Thursday, January 23, 2025

Great Explainers

I thought I'd write a post about these well- known personalities who have taken on the responsibility of speaking to the public on behalf of their colleagues or their avocation.

Leonard Bernstein.  This post was triggered by my feeling that Bernstein did so much to explain some really useful approaches to appreciating music; and I wondered whether there were other disciplines that had their own spokesperson.

Carl Sagan, Arthur C. Clarke.  Of course, Albert Einstein did his part, by speaking to the Press about advances in science.  But Sagan and Clarke were greatly influential by addressing laymen.

Richard Feynman, Neil de Grasse Tyson.  Everybody knows who Neil deGrasse Tyson is—his name is just a little too short for true fame—but few people today would have heard of Richard Fineman.  Physics students even today, however, revere Fineman for making Quantum Mechanics a little more understandable. 

David Attenborough should be recognized for bringing us the sights and sounds of some of the hidden worlds of nature.

Richard Leakey was probably one of the most visible—and audible—members of the Leakey family, many of whom were deeply involved with physical anthropology, and the origin of man.  There were many others, including Donald Johansson, who is associated with the discovery of the fossil Lucy, and related fossils.

Noam Chomsky.  This man is well known among those who have an interest in politics, as well as culture and morals.  He has generally been critical of Republicans, but often not as critical as others tend to be; and he is also critical of Democrats.  A very insightful commentator. 

In the realm of mathematics, physics andastronomy, a fabulous explainer is Roger Penrose.  He and Ezra (Ted) Newman were mainly responsible for the complexification of spacetime, a crazy plan that uses complex variables to solve Einstein's equations for General Relativity, which gives unexpected insight into some of the things we've been getting from the JWST telescope.  Also, my doctorate research focused on—an essentially trivial—result that fell out of this project.

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