Talk:Lee Smolin/Archive 1

Archive 1

How does he feel about string theory?

How can he suggest that loop quantum gravity and string theory are the same (paragraph 2), but also take the contradictory stance that loop quantum gravity is good and string theory is bad (paragraph 4)? Yafujifide 23:24, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

Skewyou's contribution

User Skewyou added the following sentences:

Smolin points out that the cosmic landscape idea not Popper falsifiable if the other worlds are not observable in principle. There are two ways out of this one is traversable wormholes connecting the different parallel worlds and the other is "signal nonlocality" as described by Antony Valentini who is also at the Perimeter Institute. Both ideas would be revolutionary for orthodox physics.

I removed them because of their gross grammatical deficiency. If they could be put into standard English, then they would surely add value to the article.Lestrade 18:27, 7 November 2007 (UTC)Lestrade

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 09:58, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

This book is extremely important and stands on its own merit

This book is extremely important and deserves to be separated from the "Lee Smolin" entry, since the book stands on its own merit, and discusses the most direct and relevant issues pertaining to the forefront of physics.

I haven't used this system for a long time. Can someone help and refresh my forgotten knowledge about how to edit, discuss, ask, respond, and so on - in the Wikipedia system ?

Thanks, Hard Nut (talk) 00:13, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

I agree. This book covers a very important topic in physics and the sociology of physics, and should be its own article.SherryNugil (talk) 15:10, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

A Definite No-Merger !

Unfortunately, some of my physicist-colleagues would very much like to see this book censored. Maybe they feel threatened by the broad perspectives and challenging ideas portrayed in this book. I do not subscribe to such censorship, especially when it comes to a book of such qualities!

In fact, I am going to Edit the page, and remove the merge notice.

--Shimon Yanowitz (talk) 00:58, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

Broken link in 6th reference

"American Scientist review of "The Trouble with Physics" http://www.americanscientist.org/BookReviewTypeDetail/assetid/54416" Possible correct link is "http://www.americanscientist.org/bookshelf/pub/all-strung-out". Please someone check it. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.184.241.199 (talk) 08:47, 15 August 2008 (UTC) upd: oh god, no one cares :-) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.184.241.199 (talk) 11:36, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

religion does not equal ethnicity

In the side bar it says ethnicity Jewish. But in Wikipedia under Jew is says "Within the world's Jewish population there are distinct ethnic divisions, most of which are primarily the result of geographic branching from an originating Israelite population, and subsequent independent evolutions." So I would like to see Wikipedia be self consistent. How about we say Religion Jewish?

As far as ethnicity goes in the picture he looks white to me. Edpell3 (talk) 23:45, 25 January 2010 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Edpell3 (talk • contribs) 23:42, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

redirect from Baby universe

In my opinion, it's completely wrong for Baby universe to redirect here. The concept is not synonymous with Smolin's evolution idea.--76.167.77.165 (talk) 05:14, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

I agreed. I have replace the redirection with a stub template.

Im not a physicist. But i do have a concern... his idea of fecund universes sounds like an endorsement of a theory of multiple universes. Yet below this section on fecund universes is one wherein smolin apparently repudiates the idea of multiverse, claiming there is only one universe. Is this something like a problem between One "Mother" universe within which all other particular offspring universes derive and are ultimately reducible back to? or is it the case that all other universes are evolutionary failures, ours being the exception? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.34.99.178 (talk) 09:35, 21 July 2009 (UTC)

I'm wondering about this also. I don't think your interpretations would work - the point of the theory is that there should be multiple universes, ours being among the most numerous kind - ones that maximize production of black holes. There is no presumption universes die off, only the biophillic ones predominate. Maybe he simply changed his mind? Aryah (talk) 06:34, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

These are, in fact, two competing concepts under almost the same "name"; multiple universes (which he develops in "Life of the Cosmos"; and multiverses, which he opposes in the article in PhysicsWorld. The former concept refers to universes created by a mother universe from black holes; the latter is an example of quantum theory's superposition principle, where you, every object, and every process exist from every moment forward until eternity in ever-increasing numbers of parallel worlds (or universes).

What does it all come down to:

---that explaining complex theories about such fundamental subjects within the bounds of a biographical article is impossible. They should be included as concise reference to a free-standing article link.

---summarizing major books in nine (count 'em) lines is heroic to attempt, but doomed to failure; and besides that a bit of a hubris.

---his books are indeed worth reviewing, but how to summarize?

Better would be authoring articles about his ideas, referring therein to his books.

---his book "The Trouble (Problem?) with Physics" is major contribution to discussion of the sociological problem of coterie building; which affects all sectors of society. In this case, to the detriment of science, and leading to universities declining into perverse pandering centers seeking professorial favor. They should be instead forums for free exchange and discussion of ideas (without massive sponsoring).

Idealist707 (talk) 20:31, 1 May 2011 (UTC)

Controversies

WP:NOTAFORUM + talk page is to discuss improvements to the article --betsythedevine (talk) 12:35, 30 May 2011 (UTC)
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
This note concerns the deleted text : In 1998, Sidney Coleman and Sheldon Glashow published a paper suggesting that Lorentz symmetry violation (LSV) could be at the origin of a suppression of the Greisen-Zatsepin-Kuzmin (GZK) cutoff. But the work by Luis Gonzalez-Mestres, that Coleman and Glashow do not cite, is clearly prior to their suggestion. In his book The Trouble With Physics, Lee Smolin, a former doctoral student of Sidney Coleman at Harvard, wrongly attributes to Coleman and Glashow this original idea. Already in a 1996 paper , Gonzalez-Mestres had also conjectured that superbradyon decay could provide a source of ultra-high energy cosmic rays. In April 1997, postulating the existence of a vacuum rest frame and a quadratic momentum dependence for the effective LSV parameters, González-Mestres pointed out that Lorentz symmetry violation for "ordinary" particles can lead to a suppression of the GZK cutoff and that, under the same hypothesis, unstable particles can become stable at ultra-high energy. More generally, the stability and decays of ultra-high energy particles would depend on LSV parameters. These original ideas were also presented at the 1997 International Cosmic Ray Conference. (en of the text) You can find more details in a former version of the biography of Luis Gonzalez-Mestres that one is trying to remove : http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Luis_Gonz%C3%A1lez-Mestres&oldid=405694130 Including the explicit mentions by the New York Times and the CERN Courier. Then, a simple check of article dates shows that the papers by Gonzalez-Mestres were clearly prior to those of Coleman and Glashow. Citizen Biographer (talk) 10:35, 26 May 2011 (UTC) More precisely, Nick Mavromatos wrote in the August 2002 CERN Courier : "Other astrophysical probes of the stochastic quantum-gravity effects may be provided by ultra-high-energy cosmic rays (UHECR) with energies above 1019 eV, as well as by TeV photons. The presence of such events seems puzzling from the point of view of Lorentz invariance - standard kinematics imply the existence of energy thresholds, the Greisen, Zatsepin, Kuzmin (GZK) cut-off, above which certain reactions would prevent such energetic particles from reaching the observation point, assuming an extra-galactic origin. Some exotic suggestions have been made to relate Lorentz invariance violation associated with the quantum-gravity-induced modification of the particle's dispersion relations with the existence of UHECR or TeV photons, in the form of an abolition of the GZK cut-off in such models." One of the references of the article is : L Gonzalez-Mestres 1997 physics/9704017 at http://www.arxiv.org/. which corresponds to : http://arxiv.org/abs/physics/9704017 (14 April 1997) whose abstract explicitly states : The sectorial Lorentz symmetry may be only a low-energy limit, in the same way as the relation $\omega $ (frequency) = $c_s$ (speed of sound) $k$ (wave vector) holds for low-energy phonons in a crystal. We study the consequences of such a scenario, using an ansatz inspired by the Bravais lattice as a model for some vacuum properties. It then turns out that: a) the Greisen-Zatsepin-Kuzmin cutoff on high-energy cosmic protons and nuclei does no longer apply; b) high-momentum unstable particles have longer lifetimes than expected with exact Lorentz invariance, and may even become stable at the highest observed cosmic ray energies or slightly above. (end of quote) Similarly, in The New York Times (December 2002), Dennis Overbye writes : http://www.nytimes.com/2002/12/31/science/interpreting-the-cosmic-rays.html?n=Top/News/Science/Topics/Space In the late 1990's Dr. Luis Gonzalez-Mestres of the National Center for Scientific Research in France, and, independently, the Harvard theorists Dr. Sheldon Glashow and Dr. Sidney Coleman proposed that a small violation of relativity would allow high-energy cosmic rays to evade the G.Z.K. energy limit on travel. (end of quote) Even if Dennis Overbye uses the expression "independently", the way he quotes Gonzalez-Mestres is a clear recognizion of his priority. Then, one can check the actual dates of papers. It is quite obvious that in August 1998 there was no reason for Coleman and Glashow not to cite Gonzalez-Mestres. A fortiori, Lee Smolin's book... Citizen Biographer (talk) 11:00, 26 May 2011 (UTC) This seems to be a serious ethical issue, even if one can understand that Smolin would possibly have a natural tendency to share the views of Sidney Coleman. Did the situation of Gonzalez-Mestres at Collège de France, as a well-known member of the "dissident" unions, have an influence on the fact that Coleman and Glashow refrained from quoting him when they had done it before ? 09:51, 29 May 2011 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Negun (talk • contribs) It is just a fact that two essential results claimed by Coleman and Glashow in 1998 as original (possible GZK suppression and stability of unstable particles at ultra-high energies) : http://arxiv.org/abs/hep-ph/9808446 http://arxiv.org/abs/hep-ph/9812418 explicitly appear in the abstract of the April 1997 paper by Gonzalez-Mestres : http://arxiv.org/abs/physics/9704017 83.199.48.32 (talk) 09:38, 30 May 2011 (UTC)

References

Diversionary "red herrings" in introduction, 3rd paragraph

Giving headline status to "red flag" issues of creationary vs evolutionary universes, belief or non-belief in God, and belief vs non-belief in mankind's unique status as "proof", taken all together will surely raise the hackles of many readers. They serve only to create gut reactions. These risk causing either chin-nicking concurrence or a mind-closing reactions, depending on your beliefs.

It would be preferable to instead present his principle positons in a more neutral presentation, for example:

"Smolin supports the idea that the universe was not determined as to its course when it started; rather that it is relational in the sense that it may evolve with time in that no actions or events are pre-determined. Further, the laws of physics may not be a priori determined but rather are one of the universes evololutional results. A further contribution to the layman in understanding physics is his guidance in taking the steps from the world-views of Aristotle, to Newton, to Einstein and quantum physics. From natural observation, to a fixed background of space and time, to a background-free universe. All of these points of view place their respective constraints on physics' development.

He notes the relational universe posited by Leibniz, which Newton acknowledged as the most logical, but then an impossible way forward. He also points out the anomaly that while physics acknowledges the existence of a relational universe (since ca 1910); it still is confined by the Newtonian mindset in both thought and praxis: see for example quantum physics reliance on a fixed background."

While my proposed alternative may not find favor, I would at least hope that others feel it worthwhile replacing abovementioned "red flags" with more pertinent material.

Idealist707 (talk) 18:25, 19 June 2011 (UTC)

Ok, what now... single or multiple universes?

In Theory and work the article states that Smolin has advanced a theory which states that a collapsing black hole causes the emergence of a new universe on the "other side". In Views he is quoted with There is only one universe..

So what now? Assuming that black holes can collapse, does he believe in a single universe or not? Nageh (talk) 19:33, 8 June 2010 (UTC)

He supports through his books multiple universes, but opposes multiverses. See comments above clarifying this point. They are completely different concepts with completely divverent causes and results. Idealist707 (talk) 20:31, 1 May 2011 (UTC)

Surely he's addressed the issue more clearly than the article would indicate… The tag line on his Physics World article says: “Many cosmological theories not only see our universe as one of many but also claim that time does not exist. Lee Smolin argues against the timeless multiverse” so I qualified multiverse with “timeless”. Italics are supposedly uncited quotations, and only one of the non-italic sentences goes out of its way to include non-copies as well as copies, (I tagged it clarification needed as presumably “copies” would refer to the many-worlds-type-universes mentioned in the above section). Not to split no hairs, but did Tegmark snub his fecund theorem in the multiverse taxonomy or something?—Machine Elf ¹⁷³⁵ 16:36, 20 November 2011 (UTC)

Is this an encyclopedia or a debate forum??

The animus which I feel may be in the introduction, is also present in the paragraphs following the heading Fecund Universe.

Presentation of summaries of the viewpoints of known peer-approved scientists regarding his book is a doubtful technique in an encyclopedia. Scientists have their issues, but summarizing these in few words for a lay audience is useless as informtion to the reader. Similarly to the technique of the media, it only reveals the bias of the presentator---and no objective information. It is more kindly a debate technique.

If anything, in my opinion, Smolin may be criticized for his use of the evolutionary model as a analogy for the lay audience. The criticism quoted that his model is a four-fold order of magnitude from a maximum may be true, but is not relevant. Smolin only wishes to show as plausible the fact we are here in a friendly universe, in spite of the improbability of the exact balance of determinant parameters. As to whether it is the best of all possible universes in terms of black hole production is not relevant.

Similarly the question of whether over time the likelihood of a prevalence (in numbers) of short-lived universes versus long-lived fecund ones is in fact discussed in evolutional biology; and the answer here is the same as the answer there: Time only will tell which reproduction strategy is most successful.

But again Smolin wishes primarily to demonstrate how our universe is probable, given the passing on of characteristics to the offspring universes; wherein our existence is linked to the successful production of long-lived universes (as time is necessary to the production of stars and us).

As to his falsified prediction, this is of little importance. While one falsification may be considered as proving the falseness, in fact many counter propositions are often made; and the debate rages on. Read Wiki article on Boltzman if you want an example of this.

Smolin has, at least to judge from the poorly hidden animus, attracted the general public's attention. And it would appear that they are defending their inherited points of view. And no fault in that, the ideas of our fathers are well-proven, so believes all mankind. Otherwise we would not be where we are today.

But to refuse the opportunity to analyze one position is personally a lost opportunity. I don't think Smolin wrote this book to advance his career among his peers, nor to gather a following among the lay audience. He, IMHO, offers a primarally philosophically oríented exposition which encourages deeper thinking than most of us do normally in our lives.

Be thankful for that; and take it as such. But let's present the man neutrally.

If his ideas are controversial; then at least present them in a neutral way. Cite sources criticising, but don't try to summarize them as a way of rebuttal. This is not a debate forum. It you want to make a point then write an article, if policy permits debate articles. But don't do it here in this article. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Idealist707 (talk • contribs) 19:35, 19 June 2011 (UTC)

I added a bit to the article which clears up a major misconception regarding Smolin's black hole predictions. It comes right after the sentence that says his CNS work was "falsified according to Smolin's own criteria." Clearly someone wants to just shut down thinking on this topic. Someone, perhaps the person who wrote that line, removed my follow-on edits without putting any notice here on the talk page, a least that I can see. I will add them back again, but I don't have confidence that they will stay. There seems to be some folks here who have an illogical animosity to his work. For example, the way the Cosmological Natural Selection page was pared down and shoved back here, as "Fecund Universes" on his biography page, was unconscionable. I had to move that page to our own wiki (see http://evodevouniverse.com/wiki/Cosmological_natural_selection_(fecund_universes)) just to keep it alive and give it proper airing. I hope someone can bring the page back at Wikipedia, where it belongs. JohnMSmart (talk) 19:10, 23 March 2012 (UTC)

Although you complain about POV in the article, your comment here is in itself an instance of POV. I have reverted your deletion from the article until it is shown that there is a consensus for your position. Please do not make any more changes to the article without first discussing them here. Beyond My Ken (talk) 22:21, 23 March 2012 (UTC)

Discussion of capitalization of universe

There is request for comment about capitalization of the word universe at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Capital letters#Capitalization of universe - request for comment. Please participate. SchreiberBike talk 00:38, 4 February 2015 (UTC)

Notification of request for comment

An RfC has been commenced at MOSCAPS Request for comment - Capitalise universe.

Cinderella157 (talk) 03:23, 22 March 2015 (UTC)

Biased article

This article is extremely biased. Lee Smolin is not well-known because of his scientific contributions. He is just known because he wrote a book criticizing string theory. His scientific contribution is pretty standard: he does not even get to 10000 citations, well bellow HUNDREDS of other physicists which do not have any wikipedia page. In fact, he is considered to be a crackpot scientist by many respected active physicists. Plus, not nearly enough references are provided for the claims made in the page. As a general rule, we cannot take every paper by Lee Smolin and make it into a big contribution to physics by commenting it in wikipedia. His paper are just average papers that do not qualify as sections of a wikipedia page. — Preceding unsigned comment added by MAloeVeritasM (talk • contribs) 01:50, 25 May 2017 (UTC)

@MAloeVeritasM: I mostly (but not entirely) reverted the edits you made. The biggest problems were the (1) you removed a complementary claaim/comment about Smolin that included a reference from a reliable source without conversation and (2) you made replaced a neutral phrase introducing Smolin's view with a disclaimer that seemed strongly WP:POV and unencylopedic in tone. If most active physicists consider Smolin a crackpot, please feel free to find examples of this fact being described this in reliable published secondary sources and, only after doing that, include this in the article. Smolin went to the same college I did and I once saw him give a talk 15 years ago. That said, I have no no training in physics at all and I can't evaluate the technical aspects of your claims about his work or about what "most respected active physicists" think. You've got to rely on published sources. This is especially important when you are saying critical things in biographies of living people! —mako๛ 03:59, 22 October 2017 (UTC)

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Just common day language: Uncertainty principle

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

---

No Quantum mechanics, no Higgs, just plain human answer. The term Universe isn’t the property of physicists. Clarification: That's analogical, I couldn't find any better way to put it.

Even Stephen Hawking, who was the largest proponent of the idea that information is lost in a black hole, has reversed his position. The implication is that information transfer from the parent universe into the baby universe through a black hole is not conceivable.

Inner particles can't emit directly from their position in the system (please check electrons) ... because that would mean they're exposed to our unfriendly environment (take CPUs which are fabricated in strictly controlled environments, and then the core is isolated, why?). They would exhaust within seconds if they were!!! What you are seeing as information doesn't include that part (such as real position), couldn't and will never! If you post on Wikipedia, the closest thing one could ever do is trace your IP... if it gets closer, the closest would be your house. There will still be information missing there! If you have family members those would be interacting with you, they don't have to directly interact with Wikipedia. Technically you are counted as one on Wikipedia... but your brother could be providing you all the resources... his weight in the system might be even more than yours. But yet, he's invisible!

Finally, if complex systems fall apart... such as institutions (anthropological Black Hole): what could still be surviving once there is new equilibrium? Relations within the house... (invisible for Wikipedia) not those between two Wikipedia accounts (those involve social roles, they rely on resources outside the house). From an anthropological Black Hole... the information which couldn't be detected is the only which can pass through. Yaḥyā ‎ (talk) 18:07, 23 December 2017 (UTC)

Now you can footnote everything up there, with their equivalent in physics (and you know you can). And this is how you should be dealing with sources here: because what is above will remain as is true, in 10 years or a 1000... it is the temporary which should be feeding from what is permanent (it stands true since Adam and Eve), irregardless of religion, ethnic group or else! Yaḥyā ‎ (talk) 02:49, 24 December 2017 (UTC)

For transparency reasons, prior versions of the comment above:

• 1) Technical POV (Physics): [1]
  • Apologies to Hawking, for not having paid attention to this: Hawking et al. on 5 Jan 2016 proposed new theories of information moving in and out of a black hole.[26][27] The 2016 work posits that the information is saved in "soft particles", low-energy versions of photons and other particles that exist in zero-energy empty space.[28] (Black_hole_information_paradox) I won't link it to zero-energy article, having removed that expression from my replies myself. But it's more or less what I wrote, but mine was in a more common language form.Yaḥyā ‎ (talk) 23:22, 27 December 2017 (UTC)
• 2) Anthropological POV: [2]
• 3) From the I point of view [3]
• 4) The current version is: Mix of 2) & 3) to explain 1)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

broken link, missing citation

In the Views section, there is this heading sentence of a subsection:

"In a 2009 article, Smolin has articulated the following philosophical views (the sentences in italics are quotations):"

There's no citation for that article, instead there's a (broken) hyperlink on the word "article" to this page: https://physicsworld.com/cws/article/indepth/39306

That page says Sorry, we couldn’t find that page, error 404.

Please post a full citation for that article, rather than merely a hyperlink--broken or working--including the name and other details of the article. I want to find it and read. Thanks. Genwicky (talk) 21:01, 31 July 2018 (UTC)

Older comments

Since when (and why?) is Motl considered a "leading physicist". Seems misleading to me, I would suggest removing or changing this. 122.57.78.233 (talk) 23:24, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

Since he had papers published with ~250 citations. Doing a quick literature search I find a dozen or so papers with between ~100-250 citations, and none with less than 20 or so citations. 24.17.243.0 (talk) 08:14, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

Is he really a pantheist?

Yeah, I don't see anything in the article to support placement inCategory:Pantheists. -MrFizyx 23:26, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

Pantheists believe that everything is God. You are God. An ant is God. Rosie O'Donnell's excrement is God. How can you answer "Yeah" to the question as to whether Smolin is a Pantheist? What this question does is to direct focus away from his serious concerns about contemporary science's dogma of string theory.Lestrade 16:34, 27 April 2007 (UTC)Lestrade

I've changed "major contributions to quantum theory of gravity", the claim that must be justified (Wikipedia:Cite sources), to "major contributions to loop quantum gravity". 18.87.0.64 03:49, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

  This note of mine is abt as pathetic as the prior contribs to this section, biz I'm stuck editing it on an IPad ii! It should be curated by an interested colleague who's got better tools at hand, by splitting the 3 respectively related discussions contribs into subsections, each with its own parenthesized heading to help readers prioritize their reading choices based on their individual interests, and where dated sigs are absent supplemented w/ invocations of template:unsigned (or their respective ...undated... &/or ...ip variants).
--Jerzy•t 01:13, 30 October 2018 (UTC)

Done Jerzy•t 01:25, 30 October 2018 (UTC)

Where did the Fecund Universes article go?

That was a really good article! 12.184.170.5 (talk) 15:39, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

No, it was a completely crappy something an anonymous editor wrote in 3 hours, 2 1/2 years ago that nobody could be bothered finding a single reference for since article. It went down the plughole that all articles that completely ignore WP:V are eventually flushed down. Hrafn^Talk_Stalk 16:05, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

Umm...The summary of The Trouble With Physics is really quite poor. Several of the bullets are not right, and the quote is not in the correct context. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 59.94.14.33 (talk) 14:32, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

I don't think "Fecund Universes" should be a section of Leo Smolins page if they're ever to be considered a valid topic in their own right. Tobibeer (talk) 08:39, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

The Trouble With Physics, and How to fix the enclosing talk section

   Uh, dunno if this iPad 2 WP talk interface will accomodate this attempt to compensate for proceeding contributors' miscarried prior comments added within the enclosing "Where did the Fecund Universes article go?" Section. But it's unlikely to make it significantly worse. === further contrib to "Where did the Fecund Universes article go?" section === Jerzy•t 02:14, 30 October 2018 (UTC)

Suggested Addition to Lee Smolin Page (His Thinking on the Nature of Time)

As an addition to the section on Smolin's views, I'd like to propose the following, which is quoted from page 256 of his book 'The Trouble With Physics':

"More and more, I have the feeling that quantum theory and general relativity are both deeply wrong about the nature of time. It is not enough to combine them. There is a deeper problem, perhaps going back to the beginning of physics.”

This a noteworthy statement coming from someone of Smolin's stature in the scientific community, and I believe it deserves to be highlighted.

I'm an inexperienced editor, and would not feel comfortable trying to make such an editorial change on my own, but would appreciate help from more experienced hands. Thanks.

JCNSmith (talk) 15:36, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

I am not knowledgable in physics, but since no one else replied I suggest you to be bold. Nageh (talk) 00:51, 29 May 2012 (UTC)

That was, unfortunately, bad advice! I tried being bold, and it appears that I have royally screwed up this page! I did not see an "Undo Edit" button, so I hope that there is a backup that can be used to repair my butchery. My profound and sincere apologies to Mr. Smolin and to the primary custodian(s) of this page! JCNSmith (talk) 12:37, 17 June 2012 (UTC)

Mission accomplished . . . thanks to excellent help, support, and encouragement, especially from Karenjc. Thank you! I think it's a relatively minor, but worthwhile addition. Numerous small improvements can result in bigger, long-term cumulative improvements. JCNSmith (talk) 23:47, 17 June 2012 (UTC)

I agree that his thinking about time should be better highlighted. His latest book with Roberto M Unger is Singular Universe and the Reality of Time. I can't tell how seriously it's been taken by the physics community, but I do know that it's a bold philosophical notion. I don't feel conversant enough to make an addition to this article at this time, but if no one else takes up the mantle of Singular Universe and the Reality of Time, I mean at least linking to it, I'll wade in about a week or so.DolyaIskrina (talk) 19:37, 1 February 2019 (UTC)