Cox: Sellout or Saviour.

[Barrykgerdes]

Originally Posted by sjastro

Okay then............

I'll have to ask the question.
You're stranded on a desert island and given the choice of a companion.
Brian Cox or Ed Witten?

Regards

Steven

I don't personally know either. I may prefer to risk the sharks!

Barry

[jjjnettie (Jeanette)]

Originally Posted by sjastro

Okay then............

I'll have to ask the question.
You're stranded on a desert island and given the choice of a companion.
Brian Cox or Ed Witten?

Regards

Steven

That's not a fair question. I'm totally biased, of course I'd choose Brian. I'd rather be stuck on a desert island with someone I know I get along with, than with an unknown personality.

[brian nordstrom (As avatar)]

No question about it in my book , Savior .
the man does a very good job of popularizing astronomy for all , I like his style , modern .
Brian.

[blink138 (Pat)]

Originally Posted by jjjnettie

That's not a fair question. I'm totally biased, of course I'd choose Brian. I'd rather be stuck on a desert island with someone I know I get along with, than with an unknown personality.

touche' nettie!
I think his science is much much better than his music!
pat

[bojan]

I think I posted this story here on forum before.. not sure.
It happened in Split on 14 October 2011, and it was a clash between the local professor of astrophysics, dr. sc. Dejan Vinković from the Split's university and dr. Charles Jackson, creationist.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature...&v=jqHNNpZyXt4

While the title of the video is "Creationists failure", I am not totally convinced it is appropriate, see for yourself (some of the discussion was in English, most was in Croatian but it was simultaneously translated into English for dr Jackson).

The way I see the outcome (after my desperate attempt to distance myself from all facts and "facts" presented during the discussion and observing only body language and general behaviour of the participants, and some comments from the public), regrettably I had to admit to myself that the creationist guy was much better prepared and better presented his view (of course, he is professional creationist, and Dr Vinkovic is not - unfortunately he lost patience and didn't serve his cause (scientific view) as he intended).

The point I am trying to make here (again) is, that you may look attractive and camera may love you (maybe this does not apply to this video), but that doesn't necessarily make your story correct and complete.

Dr Cox is a fantastic presenter, and he is doing an awesome work in popularisation of science - but much more than this has to be done, otherwise another cute guy (or girl) from pseudo-science camp may quickly undo all this effort (unless we consider the rising sales of astro-equipment as sufficient result.. in which case both sides are useful for the business).

[astroron (Ron)]

Could somone Please Tell Us where his Science is wrong.:question :
Please give us some examples:questi on:
I have not seen one put forward by any of his detractors.
As I have mentioned before,Carl Sagen went through the same sort of
negativity,and is now one the most revered astronomers to the astronomical community,both professional and Amateur.
I really enjoyed the series,and would be quite happy to watch it again.
Cheers

[bojan]

Ron,
I am not negative and there is nothing factually wrong with B Cox's science..

OK, let's take an example, this video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Due4fbAdSSU

at 4:17, Brian tells us about success of QED, and how interaction (repulsion) between two electrons can be explained by emission and absorption of photon.. totally technically correct and illustrated by two pretty skaters playing with the ball.

But, tell me one thing: How someone, without any previous knowledge of physics (lets say a politician) could possibly understand what is really going on here?
From the video, someone could understand that the net repulsion force between the two was created because one electron (player) throw the photon (ball) so electron (she) was recoiled by this action, and another electron (player) was then hit by the same photon (ball), so it (she) was pushed away.

Not good analogy to explain repulsion between two electrons in my book.


It needs a lot more reading (for example, Feinmann's book "QED: The Strange Theory of Light and Matter") to better (and well enough, but still not fully) understand what it is all about.
This is what I am talking about.

[Camelopardalis (Dunk)]

Surely the efforts of those such as Brian are intended to get the audience hooked, to inspire people - not take everything he says and blindly accept it, but to go away afterwards and find out more?

I think he does a great job. A celebrity scientist. The world could use a good few more. Sadly the psyche(?) of the typical example of the species buries themselves in their work and rarely comes out into sunlight to interact with the world. Not dissing their work, but in my experience few have that double barrel talent of being a good scientist and being able to articulate their successes, failures and relevance to the public in the hope of making them care.

[bojan]

Originally Posted by Camelopardalis

Surely the efforts of those such as Brian are intended to get the audience hooked, to inspire people - not take everything he says and blindly accept it, but to go away afterwards and find out more?

Unfortunately, in most cases people accept those things for granted and go away.. very few will go and dig for more.

[CJ (Chris)]

Saviour.
If you assume the technical content is correct, which most viewers, me included, will likely have to, then whether you bother to watch the programme at all comes down to whether you dislike his manner or not. Give me his brand of gentle but clearly genuine love of scientific matters rather than some overly dramatic presenter, seemingly chosen for their high impact style over their technical knowledge, better suited to the kind of show that likes to show super slomo gun cartridge ejection, every time!
IMHO.

[simmo]

You gotta keep it simple if you want people to learn.

Example. Anybody remember that old guy (somebody will know his name) that did experiments on the old chocolate ads in the 80's with the icecubes and string or the egg in the bottle trick. I used to love those ads as a kid and it intrigued my mind about science. Now if he had just talked about calculus then 99.9% of kids would have gone, huh , and nothing would have developed in us.

I used to love listening to Dr Karl on JJJ too. He would crack me up with some of the weird stuff he would talk about but there was a serious side to him as well that he could really get into the nitty gritty if pressed and that was a really good presenting style.

You definitely need some bright shiny objects to lure the moths when presenting science so that people can slowly absorb what's going on and God knows that people will do their best and learn the most when having fun.

[astroron (Ron)]

Originally Posted by bojan

Ron,
I am not negative and there is nothing factually wrong with B Cox's science..

OK, let's take an example, this video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Due4fbAdSSU

at 4:17, Brian tells us about success of QED, and how interaction between two electrons can be explained by emission and absorption of photon.. illustrated by two pretty skaters playing with the ball.

But, tell me one thing: How someone, without any previous knowledge of physics (lets say a politician) could possibly understand what is really going on here?
From the video, someone could understand that the net repulsion force between the two was created because one electron (player) throw the photon (ball) (so she was recoiled by this action), and another electron (player) was hit by the photon (ball), so it (she) was pushed away.

Not good analogy in my book.

Bojan,
It needs a lot more reading (for example, Feinmann's book "QED: The Strange Theory of Light and Matter") to better (and well enough, but still not fully) understand what it is all about.
This is what I am talking about.

Bojan, Not much I can say too that except to say,you, who I would say have a greater knowledge of physics than me, How would you explain it to the layman such as myself.
I,after looking at it a few times got the gist of what he was trying to say.
I would also hazard a guess that what you say about people not understanding what he said, could be said about most scientific programs.
I struggle to get my head around stuff by Brian Green and Lawrence Krauss, and others,re Multiverses and other Spooky Physics.
Cheers

[sjastro]

Unfortunately Science presenters are between a rock and a hard place to explain physics to the general public.
As the science becomes more complicated the analogy is usually the only way to explain the concept, yet the more complicated the concept the less effective the analogy.
Then the agenda based opponents of science such as the creationists, the flat earth people, the Universe goes around the Earth people, the electric universe supporters etc all exploit these analogies by suggesting that mainstream consider them real.
So the message is spread that mainstream actually think space time is made out of a rubber sheet or magnetic field lines are real.

Its no wonder that mainstream scientists have been the most vocal critics to this analogy base type of education.

Regards

Steven

[Steffen]

Those BBC programmes are not (nor meant to be) science lectures. They're designed to be engaging and show the fascinating side of science to a mostly not scientifically trained audience, to make science look cool.

I think they achieve that.

Cheers
Steffen.

[bojan]

Originally Posted by astroron

...How would you explain it to the layman such as myself.

I would never use two pretty girls to illustrate the problem.. too distracting :wink:

However, this is not an easy task at all... Frankly, I am not sure (yet) how to answer to your challenge in the best way - when I am ready, I will let you know.

I am working on my own better understanding of QED (by reading Feinmann's explanations, and connecting the simplified (but correct in principle) stuff he writes about in his book with what I still remember from uni days about wave functions and Schoedinger's equation and its solutions (which are basically trig functions (or, even better, exponential functions with complex arguments), describing the probability of finding the electron at certain place.. we were studying the behaviour of electron in a potential well of the semiconductor, and I must admit now that I did this then only to pass the exam.. now I want and need some deeper understanding of all this).

I am finding that those analogies offered on TV are sometimes grossly distracting to my own efforts to grasp the QED properly (not only because of pretty skaters).
Maybe this is the reason why I am a bit more fussy than usual...

[astroron (Ron)]

Quote)
Its no wonder that mainstream scientists have been the most vocal critics to this analogy base type of education.

Steven, then let the mainstream scientist come up with something better
Surely Brian Cox is a main stream scientist?,as is main job is as a particle physicist at CERN

If people want to understand more then they have the opportunity to do so.
Some people will always take things literally,re the use of the rubber sheet,magnetic field lines ect.
Cheers

[astroron (Ron)]

Originally Posted by simmo

You gotta keep it simple if you want people to learn.

Example. Anybody remember that old guy (somebody will know his name) that did experiments on the old chocolate ads in the 80's with the icecubes and string or the egg in the bottle trick. I used to love those ads as a kid and it intrigued my mind about science. Now if he had just talked about calculus then 99.9% of kids would have gone, huh , and nothing would have developed in us.

I used to love listening to Dr Karl on JJJ too. He would crack me up with some of the weird stuff he would talk about but there was a serious side to him as well that he could really get into the nitty gritty if pressed and that was a really good presenting style.

You definitely need some bright shiny objects to lure the moths when presenting science so that people can slowly absorb what's going on and God knows that people will do their best and learn the most when having fun.

Professor Julius Sumner Miller.
Used to love them myself.
Cheers

[jjjnettie (Jeanette)]

Brian Edward Cox, OBE (born 3 March 1968) is an English particle physicist, a Royal Society University Research Fellow, PPARC Advanced Fellow, and Professor at the University of Manchester. He is a member of the High Energy Physics group at the University of Manchester, and works on the ATLAS experiment at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN, near Geneva, Switzerland. He is working on the research and development project of the FP420 experiment in an international collaboration to upgrade the ATLAS and the CMS experiment by installing additional, smaller detectors at a distance of 420 metres from the interaction points of the main experiments. (Wiki)

Making documentaries and conducting lecture tours is just a side line. A very profitable one at that.

[sjastro]

Originally Posted by astroron

Steven, then let the mainstream scientist come up with something better
Surely Brian Cox is a main stream scientist?,as is main job is as a particle physicist at CERN

If people want to understand more then they have the opportunity to do so.
Some people will always take things literally,re the use of the rubber sheet,magnetic field lines ect.
Cheers

Ron,

Brian Cox is a mainstream scientist, my point being that mainstream scientists have never been keen on one of their own to expressing theories in terms of analogies which could be misunderstood or are just plain irrelevant.

The example of the pretty girl A passing a ball to pretty girl B to simulate the creation of a photon to explain the electromagnetic force might be visually appealing for the male audience but very superficial in explaining what is actually going on.

Regards

Steven

[astroron (Ron)]

Originally Posted by sjastro

Ron,

Brian Cox is a mainstream scientist, my point being that mainstream scientists have never been keen on one of their own to expressing theories in terms of analogies which could be misunderstood or are just plain irrelevant.

The example of the pretty girl A passing a ball to pretty girl B to simulate the creation of a photon to explain the electromagnetic force might be visually appealing for the male audience but very superficial in explaining what is actually going on.

Regards

Steven

So if it was two men passing the ball,would have that made any difference
Was the illustration wrong or irrelevant in your opinion Steven?

Albert Einstein was also very prolific in his popularizing of physics and at times was also frowned up on by Mainstream Science.
He used props to demonstrate his point.
Cheers