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I removed the reference to "flame wars". Lubos/Lumidek, I've seen you in many Usenet debates and you know that I often don't like what you say and/or how you say it. But nothing has ever gone as far as what would traditionally qualify as a flame war. So don't be so hard on yourself! ^_^
-- Toby Bartels, 2004 May 10 (revised May 18)
- i remember reading that lubos has an IQ of 150, which according to MENSA is "genius", and on sci.physics.strings he recommends strings over LQG
- — Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.63.220.240 (talk) (Hawk Communications; geolocated in Chicago)
Vandalization of Tom Banks
Please have a look at Talk:Tom_Banks
— Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.196.97.73 (talk) (the net.novis.pt anon; geolocated near Coimbra, Portugal
- The sentence He is best known for his discovery of Lubos Motl was added to Tom Banks by 69.236.40.68 (talk · contribs), aka the pltn13.pacbell.net anon, a suspected sock for Jack Sarfatti, an individual who happens to dislike Lubos Motl and who has been permabanned for his bad behavior in the Wikipedia. Sarfatti has made snide comments in articles on various other persons he apparently dislikes, including John Baez and Hal Puthoff. I removed the sentence in question, which I presume is what the net.novis.pt anon was referring to.---CH 11:56, 22 May 2006 (UTC)
Beliefs
See: http://www.amazon.com/gp/cdp/member-reviews/A1ZDPQA6FLY8XM?ie=UTF8 — Preceding unsigned comment added by 134.139.24.131 (talk)
- So he defines himself as a Christian and an Atheist. However, Category:Atheist scientists "is a category for scientists who identify as atheists and for whom being atheist is relevant to their public life or occupation." That doesn't seem to be true for Dr. Motl, does it? We shouldn't track down the religious beliefs of every scientist and stuff them in categories; that's silly. -- SCZenz 22:46, 26 October 2006 (UTC)
- Prof Motl is also interested in politics. Like many people of his age from Eastern Europe, he is not a great fan of the left. Note that he called himself a "Christian atheist" in reviewing a political book by the late great Oriana Fallaci, not in discussing science.
- I've added something about his blog, his politics and this label into the article, and removed the categories. My description of his politics is really bad; someone please improve it! CWC(talk) 00:39, 27 October 2006 (UTC)
- Are we sure his political views are really notable? He has an article because he is a professor of physics at Harvard; if he blogged without that, I don't think he'd have one. -- SCZenz 03:06, 27 October 2006 (UTC)
- "So and so has a blog, and calls himself an athiest christian in an Amazon review..." Encyclopedia Britanica it ain't. Some quality control, please.--GaeusOctavius 03:25, 27 October 2006 (UTC)
- It's important to know about his religion, so it is going back in. 4.131.129.117 03:58, 27 October 2006 (UTC)
- SCZenz makes a good point, but I still think it's good to have a brief mention of his blog (which is, in fact, mostly about string theory and useful to laymen like me). I wouldn't say it's important to mention his (non?)religious stance, but I think a brief mention makes the article a little more informative (as long as we avoid "undue weight") and linking to that Amazon review makes the article a lot more informative. I've edited the article accordingly. (BTW, GaeusOctavius's last few edits here are violations of WP:POINT. See User talk:GaeusOctavius for some of the background.) Cheers, CWC(talk) 08:57, 27 October 2006 (UTC)
From WP:LIVING Information supplied by the subject may be added to the article if (amongst other things) it is relevant to the person's notability. I think that has to be established here, and I think it has not been established here, certainly on religion, quite likely on politics. Charles Matthews 12:32, 27 October 2006 (UTC)
- (<Wikilawyering>Um, doesn't that come from WP:BLP#Using the subject as a source? I don't think we're using Prof M as a source here.</Wikilawyering>)
- I completely agree that whatever we say about the non-notable areas of someone's life has to be uncontroversial. However, I fear that the article already has something controversial about Prof M's writings on physics: the paragraph in this article about the Bogdanov Affair strikes me as giving undue weight to Prof M's belated and peripheral involvement in the Bogdanov mess.
- I'm not certain what to do about this. Do other editors think this should be fixed? (If so, how?) Cheers, CWC(talk) 06:49, 28 October 2006 (UTC)
April 2007
I've just WP:BOLDly removed the text about "defend"ing the Bogdanov brothers (because that seems to me to mischaracterize the blog post in question) and trimmed down the politics/religion paragraph. Here's what we had before my edit:
- Motl was one of the few physicists to defend the Bogdanov brothers' papers, though he did state about one that "the detailed structure of the paper (and very similar papers published elsewhere) probably makes no sense - at least no one has been able to understand the content of the paper in detail".[1]
- Motl keeps a blog mainly about string theory but also discussing general science, politics and events at Harvard. In science, besides talking about string theory, he frequently criticizes research into global warming. In politics, he was one of few Harvard faculty willing to openly defend president Lawrence Summers's controversial remarks regarding women in science. In religion, following the example of Oriana Fallaci, he counts himself "as a Christian atheist" [2], [3] although he notes "how simple-minded and naive Christianity can be" [4] .
Here's the current version:
- Motl keeps a blog mainly about string theory but also discussing general science, politics and events at Harvard. In science, besides talking about string theory, he frequently criticizes alarmism about global warming. In politics, he was one of few Harvard faculty willing to openly defend president Lawrence Summers's controversial remarks regarding women in science, and he admires the late Oriana Fallaci.[5]
I think the article is now much more balanced. Cheers, CWC 04:06, 6 April 2007 (UTC)
Leaving Harvard
This really needs a source guys. And obviously a rewording, but the source comes first. --Theblog 18:53, 14 July 2007 (UTC)
- Deleted for the moment. No way WP can publish vague rumours about people's careers. Charles Matthews 19:36, 14 July 2007 (UTC)
- Apparently one of LM's more bitter enemies has been trying to spread these rumours for months now. Sigh. CWC 01:50, 15 July 2007 (UTC)
- LM is no longer listed on Harvard Physics faculty list [6]. I think this indicates that he has indeed left Harvard. I couldn't find any reliable sources on the circumstances of what has happened, though. Andris 05:17, 15 July 2007 (UTC)
- While this: [7] is probably true, it is not a reliable source. I would say that a post on his own blog on the subject would be acceptable, but as a comment on another blog, that doesn't fly. --Theblog 06:12, 15 July 2007 (UTC)