Wednesday, 22 March 2000
.....
I'm not a huge fan of Freeman Dyson's. He seems to have a pretty high ratio of stupid to perceptive remarks, though it's a bit more understandable in his case since he's intellectually adventurous.
But two recent coincidental bits of Dyson flotsam sent me off on a googlequest ('google' is actually a good Freeman Dyson word) to find out more about his work. (The flotsam: the Cyber-Patrol-hack essay mentions needing "Dyson sphere" power to practically solve really hard cryptanalysis problems; and Niel mentioned today that Dyson won the Templeton Prize, worth nearly $1M.)
The Dyson Spheres FAQ is full of good stuff; it's worth reading if you're into super geek science fiction with aspirations of quasi-realism. I'm really into scifi as long as it's written by Philip K. Dick; otherwise, it occasionally makes for light reading when stuck in some godforsaken airport (scratch that: they're all godforsaken). I may have to revise my opinion of Freeman Dyson, though I'll never forgive him for letting Esther be such a brat.
This is What is a Dyson sphere? <http://monkeyfist.com/articles/360>