Dear Professor Dyson

"Freeman Dyson has designed nuclear reactors and bomb-powered spacecraft; he has studied the origins of life and the possibilities for the long-term future; he showed quantum mechanics to be consistent with electrodynamics and started cosmological eschatology; he has won international recognition for his work in science and for his work in reconciling science to religion; he has advised generals and congressional committees. An STS (Science, Technology, Society) curriculum or discussion group that engages topics such as nuclear policies, genetic technologies, environmental sustainability, the role of religion in a scientific society, and a hard look towards the future, would count itself privileged to include Professor Dyson as a class participant and mentor. In this book, STS topics are not discussed as objectified abstractions, but through personal stories. The reader is invited to observe Dyson's influence on a generation of young people as they wrestle with issues of science, technology, society, life in general and our place in the universe. The book is filled with personal anecdotes, student questions and responses, honest doubts and passions"--

' Freeman Dyson has designed nuclear reactors and bomb-powered spacecraft; he has studied the origins of life and the possibilities for the long-term future; he showed quantum mechanics to be consistent with electrodynamics and started cosmological eschatology; he has won international recognition for his work in science and for his work in reconciling science to religion; he has advised generals and congressional committees. An STS (Science, Technology, Society) curriculum or discussion group that engages topics such as nuclear policies, genetic technologies, environmental sustainability, the role of religion in a scientific society, and a hard look towards the future, would count itself privileged to include Professor Dyson as a class participant and mentor. In this book, STS topics are not discussed as objectified abstractions, but through personal stories. The reader is invited to observe Dyson''s influence on a generation of young people as they wrestle with issues of science, technology, society, life in general and our place in the universe. The book is filled with personal anecdotes, student questions and responses, honest doubts and passions. Contents:Walking with GrandfatherLiving in the QuestionsA Hexagonal MountainMartha and MaryEngines With SoulsSteered From AfarThe Swamp AngelRapid RuptureArsenals of FollyTo Touch the Face of the StarsSilenceThe Chainsaw and the White Oak"Why Should I Care?"Playing GodBonds of KinshipTwo WindowsDoubt and FaithDreams of Earth and SkyFamily First Readership: Students and academicians who are interested in issues related to science, technology and society. Key Features:Removes objective detachment and makes STS issues personal through story-telling: Science, technology and society issues are not merely objects of study; they are experiences, they are choices to be lived. Student real-time responses to Professor Dyson''s insights bring the correspondence to lifeIncludes honest questions that are more important than snappy answers: Few STS issues have black-and-white answers; they are, rather, about understanding the questions. For example, do we own our technology, or does our technology own us?Shows all things are connected: Practically every STS topic, it seems, reduces to values and ethics. STS issues are ultimately about relationships between us and nature, our machines, other species, other people — and ourselves. STS issues are too important to be left to scientists and technologistsKeywords:Freeman J Dyson;Disturbing the Universe;Science Technology and Society;Bronowki, Jacob;Astronomical Habitat;Automation;Blake, William;Bomber Command;Car Culture;Chacón, Efrain;Climate Change;Cloning;Cold War;Cosmic Unity;Cosmology;Deforestation;Doubt and Faith;Dickens, Charles;Dyson, Alice;Dyson, Freeman J;Dyson, George;Dyson, Mildred;Einstein, Albert;Evolution;Fundamentalism;Future;Genetic Technologies;Greenhouse Effect;Homogenization of Society;Hydrogen Bomb;Environmental Sustainability;Exponential Growth;Environmental Sustainability;Hubbert''s Peak;Kaufmann, Walter;Manhattan Project;Marshall, Joseph III;Masters, Edgar Lee;Mutual Assured Destruction;Native Americans;Nuclear Weapons;Oil Consumption;Pirsig, Robert;Population;Project Orion;Quetzal Education Research Center;Reverence For Life;Schweitzer, Albert;Science And Religion;Silence;Six Faces of Science;Space Exploration;Standing Bear, Luther;Stem Cells;Strategic Air Command;Thoreau, Henry David;Turkle, Sherry;Urban Sprawl;White Oak Model'

Freeman Dyson's life experiences made him a wise, kindly grandfather figure to two generations of students enrolled in an undergraduate university course 'Science, Technology, & Society.' Near the end of each semester, the class sent him written questions, on reading Professor Dyson's memoir Disturbing the Universe. The letter exchanges occurred regularly from April 1993 through December 2019.'Yours Ever, Freeman' is devoted to this correspondence between Professor Dyson and the students. His responses went beyond answering questions, as he enlarged the scope of the questions by sharing stories from his experiences. While others have written of Professor Dyson's accomplishments and awards; the class came to know him through his discussions about life, science, and society. Topics ranged from the existential to headlines of the day, from national policies to personal values. Over three thousand students have been blessed to count Freeman Dyson as a mentor and consider him as a friend.'Yours Ever, Freeman' supplements Dear Professor Dyson published earlier. While the 2016 book included in-depth reviews of the STS course contents from which the correspondence emerged, besides including the 2016-2019 correspondence, the present book maintains a tight focus on the correspondence itself, annotated as necessary for context. The book's title comes from the way Professor Dyson signed his letters.

AN INSTANT NATIONAL BESTSELLER This edition includes illustrations by Everett Dyson From the New York Times bestselling author of Tears We Cannot Stop, a passionate call to America to finally reckon with race and start the journey to redemption. “Powerfully illuminating, heart-wrenching, and enlightening.” -Ibram X. Kendi, bestselling author of How to Be an Antiracist “Crushingly powerful, Long Time Coming is an unfiltered Marlboro of black pain.” -Isabel Wilkerson, bestselling author of Caste "Formidable, compelling...has much to offer on our nation’s crucial need for racial reckoning and the way forward." -Bryan Stevenson, author of Just Mercy The night of May 25, 2020 changed America. George Floyd, a 46-year-old Black man, was killed during an arrest in Minneapolis when a white cop suffocated him. The video of that night’s events went viral, sparking the largest protests in the nation’s history and the sort of social unrest we have not seen since the sixties. While Floyd’s death was certainly the catalyst, (heightened by the fact that it occurred during a pandemic whose victims were disproportionately of color) it was in truth the fuse that lit an ever-filling powder keg. Long Time Coming grapples with the cultural and social forces that have shaped our nation in the brutal crucible of race. In five beautifully argued chapters—each addressed to a black martyr from Breonna Taylor to Rev. Clementa Pinckney—Dyson traces the genealogy of anti-blackness from the slave ship to the street corner where Floyd lost his life—and where America gained its will to confront the ugly truth of systemic racism. Ending with a poignant plea for hope, Dyson’s exciting new book points the way to social redemption. Long Time Coming is a necessary guide to help America finally reckon with race.

A private citizen who transformed the world around him, Martin Luther King, Jr., was arguably the greatest American who ever lived. Now, after more than thirty years, few people understand how truly radical he was. In this groundbreaking examination of the man and his legacy, provocative author, lecturer, and professor Michael Eric Dyson restores King's true vitality and complexity and challenges us to embrace the very contradictions that make King relevant in today's world.

Named a 2018 Notable Work of Nonfiction by The Washington Post NOW A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • Winner, The 2018 Southern Book Prize NAMED A BEST/MOST ANTICIPATED BOOK OF 2018 BY: Chicago Tribune • Time • Publisher's Weekly A stunning follow up to New York Times bestseller Tears We Cannot Stop The Washington Post: "Passionately written." Chris Matthews, MSNBC: "A beautifully written book." Shaun King: “I kid you not–I think it’s the most important book I’ve read all year...” Harry Belafonte: “Dyson has finally written the book I always wanted to read...a tour de force.” Joy-Ann Reid: A work of searing prose and seminal brilliance... Dyson takes that once in a lifetime conversation between black excellence and pain and the white heroic narrative, and drives it right into the heart of our current politics and culture, leaving the reader reeling and reckoning." Robin D. G. Kelley: “Dyson masterfully refracts our present racial conflagration... he reminds us that Black artists and intellectuals bear an awesome responsibility to speak truth to power." President Barack Obama: "Everybody who speaks after Michael Eric Dyson pales in comparison.” In 2015 BLM activist Julius Jones confronted Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton with an urgent query: “What in your heart has changed that’s going to change the direction of this country?” “I don’t believe you just change hearts,” she protested. “I believe you change laws.” The fraught conflict between conscience and politics – between morality and power – in addressing race hardly began with Clinton. An electrifying and traumatic encounter in the sixties crystallized these furious disputes. In 1963 Attorney General Robert Kennedy sought out James Baldwin to explain the rage that threatened to engulf black America. Baldwin brought along some friends, including playwright Lorraine Hansberry, psychologist Kenneth Clark, and a valiant activist, Jerome Smith. It was Smith’s relentless, unfiltered fury that set Kennedy on his heels, reducing him to sullen silence. Kennedy walked away from the nearly three-hour meeting angry – that the black folk assembled didn’t understand politics, and that they weren’t as easy to talk to as Martin Luther King. But especially that they were more interested in witness than policy. But Kennedy’s anger quickly gave way to empathy, especially for Smith. “I guess if I were in his shoes...I might feel differently about this country.” Kennedy set about changing policy – the meeting having transformed his thinking in fundamental ways. There was more: every big argument about race that persists to this day got a hearing in that room. Smith declaring that he’d never fight for his country given its racist tendencies, and Kennedy being appalled at such lack of patriotism, tracks the disdain for black dissent in our own time. His belief that black folk were ungrateful for the Kennedys’ efforts to make things better shows up in our day as the charge that black folk wallow in the politics of ingratitude and victimhood. The contributions of black queer folk to racial progress still cause a stir. BLM has been accused of harboring a covert queer agenda. The immigrant experience, like that of Kennedy – versus the racial experience of Baldwin – is a cudgel to excoriate black folk for lacking hustle and ingenuity. The questioning of whether folk who are interracially partnered can authentically communicate black interests persists. And we grapple still with the responsibility of black intellectuals and artists to bring about social change. What Truth Sounds Like exists at the tense intersection of the conflict between politics and prophecy – of whether we embrace political resolution or moral redemption to fix our fractured racial landscape. The future of race and democracy hang in the balance.

The life and work of Freeman Dyson—renowned scientist, visionary, and iconoclast—and his particular way of thinking about deep questions. Freeman Dyson (1923–2020)—renowned scientist, visionary, and iconoclast—helped invent modern physics. Not bound by disciplinary divisions, he went on to explore foundational topics in mathematics, astrophysics, and the origin of life. General readers were introduced to Dyson’s roving mind and heterodox approach in his 1979 book Disturbing the Universe, a poignant autobiographical reflection on life and science. “Well, Doc, You’re In” (the title quotes Richard Feynman’s remark to Dyson at a physics conference) offers a fresh examination of Dyson’s life and work, exploring his particular way of thinking about deep questions that range from the nature of matter to the ultimate fate of the universe. The chapters—written by leading scientists, historians, and science journalists, including some of Dyson’s colleagues—trace Dyson’s formative years, his budding interests and curiosities, and his wide-ranging work across the natural sciences, technology, and public policy. They describe Dyson’s innovations at the intersection of quantum theory and relativity, his novel nuclear reactor design (and his never-realized idea of a spacecraft powered by nuclear weapons), his years at the Institute for Advanced Study, and his foray into cosmology. In the coda, Dyson’s daughter Esther reflects on growing up in the Dyson household. “Well, Doc, You’re In” assesses Dyson’s successes, blind spots, and influence, assembling a portrait of a scientist’s outsized legacy. Contributors Jeremy Bernstein, Robbert Dijkgraaf, Esther Dyson, George Dyson, Ann Finkbeiner, Amanda Gefter, Ashutosh Jogalekar, David Kaiser, Caleb Scharf, William Thomas

Professor Freeman Dyson, a great physicist, thinker and futurist, has been very active in scientific, literary and public policy activities throughout his career. As a tribute to him on the occasion of his 90th birthday and to celebrate his lifelong contributions in physics, mathematics, astronomy, nuclear engineering and global warming, a conference covering a wide range of topics was held in Singapore from 26 to 29 August 2013. Distinguished scientists from around the world, including Nobel Laureate Professor David Gross, joined Professor Dyson in the celebration with a festival of lectures. This memorable volume collects an interesting lecture by Professor Dyson, Is a Graviton Detectable?, contributions by speakers at the conference, as well as guest contributions by colleagues who celebrated Dyson's birthday at Rutgers University and Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton. About Freeman Dyson Freeman John Dyson FRS, born December 15, 1923, is an eminent English-born American physicist, mathematician, and futurist. He is famous for his work in quantum electrodynamics, solid-state physics, mathematics, astronomy and nuclear engineering, as well as a renowned and best-selling author. He has spent most of his life as a professor of physics at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, taking time off to advise the US government and write books for the public. He has won numerous notable awards including the Enrico Fermi Award, Templeton Prize, Wolf Prize, Pomeranchuk Prize, and Henri Poincaré Prize. Contents:Invited Lectures:Is a Graviton Detectable? (F Dyson)Dark Energy and Dark Matter in a Superfluid Universe (K Huang)Scaling the Universe (N E Frankel)The Relativity of Space–Time–Property (R Delbourgo)Monopole Condensation and Mass Gap in SU(3) QCD (Y M Cho)Quantum Structure of Field Theory and Standard Model Based on Infinity-Free Loop Regularization/Renormalization (Y-L Wu)Tenth-Order QED Contribution to the Electron g – 2 and High Precision Test of Quantum Electrodynamics (T Kinoshita)The MoEDAL Experiment at the LHC — A New Light on the High Energy Frontier (J L Pinfold)Leptonic CP Violation and Leptogenesis (S T Petcov)What If the Higgs Has Brothers? (N-P Chang)Heisenberg Uncertainty Relation Revisited — Universality of Robertson's Relation (K Fujikawa)Quantum Systems Based Upon Galois Fields — From Sub-Quantum to Super-Quantum Correlations (L-N Chang, Z Lewis, D Minic and T Takeuchi)A Solvable Model of Interacting Many Body Systems Exhibiting a Breakdown of the Boltzmann Equation (B H J McKellar)Yang–Baxter Equation, Majorana Fermions and Three Body Entangling States Quantum Entanglements and Applications to Physics (M-L Ge, L W Yu, K Xue and Q Zhao)Overview of the Study of Complex Shapes of Fluid Membranes, the Helfrich Model and New Applications (Z-C Ou-Yang and Z C Tu)The Importance of Being Integrable: Out of the Paper, into the Lab (M T Batchelor)Freeman in 1948 (C DeWitt-Morette)Carbon Humanism: Freeman Dyson and the Looming Battle Between Environmentalists and Humanists (P F Schewe)'Dear Professor Dyson': Twenty Years of Correspondence Between Professor Dyson and Undergraduate Students (D E Neuenschwander)Freeman Dyson: Some Early Recollections (M Longuet-Higgins)Guest Contributions:Stability and Variability (J L Lebowitz)Freeman Dyson (E H Lieb)Why Has Global Warming Paused? (W Happer)Parallel Session:Deformed Coherent State for Multiparticle Production Mechanism (W Y Wang, Q Leong, W K Ng, A Dewanto, A H Chan and C H Oh)Noncommutative Space-Time from Quantized Twistors (J Lukierski and M Woronowicz)Similarity Solutions of Fokker–Planck Equations with Time-Dependent Coefficients and Fixed/Moving Boundaries (C-L Ho)Fermion Quantum Field Theory in Black Hole Spacetimes and Information Loss (S A B Ahmad)MESTIF — A Study of the Characteristics of Matter-Energy, Space-Time and Information-Field (J A K Tan)Superluminal Propagation and Acausality of Nonlinear Massive Gravity (S Deser, K Izumi, Y C Ong and A Waldron)An Astronomer's View on Climate Change (D C Morton)A Quantum Fluctuation Operator for Deep N-Well MOSFET Flicker Noise Modeling (E Png)Yang–Mills Field as a Subset of Covariant Derivative — A Unified Yang–Mills Field and Higgs Field (W S Gan)The DGP Model Revisited (K F Ng and S C C Ng)A Search for Primordial Vortex Remnants in the SDSS (A Yang, Z-J Ong and A H Chan)The High-Redshift Galaxy Counts-in-Cells from the COSMOS Survey (F F Foo, A Yang and A H Chan)Fundamental Constraints on Physical Systems Due to Their Own Gravitation (S K Kauffmann)Freeman Dyson and Gravitational Spin Precession (N D Hari Dass) Readership: Academics and students interested in high energy physics, astrophysics, cosmology, and condensed matter physics. Keywords:Freeman Dyson;Quantum Field Theory;High Energy Physics;Cosmology;Graviton;Topological Insulator