Editing String Theory (section)

=== 2024 ===


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|image=Eric profile picture.jpg
|nameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein/status/1762181012732441040
|name=Eric Weinstein
|usernameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein
|username=EricRWeinstein
|content=“[[String Theory|String theory]] approaches experimental verification.”

“New Breakthrough in [[Quantum Gravity]] upends everything.”

“Black holes discovered for the first time inside quantum computer.”

“AI to deliver theory of everything within 18 months say experts.”

“Human Teleportation inches closer.”
|quote=
{{Tweet
|image=Debriefmedia-profile-GpTlhl96.png
|nameurl=https://x.com/Debriefmedia/status/1762097142309474395
|name=The Debrief
|usernameurl=https://x.com/Debriefmedia
|username=Debriefmedia
|content=Quantum gravity breakthrough: Physicists report they are now one step closer to the measurement of gravity at the quantum level. https://thedebrief.org/breakthrough-in-quantum-measurement-of-gravity-achieved-using-levitating-magnets/#sq_hn75ogbo69
|timestamp=12:47 PM · Feb 26, 2024
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|timestamp=6:21 PM · Feb 26, 2024
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{{Tweet
|image=Eric profile picture.jpg
|nameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein/status/1765626144215474344
|name=Eric Weinstein
|usernameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein
|username=EricRWeinstein
|content=Q: Is String Theory a Dead End?

A: Ha. Emphatically not. Repeat after me: "String theory is merely a (N+1)^{th} Century Theory of physics which fell into the N^{th} century, where N must be incremented by 1 every 100 years. There are no other theories. There are only words. There are no other theories...there are only words. You are getting sleepy. You are learning to accept. There are no other theories....only words..."
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|image=PhysInHistory-profile-oPMz8-kf.jpg
|nameurl=https://x.com/PhysInHistory/status/1765578749506928799
|name=Physics In History
|usernameurl=https://x.com/PhysInHistory
|username=PhysInHistory
|content=
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|timestamp=3:22 AM · Mar 7, 2024
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|timestamp=6:30 AM · Mar 7, 2024
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{{Tweet
|image=Eric profile picture.jpg
|nameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein/status/1768233796585840677
|name=Eric Weinstein
|usernameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein
|username=EricRWeinstein
|content=Okay. I’m out. Back to sleep. Appreciate the kind words and questions. 

Thank you. 🙏
|quote=
{{Tweet
|image=GriswoldClark83-profile.jpg
|nameurl=https://x.com/GriswoldClark83/status/1768232809175421132
|name=Richard Barren
|usernameurl=https://x.com/GriswoldClark83
|username=GriswoldClark83
|content=This one tweet has made dark matter so much more understandable than the last  20 years hearing about it. Thanks as always Eric.
|timestamp=10:25 AM · Mar 14, 2024
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|thread=
{{Tweet
|image=Eric profile picture.jpg
|nameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein/status/1768219662846677493
|name=Eric Weinstein
|usernameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein
|username=EricRWeinstein
|content=Twitter over compensates for the very real madness of the institutional world. 

Despite being seen as contrarian, here are some mainstream Physics opinions that I hold, which Twitter somehow finds controversial:

I don’t think The Universe is “made of Consciousness.”

I don’t think Dark Energy is “Sus”. 

I think Dark Matter is real.

I don’t think the Standard Model is ‘bogus’.

I don’t think “universities are over”.

I don’t think String Theory (for all its problems) or String Theorists are stupid.

Etc.
——

Twitter is kinda just nuts. No matter how extreme my opinions are by real world standards, Twitter is always more extreme. Perhaps it is because people hold things that they claim are “opinions”, but which would require more details and knowledge to elevate to that level. For example, I don’t think I have an opinion on reasons of political economy for recent changes in the credit rating of Macedonian municipal bonds. So it is always surprising to see so many accounts claiming to hold strong heterodox opinions on wormholes, dark matter or the Big Bang.
|timestamp=10:16 AM · Mar 14, 2024
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{{Tweet
|image=Eric profile picture.jpg
|nameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein/status/1768224966971945292
|name=Eric Weinstein
|usernameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein
|username=EricRWeinstein
|content=I will respond to a few responses here to give an idea of what is going on X/Twitter. 

Tweet 1. In physics, equations often don’t balance. So we add terms to account for what we can’t YET directly detect. The Neutron, quarks, Higgs field and Neutrino all had such an origin. By now all have been directly observed and fairly well modeled. 

This is why I point out that neutrinos are basically dark matter, but for the weak force as the only non gravitational force to couple to them and affect them. 

Dark is a spooky and misleading name for these which makes dark energy and dark matter sound similar. They aren’t. 

Think of dark matter as being “decoupled matter” and/or “ultra heavy matter we can’t see at current accelerator energies” and it might seem to be less suspicious.

I don’t yet have a comparable suggestion for dark energy. Sorry.
|quote=
{{Tweet
|image=snapper421-profile.jpg
|nameurl=https://x.com/snapper421/status/1768221995949330718
|name=snapper421
|usernameurl=https://x.com/snapper421
|username=snapper421
|content=Dark mater and energy are concepts I just can't wrap my head around.
|timestamp=10:25 AM · Mar 14, 2024
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|timestamp=10:37 AM · Mar 14, 2024
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{{Tweet
|image=Eric profile picture.jpg
|nameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein/status/1768228640716664976
|name=Eric Weinstein
|usernameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein
|username=EricRWeinstein
|content=Tweet 2: 

“Theory of everything” as an idea confuses people. It’s sorta a string theory branding problem. The store “Just Tires” also does oil changes. 

String Theorists relentlessly used “Theory of Everything” to grab our attention just as a store that wanted a simple message. Surely a theory of everything would scientifically explain “Why is there something rather than nothing?” just as “Just Tires” would surely not do oil changes.

Well, both went bust but couldn’t change their branding.

Even if is ultimately accepted as a TOE, Geometric Unity *cannot* explain why there is something rather than nothing. TOE is a term of art meaning that the input is something natural and simple and the output is presumably complete as the rules for the universe. 

A TOE is more properly an attempt at the answer to “Why do the rules for everything unpack from assumptions so simple as to defy further scientific interest?” GU attempts to unpack from the assumption of 4-degrees of freedom (a manifold) and a tiny amount of natural structure like orientations and spin structures that are geometric and natural. It doesn’t explain from where that came. 

A TOE doesn’t seek to put the theologian and philosopher out of business.
|quote=
{{Tweet
|image=blackbird4032-profile.jpg
|nameurl=https://x.com/blackbird4032/status/1768222287063404935
|name=Blackbird
|usernameurl=https://x.com/blackbird4032
|username=blackbird4032
|content=If the initial condition of all reality was absolute nothing there would be nothing in nothing to bring about something.
|timestamp=10:26 AM · Mar 14, 2024
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|timestamp=10:52 AM · Mar 14, 2024
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{{Tweet
|image=Eric profile picture.jpg
|nameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein/status/1768231269828009993
|name=Eric Weinstein
|usernameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein
|username=EricRWeinstein
|content=Tweet 3: 

Honestly, I don’t even know where this comes from. I’ve spent thousands of hours in physics departments and never heard this discussed seriously. Even Roger Penrose’s theory about the quantum mind isn’t taken at the level of his other work. 

I think the best that can be said for this as a scientific theory is that Physicists are finally admitting that the collapse of the wave function isn’t totally clear on what an observer or observation is. So consciousness can try to sneak in here as the missing ingredient. 

I think this is an artifact of language. If we called the observer the collapser and had admitted we didn’t know what we meant exactly rather than trying to Pretend we did, it wouldn’t invite this much attention. 

We should just admit that the notion of “the observer” is both mysterious at a field theoretic level and badly named. 

And for my two cents, I’m betting an observation is in part something called “Pull back from the total space of a bundle via a section”. This boring and dry language wouldn’t cause mostly lay people to seize on consciousness as a solution.
|timestamp=11:02 AM · Mar 14, 2024
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|timestamp=11:12 AM · Mar 14, 2024
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{{Tweet
|image=Eric profile picture.jpg
|nameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein/status/1771955997948477755
|name=Eric Weinstein
|usernameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein
|username=EricRWeinstein
|content=Q: How do you know that String Theory isn’t working as physics despite expert assurances to the contrary?

A: No one at all is in any way worried about the Iranians, Russians or Chinese getting their hands on our cutting edge String Theory.
|timestamp=5:43 PM · Mar 24, 2024
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{{Tweet
|image=Eric profile picture.jpg
|nameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein/status/1775032523275599900
|name=Eric Weinstein
|usernameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein
|username=EricRWeinstein
|content=[Note: This Graph dramatizing just how dramatically we have reached a new regime was made in good faith, but was both complicated and somewhat involved to put together. I am solely responsible for its construction; any oversights or errors within it lie entirely with me. I encourage others to check it, and I will be happy to correct it if necessary. However, the basic point is that the Standard Model and General Relativity are now both 50 years old, and the hope that String Theory / M-Theory would provide the next big insight has been downgraded many times in the years since the 1984 G-S anomaly cancelation ushered in the modern String Era. ]
|thread=
{{Tweet
|image=Eric profile picture.jpg
|nameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein/status/1775027625800659090
|name=Eric Weinstein
|usernameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein
|username=EricRWeinstein
|content=I've a tradition where I use April 1 not for pranks, but to say a difficult thing that's actually TRUE.

We're now in a current fad where famous physicists deride even the mere idea of any crisis in fundamental physics, treating those who claim one as delusional.

They're lying: https://t.co/Vd1veqR50W
|timestamp=5:08 AM · Apr 2, 2024
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{{Tweet
|image=Eric profile picture.jpg
|nameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein/status/1775028591455351149
|name=Eric Weinstein
|usernameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein
|username=EricRWeinstein
|content=Here is the alternative text explaining the picture above. 

ALT TEXT: "Graph of the youngest living Nobel Laureate in Fundamental Physics over the last 100 years.

Before the 1984 explosion in String Theory, the graph shows a physicist 50 or younger. After 1984, the graph shows that there has not been a single year in which we have had such Nobel Laureates below that age. Since 2021, the youngest such living laureate has been above the age of 70 and was given the prize done for work that is now more than 50 years old as of 2024.

While the String Era is not the sole cause of this crisis, it has covered up this crisis by pretending that the field of fundamental physics is in a normal regime. This is widely disputed within the field....and even privately among the String Theory community. Most importantly, no one in the field actually believes that there is anything delusional or abberant about seeing this crisis. The String-Theory / M-Theory community members have simply decided to misportray & strawman their critics against all scientific ethical norms."
|timestamp=5:12 AM · Apr 2, 2024
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{{Tweet
|image=Eric profile picture.jpg
|nameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein/status/1775029719005831388
|name=Eric Weinstein
|usernameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein
|username=EricRWeinstein
|content=I am prepared to stand by the following claim: I believe that every single member of the theoretical physics community knows that there is *nothing* at all abberant about seeing the current regime as a potentially catastrophic crisis for fundamental physics.

Without exception.
|timestamp=5:17 AM · Apr 2, 2024
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|timestamp=5:28 AM · Apr 2, 2024
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{{Tweet
|image=Eric profile picture.jpg
|nameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein/status/1776316979659653145
|name=Eric Weinstein
|usernameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein
|username=EricRWeinstein
|content=Agree.
|thread=
{{Tweet
|image=Eric profile picture.jpg
|nameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein/status/1776292897740169642
|name=Eric Weinstein
|usernameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein
|username=EricRWeinstein
|content=Sabine &amp; I have our differences.

But what she discusses here is totally well known within academe, and is in no way peculiar to her.

While @skdh was failing, Claudine Gay, String Theory, and her detractors were “succeeding.”

You might consider that when you next hear epithets.
|quote=
{{Tweet
|image=skdh-profile.jpg
|nameurl=https://x.com/skdh/status/1828019281168109819
|name=Sabine Hossenfelder
|usernameurl=https://x.com/skdh
|username=skdh
|content=How I fell out of love with academia 

(this video was an accidental publication/scheduling blunder😬😬 but well uh, happy Friday I guess)
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|timestamp=3:13 PM · Apr 5, 2024
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|timestamp=4:56 PM · Apr 5, 2024
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{{Tweet
|image=skdh-profile.jpg
|nameurl=https://x.com/skdh/status/1776306785227260156
|name=Sabine Hossenfelder
|usernameurl=https://x.com/skdh
|username=skdh
|content=I think we have more in common than not
|timestamp=5:51 PM · Apr 5, 2024
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|timestamp=6:32 PM · Apr 5, 2024
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{{Tweet
|image=Eric profile picture.jpg
|nameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein/status/1778724774065107453
|name=Eric Weinstein
|usernameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein
|username=EricRWeinstein
|content=“You may have heard there’s a crisis in  physics!! No there’s not.” -@seanmcarroll (Mindscape 263 intro)

This has gotten beyond ridiculous. Read this quoted tweet. WTF? What next?

“String theory is Planck scale physics that just happened to fall into the ElectroWeak regime.”

“String theory means never having to say you’re sorry.”

“The true string theory has never been tried.”

“What is the sound of one string scattering?”

“String theory is what we will rename any outside ideas that successfully challenge what we before claimed was string theory.”

Etc.

There is *obviously* a crisis in fundamental physics. There is no way to pretend otherwise any longer. How is this continuing? We should have this out as a scientific discussion.
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|quote=
{{Tweet
|image=Saraht0n1n-profile-LeAvjS0T.jpg
|nameurl=https://x.com/Saraht0n1n/status/1778476225121693736
|name=sarah
|usernameurl=https://x.com/Saraht0n1n
|username=Saraht0n1n
|content=Went to a string theory conference with many of the top researchers in the field centered around tackling the question “what is string theory” and the consensus after the conference was that nobody knows lmao
|timestamp=5:32 PM · Apr 11, 2024
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|timestamp=10:00 AM · Apr 12, 2024
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{{Tweet
|image=Eric profile picture.jpg
|nameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein/status/1800595887171023166
|name=Eric Weinstein
|usernameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein
|username=EricRWeinstein
|content=@GeorgeWHerbert I didn’t say that. First of all you left the word “theory” out of your quote. Then you made an inference that string theorists only have the ability to negatively affect string theory. Which is totally not true. It’s counter to everything I say about this in fact.
|timestamp=6:28 PM · Jun 11, 2024
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{{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.
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|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
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|timestamp=3:52 PM · Aug 26, 2024
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{{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.

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/1836463647587201186
|name=Eric Weinstein
|usernameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein
|username=EricRWeinstein
|content=This is so funny.

1984: “String theory *must* get *all* the resources because Quantum Field Theory *cannot* ever do what String Theory can. That’s just a cold fact.”

[40 years later….]

2024: “We aren’t a mass delusion in the form of an obviously failed scientific research project that spun out of control in full view of the world if we are equivalent to what we said would never work. That’s it! String Theory 4evah.”

This is getting ridiculous beyond the ridiculous ridiculousness of previous ridiculousnesses. After four decades of this, there just aren’t good words. I’m sorry.
|quote=
{{Tweet
|image=PioneerWorks_-profile-NvGqKhem.jpg
|nameurl=https://x.com/PioneerWorks_/status/1836155668983877688
|name=Pioneer Works
|usernameurl=https://x.com/PioneerWorks_
|username=PioneerWorks_
|content=We now have powerful evidence that—shockingly—string theory and quantum field theory are actually different languages for expressing one and the same physics. Brian Greene (@bgreene) revisits The Elegant Universe, 25 years later. @wwnorton @JannaLevin https://pioneerworks.org/broadcast/brian-greene-the-elegant-universe
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|timestamp=5:53 PM · Sep 18, 2024
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|timestamp=5:53 PM · Sep 18, 2024
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{{Tweet
|image=Eric profile picture.jpg
|nameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein/status/1871127090067915264
|name=Eric Weinstein
|usernameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein
|username=EricRWeinstein
|content=Some of us propose such solutions. 

Some of us do not.

Those that propose other solutions are targeted for self-promotion.

Those that do not are told "You have no alternatives."

Woit is an excellent example of someone who was told he was barren when he was a pure critic...only to then be told he was a self-promoter when he had something to say about the structure bundle of CP^3 being potentially the low energy electro strong SU(3)xU(1) and the oddity of the chirality of the weak force being either fully on or off rather than merely conjugate V vs \bar{V}.

It's time to stop pretending this is about physics. It's about protecting a 4 decade MASSIVE screw up pretending that there is [[The Only Game in Town (TOGIT)|only one game in town]].
|thread=
{{Tweet
|image=Eric profile picture.jpg
|nameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein/status/1870919779189670098
|name=Eric Weinstein
|usernameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein
|username=EricRWeinstein
|content=I'd be happy to discuss the merits of this claim.

"News Story:  Physicists ‘Bootstrap’ Validity of String Theory NYU and Caltech scientists develop innovative mathematical approach to back existence of long-held framework explaining all physical reality"

https://nyu.edu/about/news-publications/news/2024/december/physicists--bootstrap--validity-of-string-theory-.html
|quote=
{{Tweet
|image=MattStrassler-profile-X2IZ87ok.jpg
|nameurl=https://x.com/MattStrassler/status/1870210427189141892
|name=Matt Strassler
|usernameurl=https://x.com/MattStrassler
|username=MattStrassler
|content=Certain strategies, used in politics, are also used by various angry scientists who have found ways to made it big in the media.  These strategies are effective.  But they must indeed be translated, just as Sam suggests here. https://x.com/Samuel_Gregson/status/1870158470575427620
|timestamp=8:51 PM · Dec 20, 2024
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|timestamp=7:50 PM · Dec 22, 2024
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|image=MattStrassler-profile-X2IZ87ok.jpg
|nameurl=https://x.com/MattStrassler/status/1871037821525643414
|name=Matt Strassler
|usernameurl=https://x.com/MattStrassler
|username=MattStrassler
|content=I fail to see the relation between my comment and yours, Eric. I was hardly referring to the topics that you mentioned, and neither was Sam.
|timestamp=3:39 AM · Dec 23, 2024
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|image=Eric profile picture.jpg
|nameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein/status/1871122619661205902
|name=Eric Weinstein
|usernameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein
|username=EricRWeinstein
|content=Hi Matt. 

Sam regularly portrays himself as outraged about 'angry' or 'dissatisfied' or otherwise 'upset' voices and insinuates that they are turning to sensationalism. I furnished two (of very many) cases that folks like Sam would find absolutely outrageous if the real concern was damaging science with sensationalism, and which cause *far* more harm to fundamental physics than independent voices like Sabine Hossenfelder.

SG is a brand on line. A guy who tries to make the establishment seem 'edgy'...often by targeting people who are raising the real issues with the institutions.

The big problem for fundamental physics is institutional sensationalism, excuse-making, and cheerleading for failing programs as well as anti-collegial behavior of the form that SG regularly tries to turn into disparagment for entertainment. 

Many of those independent critical voices are actually focused on *institutional* sensationalism particularly surrounding outrageous claims for particle theory,  [[Quantum Gravity|quantum gravity]] and [[String Theory|String Theory/m-theory]]. 

I generally view your public outreach work very favorably, communicating the beauty of the Standard Model, and to a lesser extent GR. Within research, you  mostly seem to be trying to connect String Theory and other speculative frameworks to things like experimental accelerator signatures. Despite my distaste for 4-decades of anti-scientfic String Triumphalism and dissembling from the Susskinds, Wittens, Motls, Grosses and others, I have never associated that with you.

Gregson clearly has a problem. He is strawmanning colleagues talking about a VERY real problem of denial, and anti-collegial behavior which is anethma to science.
I may not agree with @skdh's critique (this is no secret to her), but even I can steelman her points.

I feel like people such as yourself, David Tong, @3blue1brown, etc are doing amazing work.  I was simply disappointed to see a leading voice of high level outreach join a toxic voice gleefully targeting a colleague. I thought 'Perhaps Matt is not be aware of SG's MO."
|timestamp=9:16 AM · Dec 23, 2024
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|image=Eric profile picture.jpg
|nameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein/status/1871124671053345101
|name=Eric Weinstein
|usernameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein
|username=EricRWeinstein
|content=I'm just not going to put up with this quietly again after all the sadistic cruelty Sabine has been through from the Lubos Motl's of the world while her community largely stayed silent or laughed along.

SG can man up and take Sabine on if he likes. But the man has an anti-collegial strawman problem followed by blocking.
|timestamp=9:24 AM · Dec 23, 2024
|media1=ERW-X-post-1871124671053345101-GfeRDnQaIAAZVdB.jpg
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|image=matterasmachine-profile-4x5ZEdlX.jpg
|nameurl=https://x.com/matterasmachine/status/1871125330326646826
|name=Matter as Machine
|usernameurl=https://x.com/matterasmachine
|username=matterasmachine
|content=Sabine Hossenfelder does not propose any alternative.
Critics makes no sense until there is alternative solution.
|timestamp=9:26 AM · Dec 23, 2024
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|timestamp=9:33 AM · Dec 23, 2024
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