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RIP Freeman Dyson. Breathtakingly original mathematician & physicist who also wrote beautifully about our place in the world. His essays on the morality of strategic bombing & nuclear weapons, the preservation of the environment were transformative. Last of the magicians.
It was Dysons' profound humanism that was truly inspiring. “We are human beings first and scientists second, because knowledge implies responsibility". A wonderful account of Dysons's wide-ranging scientific & literary life ht @curiouswavefn. https://www.3quarksdaily.com/3quarksdaily/2018/04/secrets-of-the-old-one.html
What made Dyson so endlessly fertile was an ability to see the world thru different contradictory 'reference frames'. Disturbing the Universe, for eg., had an unforgettable scene of him reading Mann & Godel at UK's Bomber Command. Wonder, beauty & cruelty. https://www.google.com/books/edition/Birds_and_Frogs/PK5EDwAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=empty+city+freeman+dyson&pg=PA56&printsec=frontcover
Imagine Freeman Dyson sits you down and goes "Listen. Let me tell you about what actually happened in the 20th Century". @policytensor https://www.manhattanprojectvoices.org/oral-histories/freeman-dysons-interview
Dyson was in UK Bomber command that firebombed German cities in WW2 & like Vonnegut the archetype of La Ville Morte - the dead city- resurfaced in his assesmemt of 20thC science. A distillation of the agonies of 100s of real cities that have been destroyed https://www.ams.org/notices/200902/rtx090200212p.pdf
In the process of figuring out whether strategic bombing in WW2 was effective, Freeman Dyson figured out both statistical ANOVA and meta-analysis (later used by epidemiologists). At age 19. https://www.technologyreview.com/s/406789/a-failure-of-intelligence/
7/ "On February 28, the world lost the visionary physicist and mathematician Freeman Dyson. Although widely celebrated for his scientific achievements, eulogizers have given scant attention to his progressive political imagination and socialist principles" https://jacobinmag.com/2020/12/freeman-dyson-mathematician-physicist-socialist
