Comment by ryan_n

9 hours ago

Serious question: why would he be "heavily" quoted in physics books? I didn't think he was a physicist, is he?

13 comments

ryan_n

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epihelix  9 hours ago

It's not limited to textbooks or academic publications, or based on any context whatsoever, but an ngram search actually suggests there's a much larger musk stain on recent published literature than I'd ever thought possible:

https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=Elon+Musk%2CAl...

Make of that what you will.

  • cowlevel  9 hours ago

    I don't understand how to filter this to physics books

    • epihelix  5 hours ago

      I wasn't trying to imply that, simply noting that there was a surprising amount of literary chatter about Musk, at high levels compared to commonly cited physicists. It's not the most useful comparison.

      It could easily be people writing fanfic about him (ugh) or criticising the pants off him, and may not be related at all. But I'd guess a lot of this was field-adjacent to at least his business interests.

so-gala-massey  9 hours ago

I guess some people still like to troll? Or are so dumb they’ve obviously never even cracked a physic text? I’m hoping it’s just old fashioned trolling.

jeffbee  9 hours ago

We need to get to the bottom of why people believe stuff like that, and fix it.

  • beloch  9 hours ago

    It's money.

    If you have a lot of money and you've managed to stay out of prison, people are generally ready to believe good things about you and want to be in your good graces. If you pay people to continually say good things about you and manage your media appearances for you, there will generally be a lot of impact to that. You're just telling people what they're primed to believe. A lot of people will fluff up your image for free just because they're hoping for patronage.

    Musk has a BA in physics that was awarded a couple years after he says he says he completed his studies. Unlike CPSC, leaving a physics program early robs you of some pretty crucial stuff. You generally don't see a lot of rockstar physicists leaving university early to join startups. Despite Musk posing as a rocket scientist, engineering guru, etc., there's no evidence he's one of the scientific or engineering minds behind Tesla or SpaceX's work. He's just a money guy.

    The general rule for money guys is that the closer you are to the money, the more of it you can get. This is why CEO's are paid outrageous sums. Musk is the closest guy to the money at his companies, and his one true gift seems to be "getting close" to politicians in order to get the public's money, which Tesla and SpaceX have received gob-smacking amounts of.

    If you want a laugh, go look up the episode of Dan Carlin's Hardcore History addendum where he brought Musk on. Carlin typically interviews authors of history books, so why Musk? Why indeed! During this episode, it comes out that Musk used to have models of WWII planes but clearly knows absolutely nothing about history. Despite this, he makes every effort to sound like he does. This is the sort of exposure $$$ gets you but, sometimes, you miss the mark.