This hardcore physics dude has amazing content, not the least of which he seems to know the history of physics insanely well (notably emphasizing that there is value of tutorials written by early pioneers of the field, see also Section "How to teach and learn physics"), and holds similar views of education as Ciro Santilli.
He does subscribe to some conspiracy theories, e.g. the stuff about the Boston bombings, but the physics might be sound, Ciro Santilli does not know enough physics to judge.
Ron shares a few philosophies which Ciro greatly agrees with, which together with his knowledge of physics, make Ciro greatly respect Ron, including:
He has either been blocked from or quit every single website he participates in due to his highly combative nature:
- https://physics.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/976/physics-ses-inability-to-deal-with-users-who-are-highly-persistent-have-kook-b
- https://physics.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/1376/what-violation-caused-this-suspension. One interesting point mentioned:
The thing that makes me pretty angry about Ron's behaviour is that he does not distinguish between common consensus belief and his own private research--this makes evaluating his claims hard for a third party not familiar with physics.
- https://physics.meta.stackexchange.com/users/4864/ron-maimon
- https://www.quora.com/profile/Ron-Maimon, he was very active on Quora
Some amazing posts:
- https://www.quora.com/How-do-you-control-your-urge-to-access-the-internet-so-you-can-complete-your-assignments How do you control your urge to access the Internet so you can complete your assignments?:
I don't. I consider the internet the first priority, as it will be viewed by thousands of people, and will have a real impact, while other assignments are lower priority, as they will only have an impact locally.
Pure effortless effort. - https://www.quora.com/Why-should-high-school-students-learn-physics/answer/Ron-Maimon, highlighted at https://gmachine1729.livejournal.com/161418.html: "Why should high school students learn physics?" Answer:
But they should learn it, preferably on their own, because the school doesn't know how to teach physics. Physics is extremely interesting, even the elementary kind. It takes the mathematics you learn in high school and uses it to describe certain natural phenomenon completely, beyond what was imagined possible in the wildest dreams of people like Pythagoras or Archimedes. If you have a computer, Newton's laws plus a tiny code can produce the motion of the planets around the sun, the motion of a free-twirling baton, the motion of colliding billiards, it's very simple.
Yes, please, give it to me baby:
2014 interview https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ObXbKbpkSjQ ripped from Quoracast podcast by Jeff Meyerson: https://player.fm/series/quoracast-podcast/ron-maimon-truther He mentions he was an early-Usenet user.
https://chat.stackexchange.com/transcript/message/7104585#7104585 mentions that he was at Cornell University and did all but dissertation, but he mentions that he was still self-taught:
Eugene Seidel: On your personal info page you write that you are not a physics Ph.D. but does that mean you were a physics undergrad in college then went to grad school and finished ABD... or are you entirely self taught?Ron Maimon: ABD. I am self- taught though, I only went to school for accreditation. I had a thesis worth of work at the time I left grad-school,Eugene Seidel: ok thanksRon Maimon: I was just kind of sickened by academic stuff that was going on--- large extra dimensions were popular then.Eric Walker: Anyway, thanks Ron -- I'll get back to you with more questions soon, I'm sure.Ron Maimon: Also I was at Cornell, my advisor left for Cincinnatti, and I was not in very good standing there (I was kind of a jerk, as I still am). Some friends wanted to start a biotech company called "Gene Network Sciences", and I joined them.
Corroborated e.g. at: http://pages.physics.cornell.edu/~gtoombes/Student_Index.html
This is the company he talks about: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNS_Healthcare.
Ron disappeared from the Internet at around 2014. Ciro figures he's hanging out with Ettore Majorana somewhere.
- Epic Stack Overflow users | 4, 817, 2
- Stack Overflow | 118, 3k, 15
- Q&A software | 0, 3k, 17
- Internet forum | 0, 3k, 23
- Website | 0, 5k, 67
- Art | 110, 15k, 236
- Ciro Santilli's Homepage | 238, 143k, 2k
- How to teach and learn physics | 185
- There is value of tutorials written by early pioneers of the field | 123
- University | 345, 3k, 20