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David Mermin

David Mermin Biography

Physicist

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“...contemporary physicists come in two varieties. Type 1 physicists are bothered by EPR and Bell's Theorem. Type 2 (the majority) are not, but one has to distinguish two subvarieties. Type 2a physicists explain why they are not bothered. Their explanations tend either to miss the point entirely (like Born's to Einstein) or to contain physical assertions that can be shown to be false. Type 2b are not bothered and refuse to explain why.”

TwoScienceBornMissingTypeMajorityRefuseContemporaryVarietyExplanationBellsMechanicPhysicistBotheredAssertionQuantum MechanicsTheoremsNot Bothered
Author:David Mermin
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“coincident with the explosive growth of research, the art of writing science suffered a grave setback, and the stultifying convention descended that the best scientific prose should sound like a non-human author addressing a mechanical reader. ... We injure ourselves when we fail to make our discipline as clear and vibrant as we can to students - prospective scientists - and to the public who pay the taxes.”

ShouldWritingHumansArtSoundGrowthPayClearFailingStudentsReaderDisciplineTaxesResearchScientistGravesProseConventionsSetbackExplosivesArt Of Writing
Book:Boojums All the Way Through: Communicating Science in a Prosaic Age
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“Over the past fifty years or so, scientists have allowed the conventions of expression available to them to become entirely too confining, too confining. The insistence on bland impersonality and the widespread indifference to anything like the display of a unique human author in scientific exposition, have transformed the reading of most scientific papers into an act of tedious drudgery.”

YearsHumansPastScienceReadingExpressionPaperUniqueScientistTransformationAvailableIndifferenceFiftyConventionsTransformedDisplayPapersTediousOver The PastInsistenceBlandDrudgeryImpersonality
Author:David Mermin
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