NOTES
- See http://skepdic.com/sokal.html. This is an excellent summary of the Sokal
hoax. The Skeptic’s Dictionary has a lot of good stuff, especially for those of us
who are confirmed skeptics. It has great sections on UFOs, the paranormal, and
junk science. You can get more of an education from this site than you can from
a degree in practically any one of the currently trendy areas of academia. - It pains me to say this, but the hard sciences and mathematics are not immune
from this. People have a difficult time with ideas that challenge their cherished
beliefs. That’s why I’m such a great respecter of science; it has a built-in mecha-
nism (replicability) to counter this.
This also works when something challenges the established paradigm. Cold
fusion sounded great, but when nobody could duplicate the critical experiments,
it passed from view. - See http:// skepdic .com/ sokal .html.
- See http:// www .brainyquote .com/ quotes/ authors/ r/ richard _p _feynman .html.
The quotes on this site are well worth the five minutes it takes to read them.
Feynman died before the Sokal hoax, but the following quote is certainly appli-
cable: “The theoretical broadening which comes from having many humanities
subjects on the campus is offset by the general dopiness of the people who study
these things.” - The song lyrics “When you wish upon a star / Makes no difference who you are” nails
it, because nothing will happen that wouldn’t have happened anyway. Remarks
like this f low freely when you spend a little time with The Skeptic’s Dictionary. - So far, no such leakage has been detected. That doesn’t mean that reasonable
theories based upon such a leakage can’t be constructed, although they may be
hard to test. Recall that the steady state theory required the creation of one hy-
drogen atom per cubic meter every 10 billion years. The steady state theory did
make predictions (or rather, it didn’t make the key predictions that the big bang
theory did), and as a result it was possible to reject it based on experimental evi-
dence. - B. Greene, The Fabric of the Cosmos (New York: Vintage, 2004), pp. 164–67. I’ve
said this before: this is a terrific book. Not an easy book (don’t believe blurbs to
the contrary), but utterly, completely, and totally worth the effort. - G. Gamow, One, Two, Three... Infinity (New York: Viking, 1947). This was the
book that started me on math and science, and if you have bright, inquisitive
children age twelve or older, give this to them. There will be a bunch of math
they won’t understand, but a lot that they will, and some of the science is obso-
lete or erroneous, but who cares? That can be corrected, and none of the math is
erroneous. - See http:// www .manhattanrarebooks -science .com/ black _hole .htm.This quote
can be found in more erudite sources, I’m sure. - See http:// www .mpe .mpg .de/ ir/ GC/ index .php. Nice photos and graphics from
the Max Planck Institute. - See http:// en .wikipedia .org/ wiki/ Hawking _Radiation. There’s probably more
math here than you want to absorb, but this is a good article explicating the basic
ideas.
200 How Math Explains the World