Talk:Steven Weinberg/Archive 1

Archive 1

Untitled

I note that this page is linked to the Steve Weinberg who died in the 11 Sept attacks at: Casualties of the September 11, 2001 Terrorist Attacks: City of New York

I think a disambig page is called for, but I am too depressed to do it myself.

Paul, in Saudi

I added a paragraph explaining Weinbergs strong support of Israel with a link to an essay he wrote.- Moshe Constantine Hassan Al-Silverburg 06:21, 30 October 2005 (UTC)

Userspace link

This page contains a link to User:RK/A Liberal Defense of Zionism. Links from the main article space into userspace are inappropriate, as they break mirrors. Can someone find a sensible fix for this, please? Sensible solutions include removing the article, finding an external source (and use an exlink), or moving the currently userspace article to wikisource. Thanks. -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 04:01, 16 December 2005 (UTC)

Atheism as a religion

There was a religion entry which I've deleted, since it include "Atheist" as a religious identity. Not mentioining any religion would be more appropriate for the Steven Weinberg article.More, Steven Weinberg is certainly a Jew and also seeing himself as one, supporting the Jewish state of Israel storngly for this reason- and while Jewishness is not merely amatter of godliness, mentioning Weinberg as an Athesit could make people wrongly thinking that he is not Jewish.--Gilisa 11:39, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

Steven Weinberg is an atheist, he identifies himself an atheist. But atheism is not a religion.That's right.

Dr. Weinberg is a Jewish atheist. User:Devraj5000

Is this a scam?

This article is a disgrace for Wikipedia.

The article talks about one of the greatest living physisists. It contains 0 (ZERO) information about his contribution to science. It contains one paragraph of formal curiculum vitae. After this it has six paragraphs devoted to his attitude to Israel. Then it has a special section devoted to critisism of this really great scientist by some Robert Jensen whose "work has focused on pornography" (http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Steven_Weinberg&action=edit&section=new).

Is this a joke? Is this a scam to promote Robert Jensen from obscurity?

I agree with you (and with the other users that expressed the same opinion here). I removed that section. It shouldn't be here according to WP:BLP#Criticism because the criticism expresses views irrelevant to subject's notability (Weinberg is a distinguished physicist, but not a famous politician or something like that); and also because the criticism represents the views of a tiny minority. Yevgeny Kats 01:40, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

I totally agree with Yevgeny Kats. And, thanks for removing the criticism section. Steven Weinberg is one of the greatest physicists of all time and Robert Jensen is a punk. RS

Robert Jensen

Robert Jensen is pro-islamic terrorism. I think the criticism section should be removed. User:Devraj5000

I think User:Devraj5000 is engaging in gratuitous slandering. The section needs to be restored. Fromm

Regardless of Jensen's views on terrorism, the "Criticism" section is not appropriate, as it consists entirely of an uncritical narration of Jensen's recent attack on Weinberg based on an alleged conversation. At the very least it should be removed until Weinberg comments.

A criticism section is by definition a narrative of criticism levelled against the subject in question. Not sure why we need to await Weinberg's response before Jensen's crticism is posted. By that thinking, all that Weinberg has to do is ignore his detractors and no one would know what criticism people are levelling against him. Fromm

I am not engaging in gratuitous slandering. Robert Jensen's views are controversial. User:Devraj5000

Steven Weinberg's views on politics and international relations - one might say particularly his accusations of anti-semitism against large sections of the British population - are also controversial. And he is not notable on account of having such views, but primarily for being a Nobel prize-winning physicist and secondarily for being an outspoken rationalist and scientific atheist. It seems strange and inappropriate that an encyclopedia entry on a famous physicist should concentrate on such political views and not on any other aspects of his work or opinions. The current article appears, in short, totally driven by current news events and lacking in any proportion or perspective. --Tdent 14:34, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

WikiProject class rating

This article was automatically assessed because at least one WikiProject had rated the article as start, and the rating on other projects was brought up to start class. BetacommandBot 10:04, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

Category inventor

I hit the minor edit box by mistake, sorry about that. An IP added this category. It seems that scientist, ect discover , rather than invent. Is there a souce that says that this person is an inventor? Anyways, it sort of is a minor point but I posted here since I hit the minor box in error. Cheers! --Tom (talk) 22:03, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

source needed

when the univ of texas lured weinberg from harvard, they had to offer him an astronomical salary - SW wanted to be the highest paid prof on campus. turns out, despite the astronomical salary he did get there was one higher paid prof, the football coach. says a lot about both weinberg and texas. Cinnamon colbert (talk) 13:29, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

We are prisoner of mistakes

For progress of the physics has to recognize our mistakes in the present theoretical physics. My opinion this theme in the link: Theory of the correlation system on the my http://www.cosmology.hu web site. --84.3.20.213 (talk) 08:15, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

Famous Quotes

This is sort of an instant classic of his, I'm adding it to the article:

"With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion." nyt 20.04.1999

TalonX84.152.244.216 (talk) 20:56, 1 October 2009 (UTC)

An Atheist?

Regarding the following quote

There are some things that are quite mysterious in our understanding of nature as we know it now. There is a constant called the "cosmological constant", which if I didn't know anything I would make an estimate of what its magnitude would be just on the basis of guess work from what I know about the laws of nature. The correct value is less than that estimated value by something like 120 orders of magnitude. That looks like some kind of fine tuning.

In the interview being quoted, Steven Weinberg continues:

And we don't know. It may be that that number is simply zero, and it's zero for some fundamental reason that we will discover. And so it isn't fine tuned. It's also possible that the universe is bigger and more complicated than we had thought, and that what we call the universe, is just part of the universe, and that what we call the laws of nature differ from one part to another, and that we are living in a part of the universe where what we call the laws of nature, including the value of this constant, allow life to appear. In that case we wouldn't imagine that any supernatural agency fine tuned the laws and constants to make us possible, any more that we imagine that a supernatural agency arranged that the Earth had a temperature which allows life. Out there, there are doubtless millions of planets in the galaxy, and we live on one that allows life. That doesn't imply to me that it has been specially arranged to allow life.

It's clear from the context that Weinberg is not suggesting that fine turing has actually occurred out. Leaving this context out is misleading and exaggerates the significance of the quote. I think it's better left out altogether, but if it is included then it should be included with the appropriate context.
Lhames (talk) 17:02, 25 September 2009 (UTC)

I agree - this edit makes it appear likely that this was first inserted with the intent to push a certain, unusual view of Weinberg or his intellectual consistency.

But even after User:Boycows added the quote again enlarged by the above context, its significance remains unclear, and above all, a quote of this length is likely to be a copyright violation, cf. Wikipedia:Quotations#Quotations_and_fair_use.

I have removed it again, as several other users have done before, and ask Boycows to discuss the issue here before adding it a sixth time.

Regards, HaeB (talk) 22:45, 29 October 2009 (UTC)

Zionism

It says, "While this is not extraordinary in itself, he, like many American Jews, supports Israel from a liberal point of view." Source? What does this even mean? What liberal point of view? and who are these other supposed "many" American Jews who support Israel in this manner? Weinberg is a zionist, period. And that is all that needs to be said. Removing that part. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.59.126.203 (talk) 01:44, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

Asymptotic safety

I strongly think that asymptotic safety deserves a mention among weinbergs many great ideas Plz just add a mention if you agree, — Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.82.74.50 (talk) 09:21, 9 July 2011 (UTC)

Selection

Selection seems to be taking place in Weinberg's examples of slavery caused by religion. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.68.22.63 (talk) 14:38, 10 April 2014 (UTC)

Nicely written article

Who did it? :-)

My only suggestions are that the paragraphing of the career section be less fragmentary, and that the overall text be expanded (there's certainly room for that).

I came here after reading a review of his latest book in the Times Literary Supplement, which I'll like to in the "External links" section, if that's ok. Tony (talk) 10:08, 13 May 2015 (UTC)