Who is the Mysterious Man on Elegant Universe?

PrudensOptimus · Nov 16, 2003

Who is he?

I saw him on Elegant Universe show,... he talked like a girl, but seems like he have a lot of knowledge.

Ambitwistor · Nov 16, 2003

He's arguably the most famous string theorist. He won a Fields medal, which is like the mathematical equivalent of a Nobel Prize. Beyond his numerous original contributions to string theory, field theory, and gravity, he more recently started the so-called "second superstring revolution" leading to M-theory.

In fact, based on a study of papers published between 1981 and 1997, he was the most-cited physicist in the world: in that period, he published 138 papers, with 23,235 citations: each paper he published was cited an average of 168 times. (The next closest to Witten was the semiconductor physicist Gossard, with 16,994 citations of 419 papers.) Most physicists would be overjoyed to publish one paper cited over 100 times.

See:

http://www-groups.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history/Mathematicians/Witten.html

You can also read about him in the book, Who Got Einstein's Office?.

ranyart · Nov 17, 2003

Originally posted by PrudensOptimus
Who is he?

I saw him on Elegant Universe show,... he talked like a girl, but seems like he have a lot of knowledge.

He is the one person who combined the 'Five seperate' String theories that were causing problems around the mid-nineties, and came up with the 'M' in M-Theory. I happen to be around during the re-arranged meeting for Post-Grads in the Talks given by Witten, Silk etc..etc in the United Kingdom 95/96.

A lot of post grads from around the world were starting to become confused with string-theory, I was there at his talks, I was a Porter at Clyne Halls SWANSEA uk, Most of the Grads were in the process of leaving the string-theory field, the after-talk drinking sessions were conducted in the 'snooker-hall', this is where the 'M' in the coined M-Theory became apparent. The M actually stands for MAYBE-MIGHTBE!

This was the first time that a Varying-speed-of light was contemplated by some of the worlds formost Post-Grads, I know cause 'I was There', and infact took part in the heated debates, and suggested that VSL was instrumental for the early Universe.

PrudensOptimus · Nov 17, 2003

ok back to the question, why does he talk like a girl?

ranyart · Nov 17, 2003

Originally posted by PrudensOptimus
ok back to the question, why does he talk like a girl?

This question can be countered and I ask you;Why are your ears calibrated to imagine that a voice is assigned to a specific gender, are you only interested in GIRLTALK?

This can only be answered by yourself, I suggest you do a survey of general chit-chat of a number of females, maybe a hundered will suffice, then insert a audio splice of Ed Witten talking, then play the whole survey to a number of test subjects, and see if they can pick out Ed Witten.

If the results come up as you state why quote:Ed Witten has a female pitch in his conversation, then the subjects should not be able to distinguish Edward from Edwina?

Or failing this easy task, why don't you go and dig out a new ego.

Who is the Mysterious Man on Elegant Universe?

FAQ: Who is the Mysterious Man on Elegant Universe?

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