Quantum Field Theory: Difference between revisions

|timestamp=2:55 PM · Dec 15, 2021

|nameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein/status/1474262756308119555

|content=Said differently I’ve been bullish on positive externalities of mathematical physics. But a lot of great math that got done isn’t [[String Theory|string theory]]. It’s claimed to be stringy but it is really mostly mathematical physics or geometric field theory that is claimed by string theorists.

|thread=

|nameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein/status/1473817405809778689

|content=Things got hard. They didn’t get hopeless.

Yes we spent almost 40 years lying about [[String Theory|string theory]]. But we could stop today. We could have the leaders in the field admit they made a *colossal* bad bet & ask “What did we dispose of while we were wildly over-hyping [[String Theory|string theory]]?”

|quote=

|image=TradeTexasBig-profile-7puYx-nQ.jpg

|nameurl=https://x.com/TradeTexasBig/status/1473809988535697408

|name=🇺🇲TradeTexasBig🇮🇳

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

|username=TradeTexasBig

|content=Its increasingly apparent to me that the next physics breakthrough is gonna be from #ai . Its humanly not possible anymore for theoretical physicists ..i was feeling it even around 2010

|timestamp=12:17 AM · Dec 23, 2021

|timestamp=12:47 AM · Dec 23, 2021

|image=skdh-profile.jpg

|nameurl=https://x.com/skdh/status/1473872481735827459

|name=Sabine Hossenfelder

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

|username=skdh

|content=They can't stop, Eric. They're making a living from writing papers about things no one will ever see. It's a systemic problem that requires a systemic response. And the first step would be to admit they have a problem (which they don't).

|timestamp=4:25 AM · Dec 23, 2021

|image=WeLivetoServe-profile-wfx-Iowe.jpg

|nameurl=https://x.com/WeLivetoServe/status/1473873663166451714

|name=WeLivetoServe

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

|username=WeLivetoServe

|content=Seems likely a lot of the math they developed will wind up handy, but it's a long time to wait for dessert.

|timestamp=4:30 AM · Dec 23, 2021

|image=skdh-profile.jpg

|nameurl=https://x.com/skdh/status/1473874437523005443

|name=Sabine Hossenfelder

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

|username=skdh

|content=Most of what physicists call math is totally uninteresting even for mathematicians. It's just advanced calculus. Look here is my qft and when I crunch it cross-sections fall out.

|timestamp=4:33 AM · Dec 23, 2021

|nameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein/status/1474213317568651264

|content=We may disagree intellectually more than I thought. This is Jackiw’s point: the era of physics thinking of mathematics as advanced calculus (analysis) wasn’t fruitful.

 

That changed around 1975 when the quantum began to discover geometry.

 

I’m honestly confused. What do you mean?

|timestamp=3:00 AM · Dec 24, 2021

|image=skdh-profile.jpg

|nameurl=https://x.com/skdh/status/1474247291687088134

|name=Sabine Hossenfelder

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

|username=skdh

|content=We are talking past each other. I am referring to particle physicists/astrophysicists/cosmologists who crunch out shallow and useless papers in the thousands. There's no interesting math in those. You're talking about something else entirely.

|timestamp=5:15 AM · Dec 23, 2021

|nameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein/status/1474261469462073344

|content=[[Quantum Field Theory|QFT]] & cross-sections sound more like particle theory than Astrophysics, Cosmology or even [[General Relativity|GR]].

 

Would we agree that the collision of [[Ed Witten|Witten]]/[[Isadore Singer|Singer]]/Quillen/[[Nathan “Nati” Seiberg|Seiberg]]/Freed/Bismut/Maldacena/Penrose/[[Michael Atiyah|Atiyah]]/

|timestamp=6:11 AM · Dec 24, 2021

|nameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein/status/1474261875328098308

|content=There are a lot of string theorists who have done things that really matter to geometry, topology, analysis on manifolds, representation theory. And I don’t want to misunderstand your point.

|timestamp=6:13 AM · Dec 24, 2021

|timestamp=6:16 AM · Dec 24, 2021

|nameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein/status/1477944293436235776

|content=That wasn’t shared with me. I don’t mind that we explore whether [[General Relativity|GR]] researchers or [[Quantum Field Theory|QFT]] theorists are more likely to believe in TOEs than say condensed matter folks. But I’m not up for reifying alleged oppression of [irrelevant identity group A] over [irrelevant identity group B].

|timestamp=10:05 AM · Jan 3, 2022

 

 

{{Tweet

|nameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein/status/1529153695803314176

|content=When it became clear that the W Vector Boson might be more massive than claimed, we asked such questions. “Could we be wrong here?”

When I question these other theories, no one ever says that. They just call names. How are we more certain of Whiteness Studies than say Einstein?

|thread=

|image=Eric profile picture.jpg

|nameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein/status/1529151449996832769

|name=Eric Weinstein

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

|username=EricRWeinstein

|content=We seem to be rebasing our entire society on aggressive and unquestionable academic theories from the social sciences that appear not to have even existed in 1988.

 

That seems like a big decision. I mean, I believe in [[Quantum Field Theory]]…but I wouldn’t bet the country on it.

|timestamp=5:24 PM · May 24, 2022

|media1=ERW-X-post-1529151449996832769-FTijI8aVIAEMmbP.jpg

|nameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein/status/1529152648477175808

|content=I make frequent claims that are counter to the description of the [[Standard  Model]] of physics. It’s not fun, but it’s tolerated to question things like “How well do we know this to be true? How strong is the evidence? How might this all be wrong or formulated in a misleading way.”

|timestamp=5:29 PM · May 24, 2022

|timestamp=5:33 PM · May 24, 2022

|nameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein/status/1562467397281337351

|content=P.S. “It hasn’t even failed” because it can’t fail. So far as I can see, it can never fail. In the minds of the faithful, It’s unable to fail because it *has* to be the way forward. It’s hard to explain what’s wrong with that to the enlightened who see its infinite power & glory.

|quote=

|image=martinmbauer-profile.jpg

|nameurl=https://x.com/martinmbauer/status/1562121660194504705

|name=Martin Bauer

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

|username=martinmbauer

|content=What has string theory done to become the poster child of failed physics? It hasn’t even failed.

|timestamp=4:56 PM · Aug 23, 2022

|thread=

|nameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein/status/1562460747560497153

|content=Physics in 1980: “I’m trying to grasp why nature has 3 generations of chiral fermions with SU(3)xSU(2)xU(1) internal symmetry.”

|image=Eric profile picture.jpg

|nameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein/status/1562463292345372672

|content=A) High energy physics of real particles became the no-energy physics of toy models.

B) [[Quantum Gravity|Quantizing Gravity]] was substituted for unification or extension of the [[Standard Model|Standard model]].

 

 

D) Hype won.

|timestamp=3:34 PM · Aug 24, 2022

|nameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein/status/1562463294014627841

|content=E) Focus shifted to mathematical structure of abstract field/[[String Theory|String/M theory]]. Not our particular world’s choice of thy.

F) Standards of scientific progress were rewritten to disguise failure.

 

G) Differential application of standards became the norm.

 

|timestamp=3:34 PM · Aug 24, 2022

|nameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein/status/1562465038962610178

|content=String Theory isn’t the problem. String culture is poisonous to science.

 

String theory, like love, means never having to say your sorry. Or mistaken.

 

It’s the January 6 problem…but in science. But where the physics versions of Mike Pence often got fired for not going along. 🙏

|timestamp=3:41 PM · Aug 24, 2022

|timestamp=3:50 PM · Aug 24, 2022

|nameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein/status/1580356325946499073

|content=I got it immediately. Stay in touch? Thx.

|nameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein/status/1580319421330907136

|content=1) [[General Relativity]]</br>

2) (Pseudo-)Riemannian Geometry</br>

5) Nuclear Physics/Weaponry</br>

9) [[Preference Falsification|Preference Falsification Theory]]</br>

10) [[Mansfield Amendment (1969)|Mansfield Amendment]]

|image=OneFineDia_-profile.jpg

|nameurl=https://x.com/OneFineDia_/status/1580313382666014720

|name=One Fine Day

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

|username=OneFineDia_

|content=@LueElizondo recently gave a small list of topics he would recommend for study to begin to wrangle "the Phenomenon", if he "were king". What areas of intersectional learning do YOU think are needed and should be more deeply looked into? Your ufology curriculum. Thanks, Eric.

|timestamp=9:44 PM · Oct 12, 2022

|timestamp=10:08 PM · Oct 12, 2022

|nameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein/status/1580319424627691520

|content=11) [[Science, The Endless Frontier (1945)|Science Policy Theory (V Bush)]]</br>

14) Anti-Gravity Pseudo-science involving top physicists and mathematicians in the era of the So-Called ‘Golden age of General Relativity’.</br>

16) Mind control.</br>

Remember: you asked! ;-)

|timestamp=10:08 PM · Oct 12, 2022

|image=GambleDale-profile-X84yjUmN.jpg

|nameurl=https://x.com/GambleDale/status/1580333352426811393

|name=GambleDale

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

|username=GambleDale

|content=PrimaoMansfield amendment of 1969… or 1973?

|timestamp=11:03 PM · Oct 12, 2022

|nameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein/status/1580338843026219008

|content=Wow! Thanks for asking Dale. 1969…but 1973 is closely related.  

Nobody gets this anymore. It’s like talking to the wind. Thanks for spotting that entry. Truly.

|timestamp=11:25 PM · Oct 12, 2022

|image=GambleDale-profile-X84yjUmN.jpg

|nameurl=https://x.com/GambleDale/status/1580333352426811393

|name=GambleDale

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

|username=GambleDale

|content=(Was supposed to read, “Primarily Mansfield Amendment…” but fat-fingered the iPhone word prompt)

 

|timestamp=11:39 PM · Oct 12, 2022

|timestamp=12:34 AM · Oct 13, 2022

|nameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein/status/1589658089846079489

|content=@MadsOlesenDK Nah. I would study basic [[General Relativity|GR]]. It’s a bit steep, but not as bad as [[Quantum Field Theory|QFT]] to learn by a long shot.

|timestamp=4:36 PM · Nov 7, 2022

 

 

|nameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein/status/1618767037672861698

|content=Thanks for the help. But I must regretfully decline.  

 

The Lamb–Retherford experiment was experimental physics. And Solid State theory would not be fundamental physics.

|thread=

|nameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein/status/1618522849656082432

|content=Snark is so much more fun when academics forget their own subjects and need to be reminded of their own history by...checks notes...a podcast host who's not a physicist.

I'm guessing you have no idea of how the stagnation in [[Quantum Field Theory]] of 1928-47 was broken.

|timestamp=8:14 AM · Jan 26, 2023

|image=Eric profile picture.jpg

|nameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein/status/1618522853183459329

|name=Eric Weinstein

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

|username=EricRWeinstein

|content=From the birth of Dirac's Quantum Electrodynamics in 1928, the subject couldn't compute results because infinities infested the calculations. This went on for nearly 20 years as the aging leaders of the field proposed crazy fixes that didn't work.  Enter [[Duncan McInnes]].

|timestamp=8:14 AM · Jan 26, 2023

|nameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein/status/1618522856316633088

|content=On January 21 1946, [[Duncan McInnes|McInnes]] suggested to [[Frank Jewett]] a radical conference based around the UNTESTED young people rather than the failed leaders. As head of the [[National Academy of Sciences (NAS)|National Academy of Sciences]], [[Frank Jewett|Jewett]] allocated a grand total of...wait for it...$1500 for a conference in Long Island.

|timestamp=8:14 AM · Jan 26, 2023

|nameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein/status/1618522859172958208

|content=Beginning on June 1, 1947 at the Rams Head Inn on Shelter Island NY and ending on Weds June 4th, 24 mostly untested participants "hung out" together.

|nameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein/status/1618522862268354560

|content=So by simply getting rid of most of the failed 1928-1947 leadership and focusing on the most promising untested physicists, a $12K slush fund in today's dollars changed history ending a two decade stagnation debuting Feynman's Path Integral, the Lamb Shift &amp; the two Meson theory.

|timestamp=8:14 AM · Jan 26, 2023

|nameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein/status/1618522864986230784

|content=So why do I suggest Hundreds of thousands rather than tens of thousands? Good question! First, it is harder to get rid of the failed leadership because our stagnation as of Februrary 2023 is 50 years old not 19. But also, Shelter Island needed two companion conferences in 1948-9.

|nameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein/status/1618522867934842882

|content=The Pocono Manor Inn meeting in Pennsylvania &amp; the Oldstone conference in Peeskill NY were around $1200 each in 1948 and 1949 respectively. As it turned out, the electron mass in the QED theory and the measured mass had been set equal when they were distinct quantities. Who knew!

|nameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein/status/1618522870640160769

|content=According to many of the participants these three conferences (but particularly Shelter Island) were the most important conferences of their entire careers. Feynman was in his late 20s. This is how you get unstuck. How you build leadership. How you stop failing year after year...

|nameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein/status/1618522874008195072

|content=Those 3 conferences fixed the problem of infinites destroying the explanatory power of QED.

So I padded the HELL out of those numbers because I think the stagnations are similar with the major problem being leadership. I could be wrong. But it might take $1/2 Million to test it.

|nameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein/status/1618522876956790785

|content=That isn't the issue. The issue is that the leadership is not passing the baton and there are no [[Duncan McInnes|McInnes]] or [[Frank Jewett|Jewett]] figures. And professors now don't even know this history it seems! Don't they teach this in Physics class? Maybe it's too dangerous to learn how physics works. ;-)

|nameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein/status/1618522879964114946

|content=So...feel free to try to snark your way out of this. But I'll stand my ground. We don't need to go "Funeral by Funeral", but I'm tiring of "Calabi-Yau Phenomenology" or Multiverse excuses as a replacement for actual physics. We need to go back to science. https://snarxiv.org/vs-arxiv/

|nameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein/status/1618522884598816769

|content=As to what's wrong with modern physics: let's start with [[Quantum Gravity]]. Bryce DeWitt started a failed 70 year wild goose chase in 1953 that is not working. If we lost 20 years on conflating Bare v Dressed masses, we just lost 70 years on [[Quantum Gravity]]. Maybe take a time out?

|timestamp=8:15 AM · Jan 26, 2023

|nameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein/status/1618522887107018752

|content=I have thought this through. It isn't a cheap shot. And I have waited until the 50th anniversary to be this frontal about it. But it has never been controversial since Planck to suggest that aged failed leaders are a huge issue. I'm not the Funeral by Funeral guy. He was. ;-)

|timestamp=8:15 AM · Jan 26, 2023

|nameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein/status/1618522889690714118

|content=Lastly, I can't stand anti-collegial snark. We can escalate if you want, but if instead you would like to have a serious discussion next time, it would be my pleasure. Shall we try this again?

I'm Eric. Huge fan of what you guys do. Big supporter. Nice to meet you.  Thanks.

|timestamp=8:15 AM · Jan 26, 2023

|nameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein/status/1618536081506586624

|content=@MBKplus Sorry to be slow, but you used a screenshot so I wouldn’t see your response rather than a quote tweet.  

 

Not big on snark. But here is a proper response. Didn’t know the history had become so obscure to modern physicists. My bad.

 

|image=caseylolsen-profile-65Fvydvt.jpg

|timestamp=8:45 AM · Jan 26, 2023

|nameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein/status/1618539094476263427

|content=Nah. It’s a sensitive topic. Almost 40 years of [[String Theory|string theology]]. 50 years of stagnation. 70 years of quantum gravity not shipping a theory.  

 

I get it. But snark is a tell. The youngest Nobel particle theorist is over 70. I think 8 are alive. It’s really bad.

|timestamp=9:19 AM · Jan 26, 2023

|nameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein/status/1618539524421976065

|content=I have no underlying animosity towards Mike. Let’s see what happens next.

|timestamp=9:21 AM · Jan 26, 2023

|image=default_profile_400x400.png

|nameurl=https://x.com/Jamesfooty1/status/1618528687804272642

|name=James footy

|usernameurl=https://x.com/Jamesfooty1

|username=Jamesfooty1

|content=Honest to god, what are you talking about? In your mind does 'fundamental physics' consist solely of an oddball sitting in his dorm room at Oxford moving a magnet through a coil? (& yes,  I know that was Faraday at the RI & Newton was at Oxford, but I'm painting a picture here).

|timestamp=8:38 AM · Jan 26, 2023

|nameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein/status/1618540646826139649

|content=See I was thinking pads of paper, pens, and a whiteboard or blackboard. Maybe some coffee. A bit of LaTeX.

But that’s just me not getting it. Forgive me.

|timestamp=9:25 AM · Jan 26, 2023

|image=default_profile_400x400.png

|nameurl=https://x.com/Jamesfooty1/status/1618551618911469569

|name=James footy

|usernameurl=https://x.com/Jamesfooty1

|username=Jamesfooty1

|content=So you're confusing theoretical physics with 'fundamental physics', an honest mistake, consider yourself forgiven.

|timestamp=10:09 AM · Jan 26, 2023

|timestamp=12:25 AM · Jan 27, 2023

|nameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein/status/1621198036608389120

|content=And I don’t want to get rid of them. I want us to go back to real physics. I want us to stop pretending we live in anti-de Sitter Space or that space time SUSY is just out of reach.  

It’s basic to the culture of science. Which unfortunately is not [[Quantum Gravity|QG]] culture.

|thread=

|image=DrBrianKeating-profile.jpg

|nameurl=https://x.com/DrBrianKeating/status/1621181848243310595

|name=Prof. Brian Keating

|content=In studio Episode of @Into_Impossible with Dan coming soon where we discussed his epic 🧵. And Martin and Eric and Turok and Sabine get shoutouts! Stay tuned…

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

|username=martinmbauer

|content=Hard to tell whether this is good faith, honestly. Some grains of truth buried here, but you have to ignore many developements to end up w this view.  

 

I'll leave this here https://x.com/nu_phases/status/1598331715340054528

|timestamp=8:40 AM · Feb 2, 2023

|timestamp=4:16 PM · Feb 2, 2023

|image=DrBrianKeating-profile.jpg

|nameurl=https://x.com/DrBrianKeating/status/1621181848243310595

|name=Prof. Brian Keating

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

|username=DrBrianKeating

|content=But Martin, with Eric in my experience, it’s always good faith… l’Shem Shamayim as we say!

|timestamp=4:20 PM · Feb 2, 2023

|nameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein/status/1621196551434682368

|content=Of course! We all fail…or we aren’t pushing ourselves. We have to confront what happened. But, to give @martinmbauer his due, his papers are genuine attempts to understand the physical world. He is one sort of theorist we need more of. 4D [[Standard Model|SM]] + extensions. That’s not [[Quantum Gravity|QG]] theology.

|timestamp=5:19 PM · Feb 2, 2023

|nameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein/status/1621197260238503937

|name=Eric Weinstein

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

|username=EricRWeinstein

|content=I’m much more concerned by brilliant theorists who…and I am not kidding at all…refer to the [[Standard Model]] as “Oh, I vaguely remember this from graduate school [[Quantum Field Theory|QFT]] class.” That is an unbelievable development. People who have literally forgotten the field content of reality.

|timestamp=5:22 PM · Feb 2, 2023

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|timestamp=5:25 PM · Feb 2, 2023

}}

 

 

{{Tweet

|image=Eric profile picture.jpg

|nameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein/status/1621293652936105985

|name=Eric Weinstein

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

|username=EricRWeinstein

|content=@nu_phases @martinmbauer And as per the Renormalization Revolution, a non fundamental result can unlock further fundamental ones as we saw after the late 40s. YM [[Quantum Field Theory|QFT]] wasn’t built in a day after all.  

 

But my point stands along side your point. We don’t seem to be able to push the fundamental physics. 🙏

|timestamp=11:45 PM · Feb 2, 2023

}}

 

 

{{Tweet

|image=Eric profile picture.jpg

|nameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein/status/1679339931800592390

|name=Eric Weinstein

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

|username=EricRWeinstein

|content=To sum it up: when [[String Theory|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|string theory]] is not being honest?

 

For the last 10-15 years, Ed Frenkel has been like a one man research department for me to talk about [[Differential Geometry]], Representation Theory, Algebraic Topology/Homotopy Theory, Particle Theory of the [[Standard Model]], [[General Relativity]], Geometric and [[Quantum Field Theory]], Lie Theory, Differential Topology, Elliptic Operators, Category theory, Spinorial Algebra, etc.

Whatever I have needed to discuss across a very broad range of topics, Ed has been able to meet me. I speak from experience: other than another man named David Kazhdan (a coauthor of Ed's), I have not seen this easy ability to switch contexts at a personal level. Edward is not just a remarkable mind, but an extraodinary individual, and friend at multiple different levels.

Ed: Congratulations. I couldn't be more excited for you brother. Looking forward.

|content=UC Berkeley Prof. Edward Frenkel @edfrenkel is one of the world's great mathematical minds.  He has just decided to launch a video-podcast called AfterMath.  

|content=In my opinion, knowing Ed as I do, It certainly has the potential to change everything in the space of high level science communication around both Mathematics and Physics (Particularly Quantum Field Theory).  

Within mathematics Ed is unusually approachable, with collaborative work across film, art, literature, philosophy and psychology. He and I have known each other since Harvard snatched him from the Soviet Union at its bitter end to come to our math department. Years later we reconnected and started going on various adventures in the US and abroad. I believe I even had a breakthrough in my own work when we even spent an entire surreal week completely covered in alkaline dust arguing about cinema and particle theory in a tiny two man tent, with most details mercifully lost to history, vodka and the Burning Man playa.

In any event, it is very uncommon for research mathematicians to use words like 'Genius', but that is probably how Ed struck us American graduate students in the department at the time; an always smiling Russian immigrant of few English words, who seemed to understand everything across the hardest fields almost instantly.  My recollection was that it took him around one year to get a PhD. Something like that.

Ed has since matured into a fine author and public speaker with fantastic command of American English. While he is just getting started on his chanel, he already brings up a great point in his first video that I don't think I ever fully considered and just discussed with him last night: mathematics is not communicated or learned through sensory input. We can build visual models or use symbols, but the actual structures we discover are not sensory in nature. And that this leads to disorientation because in some sense they are built inside the mind without any experience of them having come in (via our senses) from the outside world.

Subscribe to @edfrenkel on @X and on his YouTube channel. This is likely to eventually wend its way up to the most beautiful but otherwise inaccessible science content that we almost never get in the public sphere, presented by a top researcher (rather than a popularizer) at the height of his powers.