Editing String Theory (section)

=== 2022 ===


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|name=Eric Weinstein
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|username=EricRWeinstein
|content=Has it yet occurred to those now weary of the Fauci/Collins anti-scientific smear-campaigns, that this strategy of ‘smear-driven scientific consensus’ became nearly *universal*? [[String Theory|String-Theory]], Neo-Darwinism, and Neo-Classical Economics being top examples: it’s all like this now.
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|name=Jay Bhattacharya
|usernameurl=https://x.com/DrJBhattacharya
|username=DrJBhattacharya
|content=The Fauci/Collins playbook to create a false impression of scientific consensus on COVID policy (used on lab-leak, lockdowns & early treatment):
1. Call scientists who disagree "fringe"
2. Deploy big tech misinformation hordes to suppress opposing thoughts
[1/2]
|timestamp=1:00 AM · Feb 3, 2022
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|timestamp=7:54 AM · Feb 4, 2022
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|nameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein/status/1561731816435789825
|name=Eric Weinstein
|usernameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein
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|content=Respectfully disagree. The problem isn’t “String Theory”. As a harsh critic of the field I’m first to admit that there is tremendous depth in “String Theory”. The problem is the effect of “String Culture” on the culture of *actual* physics tied to the world in which we live.
|timestamp=3:07 PM · Aug 22, 2022
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|content=@martinmbauer [[Nathan “Nati” Seiberg|Seiberg]]/[[Ed Witten|Witten]]/Dijkgraaf/Maldacena

All string folks. 

Maybe get a [[String Theory|string theorist]] to admit this to you. [[Brian Greene]] likely wouldn’t disagree with me.
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|nameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein/status/1562112981185441792
|name=Eric Weinstein
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|username=EricRWeinstein
|content=It really depends. Being totally honest:

[[String Theory|“String Theory”]] has done a *tremendous* amount of good while “String Maximalism” has done even more harm.

If the [[String Theory|String Theorists]] who led the movement were to undo some of the damage by admitting what happened, it’d be a major positive.

https://x.com/JMarkMcEntire/status/1562089447189086209
|timestamp=4:22 PM · Aug 23, 2022
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|nameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein/status/1562113698717528066
|name=Eric Weinstein
|usernameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein
|username=EricRWeinstein
|content=Here is where I respectfully disagree with my colleague @skdh. You can’t ‘get rid of [[String Theory|string theory]]’. String-like objects are natural and have an unbelievably rich and beautiful interlocking mathematics. The beguiling beauty isn’t the problem in my opinion. Beauty is the excuse.
|timestamp=4:25 PM · Aug 23, 2022
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|nameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein/status/1562114833561964545
|name=Eric Weinstein
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|username=EricRWeinstein
|content=The problem is that string theory on its own has taken the last 40years to PROVE it doesn’t work as a stand alone path by gobbling up mind share, students, resources and (to be fair) most of the most brilliant brains. So much that no one dares say the full extent of the disaster.
|timestamp=4:29 PM · Aug 23, 2022
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|name=Eric Weinstein
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|content=During that time [[String Theory]] diverted the entire field into a magical never-land of “toy physics”. Models that aren’t in any way real. You now have “particle physicists” at the end of their careers who have never worked with anything like a particle and can’t remember them.
|timestamp=4:34 PM · Aug 23, 2022
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|content=So, here’s my analysis. In a world where [[David Gross]], [[Ed Witten]], [[Lenny Susskind]], [[Cumrun Vafa]], [[Michio Kaku]] had a public Come To Jesus moment where they admitted the disaster in front of the community faithful, I’d be up for having [[String Theory|ST]] as a major theory. But without that I’m unsure.
|timestamp=4:43 PM · Aug 23, 2022
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|nameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein/status/1562118341854081024
|name=Eric Weinstein
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|content=The damage to the culture of High Energy Physics is more severe than the damage done by Geoffery Chew in a different era. And here I support @skdh, [[Peter Woit]], [[Lee Smolin]] etc. These are brave people who paid with abuse to communicate that physics was diverting into pure fantasy.
|timestamp=4:43 PM · Aug 23, 2022
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|content=So to sum up: 

[[String Theory]] deserves to be a major branch. But it has already mostly given up on the ‘80s promises/lies it told us to gobble up all the resources of the community (brains, mind share, $$$). That was a crime which may prove fatal to our being able to do physics.
|timestamp=4:52 PM · Aug 23, 2022
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|nameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein/status/1562121223189893121
|name=Eric Weinstein
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|content=But it is also so thoroughly investigated and badly behaved relative to scientific norms that it deserved to be shrunk. And that happened to a large extent already. The most important thing to realize is that physics is still about the physical world. Not Calabi Yau. Not AdS/CFT.
|timestamp=4:54 PM · Aug 23, 2022
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|name=Eric Weinstein
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|content=And we need our brilliant failed string theorists to admit the disaster within a scientific paradigm. 

Science is a culture. Perhaps the most fragile one. It won’t survive this suspension of collegiality, decency and self-critical behavior. We need to go back to real physics. 🙏
|timestamp=4:57 PM · Aug 23, 2022
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|name=Eric Weinstein
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|content=@martinmbauer [[String Theory|String theory]] was a giant percentage of a tiny priesthood. That was the same tiny priesthood that brought us Thermo Nuclear devices. And if you want to pay for me to research the numbers I’m willing to hire somebody to put together the data after 1984. It’s not usually contested.
|timestamp=5:06 PM · Aug 23, 2022
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|content=@DontsitDJ @martinmbauer I wasn’t aware of it like that. I think he disagrees with me and has a bit of an edge. But maybe I missed a tweet or two. I haven’t seen much interaction and he has written some things I liked.
|timestamp=5:10 PM · Aug 23, 2022
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|name=Eric Weinstein
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|content=@DontsitDJ @martinmbauer I love a good critique. It’s hard to find. Most people out here develop a side hustle in interpersonal drama. I try not to.
|timestamp=5:12 PM · Aug 23, 2022
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|content=@martinmbauer I don’t know which version of “The Field” you mean. 

Physics in total? Is a large field.

Beyond the [[Standard Model|standard model theory]]? Is a small field. Tiny. But hugely consequential. And the percentage and effect wasn’t small. Do you really dispute this??? Look at the IAS professors.
|timestamp=5:38 PM · Aug 23, 2022
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|timestamp=5:40 PM · Aug 23, 2022
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|content=P.S. “It hasn’t even failed” because it can’t fail. So far as I can see, it can never fail. In the minds of the faithful, It’s unable to fail because it *has* to be the way forward. It’s hard to explain what’s wrong with that to the enlightened who see its infinite power &amp; glory.
|quote=
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|nameurl=https://x.com/martinmbauer/status/1562121660194504705
|name=Martin Bauer
|usernameurl=https://x.com/martinmbauer
|username=martinmbauer
|content=What has string theory done to become the poster child of failed physics? It hasn’t even failed.
|timestamp=4:56 PM · Aug 23, 2022
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|nameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein/status/1562460747560497153
|name=Eric Weinstein
|usernameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein
|username=EricRWeinstein
|content=Physics in 1980: “I’m trying to grasp why nature has 3 generations of chiral fermions with SU(3)xSU(2)xU(1) internal symmetry.”

Physics Today: “Remind me again what the internal quantum numbers are? I do [[Quantum Gravity|quantum gravity]] so it’s not something I’ve worked with since my QFT class.”
|quote=
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|nameurl=https://x.com/martinmbauer/status/1562121660194504705
|name=Martin Bauer
|usernameurl=https://x.com/martinmbauer
|username=martinmbauer
|content=What has string theory done to become the poster child of failed physics? It hasn’t even failed.
|timestamp=4:56 PM · Aug 23, 2022
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|timestamp=3:24 PM · Aug 24, 2022
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|content=A) High energy physics of real particles became the no-energy physics of toy models.

B) [[Quantum Gravity|Quantizing Gravity]] was substituted for unification or extension of the Standard model.

C) Other research programs were obliterated because [[String Theory|ST]] claimed it had it all rapped up.

D) Hype won.
|timestamp=3:34 PM · Aug 24, 2022
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|content=E) Focus shifted to mathematical structure of abstract field/[[String Theory|String/M theory]]. Not our particular world’s choice of thy.

F) Standards of scientific progress were rewritten to disguise failure.

G) Differential application of standards became the norm.

It ended physics culture
|timestamp=3:34 PM · Aug 24, 2022
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|nameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein/status/1562465038962610178
|name=Eric Weinstein
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|username=EricRWeinstein
|content=String Theory isn’t the problem. String culture is poisonous to science.

String theory, like love, means never having to say your sorry. Or mistaken.

It’s the January 6 problem…but in science. But where the physics versions of Mike Pence often got fired for not going along. 🙏
|timestamp=3:41 PM · Aug 24, 2022
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|content=<nowiki>*</nowiki>you’re
|timestamp=3:44 PM · Aug 24, 2022
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|timestamp=3:50 PM · Aug 24, 2022
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|content=@martinmbauer Wait. You added a claim. String theory does not predict a 1,3 spacetime. You can make the usual Post-diction argument. But that wasn’t right.
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|content=@AlexanderRKlotz @martinmbauer Obviously folks work on other things. So no argument there. They will always do so.

But the bizarre sudden level of marginalization and change in the field is something I have talked to Shelly about. And it was a concern to him at the time going back to the anomaly cancellation.
|timestamp=4:11 PM · Aug 24, 2022
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|content=@martinmbauer And I agree with everything you said with the exception of “dramatically overemphasize” (and a tiny bit with “by-far”). But you should go down my list and explain if you want me to understand you substantively, keeping in mind that we aren’t at odds over your assertions.
|timestamp=7:37 PM · Aug 24, 2022
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|timestamp=7:48 PM · Aug 24, 2022
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|nameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein/status/1564037222738771970
|name=Eric Weinstein
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|username=EricRWeinstein
|content=Would love to get back to explaining things about the true wonder of our existence.

If you are fascinated by Entanglement, Quantum Weirdness, Relativity Theory, The Multiverse, [[String Theory]] etc, most of you would be better served studying [[Bundles|fiber bundles]]:

{{#widget:YouTube|id=HRrsfRaXzhE}}
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|nameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein/status/1564028332550676480
|name=Eric Weinstein
|usernameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein
|username=EricRWeinstein
|content=According to physics, you’re a wave. A conscious wave.

As a conscious wave, you were curious as a child. The most natural question for a conscious wave is probably “If I’m but a conscious wave, in what medium am I an excitation?”

Yet most waves never ask this question.

Why?
🙏
|timestamp=11:13 PM · Aug 28, 2022
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|content=The short answer is “You appear to be a wave in a structure called a Fiber Bundle.” of which many have never heard.

I talk about Fiber Bundles a lot because they appear to underlie all of existence, and am thus very confused by physicists who don’t discuss them. It’s so odd.
|timestamp=11:28 PM · Aug 28, 2022
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|content=For years this has been the leading image of a fiber bundle on Google Image search. This I take as proof that the human race is slightly insane: Our leading image of the underlying medium of existence itself looks to me like a bandaid/plaster that has been ripped off a hairy arm.
|timestamp=11:28 PM · Aug 28, 2022
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|content=We created this picture so that you would have a picture of what a “Fiber Bundle with Gauge Potential” actually is. So that everyone could see in what type of structure they actually vibrate. 

So far as I know, this is the only animation of its kind:

{{#widget:YouTube|id=fmDWCQs1bGI}}
|timestamp=11:39 PM · Aug 28, 2022
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|timestamp=11:48 PM · Aug 28, 2022
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|nameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein/status/1589670486073802753
|name=Eric Weinstein
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|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.
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|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
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|name=Sabine Hossenfelder
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|username=skdh
|content=you're confusing the symptom with the disease
|timestamp=4:47 PM · Nov 7, 2022
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|content=Hi Sabine!

I don’t follow your statement here. How am I confused?
|timestamp=4:54 PM · Nov 7, 2022
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|nameurl=https://x.com/skdh/status/1589664337375166464
|name=Sabine Hossenfelder
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|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
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|nameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein/status/1589666440332070912
|name=Eric Weinstein
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|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
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|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 and…words fail me…outright quackery.
|timestamp=5:13 PM · Nov 7, 2022
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|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-Salaam SU(4) x SU(2) x SU(2) for example.
|timestamp=5:16 PM · Nov 7, 2022
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|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
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|timestamp=5:25 PM · Nov 7, 2022
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