Carver Mead is an amazing speaker … I always love to hear him
speak. Here at Telecosm he is the after dinner speaker, and the
title of his talk is Science and Society: timing the crests and troughs of opportunity in life and science.

His talk started with a conversation about the vacuum tube, and how
Edison created the foundation. He elaborated and explained the
next series of experiments with vacuum tubes, and how they progressed,
and eventually how this research led to the creation of the
transistor. From there he progressed into a discussion about the
discovery of the first superconductor. What makes his story
telling so amazing is his presentation of the subject, his in-depth
knowledge of the subject, and his ability to communicate so clearly.

It’s funny to hear his mild disdain for Bohr and others who, in his
words, discouraged alternative views of quantum physics. He jokes
about how students today are not taught collective quantum systems, but instead a strange model of photons. He refers to his “little green book” as the source of learning about collective quantum effects. His little green book is titled: Collective Electrodynamics: Quantum Foundations of
Electromagnetism … I’m going to have a buy a copy.

He closed his presentation by referring to the few people, from his
perspective, that are truly thinking again about physics at a different
level … from a different perspective … instead of just blindly
following the directions that were laid out decades ago.