The great physicist, who won the Nobel in 1979, has died at 88. Weinberg’s fellow U. of Texas physicist Scott Aaronson has written an appreciation. Here’s one part of it that’s not over my head:
It would be an understatement to call Steve “left-of-center.” …
All the same, during the “science wars” of the 1990s, Steve was scathing about the academic left’s postmodernist streak and deeply sympathetic to what Alan Sokal had done with his Social Text hoax.
Steve also once told me that, when he (like other UT faculty) was required to write a statement about what he would do to advance Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, he submitted just a single sentence: “I will seek the best candidates, without regard to race or sex.” I remarked that he might be one of the only academics who could get away with that.
