 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: Ooops, I found it, but it is on page seven in the wired.com page layout. Can/should this be mentioned/clarified in the ref [48]? http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/6.02/dyson.html?pg=7&topic=&topic_set= Northfox (talk) 13:15, 6 May 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Bicycle quote 

message: Hello fellow Wikipedians,
I have just added archive links to  on Freeman Dyson. Please take a moment to review my edit. If necessary, add  after the link to keep me from modifying it. Alternatively, you can add  to keep me off the page altogether. I made the following changes:
*Added archive https://web.archive.org/20091217074129/http://tamino.wordpress.com:80/2007/12/16/wiggles/ to http://tamino.wordpress.com/2007/12/16/wiggles/
When you have finished reviewing my changes, please set the checked parameter below to true to let others know.
Cheers. —cyberbot IITalk to my owner:Online 04:31, 26 August 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  External links modified 

message: Hello fellow Wikipedians,
I have just modified  on Freeman Dyson. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
*Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20090420084037/http://www.thebulletin.org/content/about-us/board-of-sponsors to http://www.thebulletin.org/content/about-us/board-of-sponsors
When you have finished reviewing my changes, please set the checked parameter below to true or failed to let others know (documentation at ).
Cheers.—InternetArchiveBot (Report bug) 17:27, 13 July 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  External links modified 

message: Hello fellow Wikipedians,
I have just modified one external link on Freeman Dyson. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
*Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20160911074152/http://www.epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/press-releases-all?ID=d4b5fd23-802a-23ad-4565-3dce4095c360 to http://www.epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/press-releases-all?ID=d4b5fd23-802a-23ad-4565-3dce4095c360
When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.
Cheers.—InternetArchiveBot (Report bug) 11:17, 5 January 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  External links modified 

message: Hello fellow Wikipedians,
I have just modified 2 external links on Freeman Dyson. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
*Corrected formatting/usage for http://molesfarewelltributes.com/tribute/details/1427/Verena-Huber-Dyson/obituary.html
*Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20121004045501/http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2002/mar/28/science-religion-no-ends-in-sight/ to http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2002/mar/28/science-religion-no-ends-in-sight/
When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.
Cheers.—InternetArchiveBot (Report bug) 18:37, 7 October 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  External links modified 

message: Hello fellow Wikipedians,
I have just modified one external link on Freeman Dyson. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
*Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20131017131442/http://www.aip.org/history/acap/biographies/bio.jsp?dysonf to http://www.aip.org/history/acap/biographies/bio.jsp?dysonf
When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.
Cheers.—InternetArchiveBot (Report bug) 14:54, 21 January 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  External links modified (January 2018) 

message: In your edit summary you made the rather startling conclusion that only editors need to verify cited refs. Where did you get this idea from? Not mention of it in WP:RS or anywhere else I am aware of. Our readers may also want to verify, therefore I am arguing that we get rid of the hidden message and add it to the ref instead. I have now done this. However, the video doesn't work so I'm going to remove it. ♫ RichardWeiss talk contribs
:If the interview had played and was essentially an interview with Dyson this would be a primary ref disguised as a secondary ref, and we have quite enough, and more than enough, of Dyson's direct opinions in primary refs. We need more secondary sources and IMO can't claim a video posted in Wire of Freemand Dyson speaking  is a secondary source about Freeman Dyson unless verified in the text. ♫ RichardWeiss talk contribs 16:49, 30 April 2019 (UTC)
replies: text: Actually the statement is verified in the text and thus there is no need to verify with the video. This is a secondary source without worrying about why the video doesn't work, and whether it is a regional issue. ♫ RichardWeiss talk contribs 17:00, 30 April 2019 (UTC)
thread_title: Hidden text

message: Here's a nice, late summary of Dyson's views on climate change: "Misunderstandings, questionable beliefs mar Paris climate talks" https://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/2015/12/03/freeman-dyson-misunderstandings-questionable-beliefs-mar-paris-climate-talks/vG3oBrbmcZlv2m22DTNjMP/story.html
Written in Dyson's exemplary clear and compact style. He will be missed. --Pete Tillman (talk) 15:13, 2 March 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  2015 climate change op-ed in Boston Globe 

message: Under 'Warfare and weapons', the article repeats Dyson's well-known claim that he (and Reuben Smeed, his immediate boss in the Operational Research Section at Bomber Command HQ) recommended removing two of the gun turrets from RAF heavy bombers as this would somehow make the aircraft go 50 mph faster and reduce the loss to enemy night fighters. Dyson grumpily blamed Basil Dickins, overall head of ORS, for not passing this suggestion on to the C-in-C Sir Arthur Harris even though it could supposedly have saved 'thousands' of lives. But it is a bit unhelpful to repeat this eccentric claim uncritically. 
For one thing, Dyson says that removing two gun turrets would mean reducing the crew from seven to five. But presumably he means the front and mid-upper turrets (even though Halifaxes had already had the front turret removed and replaced with a Perspex nose cone and a single free-mounted gun, which helped with the Halifax's load-sensitivity but did not greatly increase the speed). As the seldom-used front guns of Lancasters and Halifaxes were manned by the bomb aimer, the crew would only have been reduced from seven to six, with the omission of the mid-upper gunner. This suggests that Dyson's understanding of bomber operations was slight. He based his view on a statistical finding that experienced crews suffered a similar loss rate to inexperienced crews, and thus he deduced that the gun turrets were useless, but that was simply an assumption that did not follow from the data. In half of all interceptions, the gunners saw the fighter coming and the bomber successfully evaded. In the other half, they didn't. It was a matter of luck.
For another thing, Dyson gives no rationale for the extraordinary '50 mph' claim. From July 1943, the month when Dyson joined Bomber Command HQ, civilianised Lancasters of Trans-Canada Airlines (now Air Canada), with all their gun turrets replaced by streamlined fairings, were making regular mail, cargo and passenger flights across the Atlantic from Montreal (Dorval) to Glasgow (Prestwick) and back. The first flight, from Dorval on 22 July, reached Prestwick in 12hr 26min at an average 240 mph groundspeed. That was about the same as the airspeed of an armed Lancaster at cruise power after target with the bomb load gone. But it was presumably wind-assisted, since the wind over the North Atlantic normally blows east. Some flights took longer and it does not seem that the cargo-laden mail planes made much better airspeed than the 210 mph of a standard armed Lancaster before target. The Dorval-Prestwick record, in November 1944, was 10hr 15min, at an average groundspeed of just over 300mph after inital climb-to-height, but that was clearly the result of picking up a jetstream wind, which could well add 90 mph over actual airspeed. Canadian-built Lancasters for bomber service were delivered to Britain from August 1943 on the same route, with the gun positions similarly faired over (the turrets were fitted on arrival in Britain), and it is not recorded that they flew dramatically faster than operational armed bombers either. After the war, civilian Lancastrians, essentially still just turretless Lancasters with slightly better passenger accommodation, cruised at 210-230 mph on airline and Berlin Airlift operations. Dyson's much-repeated claim of gaining '50 mph' by deleting the front and mid-upper gun turrets (but not apparently the tail turret, with its heavy ammunition bins, even though the civilianised aircraft did have that turret deleted) appears to be fantasy. You might reduce fuel consumption and gain a little speed, but you would not gain 50 mph. Some Lancasters of 617 Squadron were flown with the front and mid-upper turrets removed and they did not go that much faster. In fact the speed gain was negligible.
In his writings, Dyson obsesses over the failure of ORS men such as himself to detect the threat of 'Schrage Musik' -- the upward-firing cannon fitted to German night fighters from mid-1943, allowing them to attack from directly below, where they could not be spotted. And Dyson was a member of ORS2, specifically responsible for bomber losses. The secret of Schrage Musik was only discovered in July 1944 when an inexperienced German pilot who had read his compass reciprocally landed his Ju 88G (a newly improved model with a cruise speed rather better than the 260 mph that Dyson imagined a de-gunned Lancaster could manage) at RAF Woodbridge, Suffolk, thinking he was somewhere near Berlin. Dyson claimed it was 'too late to do anything about it' by then, which is false: many Lancasters not fitted with H2S radar had .50-calibre guns installed at a hatch in the ventral position to deter German pilots from that kind of attack, and Schrage Musik fell out of favour with the Luftwaffe. You really do not want to present yourself to a Browning .50-calibre firing directly down into your cockpit at about 50 metres' range. Dyson clearly felt great guilt over his failure to guess the existence of Schrage Musik. He mentions the previous intelligence clues, such as the accounts of bailed-out aircrew who evaded capture and were debriefed by one of his close colleagues at ORS. His fantasy that bomber losses could have been greatly reduced, if only Basil Dickins had taken up his naive proposal to remove gun turrets, was apparently a psychological coping mechanism to deal with that guilt. Khamba Tendal (talk) 20:01, 6 March 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: This is currently one of the top UK results if you Google 'Freeman Dyson'. It's The Guardian and is presumably RS. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/08/raf-bomber-command-was-right-to-ignore-freeman-dysons-foolish-idea Incidentally, the Wiki article at present claims without citation that RAF losses in the Battle of Berlin during the winter of 1943-4 were 'catastrophic', which is false. Losses were running at an average of about 5%, which was the maximum sustainable. The losses declined after March 1944, partly because more RAF Mosquitos were sent out to hunt the German fighters, partly because bombing cut the Luftwaffe's fuel stocks, partly because of radar and radio jamming by 100 (Bomber Support) Group and partly because the Allied invasion of the Low Countries overran many of the enemy's early-warning stations and forward airfields, but quite largely because RAF bombers consistently shot down German night fighters at a higher percentage rate than vice versa -- a point seldom remarked on, and one that Freeman Dyson didn't have a clue about. Khamba Tendal (talk) 19:25, 9 March 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  Bomber Command 

message: What is his accent? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DzC1IRYN_Ps  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 50.40.222.90 (talk) 14:01, 11 April 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: English (received pronunciation) NRPanikker (talk) 22:51, 1 June 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  What accent does he have? 

message: I haven't looked at the article in awhile. I didn't even know he had a last book! "Maker of Patterns: An Autobiography Through Letters" (2018). Now high on my TBR list. Anyway, this is an omnium-gatherum of stuff from better obits, to consider for adds to  the article. I haven't looked to see if any of these  (one so far!) is already in use.
Arthur Jaffe, Harvard University: "I first met Freeman Dyson when I was a graduate student at Princeton almost 60 years ago. He already had a towering reputation, and was something of an enigma to my generation of students.
I recall that Dyson began his course on quantum theory by telling us, “If anyone tells you that they understand quantum theory, they are not telling the truth.” We were fascinated by his lectures, and so I invited him with a small group of friends for dinner. I remember him warning us that the biggest change in our lives would result from the economic development of China. ...
We will miss Dyson not only as a friend but as an unusual visionary, unafraid to challenge conventional thought whenever and wherever he could."  
N.D. Hari Dass ,  Institute of Mathematical Sciences, Chennai, India, then a postdoc, worked with Dyson at the Max Planck Institute of Physics and Astrophysics in Munich in 1974.
"On one particularly memorable occasion [Dyson] quipped that in his opinion, the origin of languages is an even harder problem than the origin of life. Several decades later I still brood over that."
Source: https://www.technologyreview.com/2020/03/02/905570/freeman-dyson-by-the-people-who-knew-him-an-unusual-visionary/
--Pete Tillman (talk) 01:11, 29 June 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  Obituary stuff  [in progress] 

message: Freeman Dyson was correct about the nature of gravity.
Sabine Hossenfelder promotes the simplistic quantum gravity view which is also erroneous, because it rejects Everettianism/many-worlds theory.
Sean M. Carroll has a more Everettian/many-world[ed] view on gravity, but his mistake is that he (usually; Sean is talkable, speak to him; you or other Princeton physicists who care about the causal mechanism of gravity)... his mistake is that he usually calculates FINALIZED Everettian alternatives (alternative realities) and not TRANSIENT alternatives.
We need to develop new mathematical techniques (using some of the renormalization tools we have, but repurposed) with which we will calculate the TRANSIENT (non-finalized collapses of wave functions, but perpetual transient phenomena) Everettian alternatives (slightly different arrangements of objects, and how their relationship evolves with time). Of course we cannot calculate every single Everettian detail because objects compose of a huge number of particles which produce an incalculable number of Everettian variations. We should create a statistical approach to the cause of gravity conundrum.
Freeman Dyson died but not his ideas so we must continue. Freeman Dyson wasn't god. We aren't supposed to promote a theory merely because we like someone. But some people had and have the same view with Freeman Dyson on gravity. Our goal is to understand nature as it is (not Freeman Dyson; we aren't psychologists).
We should work on: summary statistics on Everettian transient gravity
and inform others who might care about the cause/causality of gravity.
* Freeman Dyson - Why is the Quantum so Mysterious? - Closer To Truth
: This is not a blog. Editors' opinions about which physicists are right or wrong about various matters are not relevant to Wikipedia. And please sign your comments. -- Jibal (talk) 02:04, 3 January 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  summary statistics on [[Everettian transient gravity]] = [[many-world transient gravity]] (excerpt) 

message: Concerning Quantum Entanglement Engineering and Applications (2021) and repeated attempts to insert it into the bio: Parts of the book are online, free. 
Dyson is not mentioned in the book's online summary or its chapter titles. The abstract of Chapter 10 does include Dyson: "The thoughts of Born, Dirac, Dyson, Feynman, Lamb, and Ward are applied to further develop a direct pragmatic paradox-free perspective of quantum mechanics. Particular attention is given to Dyson's first layer and second layer description of quantum mechanics. This perspective enables the description of quantum interferometry measurements and quantum entanglement measurements in a cohesive indeterministic approach via the concept of superposition probabilities."
Rather than inviting readers to hunt through a technical book for unspecified Dyson-related information, it would make sense for someone with access to the book to provide useful information from it, cited directly, with page numbers, etc. 
The original essay where Dyson describes first and second layer stuff (very non-technical) is here. HouseOfChange (talk) 16:01, 30 November 2021 (UTC)
replies: text: Perhaps related: the article about book's author F. J. Duarte is full of promo. Also, if Dyson's two-layer quantum opinion was important, we could cite his own essay and readers could read it. There is no need to divert readers to the 10th chapter of a non-notable book that cannot be read online. HouseOfChange (talk) 18:00, 5 December 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  Repeated addition of ''Quantum Entanglement Engineering and Applications'' 

message: It's reasonably interesting for people to understand what position Dyson had and who he succeded and were his older contemporaries. 
Or I'd at least hope we bothered to take care of some details for posterity that actually has at least both some relevance AND might show how our times and the 20th century viewed his position contribution etc. 84.211.240.52 (talk) 16:59, 5 August 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  Professor Dyson held Einsteins chair at Princeton 

message: :There are twenty-one entries in the "External links" and subsections. Three seems to be an acceptable number and of course, everyone has their favorite to add for four. The problem is that none is needed for article promotion. 
*ELpoints #3) states: 
*LINKFARM states: 
*WP:ELMIN: . -- Otr500 (talk) 01:47, 1 March 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  External links