[zznzz]

A comment on some of the presentation of the history (‘staunton has already noted the strangeness of bellyaching in 2021 about renormalization without mentioning the renormalization group)

In section 4.3 the author incorrectly describes Fermi’s comments to Dyson as a criticism of Dyson’s work on QED. At the time of this meeting, Dyson had already given up on his QED program and was working on the strong interaction. Fermi’s comments that Dyson had neither a “clear physical picture” or a “precise and self-consistent mathematical formalism” were regarding some (pre-quark) pion theory Dyson had been working at at Cornell starting in 1951, not QED.

Dyson describes this meeting in https://www.webofstories.com/play/freeman.dyson/94 but the required context is in the prior segment https://www.webofstories.com/play/freeman.dyson/93

Also the author describes Oppenheimer’s initial resistance to Dyson’s work, but fails to mention that Oppenheimer was eventually convinced that Dyson’s work was valuable and gave Dyson a lifetime appointment at the IAS.