Shit My Pal Richard Says

My pen pal Richard Gaylord is a theoretical polymer physicist and “radical individualist who believes in free market anarchism.”

JULY 6, 2024.  Richard Gaylord is an accomplished scientist who has published on a wide variety of topics. For years he has been trying to enlighten me by emailing me science-related articles, videos and other items, plus snarky comments that might be directed at me. For example, he just responded to my column on the liberal arts by noting that “one of the best things about my old school, Polytechnic Institute of Brooklyn [r.i.p.], was that it only offered degrees in STEM subjects,” none in humanities. I like Richard because he’s smart, funny and opinionated. He appends two quotes to all his emails: “The final truth about a phenomenon resides in the mathematical description of it” (James Jeans, physicist); and “Reality, what a concept” (Robin Williams). He has goaded me into writing on the philosophical position known as pluralism; the meaning of entropy; and the claim that math is the language of nature (and probably other topics I don’t give him credit for). And unlike most guys who contact me, Richard isn’t trying to get me to read a 200-page proof that Einstein was wrong. I recently sent him a few questions. John Horgan

Horgan: Do people you email dismiss you as a crank?

Gaylord: i only communicate with a few people (but i am always looking for new pen pals who have scientific and philosophical interests that are close to my own interests) and i assume they don't think i'm a crank.

Horgan: Maybe you and I are both cranks, and that’s why we (sort of) get along. Why do you insist that you can only really understand something if you can model it mathematically?

Gaylord: i think that words are an inadequate tool for “understanding” natural phenomena in physics (as Galileo said, mathematics is the language of science). and the use of mathematics enables us to make testable predictions.

Horgan: I’m not sure what you are. A physicist, a chemist, or what?

Gaylord: i'm a theoretical polymer physicist. my father was a leading polymer chemist [he authored 7 books and > 300 research articles] and i worked in his polymer research institute every summer from age 11 on until i went to graduate school. so i am a “second generation” scientist essentially raised in the polymers field. there was never a time in my life when i didn't expect to get a PhD and either become a professor or join my father's research institute. in fact, i went to graduate school intending to become a polymer chemist working with my father but i was put on a PhD research topic that was not at all to my liking (it involved making hand-blown glassware to use to study polymerization processes and i repeatedly burnt my fingers). so i switched from experimental polymer chemistry to theoretical polymer physics. i had been awarded an NSF fellowship which gave me a salary and paid my tuition and allowed me to change my thesis research topic.

Horgan: What are you working on now?

Gaylord: my current research interest is in the use of various random walk models to describe the deformation behavior of entangled polymer networks. i'm basically a specialist in applying random walk models to polymer systems. 

Horgan: Good luck with that. How do you find all that science-y stuff you email me?

Gaylord: i spend almost all of my days on the internet looking for and reading articles that are interesting (at least to me). 

Horgan: Who’s your favorite dead scientist?

Gaylord: P.G. de Gennes, who was a leading soft matter theorist. he was, in fact, the co-founder of the field, along with Sir S.F. Edwards with whom i spent 2 sabbaticals at the Cavendish Laboratory at Cambridge University in England. de Gennes received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1991 for his theoretical work on liquid crystals and polymer systems.

Horgan: I know you admire Roger Penrose. Any other living physicists you really like?

Gaylord: Edmund A. DiMarzio, a theoretical polymer physicist who was my mentor and close personal friend. he has won every polymer physics award for his theoretical research on polymer phase transitions, including the glass transition and crystallization.

Horgan: What about Sabine Hossenfelder?

Gaylord: she's terrific, the best expositor of current ideas in so-called foundational physics.

Horgan: From you, high praise. What bugs you most about modern science?

Gaylord: the way it's funded. IMO, you should fund people, not projects (note: as soon as i received tenure, i returned all the government money i had for research and have not applied for any government funds since then.)

Horgan: What’s the single most bullshitty scientific field?

Gaylord: in physics, it is theoretical cosmology. it is all talk and speculation. btw - i don't believe in “the big bang theory” of the origin of the universe. i am a proponent of a cyclic universe model a la Penrose or Turok and Steinhardt.

Horgan: Isn’t “emergence” just a bullshit term for stuff too complicated to understand?

Gaylord: not at all. emergence is most definitely a legit concept. reductionism has gone just as far as it can as a physics research paradigm and emergence (emergent phenomena) has replaced it.

Horgan: What do you think of philosophy of science?

Gaylord: i read a lot of philosophy of science but only stuff written by actual practicing scientists. i have a very contemptuous attitude towards the philosophy of science done by professional philosophers of science (who i view, as did Feynman, as tourists rather than participants). i also read a lot of philosophy related to libertarianism.

Horgan: Speaking of libertarianism, what are your politics and who are you voting for in November?

Gaylord: i am a radical individualist who believes in free market anarchism. I hate the STATE (for 2 reasons - (1) it steals from me – after all, taxation IS theft, and (2) it tried to draft me to fight in the war in Vietnam, which i managed to evade by falsely claiming to have a disqualifying medical condition). i don't vote because i don't support either democracy or autocracy.

Horgan: Do recent advances in AI blow your mind?

Gaylord: AI is totally boring to me. i am only interested in how i think (a la Douglas Hofstadter), not how a computer thinks.

Horgan: Will quantum computing ever live up to its hype?

Gaylord: no.

Horgan: Describe your health problems.

Gaylord: i have rfc1-CANVAS (cerebellar ataxia, neuropathy, and vestibular areflexia syndrome), a very rare, untreatable, progressive, genetic, neurodegenerative disease which causes me to have a total loss of balance. i have to use a mobility assist device (a power chair or a walker) to move about in order not to fall.

Horgan: Do your health problems affect your outlook on life?

Gaylord: not at all.

Horgan: Are you religious?

Gaylord: only idiots believe in god. 

Horgan: Is there any hope for us?

Gaylord: no.

Horgan: What’s your utopia?  

Gaylord: a colony of theoretical physicists.

Further Reading:

Further Reading:

You can find a list of Richard Gaylord’s scientific papers here.