View source for Sabine Hossenfelder

=== 2019 ===

{{Tweet
|image=Eric profile picture.jpg
|nameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein/status/1091743276565069826
|name=Eric Weinstein
|usernameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein
|username=EricRWeinstein
|content=This is why we need to rescue our experts &amp; institutions. We need to stop asking them to lie to us about their needs for growth. If even high energy physics can’t escape its inability to meet growth expectations, then all expert communities are suspect.

These are our very best.
|thread=
{{Tweet
|image=Eric profile picture.jpg
|nameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein/status/1091743271875895297
|name=Eric Weinstein
|usernameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein
|username=EricRWeinstein
|content=I’ve been talking about unmeetable  [[Embedded Growth Obligations|“Embedded Growth Obligations” or E.G.O.s]] as the reason why all our expert communities are under unbearable pressure to distort across our institutions. The physics community is *very* trustworthy on the experiment-theory level. Yet even here:
|quote=
{{Tweet
|image=skdh-profile.jpg
|nameurl=https://x.com/skdh/status/1091582806021623808
|name=Sabine Hossenfelder
|usernameurl=https://x.com/skdh
|username=skdh
|content=Particle physicists surprised to find I am not their cheer-leader

https://backreaction.blogspot.com/2019/02/particle-physicists-surprised-to-find-i.html?spref=tw
|media1=skdh-X-post-1091582806021623808-DyYUwdaWwAEHRbx.jpg
|timestamp=6:23 AM · Feb 1, 2019
}}
|timestamp=5:00 PM · Feb 2, 2019
}}
{{Tweet
|image=Eric profile picture.jpg
|nameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein/status/1091743274526683136
|name=Eric Weinstein
|usernameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein
|username=EricRWeinstein
|content=This allows us to use Fundamental Physics as a reference for deception.

These folks are our BEST. They aren’t lying about their experiments. They aren’t lying about agreement w theory. They aren’t wrong about expecting another accelerator imho.

Yet the [[Embedded Growth Obligations|EGOs]] make even them fib.
|timestamp=5:00 PM · Feb 2, 2019
}}
{{Tweet
|image=Eric profile picture.jpg
|nameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein/status/1091743275533266944
|name=Eric Weinstein
|usernameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein
|username=EricRWeinstein
|content=I may disagree with @skdh on whether we should build another multi-billion dollar accelerator. But she is exactly correct that there is no longer any new physics beyond the Standard Model expected to be found. She is telling truths above her pay-grade in the eyes of our leaders.
|timestamp=5:00 PM · Feb 2, 2019
}}
|timestamp=5:00 PM · Feb 2, 2019
}}


{{Tweet
|image=Eric profile picture.jpg
|nameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein/status/1111083048114618369
|name=Eric Weinstein
|usernameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein
|username=EricRWeinstein
|content=You should answer his call because he clearly doesn’t have my number. He’s a few digits off.
|thread=
{{Tweet
|image=Eric profile picture.jpg
|nameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein/status/1111073860789501952
|name=Eric Weinstein
|usernameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein
|username=EricRWeinstein
|content=1/ [[Sabine Hossenfelder]] has done an impressive job collecting and rebutting the arguments for building a new particle accelerator. I find them partially convincing. Let me give the big reasons that no one ever mentions as they are not in her list.
|quote=
{{Tweet
|image=skdh-profile.jpg
|nameurl=https://x.com/skdh/status/1110957808537739264
|name=Sabine Hossenfelder
|usernameurl=https://x.com/skdh
|username=skdh
|content=Nonsense arguments for building a bigger particle collider that I am tired of hearing (The Ultimate Collection)

http://backreaction.blogspot.com/2019/03/nonsense-arguments-for-building-bigger.html
|media1=skdh-X-post-1110957808537739264-D2rqN8IWwAAElyN.jpg
|timestamp=5:32 PM · Mar 27, 2019
}}
|timestamp=1:13 AM · Mar 28, 2019
}}
{{Tweet
|image=Eric profile picture.jpg
|nameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein/status/1111073862412730368
|name=Eric Weinstein
|usernameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein
|username=EricRWeinstein
|content=2/ 

I) The physics community gave us both the hydrogen bomb and the Einsteinian speed limit. Humans who acquire the Bomb never lose the ability to make them and they only get cheaper with technology. Further, the speed limit of 'c' traps us on three rocks: Earth, Moon and Mars.
|timestamp=1:13 AM · Mar 28, 2019
}}
{{Tweet
|image=Eric profile picture.jpg
|nameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein/status/1111073863666823174
|name=Eric Weinstein
|usernameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein
|username=EricRWeinstein
|content=3/

The combination of these twin gifts likely doom humanity over the long run unless we can, somehow, get around the speed of light 'c'. For that we will need to make physics a *top* priority unless we want to pretend we are going to become wise, colonize Titan, etc..etc..
|timestamp=1:13 AM · Mar 28, 2019
}}
{{Tweet
|image=Eric profile picture.jpg
|nameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein/status/1111073864774107136
|name=Eric Weinstein
|usernameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein
|username=EricRWeinstein
|content=4/ 

II) Theoretical physics practically created the modern economy: 

Chemistry</br>
Semiconductors/Transistors</br>
World Wide Web</br>
Electrification</br>
Wireless</br>
Nuclear Power/Weapons</br>
Molecular Biology

These are not simply taxpayer dollars. They began as physics dollars. We are being absurd.
|timestamp=1:13 AM · Mar 28, 2019
}}
{{Tweet
|image=Eric profile picture.jpg
|nameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein/status/1111073866091134976
|name=Eric Weinstein
|usernameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein
|username=EricRWeinstein
|content=End/ 

III) We are at the end of this thread...but also at the end of what may be the last chapter of physics. The three main equations (Dirac, Einstein, Yang Mills) are provably, in some sense, the best possible. No one would walk out just before learning the end of our story.
|timestamp=1:13 AM · Mar 28, 2019
}}
{{Tweet
|image=StefanTarr-profile-Vv6PH1rR.jpg
|nameurl=https://x.com/StefanTarr/status/1111076112686145536
|name=Calcifer
|usernameurl=https://x.com/StefanTarr
|username=StefanTarr
|content=I) "We gotta get FTL"</br>
II) "Might be unexpected bonuses"</br>
III) *appeals to emotion*
|timestamp=1:26 AM · Mar 28, 2019
}}
{{Tweet
|image=Eric profile picture.jpg
|nameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein/status/1111077016747401216
|name=Eric Weinstein
|usernameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein
|username=EricRWeinstein
|content=I) Not exactly FTL...but that is fair from what I wrote. I was using shorthand. Guilty. 

II) No. We have obligations to this community. We don't allow them to fully participate so they have economic rights that we are abusing. This is a foreign idea to most. 

III) No: Meaning.
|timestamp=1:26 AM · Mar 28, 2019
}}
{{Tweet
|image=Fourliquin-profile-Ttjat29v.jpg
|nameurl=https://x.com/Fourliquin/status/1111080759463301121
|name=Fourliquin
|usernameurl=https://x.com/Fourliquin
|username=Fourliquin
|content=Curious... I just reviewed the 'Dirac Sea' issue last night.

@EricRWeinstein , could you 'lightly' outline the 'provably the best possible' claim? w/o definitions for dark matter/ energy/ fluid, etc. how can we be near the end of the 'story'? thx
|timestamp=1:41 AM · Mar 28, 2019
}}
{{Tweet
|image=Eric profile picture.jpg
|nameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein/status/1111082487541686272
|name=Eric Weinstein
|usernameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein
|username=EricRWeinstein
|content=Briefly: 
A) Dirac operator actually generates K-theory. 

B) Einstein theory from Hilbert Lagrangian is simplest possible Lagrangian in pseudo-riemannian geometry (just scalar curvature).

C) YangMills Lagrangian simplest in Ehresmannian geometry (just norm square of curvature).
|timestamp=1:48 AM · Mar 28, 2019
}}
{{Tweet
|image=David2APatriot-profile-l-0tvz6-.jpg
|nameurl=https://x.com/David2APatriot/status/1111075555800166406
|name=Wyvern
|usernameurl=https://x.com/David2APatriot
|username=David2APatriot
|content=Lord Kelvin called from the past.
|media1=David2APatriot-X-post-1111075555800166406-D2tVVFaWwAEHsig.jpg
|timestamp=1:20 AM · Mar 28, 2019
}}
|timestamp=1:50 AM · Mar 28, 2019
}}

=== 2022 ===

{{Tweet
|image=Eric profile picture.jpg
|nameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein/status/1490951516085448705
|name=Eric Weinstein
|usernameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein
|username=EricRWeinstein
|content=I spent a lot of time in beautiful homes and second homes of older research scientists as a grad student.

We should be embarrassed how far into [[The Precariat|precariousness]] we pushed Generation X &amp; Millennials. Our entire economy is now bet on bargain science provided way below market.#Enough
|thread=
{{Tweet
|image=Eric profile picture.jpg
|nameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein/status/1490949894076469249
|name=Eric Weinstein
|usernameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein
|username=EricRWeinstein
|content=Keep your mouth shut or lose job security.

Sometimes @skdh drives me nuts. Usually, it’s in a good way. Can no one  with money or power fix this situation? No? Of course not. You want science slaves. How’s that working in virology?

Somebody get our scientists wealth &amp; [[Academic Freedom|freedom]].
|quote=
{{Tweet
|image=skdh-profile.jpg
|nameurl=https://x.com/skdh/status/1490945304438345728
|name=Sabine Hossenfelder
|usernameurl=https://x.com/skdh
|username=skdh
|content=Of course the vast majority of people who work in the foundations of physics want me to stop pointing out they are working on pseudoscience. Of course I know that this means I will never get a permanent position.
|timestamp=7:07 AM · Feb 8, 2022
}}
|timestamp=7:25 AM · Feb 8, 2022
}}
|timestamp=7:31 AM · Feb 8, 2022
}}


{{Tweet
|image=Eric profile picture.jpg
|nameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein/status/1589670486073802753
|name=Eric Weinstein
|usernameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein
|username=EricRWeinstein
|content=Beauty *is* a light in the darkness as experiment becomes less accessible. Perhaps our best one. 

But not all lights in the darkness are natural daylight leading to the exits from Plato’s cave.
|thread=
{{Tweet
|image=Eric profile picture.jpg
|nameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein/status/1589640515129339905
|name=Eric Weinstein
|usernameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein
|username=EricRWeinstein
|content=Instantly stop all progress in the world’s most successful scientific community using only two words inducing permanent paralytic failure that cannot be questioned.

I’ll go first: [[Quantum Gravity|“Quantum Gravity”]]
|timestamp=3:26 PM · Nov 7, 2022
}}
{{Tweet
|image=skdh-profile.jpg
|nameurl=https://x.com/skdh/status/1589660713148375045
|name=Sabine Hossenfelder
|usernameurl=https://x.com/skdh
|username=skdh
|content=you're confusing the symptom with the disease
|timestamp=4:47 PM · Nov 7, 2022
}}
{{Tweet
|image=Eric profile picture.jpg
|nameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein/status/1589662680318881793
|name=Eric Weinstein
|usernameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein
|username=EricRWeinstein
|content=Hi [[Sabine Hossenfelder|Sabine]]!

I don’t follow your statement here. How am I confused?
|timestamp=4:54 PM · Nov 7, 2022
}}
{{Tweet
|image=skdh-profile.jpg
|nameurl=https://x.com/skdh/status/1589664337375166464
|name=Sabine Hossenfelder
|usernameurl=https://x.com/skdh
|username=skdh
|content=I just meant the cause of the problem is that theoretical physicists don't understand the responsibility they carry when experimental tests take longer and longer. That they got stuck on (a particular idea of) quantum gravity is the effect, but not the cause.
|timestamp=5:01 PM · Nov 7, 2022
}}
{{Tweet
|image=Eric profile picture.jpg
|nameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein/status/1589666440332070912
|name=Eric Weinstein
|usernameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein
|username=EricRWeinstein
|content=Hmm. As you know I’m historically a big supporter of your courage &amp; insight as critic. Perhaps you know something here that I do not as a nonphysicist. Open to that.

But I disagree. The Q-Gravity Mass Delusion is quite different in character. It is highly specific in its effect.
|timestamp=5:09 PM · Nov 7, 2022
}}
{{Tweet
|image=Eric profile picture.jpg
|nameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein/status/1589667259626434561
|name=Eric Weinstein
|usernameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein
|username=EricRWeinstein
|content=It is tied to all sorts of weirdness involving top physics and math people, bizarre funders, forgotten research institutes, aerospace companies, post Manhattan Project government secrecy, [[The Golden Age of General Relativity|the golden age of General Relativity]] and…words fail me…outright quackery.
|timestamp=5:13 PM · Nov 7, 2022
}}
{{Tweet
|image=Eric profile picture.jpg
|nameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein/status/1589668082691473408
|name=Eric Weinstein
|usernameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein
|username=EricRWeinstein
|content=GUTs are a good test case. I believe you are in error going after Beauty when it comes to Grand Unified Theory. Your critique to Neil Degrasse Tyson recently applied to Georgi and Glashow Basic SU(5)…but not to [[Pati-Salam|Pati-Salaam]] SU(4) x SU(2) x SU(2) for example.
|timestamp=5:16 PM · Nov 7, 2022
}}
{{Tweet
|image=Eric profile picture.jpg
|nameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein/status/1589668754497359872
|name=Eric Weinstein
|usernameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein
|username=EricRWeinstein
|content=I caution that you not fall into the trap of using Beauty as critique. 

The abuse of Beauty in [[String Theory]] and [[Quantum Gravity]] more generally is valid as a target. 

Critiquing the use of beauty, by contrast is a suicide mission. And I don’t want to see you on it. As a friend.
|timestamp=5:19 PM · Nov 7, 2022
}}
|timestamp=5:25 PM · Nov 7, 2022
}}

=== 2023 ===

{{Tweet
|image=Eric profile picture.jpg
|nameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein/status/1667195003914035200
|name=Eric Weinstein
|usernameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein
|username=EricRWeinstein
|content=@skdh I acknowledge my desires as you see from what I wrote. But a stagnant community always wants outcomes. It wants SUSY. Or [[String Theory|Strings]]. Or some g-2 muon anomaly. Etc.

I want too. But what I want is mostly just a desire to get the BS out of physics so we can get back to succeeding.
|thread=
{{Tweet
|image=Eric profile picture.jpg
|nameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein/status/1666441014981033984
|name=Eric Weinstein
|usernameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein
|username=EricRWeinstein
|content=Now I feel completely alone.

I want our wanting out of this story. I have a huge dog in this fight. I spend every day fighting my own human desire for GU to be proven correct.

I believe this is how [[String Theory|String Theorists]] stopped being scientists.

I just want our data &amp; the physics.
{{Tweet
|image=skdh-profile.jpg
|nameurl=https://x.com/skdh/status/1666303048631590914
|name=Sabine Hossenfelder
|usernameurl=https://x.com/skdh
|username=skdh
|content=I want this to be real.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/jun/06/whistleblower-ufo-alien-tech-spacecraft
|media1=skdh-X-post-1666303048631590914.jpg
|timestamp=4:36 AM · Jun 7, 2023
}}
|timestamp=1:44 PM · Jun 7, 2023
}}
{{Tweet
|image=Eric profile picture.jpg
|nameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein/status/1666441031158730752
|name=Eric Weinstein
|usernameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein
|username=EricRWeinstein
|content=If biological aliens were here from others star systems in crafts that defy the current physics of the standard model and, more importantly, general relativity, I would be one of the few people who would have a guess on day one as to how they must have gotten here. It’s tempting.
|timestamp=1:44 PM · Jun 7, 2023
}}
{{Tweet
|image=Eric profile picture.jpg
|nameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein/status/1666441034140725251
|name=Eric Weinstein
|usernameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein
|username=EricRWeinstein
|content=I don’t think biological interstellar alien visitors using GR and the SM make much sense. So I try to have a war *inside* my own mind as to what is true. I have a genuine “Need to Know” as to whether this is BS NatSec space opera disinformation theater. Because to me, it is data.
|timestamp=1:44 PM · Jun 7, 2023
}}
{{Tweet
|image=Eric profile picture.jpg
|nameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein/status/1666441040314748928
|name=Eric Weinstein
|usernameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein
|username=EricRWeinstein
|content=What just happened isn’t data. It’s that a sober individual just pushed one of the many longstanding highly conserved NHI narratives collected from *many* diverse sober NatSec informants over the sworn testimony line. And it gets a LOT crazier from here. But it’s not science yet.
|timestamp=1:44 PM · Jun 7, 2023
}}
{{Tweet
|image=Eric profile picture.jpg
|nameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein/status/1666441043347374080
|name=Eric Weinstein
|usernameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein
|username=EricRWeinstein
|content=As I‘ve been saying, there is so much deliberate NatSec BS out here that our own scientists are being propagandized. We’re drilling holes in our own scientists’ lifeboat. Last time we saw this it was virologists/immunologists/epidemiologists being gaslit. Now it’s physicists.
|timestamp=1:44 PM · Jun 7, 2023
}}
{{Tweet
|image=Eric profile picture.jpg
|nameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein/status/1666441045926891520
|name=Eric Weinstein
|usernameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein
|username=EricRWeinstein
|content=Let me be very careful in what I am about to say. We have at least the appearance and optics of scientific self-sabotage. And wanting things to be true is how science dies.

I fight like hell to promote my theory. But I’d sign on to another to know the truth if I was wrong.
|timestamp=1:44 PM · Jun 7, 2023
}}
{{Tweet
|image=Eric profile picture.jpg
|nameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein/status/1666441048753836033
|name=Eric Weinstein
|usernameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein
|username=EricRWeinstein
|content=We may be looking at the birth of a new UFO religion. Or a moment of contact. Or a long running Disinformation campaign. Etc.

To go beyond GR, let’s be scientists &amp; get NatSec out of our data first. Where is our data pruned of space opera disinformation and cultic religiosity?
|timestamp=1:44 PM · Jun 7, 2023
}}
{{Tweet
|image=Eric profile picture.jpg
|nameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein/status/1666441052369158145
|name=Eric Weinstein
|usernameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein
|username=EricRWeinstein
|content=What I want to know:

Why was the [[Mansfield Amendment (1969)|Mansfield Amendment]] passed?

Why did [[National Science Foundation (NSF)|NSF]] fake a [[Labor Shortages|labor shortage]] in our MARKET economy destroying American STEM labor markets?

What stopped the [[General Relativity|Golden Age Of General Relativity]]?

Why was the SSC really cancelled?

[[String Theory|StringTheory]] &amp; STAGNATION: WTF?
|timestamp=1:44 PM · Jun 7, 2023
}}
{{Tweet
|image=Eric profile picture.jpg
|nameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein/status/1666441055531663362
|name=Eric Weinstein
|usernameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein
|username=EricRWeinstein
|content=What the hell was the [[The Secret History of Anti-Gravity and Quantum Gravity Research|1957 Behnson funded UNC Chapel Hill conference]] actually about?

Why are we not stopping to QUESTION [[Quantum Gravity|quantum gravity]] after 70 years of public *FAILURE* inspired by Babson-Behnson patronage of RIAS, the Institute of Field Physics and the precursor to Lockheed?
|timestamp=1:44 PM · Jun 7, 2023
}}
{{Tweet
|image=Eric profile picture.jpg
|nameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein/status/1666441058442674176
|name=Eric Weinstein
|usernameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein
|username=EricRWeinstein
|content=This is the 50th year of stagnation in the [[Standard Model|Standard Model Lagrangian]]. It is AS IF we are deliberately trying to forget how to do actual physics. Everyone who has succeeded in Particle Theory in standard terms is now over 70. This is insane. In 25 years there will be no one left.
|timestamp=1:44 PM · Jun 7, 2023
}}
{{Tweet
|image=Eric profile picture.jpg
|nameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein/status/1666441060976062464
|name=Eric Weinstein
|usernameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein
|username=EricRWeinstein
|content=Why are we not admitting that quantum gravity is killing physics and is the public respectable face of  1950s anti-gravity mania that lives on to murder all new theories in their cradle?

[[Quantum Gravity]] is fake and works to stop actual physics.

There. I said it. Now let’s talk.
|timestamp=1:44 PM · Jun 7, 2023
}}
{{Tweet
|image=Eric profile picture.jpg
|nameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein/status/1666441063752671232
|name=Eric Weinstein
|usernameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein
|username=EricRWeinstein
|content=If you want to know whether there are biological interstellar visitors here observing us, the short answer is “Almost *certainly* not if they are using our current stagnant non-progressing  theories of physics.”

Let’s finally get serious about this whacky subject? Thanks. 🙏
|timestamp=1:44 PM · Jun 7, 2023
}}
{{Tweet
|image=skdh-profile.jpg
|nameurl=https://x.com/skdh/status/1667085711617540096
|name=Sabine Hossenfelder
|usernameurl=https://x.com/skdh
|username=skdh
|content=I swear I didn't write my tweet to make you feel alone and I'm genuinely sorry if that was the result. That said, I think it's better to acknowledge one's hopes and desires than to pretend they don't exist and thereby overestimate one's own rationality.
|timestamp=8:26 AM · Jun 9, 2023
}}
|timestamp=3:40 PM · Jun 9, 2023
}}

=== 2024 ===

{{Tweet
|image=Eric profile picture.jpg
|nameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein/status/1828104395000819753
|name=Eric Weinstein
|usernameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein
|username=EricRWeinstein
|content=Many of you will be shocked by my IV. Which is perhaps why I asked for three…

IV) I would choose [[String Theory]] or the Amplitudes / Double Copy approach. 

At least the String people are energized by the fact that the math is real even when the physics is fake. And at least the double copy people have a mystery connecting [[General Relativity|GR]] to the [[Standard Model|SM]]. 

B) As to who I find interesting. Anyone going it alone to follow a hunch, but who knows what [[General Relativity|GR]] and the [[Standard Model|SM]] are. Mavericks, not cranks. 

Woit, Lisi, Deutsche, Wolfram, myself and Barbour are all outside of purely traditional structures. Oppenheim and others are in such structures but still mavericks. I wish Sabine had a theory that I knew of. But I am not aware of one. 

The observation I would make is that being a professor is a double edged sword. Outside the Professorate it is almost impossible to function from isolation and deprivation. Inside, you get captured by a constant set of pressures to conform to things you know are sapping your vitality. And you go into angry denial “I do whatever I want as a professor! I just happen to believe in this large program which is known not to work but gives me grants and summer stipend.”

Right now, I would bring those mavericks together with the most open of the professorate and steelman/catalog where those individual programs are in their trajectories. Duh. 

There are really fewer than 10 of them. This is absolutely obvious. It is cheap and would take almost no resources. It does not happen simply for reasons of political economy. There is no other reason not to do it.

As for who excites me most (myself excluded):

Nima Arkani Hamed</br>
Frank Wilczek</br>
Peter Woit</br>
John Baez</br>
[[Ed Witten]]</br>
Luis Alvarez Gaume</br>
[[Dan Freed]]</br>
Jose Figueroa O’Farril

And two others I will leave nameless for a top 10.

———

So that is my take. It wasn’t a gotcha. 

If all we can do is bemoan the state of physics, we need to change our focus. 

Yes I expect to be savaged. For some reason, saying anything positive creates anger. Bring it. 

Thanks for your time. As always.
🙏
|thread=
{{Tweet
|image=Eric profile picture.jpg
|nameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein/status/1828098295492915708
|name=Eric Weinstein
|usernameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein
|username=EricRWeinstein
|content=After seeing my friend @skdh say what is wrong with theoretical physics, I asked her what would theoretical physics done right look like. Specifically, which general approaches and which theorists she was most excited about. 

Her answer is in the quote tweet. 

The question was not a gotcha question so I will try to answer it myself below.

I will say that I find her answer at turns both expected and shocking. There is very little going on, but there is not nothing. And if she is not excited by anything, that’s an amazing state of affairs. 

Here is my response to the same question below. Which many may not expect or accept.
|media1=ERW-X-post-1828098295492915708-GV61tXbWAAAlkXp.jpg
|quote=
{{Tweet
|image=skdh-profile.jpg
|nameurl=https://x.com/skdh/status/1828019281168109819
|name=Sabine Hossenfelder
|usernameurl=https://x.com/skdh
|username=skdh
|content=Eric, I am still saying the same thing I said in "Lost in Math" because the situation is still the same. 

Q1: Not sure whether you are asking for strategies or topics. For what strategies are concerned: necessity, consistency, phenomenology. For what topics are concerned: Quantum measurements, quantum gravity, dark matter. So yes, dark matter... but don't invent unnecessary details, hence my misgiving about the figure. The entire figure is basically screaming that theorists are inventing loads of unnecessarily contrived and useless theories.

Q2: can't think of anyone, sorry
|timestamp=10:38 AM · Aug 26, 2024
}}
|timestamp=3:52 PM · Aug 26, 2024
}}
{{Tweet
|image=Eric profile picture.jpg
|nameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein/status/1828098300928823611
|name=Eric Weinstein
|usernameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein
|username=EricRWeinstein
|content=A) The three most promising lines of attack in fundamental physics. This is likely to confuse people who think in terms of “the strong community”, “the amplitudes program”, “the LQG community”. These are the “Team Sports” branches of attack. And team players really only recognize other teams which is a MASSIVE bias. That is why [[String Theory|String Theorists]] view [[Quantum Gravity|Loop Quantum Gravity]] as their hand chosen rigal. It is a team that they believe doesn’t challenge them; a partner to dunk on if you will.

For my money, the true rivals are not teams. They are NOT communities. 

I). Spinorial/Clifford/Exceptional physics. This is almost never broken out. 

The idea here is that many of us believe that there is way more information in Spinorial physics of the particle spectrum of the Standard Model than has been used. In particular the D5 Dynkin diagram GUT is the missed off-ramp.

In this generalized setting, Peter Woit of @notevenwrong, Roger Penrose, Myself, Garrett Lisi, and the exceptional algebra researchers focused on extending the octonionic tradition of the Turkish school are all clustered. In this school, almost everyone will be largely *wrong* in my opinion. But the right answer is most likely to come from this branch IMO.

II) Classical Differential Geometric Field Theory. It is amazing to me how over-focused we seem on the quantum. The star of the show is not now, and never was the quantum.

Let me put it in provocative terms: Classical Physics is where the real action has always been. Pun intended.

The quantum is real. It’s mysterious. It’s mind blowing. And as a result it provides jobs and something to talk about when the classical theory is stagnant. But the dream of quantum theories that are born quantum never materialized. We still quantize classical theories, for all our posturing about needing to take classical limits of quantum theories.

[[Ed Witten|Witten]] in particular popularized the notion that the incompatiblity between General Relativity and the Standard Model is a Classical vs Quantum problem. He’s wrong. 

The Classical GR theory is already incompatible with the Classical Standard Model. The incompatibility is already classical: NOT Quantum.

The G_{mu, nu} operator concept of Einstein (and Grossman) is NOT gauge compatible. But the Standard Model IS a gauge theory. We have wasted 40 years in my opinion pretending that the GR vs SM split is a call to quantize gravity. We got there by pretended that GR is a kind of gauge theory which it obviously isn’t. And we pretend that you don’t quantize classical theories but take classical limits of quantum theories. Who this is supposed to fool is beyond me. The weak? The insecure? The egoic?

Once you have the classical arena (the manifolds) the field content (the bundles, groups and representations) and the action, the game is largely already determined theoretically when you are quantizing a classical theory. The quantum theory is used to figure out what its real world consequences are. The world is quantum after all. 

So why does the Classical theory get sent to a diminished role? This is going to be brutal: it’s the political economy of Physics. It’s because the number of people who have contributed to the Lagrangians is tiny. Einstein/Grossman, Maxwell/Yang and Dirac tower over our theories. That’s spin 2, spin 1 and spin 1/2 right there. The Higgs sector pulls in Glashow, Englert, Weinberg, etc. But I believe this is temporary and will be absorbed back into the other sectors before too long. It is the ungainly sector after all that still feels contrived. Real, but contrived.

And I believe that a lot of the toy work in low dimensions will turn out to be closer to GR than people imagine. Right now it looks closer to the Standard Model due to history. 

III) Non spacetime SUSY. 

I believe the reason we can neither find Supersymmetry nor get rid of it is that we misinstantiated it. There are no Squarks or Gluinos. Right idea, wrong off-ramp. This goes back to Salam and Strathdee.
|timestamp=3:52 PM · Aug 26, 2024
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|timestamp=4:17 PM · Aug 26, 2024
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{{Tweet
|image=Eric profile picture.jpg
|nameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein/status/1843616805090406740
|name=Eric Weinstein
|usernameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein
|username=EricRWeinstein
|content=[[Anything But Physics|“Anything but Physics”]] has tremendous predictive power.

We can discuss Spin Foam.</br>
Or Boltzmann Brains.</br>
Or 3D Chern-Simons.</br>
Or [[String Theory|Strings]].</br>
Or Alien warp drives.</br>
Or Quantum computing.</br>
Or Calabi-Yau manifolds.</br>
Or Machine Learning.</br>
Or Tenure/[[Peer Review|PeerReview]]/Grants.</br>
Etc Etc

But not physics.
|thread=
{{Tweet
|image=skdh-profile.jpg
|nameurl=https://x.com/skdh/status/1843592351736050053
|name=Sabine Hossenfelder
|usernameurl=https://x.com/skdh
|username=skdh
|content=And the 2024 Nobel Prize in Physics does not go to physics...
|timestamp=10:00 AM · Oct 8, 2024
}}
|timestamp=11:37 AM · Oct 8, 2024
}}

=== 2025 ===

{{Tweet
|image=Eric profile picture.jpg
|nameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein/status/1891415123744489498
|name=Eric Weinstein
|usernameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein
|username=EricRWeinstein
|content=Many of you are asking me to comment on this video.

I was trying very hard not to do so.

@skdh has not been treated properly by the physics community in my opinion. We are generally in agreement and I recommend her.

She is now bigger by herself than all of @bgreene’s World Science Festival. And I believe that she has to think through  these comments at her new scale.

Bottom Line: @skdh is far more in the right than her critics will acknowledge. But she is now at a new scale and these remarks are misleading in my opinion.

Fundamental Physics is, to me, what Mars and Rockets are to @elonmusk: man’s only hope for long term survival. 

My belief is that @skdh is now so negative based on her egregious treatment at the hands of her community that her righteous position is  actually endangering physics itself in the era of @DOGE.

I would consider debating her as a friend to give a more positive view. 

Her and my tormentors in physics are our enemies basically because they are '''precarious'''. And '''precarious scientists are dangerous'''. Should we starve them or pay them?

@skdh and I agree that there are a lot of shitty physics folks behaving badly. Sabine is closer to saying cut off the bad scientists. I am closer to saying “We have a Fauci problem in physics. Get rid of the means by which our ‘Faucis’ control us by making their colleagues '''precarious'''. Wealth is the solution to the ethics crisis in physics. The physics community that brought you the wealth of the modern world cannot be controlled by our Fauci’s. Honor the community by freeing them from economic tyranny and the problem gets solved in a positive manner.”

I despise the cowardly enemies of science, and of Sabine. In my opinion they are bullies and cowards really only because they were wrongly made '''precarious'''. 

We desperately need our physicists. Free them. Pay them. Free them from our Fauci’s.

I would be happy to debate Sabine (and @bgreene, @seanmcarroll, @michiokaku and others) on this. It’s literally life and death to me in the long term [See my pinned tweet.] and Sabine is wildly too negative here. Happy to defend this.

🙏
|quote=
{{Tweet
|image=skdh-profile.jpg
|nameurl=https://x.com/skdh/status/1890793193400340527
|name=Sabine Hossenfelder
|usernameurl=https://x.com/skdh
|username=skdh
|content=I want to read you an email that I was asked to keep confidential because I think it explains some of my worries about academia.
{{#widget:YouTube|id=shFUDPqVmTg}}
|timestamp=3:00 PM · Feb 15, 2025
}}
|timestamp=9:11 AM · Feb 17, 2025
|media1=ERW-X-post-1891415123744489498-Gj-lqWTWgAAXFQs.jpg
|media2=ERW-X-post-1891415123744489498-Gj-lqWVW0AAZbK5.jpg
}}


{{Tweet
|image=Eric profile picture.jpg
|nameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein/status/2004627745280839715
|name=Eric Weinstein
|usernameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein
|username=EricRWeinstein
|content=I think we have different experiences.

The first line of defense is “Of course if anyone had any more promising ideas on how to go beyond the [[Standard Model]],  we’d all work on that…”
|thread=
{{Tweet
|image=Eric profile picture.jpg
|nameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein/status/2004563773957566865
|name=Eric Weinstein
|usernameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein
|username=EricRWeinstein
|content=It’s not that String Theorists ended up forgetting details of the physical world, so much as they ended up resenting the physical world for existing.

Imagine being lectured on how physics works by these people: 

“I don’t give a damn about the [[Standard Model]].”

“The [[Standard Model]] is ‘Ugly as Sin’.”

“I haven’t had a lepton or hadron enter  any work I’ve done in 25 years.”

“We all know Supersymmetry is needed to make our best models work. When nature decided not to provide superpartners at the LHC we retaliated and snubbed her right back by ignoring her from then on.” 

“It’s okay that you don’t get all the magnificent progress made in quantum gravity and theoretical physics since Juan [Maldacena]. It’s not for everyone. It requires a powerful mind and is very subtle if you are still focused on the physical world.”

“Outsiders can’t get that it is the physical world that held physics back. Luckily we solved that, but it is awkward to talk about this with people outside [[Quantum Gravity|quantum gravity]].”

“Right. I just don’t care about the physical world. Sorry.”

“We have to admit the truth. [[String Theory]] with a capital S failed as physics. Period. Which is why we have to go back and re-examine everything…And then rebuild [[String Theory]] again in light of what we learned.”

——-

These people are lecturing others about what science is. As professors. As journal editors. As prize recipients. As members of the National Academy. 

This is a mass delusion Sabine. Or a cover story. I think I don’t have a third option. What is clear is that the above is 100% anti-science. It is trying to stop science from happening in public physics. It is a community mass delusion threatened not only by science, but now by the PHYSICAL WORLD itself.

Am I the only person on earth experiencing this at this level?? This is something you learn by putting up a real alternative focused on the real world of 3 generations of chiral matter. The above is what is unlocked when there are alternatives presented. 

This isn’t about funding anymore Sabine. It’s not about predictive power. It’s not about being seduced by beautiful mathematics.

It’s about physicts stopping physics in physics departments by resenting and spurning the physical world for failing THEM. And then lecturing us on what science is when they have not a clue how science works. At all.
|quote=
{{Tweet
|image=skdh-profile.jpg
|nameurl=https://x.com/skdh/status/2004523169848390111
|name=Sabine Hossenfelder
|usernameurl=https://x.com/skdh
|username=skdh
|content=I would argue that denying a genetic basis of skin colour is on a different level than forgetting the details of the standard model, but same energy I guess.
|timestamp=12:43 PM · Dec 26, 2025
}}
|timestamp=2:43 PM · Dec 26, 2025
}}
{{Tweet
|image=skdh-profile.jpg
|nameurl=https://x.com/skdh/status/2004599144434847990
|name=Sabine Hossenfelder
|usernameurl=https://x.com/skdh
|username=skdh
|content=I have certainly met people with this attitude but I've found that to be quite rare. 

The mass delusion that still persists in the foundations of physics is the idea that just guessing some maths amounts to making a scientific "prediction". It's a major methodological problem that physicists are evidently unwilling to solve, even though I am perfectly sure that most of them know very well what I am talking about. And the major reason for this is that many of them quite literally live from inventing nonsense theories and publishing them. They haven't learned anything else. 

That said, it's somewhat tangential for the point I was trying to make in the comment that you quote. I just meant that the basics of genetics are middle school knowledge and even leaving that aside, one doesn't need a PhD to notice that skin colour, like many other physical features, is highly heritable. In contrast, I don't expect people to know the symmetry groups of the standard model.
|timestamp=5:04 PM · Dec 26, 2025
}}
|timestamp=6:57 PM · Dec 26, 2025
}}

== Related Pages ==

* [[Standard Model]]
* [[String Theory]]

[[Category:People]]
[[Category:Physics]]