Quantum Gravity: Difference between revisions
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|name=Eric Weinstein | |||
|usernameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein | |||
|username=EricRWeinstein | |||
|content=One last thought. If there arenāt very compelling UAF revelations coming our way, Iād redirect our interest in aliens towards terrestrial physics done by humans. If there were such revelations, then Iād *still* look to physics before tech, as š½ *still* implies new physics to me. | |||
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|image=Eric profile picture.jpg | |||
|nameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein/status/1385263862698577922 | |||
|name=Eric Weinstein | |||
|usernameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein | |||
|username=EricRWeinstein | |||
|content=Iād propose total reassessment of the National Physics program. | |||
Much greater autonomy for theorists.</br> | |||
<nowiki>*</nowiki>Much* higher salaries.</br> | |||
Much greater *diversity* of approaches.</br> | |||
More high precision work.</br> | |||
Fewer graduate programs.</br> | |||
Physics = economic/security priority.</br> | |||
Admit String Thy failure. | |||
|timestamp=4:06 PM Ā· Apr 22, 2021 | |||
}} | |||
{{Tweet | |||
|image=Eric profile picture.jpg | |||
|nameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein/status/1385263864481124360 | |||
|name=Eric Weinstein | |||
|usernameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein | |||
|username=EricRWeinstein | |||
|content=We need to hire people who will upset the living hell out of the people doing the hiring. | |||
We need to put fundamental physics theory in receivership. No theory lead advance in fundamental physics for almost 50 years, yet no soul searching about who lost physics?? Are we kidding? | |||
|timestamp=4:06 PM Ā· Apr 22, 2021 | |||
}} | |||
{{Tweet | |||
|image=Eric profile picture.jpg | |||
|nameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein/status/1385263868784496642 | |||
|name=Eric Weinstein | |||
|usernameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein | |||
|username=EricRWeinstein | |||
|content=Itās time to stop listening to the same voices as if they hadnāt failed. This is a national priority, not a cult of personality for a STEM generation that had their time..and then ate their own young across every field. Is no one following what we did to destroy our own capacity? | |||
|timestamp=4:06 PM Ā· Apr 22, 2021 | |||
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{{Tweet | |||
|image=Eric profile picture.jpg | |||
|nameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein/status/1385263870483206148 | |||
|name=Eric Weinstein | |||
|usernameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein | |||
|username=EricRWeinstein | |||
|content=Or should we do yet more 2D Yang Mills on irrelevant groups in non physical signatures? Squarks/Sleptons? Ha! | |||
Letās say it clearly as everyone young is terrified to say it: the baby boomer theorists were successful as geometers while avoiding actual physics over entire careers. | |||
|timestamp=4:06 PM Ā· Apr 22, 2021 | |||
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Toy physics is real geometry & topology. But it aināt physics. | Toy physics is real geometry & topology. But it aināt physics. | ||
|timestamp=4:06 PM Ā· Apr 22, 2021 | |timestamp=4:06 PM Ā· Apr 22, 2021 | ||
}} | |||
{{Tweet | |||
|image=Eric profile picture.jpg | |||
|nameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein/status/1385263872240537604 | |||
|name=Eric Weinstein | |||
|usernameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein | |||
|username=EricRWeinstein | |||
|content=Real physics: | |||
A) Works with dimension 4.</br> | |||
B) Works with SU(3)xSU(2)xU(1).</br> | |||
C) Uses observed quantum numbers.</br> | |||
D) Accepts Lorentzian Signature.</br> | |||
E) Focuses on 3 Generation. | |||
There is *Nothing* wrong with toy models now and then. But we are talking *entire careers* playing with toys. | |||
|timestamp=4:06 PM Ā· Apr 22, 2021 | |||
}} | |||
{{Tweet | |||
|image=Eric profile picture.jpg | |||
|nameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein/status/1385263873117155328 | |||
|name=Eric Weinstein | |||
|usernameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein | |||
|username=EricRWeinstein | |||
|content=We tell people who are basically mathematicians that theyāre physicists. | |||
Well, they arenāt. Physicists say things about the world. And those things *need* to be potentially wrong to qualify as physics. | |||
We have a culture of people who canāt *afford* error. So they just do math. | |||
|timestamp=4:06 PM Ā· Apr 22, 2021 | |||
}} | |||
{{Tweet | |||
|image=Eric profile picture.jpg | |||
|nameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein/status/1385263873964449792 | |||
|name=Eric Weinstein | |||
|usernameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein | |||
|username=EricRWeinstein | |||
|content=Also, to be a fundamental physicist you really should be telling us what we now have wrong. Every advance partially recovers the one before it but also invalidates it, telling us where to look for error. Weāve made hidden assumptions so you have to tell your elders they goofed. | |||
|timestamp=4:06 PM Ā· Apr 22, 2021 | |||
}} | |||
{{Tweet | |||
|image=Eric profile picture.jpg | |||
|nameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein/status/1385263874748813313 | |||
|name=Eric Weinstein | |||
|usernameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein | |||
|username=EricRWeinstein | |||
|content=Well, young people canāt say that to elders who hold their academic lives in the palms of their hands. Thatās why young/iconoclast physicists need FU salaries. | |||
Elder āYou should work on AdS/CFT or āBH informationā if you want to get a job.ā | |||
Young Colleague: āHow does NO sound?ā | |||
|timestamp=4:06 PM Ā· Apr 22, 2021 | |||
}} | |||
{{Tweet | |||
|image=Eric profile picture.jpg | |||
|nameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein/status/1385263875562512384 | |||
|name=Eric Weinstein | |||
|usernameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein | |||
|username=EricRWeinstein | |||
|content=When I say āThere are only two true generations of Fermions.ā Iām potentially wrong. | |||
When I listed quantum numbers of the remaining particles, Iām potentially wrong. | |||
As when I claimed Pati-Salam is a maximal compact subgroup of the normal bundle of metrics. | |||
Thatās not a bug. | |||
|timestamp=4:06 PM Ā· Apr 22, 2021 | |||
}} | |||
{{Tweet | |||
|image=Eric profile picture.jpg | |||
|nameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein/status/1385263876577497088 | |||
|name=Eric Weinstein | |||
|usernameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein | |||
|username=EricRWeinstein | |||
|content=Yet you canāt do this in academic depts. | |||
Moral: we destroyed our ability to self-police. Peer review wonāt work. We need to go back to doing physics. Whatās holding us back may not be physics but the political economy of academic labor, citation, reputation & attribution.š | |||
|timestamp=4:06 PM Ā· Apr 22, 2021 | |||
}} | |||
|timestamp=4:16 PM Ā· Apr 22, 2021 | |||
}} | }} | ||
Revision as of 05:03, 4 November 2025
2016
I find it peculiar how many theorists want to explain just how things work in "Quantum Gravity."
Given, y'know, the absence of such a thy.
2019
There is an interesting story I donāt know well enough. Many will recall the phrase āUnified Field Theoryā as the hoped for āTheory of Everything.ā At some point this got replaced by āQuantum Gravityā as the goal. Does anyone know the full story behind this? Was it ā70s? And how?
Theoretical physicists have known since the 1930s that quantum gravity is necessary to bring order into the laws of nature, writes @skdh, but 80 years on, a solution isnāt anywhere in sight. http://bit.ly/break-gravity
Ok. This is a weird take. The reluctance to engage foundations of quantum mechanics stemmed from the fact that it was far less generative than research in quantum field thy for decades. When Standard Model QFT stagnated & Quantum Gravity stumbled, the opportunity cost decreased.
Shots fired! "Even Physicists Donāt Understand Quantum Mechanics. Worse, they donāt seem to want to understand it." -- me, in the New York Times @nytopinion #SomethingDeeply
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/07/opinion/sunday/quantum-physics.html
Does anyone know what @elonmusk thinks about the state of fundamental physics, unification, quantum gravity and the impact any such progress may have on humanityās chance for survival? I realize that Iāve never heard him connect fundamental physics progress to plans for humanity.
2021
Iād propose total reassessment of the National Physics program.
Much greater autonomy for theorists.
*Much* higher salaries.
Much greater *diversity* of approaches.
More high precision work.
Fewer graduate programs.
Physics = economic/security priority.
Admit String Thy failure.
We need to hire people who will upset the living hell out of the people doing the hiring.
We need to put fundamental physics theory in receivership. No theory lead advance in fundamental physics for almost 50 years, yet no soul searching about who lost physics?? Are we kidding?
Itās time to stop listening to the same voices as if they hadnāt failed. This is a national priority, not a cult of personality for a STEM generation that had their time..and then ate their own young across every field. Is no one following what we did to destroy our own capacity?
Or should we do yet more 2D Yang Mills on irrelevant groups in non physical signatures? Squarks/Sleptons? Ha!
Letās say it clearly as everyone young is terrified to say it: the baby boomer theorists were successful as geometers while avoiding actual physics over entire careers.
By mumbling āQuantum Gravityā every 2 minutes as a mantra and recasting actual High Energy Physics as āPhenomenologyā they mis-educated an entire generation to think ātoy physicsā was real physics. Itās unbelievable.
Toy physics is real geometry & topology. But it aināt physics.
Real physics:
A) Works with dimension 4.
B) Works with SU(3)xSU(2)xU(1).
C) Uses observed quantum numbers.
D) Accepts Lorentzian Signature.
E) Focuses on 3 Generation.
There is *Nothing* wrong with toy models now and then. But we are talking *entire careers* playing with toys.
We tell people who are basically mathematicians that theyāre physicists.
Well, they arenāt. Physicists say things about the world. And those things *need* to be potentially wrong to qualify as physics.
We have a culture of people who canāt *afford* error. So they just do math.
Also, to be a fundamental physicist you really should be telling us what we now have wrong. Every advance partially recovers the one before it but also invalidates it, telling us where to look for error. Weāve made hidden assumptions so you have to tell your elders they goofed.
Well, young people canāt say that to elders who hold their academic lives in the palms of their hands. Thatās why young/iconoclast physicists need FU salaries.
Elder āYou should work on AdS/CFT or āBH informationā if you want to get a job.ā
Young Colleague: āHow does NO sound?ā
When I say āThere are only two true generations of Fermions.ā Iām potentially wrong.
When I listed quantum numbers of the remaining particles, Iām potentially wrong.
As when I claimed Pati-Salam is a maximal compact subgroup of the normal bundle of metrics.
Thatās not a bug.
Yet you canāt do this in academic depts.
Moral: we destroyed our ability to self-police. Peer review wonāt work. We need to go back to doing physics. Whatās holding us back may not be physics but the political economy of academic labor, citation, reputation & attribution.š
One last thought. If there arenāt very compelling UAF revelations coming our way, Iād redirect our interest in aliens towards terrestrial physics done by humans. If there were such revelations, then Iād *still* look to physics before tech, as š½ *still* implies new physics to me.
2022
Physics in 1980: āIām trying to grasp why nature has 3 generations of chiral fermions with SU(3)xSU(2)xU(1) internal symmetry.ā
Physics Today: āRemind me again what the internal quantum numbers are? I do quantum gravity so itās not something Iāve worked with since my QFT class.ā
I met this rot first in āQuantum Gravityā
Then in āNeo-Classical Economicsā
Then in āScientific Manpower Theoryā
To hear it in virology with MILLIONS dead? Totally mind blowing.
Take back science, by any means necessary. It is now a matter of survival: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vtfIIG8iYIk
Instantly stop all progress in the worldās most successful scientific community using only two words inducing permanent paralytic failure that cannot be questioned.
Iāll go first: āQuantum Gravityā
Quantum Gravity is a 69 year long slow-motion suicide pact. Can we discuss it? No we cannot. That would require discussing its modern origins in 1953 and 1957.
It is, by now, too big to fail. It is not even the elephant in the room. Itās the blue whale in physicsā linen closet.
@dingobabyboy Subsumed by Quantum Gravity.
@CurtM2566 You are being distracted then. Focus on Quantum Gravity. Entanglement is real.
@skdh 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 donāt want to see you on it. As a friend.
Either way, itās a big deal. Everything changed in the early 70s. Itās impossible to say how much. The moment the Mansfield amendment came in, physics began to stagnate. And āQuantum Gravityā destroyed our culture of science. We donāt even whisper about its āAnti-Gravityā origin.
I donāt think there is any history of my ever commenting on @SBF_FTX.
It is because I never deeply understood what was going on when it was explained to me. Iām not going to lie: I felt dumb.
Moral: be very careful celebrating success that you donāt understand for its own sake.
Other things that made/make me feel dumb:
Bernie Madoffās Returns
COVID origin questions = Racism
Fauci
Hilaryās Inevitability
Quantum Gravity
Jeffrey Epsteinās CCY trading Claims
CPI Construction
UFO/UAP
Chinese Graduate Students in STEM
Open Borders
Defund The Police
DEI
NIH
What specific Quantum Gravity theory do you imagine has now been openned up for testing? Are these your words, and, if not, do you know what they mean?
I do not:
"dynamics expected from crossing a traversable wormhole, opening up possibilities to test quantum gravity theories."
Not trying to be difficult, but this sounds like an enormous announcement from Google as I assume you mean it to be as a CEO....and I don't get what is really being claimed in testing quantum gravity. Thx.
2023
Today May be Considered the 50 year Anniversary of the Stagnation of Particle Physics.
Today Feb 1 marks the appearance of Kobayashi & Maskawa's englargment of the Cabibo Angle to the three generation 3x3 CKM matrix.
That should be cause for celebration. So let us celebrate!
Unfortunately, it also marks the end of what we can be certain actually is physics.
Imagine if Elton John's "Crocodile Rock" was still the #1 song on Billboard's Hot 100 & Tony Orlando and Dawn were singing "Tie a Yellow Ribbon". That, in a nutshell, is fundamental phsyics.
To be clear, It is not as if there are no Nobel Laureates recognized for fundamental discoveries in particle theory left. I believe we are down to the last 8. Half of them are in their 70s. One in his 80s. Three are nongenarians. Yes. It's that bad. And we're not honest about it.
When you hear about "Peer Review" in this field, you have to understand that the field stopped working. Without nature telling us, we don't actually know who the physicists are any more. We have no idea who is a fundamental physicist. All we know is that what we do doesn't work.
So I am celebrating today by pointing out the obvious: maybe it isn't a good idea to have people who haven't made contact with actual fundamental physics telling everyone else what they must and must not do to be members of a club that no longer works according to normal science.
What fundamental physics really is, is (approximately) captured by the table below. In short, if someone is below the age of 70, they may have proven their brilliance and mathematical ability, but they have not proven any ability to make contact with reality as theorists.
I will point out that our experimentalists are in FAR better shape. The massive nature of neutrinos, discovery of gravitational waves, the Higgs field, Intermediate Vector Bosons, Accelerating Expansion of the Universe/Dark Energy are all major successes over the last 50 years.
So what went wrong? I will be talking about my understanding of the stagnation this year at a different level. But the single greatest threat to fundamental physics in my estimation is something called "Quantum Gravity" which was really born 70 years ago around 1953.
To put it bluntly, it is not just that Quantum Gravity doesn't work. It's that you can't comfortably question Quatnum Gravity because the failed investment is on a scale that I think is difficult for us to contemplate. It includes StringTheory, Loop Quantum Gravity, AdS/CFT etc.
Next Year, will be 40 years of failure for modern StringTheory to ship a product. To be clear and STEELMAN the argument for strings, it *is* a remarkable framework. It is REAL math. It teaches us things no other framework has.
But, it *destroyed* the culture of honest physics.
We spent almost 80% of this time being told that ST was a 'Piece of 21st Century Physics that fell into the 20th Century.'
Uh. Bullshit. That is an excuse. It's not clear that it's physics at all.
It's a "Failed piece of 20th Century Physics still hanging around in the 21stC".
It is time to hold conferences dedicated to the issues of groupthink in physics. Why wont our leading voices admit failure? We don't know. Previous generations wanted their students to succeed. But String Theory is dominated by boomers who seem oblivious to danger.
If we're going to truly wrestle w/ dark matter, or dark energy, or UAP that supposedly violate our laws of physics (e.g. General Relativity) we can't afford a leaders projecting their fears that THEY have wasted their lives, credibility and students careers on "Quantum Gravity".
So by all means, let's celebrate. But it is time to ask new voices for wild, dangerous and irresponsible ideas. Peer review failed. Quantum Gravity Failed. Community norms failed. And soon there will be NO ONE LEFT proven to be able to play this game. So what do we do?
We need to spend perhaps 5yrs asking "If the leaders have not succeeded for FIVE DECADES in moving beyond the Standard Model, then why are they leading this field and directing the resources, research, and path forward? What if we listened to those who the leadership push aside?"
As someone who has tried to ask this question, I can tell you that mostly the big programs have granted themselves a science equivalent of 'dipolmatic immunity' from the standards they impose on their intellectual competitors. But from today forward, we must end that game.
Let's put resources in new avenues, theories and theorists that have yet to fail. The next time you hear a theorist telling you about quantum gravity, the multiverse or String theory or Loops or Supersymmetry or AdS/CFT, etc. Ask them the following dangerous question:
"If you haven't succeeded in 50-70 years, what other theories would be viable if we relaxed the standards you have imposed on your competitors given that your theories do not seem to work? What if your Quantum Gravity were subjected to such standards? Would QG be quackery?"š
Let's honor those who tried before by bringing the same energy they once brought to the attempt to learn our place in the universe. Happy to be corrected. But this is an emergency if we're ever going to go beyond chemical rockets and use physics to take our place among the stars.
"I remember when rock was young...š¶"
Let's get that energy back, by any means necessary.
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 Theorists stopped being scientists.
I just want our data & the physics.
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. Itās tempting.
I donāt 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 āNeed to Knowā as to whether this is BS NatSec space opera disinformation theater. Because to me, it is data.
What just happened isnāt data. Itās 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 itās not science yet.
As Iāve been saying, there is so much deliberate NatSec BS out here that our own scientists are being propagandized. Weāre drilling holes in our own scientistsā lifeboat. Last time we saw this it was virologists/immunologists/epidemiologists being gaslit. Now itās physicists.
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 Iād sign on to another to know the truth if I was wrong.
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, letās be scientists & get NatSec out of our data first. Where is our data pruned of space opera disinformation and cultic religiosity?
What I want to know:
Why was the Mansfield Amendment passed?
Why did NSF fake a labor shortage in our MARKET economy destroying American STEM labor markets?
What stopped the Golden Age Of General Relativity?
Why was the SSC really cancelled?
StringTheory & STAGNATION: WTF?
What the hell was the 1957 Behnson funded UNC Chapel Hill conference actually about?
Why are we not stopping to QUESTION 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?
This is the 50th year of stagnation in the 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.
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 letās talk.
If you want to know whether there are biological interstellar visitors here observing us, the short answer is āAlmost *certainly* not if they are using our current stagnant non-progressing theories of physics.ā
Letās finally get serious about this whacky subject? Thanks. š
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.
@skdh I acknowledge my desires as you see from what I wrote. But a stagnant community always wants outcomes. It wants SUSY. Or 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.
2024
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