String Theory: Difference between revisions

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|content=Geeking out on Supersymmetry, string theory & his new book about things unknowable w @MarcusduSautoy in needlessly glamorous circumstances. https://t.co/V8Pmxp6Nl3

|media1=CxYhxmOVEAAQJ18.jpg

|content=Happy to see "Grand Unification" being discussed. Supersymmetry, StringTheory & "The Theory of Everything" get a lot of press. GUTs less so. https://t.co/vWJmMthg9Q

|nameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein/status/997468619314348033

|content=@nbashaw @juliagalef If I ask are there any examples of Sudanese people having contrarian views on string theory then i get your point. If I ask are there any examples of Africans contributing to academic thought, it falls very differently. This is a bit weird to be discussing with rationalists!

|timestamp=1:27 PM · May 18, 2018

 

|nameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein/status/1035987329251328000

|content=@KingCrocoduck I appreciate what you say. I think I’ve covered this *exactly* on @bigthink and @edge. Geometric field theory is a related triumph. The geometrization of the quantum is a related triumph. Stringy math is a related Triumph. Yet String theory as a movement was still an abomination.

|timestamp=8:26 PM · Sep 1, 2018

|nameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein/status/1037083114214834176

|content=In a recent tweet, I referred to String Theory as “Post Modern.” It unleashed a flurry of activity from similar looking accounts ridiculing the notion.

 

I wonder if leading String Theorist & head of the @the_IAS @RHDijkgraaf knows that his idea is so foolish as to be laughable... https://t.co/MPURUbEbwI

|timestamp=9:00 PM · Sep 4, 2018

|nameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein/status/1177580655460241408

|content=That said, I think she’s much harder to beat as she gains confidence in her ability to stand for science. It’s an impressive act of conscience & bravery to go it alone like this, and I wish the physics community saw it for what it is. I may disagree at times, but my hat is off.

|quote=

|nameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein/status/1177580652293570561

|content=We oddly now live in a Hossenfelder era of Theoretical physics. Sabine is almost distinguished by a near total unwillingness/inability to sit quietly through the hype machines in Theoretical physics that feed the demands of lay people, journalists & physicists. But is she right?

|timestamp=1:48 PM · Sep 27, 2019

|nameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein/status/1177580654495617025

|content=My take is that she is usually right. Not only that, many in the community rail against her when *they* know she is making sense.

 

But where she‘s wrong could be very significant. I would love to *try* to defend the role of beauty in physics (tarnished by string theory) from her.

|timestamp=1:48 PM · Sep 27, 2019

|timestamp=1:48 PM · Sep 27, 2019

|nameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein/status/1219317728277696512

|content=@mike_usher I don’t fully disagree. Let’s put it this way, the '''arxiv''' probably did more good than harm so I’ve been reluctant to discuss its issues. It is also part of a complex and that complex is the issue. It isn’t right to discuss it in isolation. It is part of an ecosystem.

|thread=

|nameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein/status/1219301750651310081

|content=This is an excellent question. Think of this as the “Good Will Hunting Problem”.

 

I tried uploading to '''arxiv''' way back when. They told me that my email address wasn’t a current university address and I could only upload with endorsement from a university or its representative.

|timestamp=4:52 PM · Jan 20, 2020

|nameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein/status/1219301754052866049

|content=On this point our detractors are more correct than our supporters: our ambitions at The Portal are nearly delusional.

 

The main goal of The Portal is to “Slip the DISC”. Anywhere institutions (like Universities) set up an intellectual caste system via bottlenecking, we’ll engage.

|timestamp=4:52 PM · Jan 20, 2020

|nameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein/status/1219301755516678145

|content=To your question: can that Bangladeshi Genius kid get on the '''Arxiv''' if she is from some Jute farm in the delta without an endorsement?

 

https://arxiv.org/help/endorseme

And why if the '''Arxiv''' is open does it discriminate against the blogs of string theory critics???

 

https://www.math.columbia.edu/~woit/wordpress/?p=357

|timestamp=4:52 PM · Jan 20, 2020

|nameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein/status/1219301757081153536

|content=I grant freely that the '''arxiv''' is the absolute best part of the DISC. But it is still suppressing ideas & enforcing a caste system. It is the most progressive part of our regressive system (I was offered a full endorsement exemption from its founder Paul Ginsparg). But DISC it is.

|timestamp=4:52 PM · Jan 20, 2020

|nameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein/status/1219301758591102977

|content=I’m enough of a hypocrite that I reserve rights to use it. But I‘ll be making demands of it too. Peter Woit is a physicist who is treated by the '''arxiv''' as an “internet personality” yet runs the most read physics blog. I demand that they fully explain their history suppressing him.

|timestamp=4:52 PM · Jan 20, 2020

|nameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein/status/1219301760059109383

|content=Thanks for asking that question. Our goal is to save the '''Arxiv''' from being part of the DISC. Its soul is with the rebels. And Paul Ginsparg is oddly an early hero of the revolution despite my issues with the '''Arxiv''' and its administration. 🙏

|timestamp=5:56 PM · Jan 20, 2020

|nameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein/status/1221118117255901184

|content=Melanie, you‘re one of my favorite stable wave collections co-propagating along the base-space of this twisted chiral Spinor bundle we call reality.

It seems a crime to waste our time discussing “Many-Worlds” or “String Theory” over the geometric beauty of our existence. Thanks!

|timestamp=5:10 PM · Jan 25, 2020

|nameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein/status/1245024752390909952

|content=The simple through line is this: your leadership was selected for based on an ability not to upset their own and other institutions while those institutions had to lie about their success & inability to grow.

 

This leadership cohort is generation ponzi. That’s their superpower.🙏

|nameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein/status/1245024745990438913

|content=People ask why I’m on about masks. I’m not focused on them. I’ve been trying to tell you about my theory of Embedded Growth Obligations and how our *entire* civilian lead leadership has become deranged by them.

 

Masks just show us they‘re willing to kill, and without blinking.

|timestamp=4:26 PM · Mar 31, 2020

|nameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein/status/1245024748578332674

|content=2008 was about the theory of E.G.O.s. And it looked like this. Sooner or later we‘ll get to serious armed conflict w/ developed nations if we want to sit & wait for that.

I guess I have a vague hope that we will wake up earlier when we see Doctors & Nurses in Queens put at risk.

|timestamp=4:26 PM · Mar 31, 2020

|nameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein/status/1245024749551419393

|content=But maybe this is getting boring. I mean, it’s just our governmental & world organization leaders pushing us in front of a train to cover for their failures so that their careers aren’t interrupted with so much as a hiccup. So same old, same old.

 

Frankly, I want off the Titanic.

|timestamp=4:26 PM · Mar 31, 2020

|nameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein/status/1245024750516092934

|content=There is some rule that leaders never pay w/ their careers or their freedom. That didn’t use to be true. We used to jail people, clawback their gains, and promote based on vigor/ability. And we will again. We just have to flush two generations of leaders that changed our rules.

|timestamp=4:26 PM · Mar 31, 2020

|nameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein/status/1245024751426236416

|content=So no, it’s not about masks. It’s not about forest fire management. It’s not about central bank tampering. It’s not about campaign finance. It’s not about H1B. It’s not about String Theory or a reproducibility crisis.  

It’s about their parent theory: Embedded-Growth-Obligations.

|timestamp=4:26 PM · Mar 31, 2020

|nameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein/status/1257004700014014469

|content=A) We could be 1/3 of the way through the era of baby boomer presidents by then.

B) A news article asking about Ghislaine’s whereabouts could appear.

C) String Theory is revealed to be a drunken prank that “got out of control.”

D) Post-Einsteinian physics & hacking the cosmos.

|timestamp=5:50 PM · May 3, 2020

|nameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein/status/1273709965903949824

|content=@SquareBearBets Water isn’t 100% safe. Scientists don’t talk like that.

|thread=

|nameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein/status/1273708080543326208

|content=How to restore faith in science:

 

Seat the tables in our meeting rooms w/ who *didn’t* go along with crowds. This is not that hard.

 

 

 

|timestamp=8:04 PM · Jun 18, 2020

|nameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein/status/1273708083999436800

|content=Who supports vaccines but refuses to claim “Vaccines are 100% safe.”?

{{Tweet

|nameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein/status/1273708085354192896

|content=Look at all the obviously insane things we have been doing & look who doesn’t go along with crowds. Because it‘s so clear and there are so few objecting this-is-not-difficult.

It’s so easy because there are so few people who actually believe in science. It’s down to a very few.

|timestamp=8:04 PM · Jun 18, 2020

|timestamp=8:11 PM · Jun 18, 2020

|nameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein/status/1318034574362906626

|content=Why did this work? Because String Theory attracted top minds from what had traditionally been the cream of the Quantum Field Theory community, and they‘d clearly found a large piece of mathematical structure. What they failed to find was a connection from that to real physics. 🙏

|nameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein/status/1318034571099664384

|content=I don’t think there is a problem with string theory per se.  

The problem was with *string theorists*. Quite simply, String theory allowed its proponents to put down the work of everyone else by allowing its boosters to claim an imminent solution which never actually ships.

|timestamp=3:41 AM · Oct 19, 2020

|nameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein/status/1318034572899090432

|content=Further, when ever anyone did something (call it X) that was important but seemingly non stringy or anti-string, the string theorists would publish an all but unreadable paper titled like “X and its Stringy Origin” to claim that *all* good ideas are subsumed by String Theory.

|timestamp=3:41 AM · Oct 19, 2020

|nameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein/status/1351831628302094336

|content=Student Debt, PATRIOT Act, Diversity & Inclusion Oaths, Rollback of Mandatory Requirement, [[Jeffrey Epstein|Epstein Suicide]], Andrew Yang primary coverage, 1619 Project, Coordinated Bans by Tech Platforms, University Tuition Hike Explanations, [[Labor Shortages|STEM worker shortages despite wage mechanism]]..

|thread=

|nameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein/status/1351829685949251588

|content=A weird way to describe [[String Theory]], Neoclassical Economics, Critical Theory, The Neo-Darwinian Synthesis, Public Health, Trust & Safety, Mainstream Media, The Fed, [[Peer Review]], [[Great Moderation|The Great Moderation]], Cancel Culture and Political Polling...but ya know what? He’s right. It works!

|image=neiltyson-profile.jpg

|nameurl=https://x.com/neiltyson/status/1351548097445441536

|name=Neil deGrasse Tyson

|usernameurl=https://x.com/neiltyson

|username=neiltyson

|content=Evidence you might be in a Cult::

When you stop thinking for yourself and you’ve empowered a select few others in your group to do your thinking for you.

|timestamp=3:12 PM · Jan 19, 2021

|timestamp=9:51 AM · Jan 20, 2021

|nameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein/status/1382349288324276225

|content=Many years ago 2002-6, I would give talks about Madoff & Epstein using “Black Arts Capital LLC” as a proxy, with the tag line “We’d tell you what we’re doing, but then...”

|nameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein/status/1382349286495555595

|content=“In today’s regulatory environment It’s virtually impossible to violate rules. And this is something the public really doesn’t understand...It’s impossible for a violation to go undetected; certainly not for an extended period of time.” -Former NASDQ Chairman, Bernie Madoff

|timestamp=3:05 PM · Apr 14, 2021

|nameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein/status/1382349287284117507

|content=This is what [[Universal Institutional Betrayal|institutional betrayal]] looks like when you stare straight in its eyes: relaxed, confident, respectable, smooth, knowledgeable.

It’s COVID pronouncements. Or [[String Theory]]. Or [[CPI]] revisions. Or “[[Labor Shortages]]”. Or fast-track trade treaties:

|nameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein/status/1385266147134631939

|content=One last thought. If there aren’t very compelling UAF revelations coming our way, I’d redirect our interest in aliens towards terrestrial physics done by humans. If there were such revelations, then I’d *still* look to physics before tech, as 👽 *still* implies new physics to me.

|thread=

|nameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein/status/1385263862698577922

|content=I’d propose total reassessment of the National Physics program.

Much greater autonomy for theorists.</br>

|content=I see now you had a tweetstorm on this, rather than a single tweet. You're right, the physics of UFOs would be world changing, for good and for bad. What do you propose? Somehow keeping the tech within the US gov/military? Eventually it will leak out. Then what? No good solutions

|timestamp=2:06 PM · Apr 22, 2021

|timestamp=4:06 PM · Apr 22, 2021

|nameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein/status/1385263864481124360

|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 · Apr 22, 2021

|nameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein/status/1385263868784496642

|content=It’s time to stop listening to the same voices as if they hadn’t 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 · Apr 22, 2021

|media2=ERW-X-post-1385263868784496642-EzlyJZbVkAIkCqJ.jpg

|nameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein/status/1385263870483206148

|content=Or should we do yet more 2D Yang Mills on irrelevant groups in non physical signatures? Squarks/Sleptons? Ha!

|timestamp=4:06 PM · Apr 22, 2021

|nameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein/status/1385263871347159044

|content=By mumbling [[Quantum Gravity|“Quantum Gravity”]] every 2 minutes as a mantra and recasting actual High Energy Physics as “Phenomenology” they mis-educated an entire generation to think “toy physics” was real physics. It’s unbelievable.

Toy physics is real geometry &amp; topology. But it ain’t physics.

|timestamp=4:06 PM · Apr 22, 2021

|nameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein/status/1385263872240537604

|content=Real physics:

A) Works with dimension 4.</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 · Apr 22, 2021

|nameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein/status/1385263873117155328

|content=We tell people who are basically mathematicians that they’re physicists.

 

Well, they aren’t. 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 can’t *afford* error. So they just do math.

|timestamp=4:06 PM · Apr 22, 2021

|nameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein/status/1385263873964449792

|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. We’ve made hidden assumptions so you have to tell your elders they goofed.

|timestamp=4:06 PM · Apr 22, 2021

|nameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein/status/1385263874748813313

|content=Well, young people can’t say that to elders who hold their academic lives in the palms of their hands. [[FU Money|That’s why young/iconoclast physicists need FU salaries]].

 

Elder “You should work on AdS/CFT or ‘BH information’ if you want to get a job.”

 

|timestamp=4:06 PM · Apr 22, 2021

|nameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein/status/1385263875562512384

|content=When I say “There are only two true generations of Fermions.” I’m potentially wrong.

When I listed quantum numbers of the remaining particles, I’m potentially wrong.

 

As when I claimed Pati-Salam is a maximal compact subgroup of the normal bundle of metrics.  

 

|nameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein/status/1385263876577497088

|content=Yet you can’t do this in academic depts.

Moral: we destroyed our ability to self-police. Peer review won’t work. We need to go back to doing physics. What’s holding us back may not be physics but the political economy of academic labor, citation, reputation &amp; attribution.🙏

|nameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein/status/1387084202764509184

|content=If you would be interested, @michiokaku, in bringing your theories &amp; views on The Portal, I would be happy to host you for several hours.

 

I think we have much on which we agree and no shortage of things that divide us. Would be lively. Up to you.

 

|timestamp=4:40 PM · Apr 27, 2021

|nameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein/status/1393981307923812356

|content=Every threat against a head of state is taken seriously. Even the absurd ones. It is cheaper to dot a few “i”s and cross a few “t”s than to not worry about such threats.

 

[[UAP]], Gain Of Function, New Physics, MANPADS, loose nukes, etc should be the same.

 

Obviously.

|thread=

|nameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein/status/1393981304698400772

|content=When our experts now talk openly about all these UFOs they talk about their “technology”.

And every time they do, I replace the word “technology” with the word “physics” for the obvious reasons. Because if non-terrestrial craft are here, physics &gt; technology.

|timestamp=5:26 PM · May 16, 2021

|nameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein/status/1393981305633710082

|content=Imagine if these [[UAP]] were actually visitors from beyond the local solar neighborhood. You wouldn’t be focused on their technology first. You’d want to understand how they got here and if they used new physics to do so. Most importantly, you’d want to know about dimension hacking.

|timestamp=5:26 PM · May 16, 2021

}}

|nameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein/status/1393981306409680897

|content=A key issue in [[Theory of Geometric Unity|Geometric Unity]] for me is whether additional temporal &amp; spatial degrees of freedom are accessible or shielded from manipulation. But consider what 6 additional temporal dimensions or the ability to manipulate rulers and protractors fundamentally could yield.

|timestamp=5:26 PM · May 16, 2021

|nameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein/status/1393981307227557889

|content=We are somehow no longer worried about any new physics. We are so sure it won’t suddenly progress in an unexpected way or unlock anything new that we aren’t even paying attention to the field. After [[String Theory]] it all feels ironic.

 

This is potentially a *catastrophic* mistake.

|timestamp=5:26 PM · May 16, 2021

|nameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein/status/1394724491805138946

|content=In a certain sense, that is the main through-line of my politics. Any institution that gaslights an ordinary human trying to make sense of the world in a reasonable fashion is wrong to me in a particularly profound way.

|thread=

|nameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein/status/1394724491092062209

|content=You can recover a surprising amount  from just one simple statement: UAP, public health, standardized testing, immigration, mortgage backed securities, crypto, inflation methodology, String Theory, Aaron Swartz, Etc.

“Institutions do not have the right to gaslight individuals.”

|nameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein/status/1404131507686363138

|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.  

 

|nameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein/status/1404131487692115972

|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!

|timestamp=5:40 PM · Jun 13, 2021

|nameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein/status/1404131494289760259

|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. https://t.co/Fb9rWGAHNQ

|timestamp=5:40 PM · Jun 13, 2021

|nameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein/status/1404131496059805698

|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

|nameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein/status/1404131496844165120

|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

|nameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein/status/1404131497641082880

|content=Next: there are really two metrics on innovations.

 

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

|nameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein/status/1404131498391871490

|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

|nameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein/status/1404131499197157376

|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

|nameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein/status/1404131499977318403

|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 Witten geometrized Quantum Field theory (everything else).

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

|timestamp=5:40 PM · Jun 13, 2021

|nameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein/status/1404131500753182720

|content=But it’s not that nothing happened in physics. While we were pretending that string theory was working, 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

|nameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein/status/1404131501512433665

|content=If you gave us E Witten, J Simons, 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

|nameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein/status/1404131502275776512

|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.