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String Theory (edit)

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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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|quote=
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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=
|media1=PhysInHistory-X-post-1765578749506928799-GICYf_IXcAAqlDU.png
|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.
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|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.
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{{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/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/1776292897740169642
|name=Eric Weinstein
|usernameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein
|username=EricRWeinstein
|content=Sabine & 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.
|timestamp=4:56 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.
|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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