String Theory: Difference between revisions

 

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|content=@nbashaw @juliagalef If I ask are there any examples of Sudanese people having contrarian views on [[String Theory|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

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|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|String theory]] as a movement was still an abomination.

|timestamp=8:26 PM · Sep 1, 2018

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|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...

|timestamp=9:00 PM · Sep 4, 2018

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|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.

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|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?

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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 & attribution.🙏

|content=@martinmbauer Seiberg/Witten/Dijkgraaf/Maldacena

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

“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.

|content=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.

|content=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.

|content=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.

|content=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.

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.

|content=@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.

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.

|content=Discussion of the future of theoretical physics seems like a game of "Intellectual Keepaway."

Its the same group of mandarins who predicted LHC SuperSymmetry, Mini-Black holes, SU(5) Grand Unification, String Theory, Q-Gravity would work.  

"Who believe String Theory wouldn't work?"

|content=Said differently, what if our leadership is brilliant but SPECIFICALLY untrustworthy in identifying the path forward. What if 1000 David Gross & Ed Wit1ten Keynotes setting the agenda are the problem? What if Lenny Susskind is not correct sbout non-string people wasting our time.

"Are there any OTHER ideas? Not Strings. Not Loops. Not Asymptotic Safety. Not Simple Compact GUTs. Not Quantum Computing. Not Black Hole Information. Not Technicolor. Not Amplitudes."

|content=Look, we could just hold a conference: "Fundamental Physics: Can't *Anybody* Here Play This Game?"

David, Ed, Maria, Cumrun, Nati, Lenny, Juan, Lee etc. could be respondents giving constructive feedback. We would then at least learn why we are where we are. But this is nuts.

|content=@arivero Not my read. It took place just before the G-S anomaly cancellation. The Murray keynote is the best summary of the problem that lead to the String Theology. It mentions String Theory but doesn’t focus on it. It is the last gasp before the transition.

|content=@MasterMuskkk @bgreene @Columbia @TOEwithCurt @IAI_TV Brian is one of our best public speakers as well. I’ve seen him improvise on his feet in tough situations and I am blown away by how he manages to be accurate, accessible and funny in real time scientific matters. A lightning-fast mind working simultaneously on multiple levels.

|content=Wonderful to exchange ideas with @RogerPenrose5 @bgreene @tasneemzhusain on String Theory and the underlying source of the unique  controversy that has swirled around it for decades. Thanks to @HTLGIFestival for putting this together! Great panelists and moderation!

I believe this is how String Theorists stopped being scientists.

Ask questions about COVID, [[String Theory]], '''CPI''', etc and you will *not* find this. 🙏

|content=It is time to face up to the disaster of string theory. But we need to be fair about what failed and why. The equations of string theory can’t hurt anyone. It’s 40 years of the anti-scientific destruction of scientific standards and norms of collegiality to promote one failed theory over all other attempts that is behind this destruction of what was previously the worlds most accomplished scientific community.

|content=The good folks at @IAI_TV put together a reel of String Theorist, Prof. @bgreene and I debating [[String Theory]] in Wales in May at @HTLGIFestival.  

|content=To sum it up: when string theorist are no longer in a position to keep changing the goal posts set by the physical world, isn’t it the case that from A-Z maybe string theory is not being honest?

But, in case of doubt or misunderstanding, string theory is absolutely the deepest, most consequential and most likely to be true set of ideas about what sits at the intersection of the Standard Model and quantum gravity.

As the book quote indicates, I try not to overclaim. But: that string theory and the complex  of ideas are around it are more serious than any competitors, IMO objectively true.

String theorists like Friedan have written harshly of the Failures.

What you seem to be saying is the usual trope: “The more you understand about the difficulty of quantizing a spin 2 gravitational field the more you appreciate how string theory has taught us so much about how it is to be done eventually, and that there is no remotely comparable framework for doing so!”

Waited a few days. I don’t think you are making sense about your *opinion* that it is *objectively* and *absolutely* dominant. And that is the problem. String theorist deliberately leave others with the impression that they are following something scientific, objective and absolute. But it is really just a shared subjective hunch. And this does science and physics a terrible disservice.

|content=The question about where string theory stands in comparison to other approaches to quantum gravity. I think it objectively true that string theory has given lots of stuff that  is useful/foundational to cognate areas (eg QFT) than any other approach to quantum gravity. 1/n

|content=This is not ideal - but while saying ‘go buy my book’ is a slight cop out, the book is my full argument at a level as non-technical as possible of why string theory has the position it does DESPITE the lack of direct experimental evidence for it

|content=I don’t think that is the relevant argument anymore. So you are framing it in such a way that “String Theory” is the answer to a question you formulated: “Of all the approaches to quantizing  gravity which haven’t worked, which is the best?”

|content=The problem I have is with string theorists framing of the field and its issues and questions. I think [[String Theory]] is dangerous for this reason.  

|content=Thought experiment. Assume the final theory exists, is agreed upon in 2024, and has nothing to do with String Theory.

|content=@TomBilyeu @JosephPConlon My completely crazy claim: I don’t think there is a log jam. String theory is relentlessly jamming the future. It has taught people how to *stop* progress.  

In the midst of a thread with Prof. @JosephPConlon, author of “Why String Theory?” I set out the dangers of allowing string theorists to be the arbiters judges and juries of what is important in physics.

|content=The problem I have is with string theorists framing of the field and its issues and questions. I think [[String Theory]] is dangerous for this reason.  

|content=Sorry. By whom? Do I expect to be taken seriously by the many String Theorists who called their colleagues morons, frauds and “not serious” behind their backs? No. I don’t.  

I expect them to leave the field. Then we can get back to doing physics. The subset of reasonable string theorists who know this problem well and are still doing science? Well….They know ST/QG has a problem and they hate it too. And I do care about them.  

|content=Thank you for asking for the Steel-manned version of the issue with String Theory from a critic.

String theory is basically a fairly self consistent mathematical constellation of geometric ideas related to Quantum Field Theory developed by brilliant minds. If Gravity is to be quantized in the form that physicists naively expected, it would be likely that it would be our first or at worst second best guess as to how that works. I am willing to say this clearly. But there is no one telling us that gravity must be naively quantized.

Think of String Theorists as akin to a fanatical absolutist monastic order discovering and developing Linear Algebra as a proof of the literal story of Jesus. The problem wouldn’t be with  the linear algebra!! It’s the claimed strength of the application and it’s motivation that is the problem.

Higher dimensions aren’t all about holography, Calabi-Yau manifolds, String Theory etc. This sounds wrong at a physics level.

|content=My old friend @edfrenkel on coming back from the big String Theory conference in Canada:

I) Independent breakthrough science is in a long wind down starting with the Mansfield amendment, and is being partially decommissioned. Why? Because it was found to be too powerful and redistributive.

II) The National Security and National Interest folks now use science, journalism,  academe etc to dump their cognitive sludge. Epstein cover stories, UAP cover stories, Assasination cover stories, COVID cover stories, Inflation/Money Supply cover stories, etc. That is, the organs that kept us partially free in 1975 are now used to attack our ability to think, every day of our lives.  

III) Anyone not going along with I) and II) sticks out like an absolute sore thumb and is targeted for “Image Cheapening”. This is abhorrent abuse of power.  

V) The UFO community is way too recreational. What ever is hidden behind the UAP curtain is serious business. It involved high level physics as recently as 50 years ago. Then that connection got buried. I just don’t know what this about. And I have *zero* proof it involves aliens or interdimensional beings.