A Little About Folklore

Abstract

Comment on paper by P.W. Anderson is presented. This Anderson's work is shown to contain a number of inaccurate and ungrounded statements. We point out, in particular, that the total static dielectric function not only can be negative, but inevitably has a minus sign in many stable systems. We also demonstrate that in many metals, the effective electron-phonon interaction is stronger than the direct Coulomb repulsion, without taking into account the ladder-sum renormalization or pseudization of the Coulomb repulsion. Other issues touched in Anderson's paper are also discussed.