Hawking and the TOE DVD

Stephen Hawking is not a philosopher and he is as given to foolish remarks as any other physicist. He is not a philosopher of physics nor is he a philosopher of religion.

Those who make DVD's to popularize his views are often journalists - but not necessarily science journalists. Science journalism is demanding.

The first episode of the 2009 DVD Stephen Hawking and the Theory of Everything makes remarkable gaffes: the low-orbit space shuttle escapes earth's gravity (someone should tell the moon - and why haven't the earth and planets escaped the sun's gravity well? So we have not reached Kepler and Newton ... but we are shown a penny spiralling on a rubber sheet: the props are ready but the script is not.)

Next we are told that in the quantum foam of space, atoms go in and out of existence. Atoms. Well, that brings us almost to 1905.

Did they not think of having a high scholl physics teacher review their final cut?  Listen to it - not "watch it".

Of course the real problem is that even in 2009 we are portraying the "man" Hawking and not "the science". There is no one single authority on the current state theory of quantum gravity, dark matter and cosmology. But it is possible to get something of a balanced view by stepping back from the sycophants. Perhaps not as much a step back as Lee Smolin would suggest, but something more like an effort at objectivity.

Hawking likes to talk the God of Einstein, and while that may have been fine in 1950, the case against the God of the physicists is not much more conclusive than the case against larger stellar clusters at the hearts of spiral galaxies.

The case against an omniscient and omnipotent being who "decreed' the laws of this universe and then let it spin along has been made very well by philosopher Colin McGinn, to mention one.

If Hawking saw a resurgence of "constant state" cosmology based on the question "Why is there something rather than nothing?" he would be right to be concerned. And we are right to be concerned about physics served as pablum. The universe is not porridge.

An interesting comparison might have been Hawking to Penrose - as seen by a mathematical physicist.  Or the popularization successes of Hawking and Greene - as seen by a critic.  Both Penrose and Green are somewhat troubling figures fro other reasons - interesting reasons.  But for that you would need BBC, PBS are a large grant.

Cp: Hubert Reeves or Davies or Gribbon

The Cat and its Body Image

The cat is up on the counter on the tube pillow when its hind legs slip off - she then uses her front paws to pull her hind legs up until its hind paws are again under its chin.  Nap resumes.  Something about this seems not quite right on the post-Cartesian account ...

Note: the in-door cat was staring for the longest time at the outdoor staircase - it cannot see the bottom of those outer stairs to the deck from its widow, but the orange intruder cat had fled in that direction.  Suddenly it flips its whole body a bit left - stares - and then flips back to staring at the head of the stairs ...

Note: the cat is "looking for" the mouse pointer where the cathode ray tube is fitted into its plastic case: the "mouse" disappeared in that direction ( to the other screen to the right) - it doesn't just try to get a claw into the gap - it tries to press its head up to the screen to peek in.

The cat is watching the spare DVD footage for some Antarctic (Cape Murdoe) expedition;  the spare film footage is of Weddell seals under the sea ice of the ice shelf.  The cat does not watch television, but it is watching these slow seals with interest - they leave the scene - return - they appear to perhaps be trapped ... is there no escape? Is that what the cat has noticed, that these large grey lumpen mice are trapped in the television screen?

But cat's do not imagine (I think I have that on Roger Scruton's authority.)