Misplaced Pages

This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Holybeef (talk | contribs) at 18:02, 1 May 2014 (Undid revision 606657890 by Holybeef (talk) Wrong rev, meant to rev the article, not Talk of course. Sorry.). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

This article has not yet been rated on Misplaced Pages's content assessment scale. It is of interest to the following WikiProjects:

Please add the quality rating to the {{WikiProject banner shell}} template instead of this project banner. See WP:PIQA for details. Biography: Science and Academia This article is within the scope of WikiProject Biography, a collaborative effort to create, develop and organize Misplaced Pages's articles about people. All interested editors are invited to join the project and contribute to the discussion. For instructions on how to use this banner, please refer to the documentation.BiographyWikipedia:WikiProject BiographyTemplate:WikiProject Biographybiography This article is supported by the science and academia work group. Please add the quality rating to the {{WikiProject banner shell}} template instead of this project banner. See WP:PIQA for details. Physics: Biographies Mid‑importance This article is within the scope of WikiProject Physics, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of Physics on Misplaced Pages. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.PhysicsWikipedia:WikiProject PhysicsTemplate:WikiProject Physicsphysics Mid This article has been rated as Mid-importance on the project's importance scale. This article is supported by Biographies Taskforce. Please add the quality rating to the {{WikiProject banner shell}} template instead of this project banner. See WP:PIQA for details. Astronomy High‑importance This article is within the scope of WikiProject Astronomy, which collaborates on articles related to Astronomy on Misplaced Pages.AstronomyWikipedia:WikiProject AstronomyTemplate:WikiProject AstronomyAstronomy High This article has been rated as High-importance on the project's importance scale.

Alan Guth the atheist?

This appeared on my talk page, in defence of the claim that Guth is an atheist. It seems more appropriate here:

Here is a site map of the website; http://www.bowness.demon.co.uk/index.htm .

It is even critical of Christianity.

Okay, it seems non-creationist.  :-) But the claim still seems ill-sourced, apparently being based on Guth's biography "The Inflationary Universe". I don't recall any atheist affirmation in it, although he does say something, somewhere (where?, I can't remember) about preferring beliefs to be empirically based. Guth sounds like an atheist to me, but I'm sure many religious people would disagree -- miracles are meant to be empirical, aren't they?

Just give us the page number from his bio. --Michael C. Price 01:29, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

Whether or not he's an atheist, can we get some citation from a WP:RS that documents it? I'm going to go ahead and tag the whole article as needing to cite its sources. Wellspring (talk) 12:58, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

All I know is that he certainly is a practicing Jew. He is taking off this Thursday from MIT to celebrate Yon Kippur. Clark3934 (talk) 23:36, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

:-) --Michael C. Price 06:57, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

I had heard he was a non-practicing Jew. But that's what I've heard, so it's not realiable. He is critical of creationism and intelligent design, as are most scientists (hell, even most religious philosophers), regardless of thier views on religion. You have to remember he's a String Theory proponent, though, they have no view on God as they see it sould be entirely possible he (or it) exists, and it could be possible that he does not. It is not a question they generally like to concern themselves with. I guess that's Apatheism. 98.198.83.12 (talk) 08:45, 28 June 2010 (UTC)

Entry needs editing

Hello. My first Misplaced Pages comment. I enjoyed reading this entry on Alan Guth, but feel I should point out that there are quite a few grammatical errors, missing words, and questionable word choices which a careful reading will reveal. I won't wield the hammer and nails myself because it's past my bedtime, and I'm not sure I know how to go about it anyway. I leave it in your capable hands. All the best. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.116.131.81 (talk) 07:24, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

NPOV

Seems to me like the article is written very colloquially and is far from satisfying the NPOV guidelines. Throughout, there is pretty much a judgement and/or and opinion interjected with every fact.

Example 1: "MIT was easier for him than high school because all his courses were science and math. One reason he did this was because he was worried about the draft. He certainly was not a big fan of the Vietnam War, because in 1970 he participated in some speeches at political activities"

--> What does this undocumented speculation have anything to do with anything?

Example 2: "Ironically, much of that theory had been developed by graduate students at Princeton, but Guth had been too wrapped up in his own ideas to notice what was going on around him. When Guth discovered this he felt embarrassed that he was paying no attention to what his colleagues were doing. Since his time at Princeton had been wasted, he had to find another postdoc job in any way that was available to him, such as reading notices on bulletin boards and called acquaintances who worked in physics departments."

--> This is downright meant to degrade Alan Guth. What is its relevance and significance in this article?

In agreement with the comment above, it is in need of serious work. Evilmathninja (talk) 18:34, 14 November 2008 (UTC)

I agree the whole tone and style of the article is awful (the result of one editor's rewrite). The best thing would be to revert back. --Michael C. Price 21:39, 14 November 2008 (UTC)

not encyclopedic

As others have noted, this article needs serious work. One thing that really stuck out to me was all the phrases like "Alan Guth believes..." and "Alan Guth's main beliefs about the universe are..." This makes him sound like a guru rather than a scientist. The whole thing is written like some kind of junior high school fanboy paper.75.83.69.196 (talk) 14:36, 15 May 2010 (UTC)

I have tried to make the article sound more encyclopedic, removing much uncited material, which was probably based by somebody on interview(s) with the subject. Interviewers typically lard up their articles with attempts to make the subject sound like a guru; this is NOT the fault of the person being interviewed. If there are good reliable published sources out there, I hope somebody will use them to make the article even better. betsythedevine (talk) 01:33, 3 October 2010 (UTC)

I have made a start - for instance by removing all the material about confirming inflation, which was/is/will be the work of a much wide community.

Further work is still required. -- cheers, Michael C. Price 13:51, 28 July 2011 (UTC)

Missing the context of the 70's Ph.d. Glut and the inability of Universities to recognize talent

The discussion of his early career fails to mention that when he graduated in 1971 it was during the Ph.d. Glut that hit in 1970 in Physics and other sciences. So the inability to get a tenure track job and the repeated postdoc positions was the most likely fate of the Physics graduate in that era. The key thing is that things switched from boom to bust very quickly, whereas today things have been pretty tough for Physics grads for 40 years (with some interludes of improvement). It also would help to contrast Guth's achievements as a postdoc with all those who got tenure track jobs before him, because it would illustrate the repeated pattern the failure to recognize scientific talent. Einstein being the most know example given that he could only get a job as a Swiss patent clerk, a job he continued to be employeed at even after the publication of his famous 1905 papers. 205.189.194.208 (talk) 17:10, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

I'm not sure it's that relevant - after all everybody was in the same boat. -- cheers, Michael C. Price 13:49, 28 July 2011 (UTC)

Publications

My first kick didn't yield any sufficient list.
Any suggestions? (The current "one item" list is way incomplete.) Josh, linguist (talk) 07:44, 12 October 2013 (UTC)

Guth's recanting of inflation

Hi all. I added a subsection on the latest interview by Linde to FT, where Linde is cited as saying Guth has recanted inflation. This is newsworthy as it indicates a dispute over the Nobel prize.

"According to Linde in his interview to the Financial Times, Guth has recanted inflation theory altogether, in a paper "more than 100 pages long"." Holybeef (talk) 16:45, 1 May 2014 (UTC)

FWIW - rv edit - there doesn't seem to be a recanting by Guth (or any one else?) - nor any mention of "100 pages" - in the reference cited => < ref>Andrei Linde on the Big Bang and the biggest discovery of all time, interview with Clive Cookson. The Financial Times, 11 April 2014.</ref> - *entirely* ok w/ me to rv/mv/ce if otherwise of course - in any case - Enjoy! :) Drbogdan (talk) 17:09, 1 May 2014 (UTC)

1. Andrei Linde on the Big Bang and the biggest discovery of all time, interview with Clive Cookson. The Financial Times, 11 April 2014.

• Biography articles of living people
• All unassessed articles
• B-Class biography articles
• B-Class biography (science and academia) articles
• Unknown-importance biography (science and academia) articles
• Science and academia work group articles
• WikiProject Biography articles
• B-Class physics articles
• Mid-importance physics articles
• B-Class physics articles of Mid-importance
• B-Class physics biographies articles
• Physics biographies articles
• B-Class Astronomy articles
• High-importance Astronomy articles
• B-Class Astronomy articles of High-importance