"Scientific theories are invented and cared for by people, and so have the properties of any other human institution--vigorous growth when all factors are right; stagnation and decadence, even retrograde progress when they are not. And the factors that determine which it will be are seldom the ones (such as the state of experimental or mathematical techniques) that one might at first expect. Among factors that have seemed, historically, to be more important are practical considerations, accidents of birth or personality of individual people; and above all, the general philosphical climate in which the scientist lives, which determines whether efforts in a certain direction will be approved or deprecated by the scientific community as a whole."
--Edwin T. Jaynes, from the opening paragraph of a talk given at one of the Delaware Seminars in the Foundations of Physics. The talk is titled "Foundations of Probability Theory and Statistical Mechanics." The seminar took place and its proceedings were published (edited by Mario Bunge of the University of Delaware) in that Serious Man year of 1967. Jaynes was at the time a physics professor at Washington University in St. Louis, and was a well respected contributor to the fields of statistical mechanics and quantum optics. In 1980, I applied to Washington University because I'd read some of Jayne's papers. They didn't want me. Probably a wise decision on their part, given my desultory record of graduate work since then.
--Edwin T. Jaynes, from the opening paragraph of a talk given at one of the Delaware Seminars in the Foundations of Physics. The talk is titled "Foundations of Probability Theory and Statistical Mechanics." The seminar took place and its proceedings were published (edited by Mario Bunge of the University of Delaware) in that Serious Man year of 1967. Jaynes was at the time a physics professor at Washington University in St. Louis, and was a well respected contributor to the fields of statistical mechanics and quantum optics. In 1980, I applied to Washington University because I'd read some of Jayne's papers. They didn't want me. Probably a wise decision on their part, given my desultory record of graduate work since then.
