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Les autres langues (en:, de:) ne lui donne pas la nationalité américaine. J'ai supprimé ce passage. Yann ( talk) 17:59, 16 January 2008 (UTC)
Does anyone know why Roegen was added to his name? Not a matter of great importance, but one can't help but wonder, and googling has not revealed the answer. Languagehat ( talk) 15:13, 12 March 2009 (UTC)
My heartiest thanks to whoever was primarily responsible for this article. I've added the 2 major awards named above that Georgescu received. In addition, I took the liberty of adding "statistics" as one of his fields shown in the bio summary box. That's consistent with the numerous mentions of the field in the text of the article, and for decades he taught the Economics Dept.'s legendary 2-semester statistics course required for all students in the econ Ph.D. program. I also took the liberty of amending his faculty rank at Vanderbilt to "professor of economics," vs. just "professor". (At least that's the title he held while I was a grad student there 1970-74.) I apologize for the numerous edits it took for me to get the syntax correct for citing the Web sites that document those 2 awards. I'm not very experienced at entering citations, especially to Web sites, and unfortunately, the "Preview" feature doesn't show how the citation will appear, only the text. Samuelson's preface to NGR's Entropy Law ... Analytical Issues... has a few choice compliments about him that the article should include, and I'll try to get those in soon. --
Jackftwist (
talk)
22:00, 25 August 2011 (UTC)
I added a new section to be expanded. This is a stub of French version of the following section: fr:Nicholas_Georgescu-Roegen#Travaux. Translation needed. -- Ledjazz ( talk) 18:25, 23 December 2012 (UTC)
I have added a 'multiple issues' template for the following reasons: The source on Ich, Clausius, die Entropie und die Ökonomen ('I, Clausius, Entropy, and the Economists') by Ulrich Müller-Herold is unreliable and appears to be self-published. It is written in a reflective ironic style, pretending to be autobiographical notes by Rudolf Clausius himself (who died in 1888). Georgescu's proposed fourth law of thermodynamics is only mentioned, and not explained in the article text, leaving the general reader in the dark as to what it is. According to my knowledge, the concept of enthalpy is not generally used in environmental economics. Contrary to what is stated in the article text, entropy always has a clear trend: It is increasing. This is standard physics. According to my best judgement, the text in the last paragraph in the section is nothing but a hoax, and should therefore be deleted altogether. I would like a second opinion on this, though... Gaeanautes ( talk) 13:40, 16 June 2015 (UTC)
I have deleted the section on 'Selected writings', as the first item in the 'External links' section is a link to a comprehensive (complete?) online bibliography. Gaeanautes ( talk) 17:04, 23 October 2015 (UTC)
On 29 January 2018, User Byelf2007 deleted several of the images in the article. By his own bold claim, these images are only 'marginal stuff', and User Byelf2007 generally prefer to 'keep pictures in article to a minimum'. My own personal view is that these images are far from marginal, and that the amount of pictures in any article should not be kept to a minimum as a MoS guideline. If User Byelf2007 is obsessive about this issue, he is welcome to run an RfC on it here. I have restored most – though not all – of the deleted images. I have these comments on the encyclopedic relevance of retaining the three following images:
End of post. Gaeanautes ( talk) 16:43, 12 February 2018 (UTC)
I had removed what I consider to be overly positive descriptions from the introduction ( diff). User:Gaeanautes disagrees and undid the edit. So, let's discuss, starting with one specific point. The word "magnum opus" (links to Masterpiece) clearly conveys a positive tone. Even if a source uses it to describe the subject, it should not appear in the editorial voice. I would like to change this to the neutral "work". Cyrej ( talk) 17:48, 12 February 2018 (UTC)
References
“ | Several economists have hailed Georgescu-Roegen as a man who lived well ahead of his time... ... ...Paul Samuelson professed that he would be delighted if the fame Georgescu-Roegen did not fully realise in his own lifetime were granted by posterity instead. | ” |
References
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cite journal}}
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In this revision, User:Gaeanautes added an editorial note to the page noting that Georgescu-Roegen's name was shortened by them to just "Georgescu" for "improved readability of the text and better use of space". However, I don't agree with this decision.
For starters, none of our featured biographies of people with hyphenated surnames use this practice: John Brooke-Little, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, and Camille Saint-Saëns. Additionally, all except one of the other language editions of this article don't follow this convention either, notably including the Romanian Wikipedia page (which could have indicated some regional practice if it did do so). The exception is the Spanish Wikipedia, but looking at its table of contents, it's clearly a translation of this English version and prior to these additions also included the full surname. Finally, perusing the titles of the sources used on the page itself, none of them include only "Georgescu", so this can't be a case of WP:COMMONNAME and is contrary to usage in reliable sources ( a Google search for "Nicholas Georgescu" excluding results containing "Roegen" also comes up empty for the subject).
Regarding the merits of the reasons given in the message itself, I don't see how it would improve readability—personally I find the hyphenated name easier to spot and skip over—and Wikipedia is not a printed page that it has space limitations.
I propose using Georgescu-Roegen's full surname to bring it in line with the article's sources per WP:COMMONNAME, in line with the other-language Wikipedias which use his full name, and in line with our featured article exemplars which also use full surnames. Opencooper ( talk) 09:26, 19 November 2018 (UTC)
@
Opencooper: I agree with all of your recent corrections, although with some reservations. To explain, I've always been primarily concerned with text readability (as I perceive it), and not with the
massive bulk of WP policy. Reading the same lengthy surname over and over again throughout a comprehensive text like the present one makes a tedious exercise, I say. I still think shortening a lengthy surname makes good sense in terms of text readability. Also, making good use of space doesn't necessarily imply that the available space is limited, as you're inferring. Rather, my point is that any available writing space should generally be used effectively, and encyclopedic texts should always be written in a concise manner in order not to tire readers. This goes for all media types, whether on paper or
digitized. In the
attention economy – of which WP now forms a significant part – human attention is a scarce commodity. WP editors should take special heed of this fact.
True, no sources referenced in the article make use of the name 'Georgescu', but only the full surname 'Georgescu-Roegen', as you point out. However, referring to the policy of WP:COMMONNAME in this context is irrelevant, as this 'common name' policy has to do only with naming the right title of an article, and not with the repeated referring to the subject of an article throughout the text. Instead, a more relevant policy here would be the MOS:SURNAME policy, according to which "Any subject who has had their surnames changed should be referred to by their most commonly used name." In effect, you're still right on the issue. Yes, I'll have to accept this particular policy myself <sigh>. To explain once again, I didn't look actively for this piece of WP policy before now, because my primary concern is with text readability as I perceive it. I'm bold and individualistic, but not reckless, when editing. I even sigh once in a while...
Two details need to be addressed:
By the way, thank you for mentioning that most of the article text here on the English WP has now been translated into Spanish. I wasn't aware of this development before reading about it in your post. It's a puzzling experience to read one's own prose when translated by others into a foreign language one doesn't fully understand oneself. Fortunately, some of the sentences appear to be almost multilingual in essence, such as this one: Georgescu-Roegen tiene una visión sombría del futuro de la humanidad. Yes, he certainly did have a sombre vision for the future of humanity. Verdad.
That's all for now. Gaeanautes ( talk) 14:17, 17 January 2019 (UTC)
In the "Mistakes and controversies" section, we can read that Georgescu-Roegen's mistake would have been to think that "the entropy law applies equally well to both energy resources and to material resources", while "the measure does not apply to macroscopic matter". But this last assertion seems completely wrong to me. I am not a physicist, but I obtained a master of physics when I was younger, and I am quite sure that the measure of entropy does apply to macroscopic matter. I tried to check the sources, but they are not available to me.
I think Georgescu-Roegen's mistake is rather not to have properly taken into account the fact that this law only applies to closed systems. 2804:18:84A:8C24:D1C9:1407:FC1E:4C76 ( talk) 12:46, 5 January 2021 (UTC)
Yes this is a problematic section, and the issue of material vs energetic entropy is messy. So I have removed the proposed 'consensus' about it, and left it as a discussion issue. jmanooch 13:22, 1 February 2021 (UTC)
“ | [T]hermodynamic phenomena include matter as well. In the received literature matter is mentioned only indirectly in connection with that elusive concept, friction. But since friction was recognized to cause additional dissipation of available energy, I was greatly surprised to see a discipline whose primary object is the study of engines paying no attention to what happens to the matter in bulk that participates in a thermodynamic process. [1]: 197, NGR's emphasis | ” |
References
Regarding this passage: "In thermodynamics proper, the entropy law does apply to energy, but not to matter of macroscopic scale (that is, not to material resources)." I've read the source "The Second Law of Life: Energy, Technology, and the Future of Earth As We Know It" pages 34-43 (couldn't find the other source) and there is not a single mention of whether Thermodynamics can, or cannot, be applied in macroscopic scale. On the contrary, the author states (p.106):
"The main point Nicolas Georgescu-Roegen made was that economists did not pay sufficient attention to the side effects of economic processes. Often, the situation was pictured such that there were no issues in obtaining world resources and that “better” technology eventually would solve all environmental problems. However, our analysis of the glass making process powerfully shows how wrong this worldview is! Yes, from a purely materials and theoretical point of view we can continue with glass recycling indefinitely (at least in theory, more about this later), but we know now that from an entropy perspective, the process constantly increases the entropy of our world. Of course, the world’s entropy will increase as part of nature; but the point is that unchecked human industry will accelerate it at a much greater rate."
This is actually a common controversy in the field of ecological economics. Here are some excerts from the book "From Bioeconomics to Degrowth" (ed. Mauro Bonaiuti):
"[Khalil (1989)] did not question the validity of the Law of Entropy from the point of view of physics but rather its application to the economic system, presenting a stand then quite widespread among economists. According to Khalil, it was necessary to distinguish the Law of Entropy proper (propagation without labor) from its applications, such as Carnot’s cycle (propagation aiming at the production of labor). While the former is a pure physical phenomenon, the latter is the outcome of a “purposeful agency.” The distinction is pertinent because the presence of a “purposeful agency” is able to counteract, in Khalil’s opinion, entropic degradation."
"[Lozada (1991)] stated that the distinction made by Khalil between Kelvin’s and Clausius’ formulations, aiming to point out the intentional aspect, was groundless. For Lozada there is only one law of entropy, although this can be formulated in different ways. Both formulations have the characteristics of a purposeful process. The decisive criticism he makes, however, is of something else. According to Lozada, Khalil seems not to be aware of one essential fact, that is that Carnot’s cycle is wholly subject to the law of entropy even if it is, like an economic process, a purposeful process. The sense of the criticism is clear: it makes no difference whether the processes are intentional or not: they are still subject to the Second Law of Thermodynamics."
As Mario Bonaiuti concludes: "G-R’s conclusions on the application of the Second Law of Thermodynamics to the economic process seem, therefore, to be confirmed by this initial debate, a standpoint that will no longer be seriously questioned in later literature. However, the controversy does underline what was to become the true nub of the question: it is not a matter of discussing the applicability of the Second Law of Thermodynamics to the economic process but rather of evaluating its effective relevance as a theoretical and empirical tool capable of describing the limits that characterize the relationships between economics and ecology." So, according to some scholars, this discussion is already closed. G-Rs approach to entropy and material resource is that matter cannot be recycled forever, and there's plenty of evidence that this is true. In a way, entropy does affect macroscale matter by changing its microscale properties. e.g. plastic (glass, or anything) loses quality after a number of recyclings.
I believe this section must be rewritten, it needs corrections and more clarity.
I'll change the section title to "Controversies", since "Mistakes" is not neutral and actually is a wrong take on G-R's ideas. I'll also erase this specific reference (The Second Law of Life: Energy, Technology, and the Future of Earth As We Know It) since it doesn't support the claim.
Pedro H.V. Santos ( talk) 20:47, 18 December 2022 (UTC)
Where the hell is his bibliography, its absence completely atypical for a biography. Simulcron ( talk) 22:10, 9 November 2022 (UTC)
This
level-5 vital article is rated B-class on Wikipedia's
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|
Les autres langues (en:, de:) ne lui donne pas la nationalité américaine. J'ai supprimé ce passage. Yann ( talk) 17:59, 16 January 2008 (UTC)
Does anyone know why Roegen was added to his name? Not a matter of great importance, but one can't help but wonder, and googling has not revealed the answer. Languagehat ( talk) 15:13, 12 March 2009 (UTC)
My heartiest thanks to whoever was primarily responsible for this article. I've added the 2 major awards named above that Georgescu received. In addition, I took the liberty of adding "statistics" as one of his fields shown in the bio summary box. That's consistent with the numerous mentions of the field in the text of the article, and for decades he taught the Economics Dept.'s legendary 2-semester statistics course required for all students in the econ Ph.D. program. I also took the liberty of amending his faculty rank at Vanderbilt to "professor of economics," vs. just "professor". (At least that's the title he held while I was a grad student there 1970-74.) I apologize for the numerous edits it took for me to get the syntax correct for citing the Web sites that document those 2 awards. I'm not very experienced at entering citations, especially to Web sites, and unfortunately, the "Preview" feature doesn't show how the citation will appear, only the text. Samuelson's preface to NGR's Entropy Law ... Analytical Issues... has a few choice compliments about him that the article should include, and I'll try to get those in soon. --
Jackftwist (
talk)
22:00, 25 August 2011 (UTC)
I added a new section to be expanded. This is a stub of French version of the following section: fr:Nicholas_Georgescu-Roegen#Travaux. Translation needed. -- Ledjazz ( talk) 18:25, 23 December 2012 (UTC)
I have added a 'multiple issues' template for the following reasons: The source on Ich, Clausius, die Entropie und die Ökonomen ('I, Clausius, Entropy, and the Economists') by Ulrich Müller-Herold is unreliable and appears to be self-published. It is written in a reflective ironic style, pretending to be autobiographical notes by Rudolf Clausius himself (who died in 1888). Georgescu's proposed fourth law of thermodynamics is only mentioned, and not explained in the article text, leaving the general reader in the dark as to what it is. According to my knowledge, the concept of enthalpy is not generally used in environmental economics. Contrary to what is stated in the article text, entropy always has a clear trend: It is increasing. This is standard physics. According to my best judgement, the text in the last paragraph in the section is nothing but a hoax, and should therefore be deleted altogether. I would like a second opinion on this, though... Gaeanautes ( talk) 13:40, 16 June 2015 (UTC)
I have deleted the section on 'Selected writings', as the first item in the 'External links' section is a link to a comprehensive (complete?) online bibliography. Gaeanautes ( talk) 17:04, 23 October 2015 (UTC)
On 29 January 2018, User Byelf2007 deleted several of the images in the article. By his own bold claim, these images are only 'marginal stuff', and User Byelf2007 generally prefer to 'keep pictures in article to a minimum'. My own personal view is that these images are far from marginal, and that the amount of pictures in any article should not be kept to a minimum as a MoS guideline. If User Byelf2007 is obsessive about this issue, he is welcome to run an RfC on it here. I have restored most – though not all – of the deleted images. I have these comments on the encyclopedic relevance of retaining the three following images:
End of post. Gaeanautes ( talk) 16:43, 12 February 2018 (UTC)
I had removed what I consider to be overly positive descriptions from the introduction ( diff). User:Gaeanautes disagrees and undid the edit. So, let's discuss, starting with one specific point. The word "magnum opus" (links to Masterpiece) clearly conveys a positive tone. Even if a source uses it to describe the subject, it should not appear in the editorial voice. I would like to change this to the neutral "work". Cyrej ( talk) 17:48, 12 February 2018 (UTC)
References
“ | Several economists have hailed Georgescu-Roegen as a man who lived well ahead of his time... ... ...Paul Samuelson professed that he would be delighted if the fame Georgescu-Roegen did not fully realise in his own lifetime were granted by posterity instead. | ” |
References
{{
cite journal}}
: CS1 maint: unflagged free DOI (
link)
Hello fellow Wikipedians,
I have just modified one external link on Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
{{
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tag to
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This message was posted before February 2018.
After February 2018, "External links modified" talk page sections are no longer generated or monitored by InternetArchiveBot. No special action is required regarding these talk page notices, other than
regular verification using the archive tool instructions below. Editors
have permission to delete these "External links modified" talk page sections if they want to de-clutter talk pages, but see the
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(last update: 5 June 2024).
Cheers.— InternetArchiveBot ( Report bug) 12:58, 18 February 2018 (UTC)
In this revision, User:Gaeanautes added an editorial note to the page noting that Georgescu-Roegen's name was shortened by them to just "Georgescu" for "improved readability of the text and better use of space". However, I don't agree with this decision.
For starters, none of our featured biographies of people with hyphenated surnames use this practice: John Brooke-Little, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, and Camille Saint-Saëns. Additionally, all except one of the other language editions of this article don't follow this convention either, notably including the Romanian Wikipedia page (which could have indicated some regional practice if it did do so). The exception is the Spanish Wikipedia, but looking at its table of contents, it's clearly a translation of this English version and prior to these additions also included the full surname. Finally, perusing the titles of the sources used on the page itself, none of them include only "Georgescu", so this can't be a case of WP:COMMONNAME and is contrary to usage in reliable sources ( a Google search for "Nicholas Georgescu" excluding results containing "Roegen" also comes up empty for the subject).
Regarding the merits of the reasons given in the message itself, I don't see how it would improve readability—personally I find the hyphenated name easier to spot and skip over—and Wikipedia is not a printed page that it has space limitations.
I propose using Georgescu-Roegen's full surname to bring it in line with the article's sources per WP:COMMONNAME, in line with the other-language Wikipedias which use his full name, and in line with our featured article exemplars which also use full surnames. Opencooper ( talk) 09:26, 19 November 2018 (UTC)
@
Opencooper: I agree with all of your recent corrections, although with some reservations. To explain, I've always been primarily concerned with text readability (as I perceive it), and not with the
massive bulk of WP policy. Reading the same lengthy surname over and over again throughout a comprehensive text like the present one makes a tedious exercise, I say. I still think shortening a lengthy surname makes good sense in terms of text readability. Also, making good use of space doesn't necessarily imply that the available space is limited, as you're inferring. Rather, my point is that any available writing space should generally be used effectively, and encyclopedic texts should always be written in a concise manner in order not to tire readers. This goes for all media types, whether on paper or
digitized. In the
attention economy – of which WP now forms a significant part – human attention is a scarce commodity. WP editors should take special heed of this fact.
True, no sources referenced in the article make use of the name 'Georgescu', but only the full surname 'Georgescu-Roegen', as you point out. However, referring to the policy of WP:COMMONNAME in this context is irrelevant, as this 'common name' policy has to do only with naming the right title of an article, and not with the repeated referring to the subject of an article throughout the text. Instead, a more relevant policy here would be the MOS:SURNAME policy, according to which "Any subject who has had their surnames changed should be referred to by their most commonly used name." In effect, you're still right on the issue. Yes, I'll have to accept this particular policy myself <sigh>. To explain once again, I didn't look actively for this piece of WP policy before now, because my primary concern is with text readability as I perceive it. I'm bold and individualistic, but not reckless, when editing. I even sigh once in a while...
Two details need to be addressed:
By the way, thank you for mentioning that most of the article text here on the English WP has now been translated into Spanish. I wasn't aware of this development before reading about it in your post. It's a puzzling experience to read one's own prose when translated by others into a foreign language one doesn't fully understand oneself. Fortunately, some of the sentences appear to be almost multilingual in essence, such as this one: Georgescu-Roegen tiene una visión sombría del futuro de la humanidad. Yes, he certainly did have a sombre vision for the future of humanity. Verdad.
That's all for now. Gaeanautes ( talk) 14:17, 17 January 2019 (UTC)
In the "Mistakes and controversies" section, we can read that Georgescu-Roegen's mistake would have been to think that "the entropy law applies equally well to both energy resources and to material resources", while "the measure does not apply to macroscopic matter". But this last assertion seems completely wrong to me. I am not a physicist, but I obtained a master of physics when I was younger, and I am quite sure that the measure of entropy does apply to macroscopic matter. I tried to check the sources, but they are not available to me.
I think Georgescu-Roegen's mistake is rather not to have properly taken into account the fact that this law only applies to closed systems. 2804:18:84A:8C24:D1C9:1407:FC1E:4C76 ( talk) 12:46, 5 January 2021 (UTC)
Yes this is a problematic section, and the issue of material vs energetic entropy is messy. So I have removed the proposed 'consensus' about it, and left it as a discussion issue. jmanooch 13:22, 1 February 2021 (UTC)
“ | [T]hermodynamic phenomena include matter as well. In the received literature matter is mentioned only indirectly in connection with that elusive concept, friction. But since friction was recognized to cause additional dissipation of available energy, I was greatly surprised to see a discipline whose primary object is the study of engines paying no attention to what happens to the matter in bulk that participates in a thermodynamic process. [1]: 197, NGR's emphasis | ” |
References
Regarding this passage: "In thermodynamics proper, the entropy law does apply to energy, but not to matter of macroscopic scale (that is, not to material resources)." I've read the source "The Second Law of Life: Energy, Technology, and the Future of Earth As We Know It" pages 34-43 (couldn't find the other source) and there is not a single mention of whether Thermodynamics can, or cannot, be applied in macroscopic scale. On the contrary, the author states (p.106):
"The main point Nicolas Georgescu-Roegen made was that economists did not pay sufficient attention to the side effects of economic processes. Often, the situation was pictured such that there were no issues in obtaining world resources and that “better” technology eventually would solve all environmental problems. However, our analysis of the glass making process powerfully shows how wrong this worldview is! Yes, from a purely materials and theoretical point of view we can continue with glass recycling indefinitely (at least in theory, more about this later), but we know now that from an entropy perspective, the process constantly increases the entropy of our world. Of course, the world’s entropy will increase as part of nature; but the point is that unchecked human industry will accelerate it at a much greater rate."
This is actually a common controversy in the field of ecological economics. Here are some excerts from the book "From Bioeconomics to Degrowth" (ed. Mauro Bonaiuti):
"[Khalil (1989)] did not question the validity of the Law of Entropy from the point of view of physics but rather its application to the economic system, presenting a stand then quite widespread among economists. According to Khalil, it was necessary to distinguish the Law of Entropy proper (propagation without labor) from its applications, such as Carnot’s cycle (propagation aiming at the production of labor). While the former is a pure physical phenomenon, the latter is the outcome of a “purposeful agency.” The distinction is pertinent because the presence of a “purposeful agency” is able to counteract, in Khalil’s opinion, entropic degradation."
"[Lozada (1991)] stated that the distinction made by Khalil between Kelvin’s and Clausius’ formulations, aiming to point out the intentional aspect, was groundless. For Lozada there is only one law of entropy, although this can be formulated in different ways. Both formulations have the characteristics of a purposeful process. The decisive criticism he makes, however, is of something else. According to Lozada, Khalil seems not to be aware of one essential fact, that is that Carnot’s cycle is wholly subject to the law of entropy even if it is, like an economic process, a purposeful process. The sense of the criticism is clear: it makes no difference whether the processes are intentional or not: they are still subject to the Second Law of Thermodynamics."
As Mario Bonaiuti concludes: "G-R’s conclusions on the application of the Second Law of Thermodynamics to the economic process seem, therefore, to be confirmed by this initial debate, a standpoint that will no longer be seriously questioned in later literature. However, the controversy does underline what was to become the true nub of the question: it is not a matter of discussing the applicability of the Second Law of Thermodynamics to the economic process but rather of evaluating its effective relevance as a theoretical and empirical tool capable of describing the limits that characterize the relationships between economics and ecology." So, according to some scholars, this discussion is already closed. G-Rs approach to entropy and material resource is that matter cannot be recycled forever, and there's plenty of evidence that this is true. In a way, entropy does affect macroscale matter by changing its microscale properties. e.g. plastic (glass, or anything) loses quality after a number of recyclings.
I believe this section must be rewritten, it needs corrections and more clarity.
I'll change the section title to "Controversies", since "Mistakes" is not neutral and actually is a wrong take on G-R's ideas. I'll also erase this specific reference (The Second Law of Life: Energy, Technology, and the Future of Earth As We Know It) since it doesn't support the claim.
Pedro H.V. Santos ( talk) 20:47, 18 December 2022 (UTC)
Where the hell is his bibliography, its absence completely atypical for a biography. Simulcron ( talk) 22:10, 9 November 2022 (UTC)