Ed Witten

2009

Eric Weinstein

@EricRWeinstein

Ed Witten has no Nobel Prize.

Now tell me again how this era's physics just feels different because we are too close to it.

11:06 AM · Jul 30, 2009

Eric Weinstein

@EricRWeinstein

So @orzelc asks me to unpack the No-Nobel/Witten tweet. It presupposes at least minor direct contact w/ Ed so you don't doubt Ed's gift.

12:31 PM · Jul 30, 2009

Eric Weinstein

@EricRWeinstein

So @orzelc the Quetion is: "Is this likely the first era of fundamental physics that could produce a 55+ Witten nonlaureate?"

12:38 PM · Jul 30, 2009

Eric Weinstein

@EricRWeinstein

My friend @orzelc asks: "do you consider Wheeler to be in Witten's class?" Short answer is no. But I never went 1-1 with a young Wheeler.

1:57 PM · Jul 30, 2009

Eric Weinstein

@EricRWeinstein

In my whole life @orzelc, I have only had the pleasure to know one other person well who I regard as "in Witten's class". Is Singer.

2:03 PM · Jul 30, 2009

Eric Weinstein

@EricRWeinstein

The nonphysicist disagrees w/ @orzelc. Wheeler lived through the whole build up of the Standard Model. Ed would have pounced repeatedly.

2:12 PM · Jul 30, 2009

Eric Weinstein

@EricRWeinstein

To @orzelc: in your life you'll see Paris and the Taj Mahal. Make sure you meet all the great minds. Go see Ed. He's part human.

2:17 PM · Jul 30, 2009

Eric Weinstein

@EricRWeinstein

There are three careers in modern physics of which I am envious. The other two are Yang and Dirac. In math: Singer, Witten, Attiyah, Bott...

5:05 AM · Sep 20, 2009

Eric Weinstein

@EricRWeinstein

And what about Jim Simons? Other than Chern Simons he did amazing stuff. Wu-Yang ...and that holonomy theorem of Berger was first rate.

5:18 AM · Sep 20, 2009

Eric Weinstein

@EricRWeinstein

Anyone else appreciate that Jim Simons redoing Berger's list of holonomy groups to prove intrinsic sphere transitivity? An artist's theorem.

5:23 AM · Sep 20, 2009

Eric Weinstein

@EricRWeinstein

Someone else I admire: Dan Freed at Austin. Dan never gets all the credit he deserves. Every paper nails some loose end for the community.

5:29 AM · Sep 20, 2009

Eric Weinstein

@EricRWeinstein

In Econ. Krugman is the master chef who can start with deadly pufferfish and dependably prepare elegant fugu thats safe to eat.

5:51 AM · Sep 20, 2009

2010

Eric Weinstein

@EricRWeinstein

Telomeres, Scientist Shortages, Seiberg Witten, Inflation (CPI), E8 TOE, Immigration, Neoclassical tastes all now have fictional narratives.

5:02 AM · May 2, 2010

Eric Weinstein

@EricRWeinstein

Open science, non-castrated science journalism, gonzo science, twitter, etc. are our best hedge about having science destroyed by narrative.

5:04 AM · May 2, 2010

2011

Eric Weinstein

@EricRWeinstein

Q: When will Ed Witten tell us what the M in M-Theory stands for? A: Mañana, amigo. Mañana....

5:07 AM · Mar 25, 2011

Eric Weinstein

@EricRWeinstein

Ed Witten turned 60 today. I closed my eyes & remembered him in his mid 30s with the excitement of string unification around the next bend.

12:20 PM · Aug 26, 2011

Eric Weinstein

@EricRWeinstein

Greenspan failed. Witten failed. Obama failed. McGwire failed. Goldman failed. Spitzer failed. AIG failed. Assange Failed. You? Lookin good!

5:32 AM · Sep 4, 2011

2016

Eric Weinstein

@EricRWeinstein

Ed Witten sums up his extraordinary career in physics. Ed is the most terrifying intellect I have ever encountered.

https://www.ias.edu/sns/ckfinder/userfiles/files/ComemorativeLecturePopular(1).pdf

9:44 PM · Oct 28, 2016

2017

Eric Weinstein

@EricRWeinstein

If I had but one paragraph to recommend as the most important in all of literature, it might well be this one. However, as you might imagine, unpacking it, could take up your entire life.

[There is a 'flaw' in the paragraph. The word 'gauge' should be replaced by 'structure'.]

4:21 PM · Nov 8, 2017

Eric Weinstein

@EricRWeinstein

1/ Interesting esoteric features:
i) refers to Einstein Field Equation for the gravitational force. (only implicitly).
ii) refers to the Yang-Mills-Maxwell Equation for the other forces (only implicitly).
iii) refers to the Dirac Equation for matter (yet again, only implicitly).

5:40 PM · Nov 8, 2017

Eric Weinstein

@EricRWeinstein

2/ The Quantum (e.g. quantum mechanics, quantum field theory, quantum measurement, etc...) is relegated to a *secondary* status below the key geometric insights. This was likely done very subtly when the paper was given in the 1980s, as it was, and remains, a revolutionary idea.

5:43 PM · Nov 8, 2017

Eric Weinstein

@EricRWeinstein

End/ An interpretation is that Witten, the greatest living mathematical physicist, was indicating to us that it was only these *abstractions* that were likely to survive, while the instantiations (i.e. the exact equations we still use) would likely perish.

A msg never recieived.

5:49 PM · Nov 8, 2017

2018

Eric Weinstein

@EricRWeinstein

1/ "Theories of Everything": A Taxonomy.

It is often said that "Theories-of-Everything are a dime a dozen" or that "All theoretical physicists worth their salt have several in a drawer." So far as I can tell, this is simply untrue. We've barely ever, if at all, seen candidates.

4:58 PM · Jan 29, 2018

Eric Weinstein

@EricRWeinstein

2/ The Escher Lithograph used in the first tweet points to the core of why TOEs are rare. A candidate TOE has to have some quality of "a fire that lights itself", which is difficult to think about beyond the equations that would instantiate it. Hence very few such theories exist.

5:02 PM · Jan 29, 2018

Eric Weinstein

@EricRWeinstein

3/ I'm going to lean on the following dictionary of analogies:

Physical Paper = Void Pictured Canvas = Manifold and/or Einsteinian Spacetime Ink=Matter & non-gravitational force fields Pencils = Pre-Conscious Lego (e.g. amino acids) Hands = Consciousness Paradox = Self-awareness

5:17 PM · Jan 29, 2018

Eric Weinstein

@EricRWeinstein

4/ In my taxonomy, Type I TOEs are our least ambitious but they best match our state of the world. They are distinguished by two *separate* sources of origin: one for the Canvas (General Relativity or Witten's point i) ) & one for the Ink (Standard Model or Witten's point ii) ).

5:24 PM · Jan 29, 2018

Eric Weinstein

@EricRWeinstein

5 Type II TOE's are more ambitious & seek to derive the Ink from the choice of a mathematically distinguished Canvas that is anything but blank. My arch-nemesis @garrettlisi's theory is Type II. E8 is his 248 dimensional canvas. The intricacy is there, but doesn't quite match up.

5:41 PM · Jan 29, 2018

Eric Weinstein

@EricRWeinstein

6/ In Type III TOEs the ink is to be derived from canvas, but the canvas is essentially blank; it simply permits mathematics to happen (e.g. calculus and linear algebra). In such theories the ink has to be bootstrapped into existence. My lectures on Geometric Unity were Type III.

5:49 PM · Jan 29, 2018

Eric Weinstein

@EricRWeinstein

7/ Type IV TOE's try to change the question from Einstein's "Unified Field Theory." In String Thy, "Quantizing Gravity" became substituted for "Unified Field." For this crowd, many are now betting that the canvas & ink are both *emergent* from some deeper fundamental quantum thy.

6:00 PM · Jan 29, 2018

Eric Weinstein

@EricRWeinstein

8/ Type V TOEs are of a type I've never been able to fully contemplate; they are without boundaries or origins. There is no "Why is there something rather than nothing" within them. That which is not forbidden is compelled into existence. Void creates canvas & canvas begets void.

6:08 PM · Jan 29, 2018

Eric Weinstein

@EricRWeinstein

9/ Type VI TOEs begin with the hands. Religions are of this type. I pass over this in silence as they aren't scientific.

I will leave open higher types, but I've really only seen attempts at I-IV & I wouldn't call String-Thy/M-Thy a full TOE try since events of the last 15 yrs.

6:19 PM · Jan 29, 2018

Eric Weinstein

@EricRWeinstein

10/ I believe fundamental physics is stalled out because we are finally at the doorstep of a TOE and we haven't really bothered to think about what that would actually mean because we've never been here before. A final step need not look like any previous one. In fact, it cannot.

6:26 PM · Jan 29, 2018

Eric Weinstein

@EricRWeinstein

END/ My bet is on Type III for a reason:

Type I is not unified.
Type II is possible, but appears to be unworkable in details.
Type IV appears to lack sufficient guidance from Quantum theory to actually 'ship' despite consuming resources for yrs.
Types V & VI lack any progress.

6:32 PM · Jan 29, 2018

2019

Eric Weinstein

@EricRWeinstein

One of the world’s greatest men has died. Most of you will have no idea who this is. I just don’t know how to bridge that gap yet to tell you what he did.

I was very close with his top collaborator. They were the Watson and Crick of mathematics to me. They rewrote my whole life.

3:48 PM · Jan 12, 2019

The Royal Society

@royalsociety

Michael Atiyah OM FRS, President of the Royal Society 1990 -1995, died today. He was "a wonderful person who was a true internationalist and a fervent supporter for investing in talent – themes which resonate very clearly today." Read the full tribute https://royalsociety.org/news/2019/01/tribute-to-former-president-of-the-royal-society-sir-michael-atiyah/

3:48 PM · Jan 12, 2019

Eric Weinstein

@EricRWeinstein

There is a little known stone wall on Long Island. While flawed, it is a gift to all mankind that should be a pilgrimage site, as an understanding of the contents is nesessary to understand our world. Think of it as transcendent graffiti. Atiyah‘s spray-paint is everywhere here.

4:36 PM · Jan 12, 2019

Eric Weinstein

@EricRWeinstein

Imagine watery planets with holes and twists. Knotted donut planets called base spaces. Crazy oceans called “Vector bundles” and “Principal bundles”.

He told us about how the twists and holes determine what waves must live on them and which cannot.

4:59 PM · Jan 12, 2019

Eric Weinstein

@EricRWeinstein

He helped direct Ed Witten and Graeme Segal to truly tell us what Quantum Field Theory really was beyond being a physical theory. These men took a grab bag of techniques developed for calculation and showed us that they were a mellifluous whole of geometry, topology and physics.

5:03 PM · Jan 12, 2019

Eric Weinstein

@EricRWeinstein

If you want to know why I am so passionate about resisting the reign of terror against true scholarship it is this. Universities housed REAL scholarship beyond your wildest dreams. This kind of scholarship is not socially constructed. Almost no one can even do this level of work.

5:07 PM · Jan 12, 2019

Priyamvada Natarajan

@SheerPriya

Very sad news indeed - I knew Michael from when I was at @TrinCollCam he was brilliant, warm & amazing. Was at a conference where he was supposed to speak on thursday #higgscentre - he cancelled at the last minute....

5:47 PM · Jan 12, 2019

Eric Weinstein

@EricRWeinstein

Wow. Did you guys ever talk shop? I have to admit I didn’t always get the most out of him 1 on 1. Singer and Bott were much clearer. Atiyah and Witten tended to tell you something related to whatever you asked but often not in a dialogue. More like a juke box of answers.

5:53 PM · Jan 12, 2019

Priyamvada Natarajan

@SheerPriya

More recently we talked about dark matter and black holes (2 yrs ago now) he was very excited about astro... b4 when i was a student he was just very encouraging and warm

5:56 PM · Jan 12, 2019

Eric Weinstein

@EricRWeinstein

One of my less popular theories is that the Nobel Prize serves to rewrite the history of science to make it palatable to institutions.

Einstein gets it for the wrong thing.
Dirac & Schodinger split one.
Glashow/Weinberg/Salaam share.
Mdme Wu passed over
Vera Rubin -> nothing

6:17 PM · Apr 6, 2019

Eric Weinstein

@EricRWeinstein

Dyson Gets nothing.
Stuckelberg Gets nothing.
Sudarshan gets nothing
Feynman/Schwinger/Tomonaga diluted
No rules broken for Witten

Etc

So the Nobel prize just completely rewrites physics history for outsiders. Similarly in Peace, Physiology and Medicine, and economics (cough).

6:17 PM · Apr 6, 2019

Eric Weinstein

@EricRWeinstein

In reality:
Dirac was Einstein’s true peer.
Gel-man is a genius but one who attracts credit from others.
Yang deserves more than one.
Mdme Wu and Dyson are inexplicable omissions.
Sudarshan should have more than one and not zero.
Etc..

The prize dilutes or buries our best.

6:17 PM · Apr 6, 2019

Eric Weinstein

@EricRWeinstein

In this theory we beat up our absolute top people to make it easier for the next group to live with the difference in impact & contribution. We have many constraints we can point to for how it is awarded. But it ends up telling a less interesting less terrifying story for us all.

6:23 PM · Apr 6, 2019

Michael Hartl

@mhartl

FWIW, I’d be interested in reading a longer post on this subject, and I suspect I’m not alone.

6:23 PM · Apr 6, 2019

Eric Weinstein

@EricRWeinstein

@mhartl It would upset (living) people to fill this out. Have to think about the ultimate goal helping this community.

6:39 PM · Apr 6, 2019

Eric Weinstein

@EricRWeinstein

Haskell Programmers.
Topos theorists.
King Crimson aficionados.
1980s String Theorists.
Pediatric Heart Surgeons.
BJJ practioners.
Oboe/Bassoon players.
Fans of Eva Cassidy, Shackleton, Coltrane and Witten.

And all for understandable reasons. Like the amazing French. 🇫🇷 https://x.com/PardesSeleh/st/PardesSeleh/status/1117430684476485640

8:08 PM · Apr 14, 2019

Eric Weinstein

@EricRWeinstein

One of the greatest minds of our time, Michael Atiyah, eulogized by his true still-active peers including Witten & Donaldson. With all the confusion/hype of this moment in time, it's worth reminding ourselves of what achievement sounds like w/o inflation:

https://t.co/e73vEMx6n8

7:54 PM · Dec 3, 2019

2021

Eric Weinstein

@EricRWeinstein

Isadore Singer & Raoul Bott worked in almost exactly the same area. They collaborated with exactly the same people. They worked in adjacent zip codes (02138 vs 02139). They both had claims to the "greatest topological theorem" of the 20th century.

They never co-authored a paper.

10:11 PM · Feb 19, 2021

Eric Weinstein

@EricRWeinstein

I've known only three minds personally who I'm convinced will be discussed 1000 years from now if humans survive: James Watson, Raoul Bott and Isadore Singer (I met Atiyah & Witten but did not know them).

Is & Raoul however both collaborated on my rescue in Graduate school.

10:11 PM · Feb 19, 2021

Eric Weinstein

@EricRWeinstein

Perhaps with both of these giants now gone it is time to tell my story. I'm not sure. I have never told it publicly in full. But they both are heroic men beyond being great minds.

Had they surmounted their personal difficulties their collaborations could have changed the world.

10:11 PM · Feb 19, 2021

Eric Weinstein

@EricRWeinstein

They worked down the same street. I was at times a ping pong ball they sent back & forth between Building 2 at MIT & Harvard Science Center rm 508 (I think) along a 45 minute walk. I very much respected that they chose not to air any difficulties. They had respect for each other.

10:11 PM · Feb 19, 2021

Eric Weinstein

@EricRWeinstein

One reason I largely kept quiet about my story is respect for both men. They both defended and believed in the system. But, in part they believed in it BECAUSE they were so powerful that they could act as an underground railroad when that system failed:

10:11 PM · Feb 19, 2021

Eric Weinstein

@EricRWeinstein

So, in part, I'm their collaboration. Raoul was not my advisor. He had no real idea what I was doing. But he was far more than that. Is was my shtarker. My ace in the hole. They worked as a team to help me; their failure to talk directly was the main clue I had of anything amiss.

10:11 PM · Feb 19, 2021

Eric Weinstein

@EricRWeinstein

Lastly, there is the matter of my wedding. Is came to our event but I didn't invite Raoul. I did not understand what he had done for me. It is one of the biggest mistakes of my life. When the internet tries to insist to me that I am his student, I want to tell them what happend.

10:11 PM · Feb 19, 2021

Eric Weinstein

@EricRWeinstein

The truth is that I would have been proud to be the student of Raoul Bott. I would have a storied lineage to claim.

The truth is Raoul gave me his name for a self-advised thesis. And like a fool I resented it. Yet how much greater is the man who lends his last name to a Bastard.

10:11 PM · Feb 19, 2021

Eric Weinstein

@EricRWeinstein

In any event. I miss Is very much, but never expected to see him again. And I'm wrestling w the idea that I'm now free to tell my own story after 25yrs of saying very little in public. One of the reasons I don't take kindly to internet warfare is that I have large debts to pay.

10:11 PM · Feb 19, 2021

Eric Weinstein

@EricRWeinstein

The more I subject myself to mindless politics, catfighting, shadowbanning & trolling, the harder it is to fight for others/myself and to pay the debts to the giants who rescued me along my way. I don't know how I'd have done w/o them.

But I needed to grow this voice to do it.

10:11 PM · Feb 19, 2021

Eric Weinstein

@EricRWeinstein

Lastly, I used to have a relationship to a very different @nytimes. Thus when I read Is' obituarty I was shocked to see @julierehmeyer's beautiful tribute including my own quotes on Is. It made me sad to think about how much has been lost. Sadly, those quotes came from long ago.

10:11 PM · Feb 19, 2021

Eric Weinstein

@EricRWeinstein

If you haven't read her piece, I think it is quite moving even though it is no more than a sketch. End.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/12/science/isadore-singer-dead.html

10:11 PM · Feb 19, 2021

Eric Weinstein

@EricRWeinstein

[Not to be crass: but I can usually tell within the 1st minute what is happening to the throttling of my tweets: this is not being widely seen. I'm trying to say something meaningful about a departed friend @jack. Could you please take a personal interest & stop the throttling?!]

10:16 PM · Feb 19, 2021

Eric Weinstein

@EricRWeinstein

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?

Michael Shermer

@michaelshermer

Dear @EricRWeinstein Please see my argument for why UAPs cannot be foreign assets capable of physics & aerodynamics attributed to 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/

10:13 PM · Jun 12, 2021

5:40 PM · Jun 13, 2021

Eric Weinstein

@EricRWeinstein

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.

5:40 PM · Jun 13, 2021

Eric Weinstein

@EricRWeinstein

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.

5:40 PM · Jun 13, 2021

Eric Weinstein

@EricRWeinstein

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.

5:40 PM · Jun 13, 2021

Eric Weinstein

@EricRWeinstein

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.

5:40 PM · Jun 13, 2021

Eric Weinstein

@EricRWeinstein

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.

5:40 PM · Jun 13, 2021

Eric Weinstein

@EricRWeinstein

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?

5:40 PM · Jun 13, 2021

Eric Weinstein

@EricRWeinstein

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 Witten geometrized Quantum Field theory (everything else).

Now, all that change has so far unlocked exactly nothing.

5:40 PM · Jun 13, 2021

Eric Weinstein

@EricRWeinstein

But it’s not that nothing happened in physics. While we were pretending that string theory was working, Witten & Co revolutionized our mathematical framework. Think of it as an enormous amount of unrealized gains. Pent up genius & power looking for its 1st application to the 🌎.

5:40 PM · Jun 13, 2021

Eric Weinstein

@EricRWeinstein

If you gave us E Witten, J Simons, I Singer, CN Yang, M Atiyah, D Quillen & 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.

5:40 PM · Jun 13, 2021

Eric Weinstein

@EricRWeinstein

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.

5:40 PM · Jun 13, 2021

Eric Weinstein

@EricRWeinstein

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.

5:40 PM · Jun 13, 2021

Eric Weinstein

@EricRWeinstein

[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 & ML experts by a national lab & an off brand university w/ inexplicably strong geometry & physics. But enough crazy talk..]

5:40 PM · Jun 13, 2021

Eric Weinstein

@EricRWeinstein

If CCP could today repeat what Witten (& 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. 🤷‍♂️

5:40 PM · Jun 13, 2021

Eric Weinstein

@EricRWeinstein

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.

5:40 PM · Jun 13, 2021

Eric Weinstein

@EricRWeinstein

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.

5:40 PM · Jun 13, 2021

Eric Weinstein

@EricRWeinstein

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 & II error. Nuts.

5:40 PM · Jun 13, 2021

Eric Weinstein

@EricRWeinstein

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

5:40 PM · Jun 13, 2021

2022

Eric Weinstein

@EricRWeinstein

It really depends. Being totally honest:

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

If the 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

4:22 PM · Aug 23, 2022

Eric Weinstein

@EricRWeinstein

Here is where I respectfully disagree with my colleague @skdh. You can’t ‘get rid of 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.

4:25 PM · Aug 23, 2022

Eric Weinstein

@EricRWeinstein

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.

4:29 PM · Aug 23, 2022

Eric Weinstein

@EricRWeinstein

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.

4:34 PM · Aug 23, 2022

Eric Weinstein

@EricRWeinstein

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 ST as a major theory. But without that I’m unsure.

4:43 PM · Aug 23, 2022

Eric Weinstein

@EricRWeinstein

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.

4:43 PM · Aug 23, 2022

Eric Weinstein

@EricRWeinstein

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.

4:52 PM · Aug 23, 2022

Eric Weinstein

@EricRWeinstein

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.

4:54 PM · Aug 23, 2022

Eric Weinstein

@EricRWeinstein

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. 🙏

4:57 PM · Aug 23, 2022

Eric Weinstein

@EricRWeinstein

@martinmbauer 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.

5:06 PM · Aug 23, 2022

Eric Weinstein

@EricRWeinstein

@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.

5:10 PM · Aug 23, 2022

Eric Weinstein

@EricRWeinstein

@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.

5:12 PM · Aug 23, 2022

Eric Weinstein

@EricRWeinstein

@martinmbauer I don’t know which version of “The Field” you mean.

Physics in total? Is a large field.

Beyond the 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.

5:38 PM · Aug 23, 2022

Eric Weinstein

@EricRWeinstein

@martinmbauer Seiberg/Witten/Dijkgraaf/Maldacena

All string folks.

Maybe get a string theorist to admit this to you. Brian Greene likely wouldn’t disagree with me.

5:40 PM · Aug 23, 2022

2023

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