Editing CN Yang (section)

=== 2021 ===

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|image=Eric profile picture.jpg
|nameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein/status/1404131507686363138
|name=Eric Weinstein
|usernameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein
|username=EricRWeinstein
|content=Discontinuous innovation is always unlikely. But never impossible.

We are both skeptics. But this UFO story is weird beyond belief Michael. I can’t think of a single story to fit to these reports I’m hearing about. 

I welcome your thoughts. As always. 

Warm regards, 

Eric
|thread=
{{Tweet
|image=Eric profile picture.jpg
|nameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein/status/1404131487692115972
|name=Eric Weinstein
|usernameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein
|username=EricRWeinstein
|content=Dear @michaelshermer,

Thanks for this. Very sober. I myself also don’t find the authenticated videos so far released compelling. But I do find your challenge of “no isolated discontinuous innovation” quite interesting!

Might I propose a friendly debate among friendly skeptics?
{{Tweet
|image=michaelshermer-profile.jpg
|nameurl=https://x.com/michaelshermer/status/1403837966305300481
|name=Michael Shermer
|usernameurl=https://x.com/michaelshermer
|username=michaelshermer
|content=Dear @EricRWeinstein Please see my argument for why [[UAP|UAPs]] cannot be foreign assets capable of physics & aerodynamics attributed to [[UAP|UAPs]] that if true would be decades or centuries ahead of us. History shows no nations/companies of comp development so lag.
https://quillette.com/2021/06/03/understanding-the-unidentified/
|timestamp=10:13 PM · Jun 12, 2021
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|timestamp=5:40 PM · Jun 13, 2021
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{{Tweet
|image=Eric profile picture.jpg
|nameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein/status/1404131494289760259
|name=Eric Weinstein
|usernameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein
|username=EricRWeinstein
|content=First of all, I am concerned that the paradigm of being scientifically or technologically “centuries ahead” is all wrong. This came up in a phone call with our buddy @SamHarrisOrg.

Q: How many centuries ahead is 1952-3 from 1900? I’d have guessed “many” (not .5) and been wrong.
|timestamp=5:40 PM · Jun 13, 2021
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{{Tweet
|image=Eric profile picture.jpg
|nameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein/status/1404131496059805698
|name=Eric Weinstein
|usernameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein
|username=EricRWeinstein
|content=Next challenge: doesn’t your line of reasoning prove that “Renaissance Technologies” is either a fraud or a front? Their Medallion Fund is otherwise a long term unbreached secret, discontinuous from any other know investment fund seemingly thousands of years ahead of competitors.
|timestamp=5:40 PM · Jun 13, 2021
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{{Tweet
|image=Eric profile picture.jpg
|nameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein/status/1404131496844165120
|name=Eric Weinstein
|usernameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein
|username=EricRWeinstein
|content=Now I’ve had the odd question about Renaissance (front not fraud) for just this reason. But either way, it’s either a counter example to your claims on discontinuous innovation if it is merely a fund or a counter-example to your secrecy claims if it is our secret physics program.
|timestamp=5:40 PM · Jun 13, 2021
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{{Tweet
|image=Eric profile picture.jpg
|nameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein/status/1404131497641082880
|name=Eric Weinstein
|usernameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein
|username=EricRWeinstein
|content=Next: there are really two metrics on innovations.

Metric I: How big the incremental jump in difficulty. 

Metric II: How big the jump in what is unlocked.

The great fear is that a small jump measured by 1 leading to an ENORMOUS jump in as measured by II.
|timestamp=5:40 PM · Jun 13, 2021
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{{Tweet
|image=Eric profile picture.jpg
|nameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein/status/1404131498391871490
|name=Eric Weinstein
|usernameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein
|username=EricRWeinstein
|content=You are, to me, arguing powerfully that certain people can’t exist: Rodney Mullen, Edward Van Halen, Bob Beamon, Dick Fosbury, Hiroji Satoh, Satoshi Nakamoto, etc.

They all exhibited the “a little unlocks a lot” paradigm with Zero-Day exploits that were each decisive.
|timestamp=5:40 PM · Jun 13, 2021
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{{Tweet
|image=Eric profile picture.jpg
|nameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein/status/1404131499197157376
|name=Eric Weinstein
|usernameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein
|username=EricRWeinstein
|content=And that brings us to theoretical physics. Beginning around 1982 , the son of the world’s top employed anti-gravity researcher(?!) of the 1950s turned in what may be the most impressive 15yr output in the history of the subject by my estimation. How can I begin to explain this?
|timestamp=5:40 PM · Jun 13, 2021
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{{Tweet
|image=Eric profile picture.jpg
|nameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein/status/1404131499977318403
|name=Eric Weinstein
|usernameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein
|username=EricRWeinstein
|content=It’s not physics exactly. But Edward Witten w support from a small number of folks rewrote [[Quantum Field Theory]] as geometry. If Einstein geometrized gravity, then [[Ed Witten|Witten]] geometrized Quantum Field theory (everything else).

Now, all that change has so far unlocked exactly nothing.
|timestamp=5:40 PM · Jun 13, 2021
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{{Tweet
|image=Eric profile picture.jpg
|nameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein/status/1404131500753182720
|name=Eric Weinstein
|usernameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein
|username=EricRWeinstein
|content=But it’s not that nothing happened in physics. While we were pretending that string theory was working, [[Ed Witten|Witten]] &amp; Co revolutionized our mathematical framework. Think of it as an enormous amount of unrealized gains. Pent up genius &amp; power looking for its 1st application to the 🌎.
|timestamp=5:40 PM · Jun 13, 2021
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{{Tweet
|image=Eric profile picture.jpg
|nameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein/status/1404131501512433665
|name=Eric Weinstein
|usernameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein
|username=EricRWeinstein
|content=If you gave us [[Ed Witten|E Witten]], [[Jim Simons|J Simons]], [[Isadore Singer|I Singer]], [[CN Yang]], M Atiyah, D Quillen &amp; G Segal, in a quiet program in 1975, I could argue that they didn’t need much more. In fact you don’t need all 7 but for the sake of argument I can make the case using this. But Witten is the main engine.
|timestamp=5:40 PM · Jun 13, 2021
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{{Tweet
|image=Eric profile picture.jpg
|nameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein/status/1404131502275776512
|name=Eric Weinstein
|usernameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein
|username=EricRWeinstein
|content=Now let me show you how I could get discontinuous innovation if I were China or Russia. I don’t know those systems as well so I’ll use the US example.

We know most of the top minds. We pretend that there is a lot of subjectivity about this for social reasons but China wouldn’t.
|timestamp=5:40 PM · Jun 13, 2021
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{{Tweet
|image=Eric profile picture.jpg
|nameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein/status/1404131503064289281
|name=Eric Weinstein
|usernameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein
|username=EricRWeinstein
|content=If I thought like CCP, I’d create a lavish secret theoretical physics program modeled on the Russian Sharashka system. The key would be to get it to look like something else. A boring Tech company or some weird Chinese fund to disguise the reason for the secretive lavish campus.
|timestamp=5:40 PM · Jun 13, 2021
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{{Tweet
|image=Eric profile picture.jpg
|nameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein/status/1404131503827685378
|name=Eric Weinstein
|usernameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein
|username=EricRWeinstein
|content=[Digression: If the US were smarter, we’d do it by setting up a mythic secret $B hedge fund that employs top differential geometers, theoretical physicists &amp; ML experts by a national lab &amp; an off brand university w/ inexplicably strong geometry &amp; physics. But enough crazy talk..]
|timestamp=5:40 PM · Jun 13, 2021
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{{Tweet
|image=Eric profile picture.jpg
|nameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein/status/1404131504586838016
|name=Eric Weinstein
|usernameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein
|username=EricRWeinstein
|content=If CCP could today repeat what Witten (&amp; friends) did building off Geometric Quantum Field Thy, the US would have Zero clue what it unlocks. Even by your own incrementalist theory. It might unlock absolutely nothing. Or passage to the stars via additional degrees of freedom. 🤷‍♂️
|timestamp=5:40 PM · Jun 13, 2021
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{{Tweet
|image=Eric profile picture.jpg
|nameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein/status/1404131505350201345
|name=Eric Weinstein
|usernameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein
|username=EricRWeinstein
|content=One last point. I released such a theory. Could well be wrong.

But I can tell you I should have received a call from DOE. Because calls are cheap and relevant trained PhDs are *very* finite. The US should track every geometer, General Relativist, and Particle Theorist working.
|timestamp=5:40 PM · Jun 13, 2021
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{{Tweet
|image=Eric profile picture.jpg
|nameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein/status/1404131506121961473
|name=Eric Weinstein
|usernameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein
|username=EricRWeinstein
|content=You don’t have to take a position on me or GU. You can ask Wolfram or Lisi or Barbour or Deutsche or anyone outside the system whether such calls are placed. They are not. No one *in* the system believes in wild discontinuous change from *outside* the system. As per your article.
|timestamp=5:40 PM · Jun 13, 2021
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{{Tweet
|image=Eric profile picture.jpg
|nameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein/status/1404131506876928003
|name=Eric Weinstein
|usernameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein
|username=EricRWeinstein
|content=Which is to say we’re not monitoring. Maybe we think that’s a waste of taxpayer dollars. Maybe we think that a Grisha Perelman of physics is impossible.

How much does a phone call cost if a researcher is wrong vs not bothering if they’re right? Price the [[Type I & Type II Error|Type I &amp; II error]]. Nuts.
|timestamp=5:40 PM · Jun 13, 2021
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|timestamp=5:40 PM · Jun 13, 2021
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{{Tweet
|image=Eric profile picture.jpg
|nameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein/status/1418922034118107136
|name=Eric Weinstein
|usernameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein
|username=EricRWeinstein
|content=I have a very strong emotional connection to [[Ed Witten|Witten’s]] work and [[CN Yang|Yang’s]]. Weinberg always struck me as immensely powerful, but I could never get the sense of “That’s Weinbergian”. That is stylistically rare. 

A total genius. But one that I couldn’t understand well enough. Alas. RIP
|thread=
{{Tweet
|image=Eric profile picture.jpg
|nameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein/status/1418922031089819648
|name=Eric Weinstein
|usernameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein
|username=EricRWeinstein
|content=There were three candidates for world’s greatest living theoretical physicist as I saw it: 

A) [[CN Yang]]</br>
B) Steven Weinberg</br>
C) [[Ed Witten|Edward Witten]]

Weinberg was the favorite of many people I respect. I found his writing style to somehow be both clear and impenetrable at the same time.
|timestamp=1:12 PM · Jul 24, 2021
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{{Tweet
|image=Eric profile picture.jpg
|nameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein/status/1418922032624848896
|name=Eric Weinstein
|usernameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein
|username=EricRWeinstein
|content=But what we just lost is one of our few links back to fundamental physicists who did….words fail me…actual work on the physics of the 🌎 we live within.

It is not much of an exaggeration to say that sometime in the last 20 years, we stopped even trying to do fundamental work.
|timestamp=1:12 PM · Jul 24, 2021
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{{Tweet
|image=Eric profile picture.jpg
|nameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein/status/1418922033379901441
|name=Eric Weinstein
|usernameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein
|username=EricRWeinstein
|content=I met Steven only once. It was an unremarkable interaction. My impression was that he was so smart that he knew to get out of High Energy Theory for the most part. He dutifully defended [[String Theory|string theory]] at times but voted with his feet and his offbeat ideas like Asymptotic Safety.
|timestamp=1:12 PM · Jul 24, 2021
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|timestamp=1:12 PM · Jul 24, 2021
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