Richard Feynman: Difference between revisions

New topic: the importance of "Kung Fu Panda".

3:34 PM · Aug 22, 2009

To begin with, like a Beethoven symphony, Kung Fu Panda is meant to be accessed on multiple levels with "Believe in yourself" as the lowest.

3:38 PM · Aug 22, 2009

The voice performances (w/ exception of Jolie) are all strong. Dustin Hoffman is fantastic. Jack Black solid, McShane and Duk Kim brilliant.

3:53 PM · Aug 22, 2009

But what makes Kung Fu Panda the film of the decade (ergo century, ergo millenium) is that it alone tackles a central issue of science.

4:10 PM · Aug 22, 2009

Driving Kung Fu Panda is the tension between dual modes of learning: Knowledge Transfer and Discovery. As innovator, Oogway is heirless.

4:26 PM · Aug 22, 2009

But Oogway who has a star mentee is not content with the fate of Dirac, Einstein, Feynman, etc... in not leaving an innovator-successor.

4:29 PM · Aug 22, 2009

[I know taking Kung Fu Panda seriously will lose followers....but I don't care about those eyeballs as the issue and film are too important]

4:31 PM · Aug 22, 2009

So while Oogway is master to Shifu who is/was master to both Tai Lung and Tigress he chooses to elevate the ostensibly inexplicable Panda.

4:36 PM · Aug 22, 2009

In fact, Panda has demonstrated two features in strapping himself to a firework propelled chair: a willingness to innovate and break rules.

4:38 PM · Aug 22, 2009

The film then shows the presumed successor (Tigress) as willing to break rules but previously shows this liniage to be prestige focused.

4:40 PM · Aug 22, 2009

Think of the Panda as having a major & minor advisor. The major advisor (Oogway) he meets only twice. To the minor advisor falls training.

8:44 PM · Aug 22, 2009

So university based PhD advising is based on the failed Shifu-Tigress model. But great science seeks the added Oogway-Panda dimension.

9:00 PM · Aug 22, 2009

Recommendation: If you must compare "Kung Fu Panda" to "Godfather I" or "War and Peace" do it on a Saturday in late August. #mytwocents

4:45 AM · Aug 23, 2009

Ever heard an organized religion complain that G-d would never slap some butt ugly quartic potential on the world to give it mass?

2:33 AM · Sep 2, 2009

To Dave Bacon: "Butt ugly" referred to the present motivation for the Higgs terms as intellectual spackle. Soft mass won't likely stay ugly

3:39 AM · Sep 2, 2009

Higgs mass is akin to the once poorly motivated "neutral currents" rejected by Feynman as merely invoked for renormalizabilty. Now: not so.

3:49 AM · Sep 2, 2009

Challenge to my physics followers: what could possibly make the Mexican Hat quartic gorgeous, natural and canonical? #daretodream

3:53 AM · Sep 2, 2009

Imagine before Watson-Crick I asked you: "Go nuts. What could possibly make Chargaff's Equimolar rules gorgeous, motivated and canonical?"

3:56 AM · Sep 2, 2009

Fascinated by Feynman fans who don't realize he would have humiliated them just to steal their wives at the end of the seminar.

2:32 PM · Sep 5, 2009

Here's something I never got. Why did Feynman need Dyson to explain his theory? Did he? Or did he just need a non-Feynman?

5:39 AM · Sep 23, 2009

I understand the Dyson added value by tying together Schwinger with Feynman. But it seems like RF couldn't get past the resistance.

5:43 AM · Sep 23, 2009

Q: Was Feynman initially incapable of explaining his theory at a technical or a sociological level? (e.g. w/ Bohr, Oppenheimer)

5:56 AM · Sep 23, 2009

Q1: Why did Feynman ask to be removed from the National Academy of Sciences? Q2: How common is that?

3:59 AM · Sep 27, 2009

Debating whether to remind actual physicists of the role of experimenters in the Tau-Theta circus. Feynman's take: http://www.gorgorat.com/

10:52 PM · Nov 11, 2009

Oppenheimer's famous repeating of Wigner's calling Feynman 'a second Dirac' somehow managed to do no service to any of these heros. #nofecta

5:37 PM · Dec 1, 2009

2010[edit]

"There have been many conferences in the world since, but I've never felt any to be as important as this." -R.Feynman on Shelter Island 1947

3:09 PM · Feb 9, 2010

Cost of 1947 Shelter Island Conference : $850.

Fixing Quantum Electrodynamics: Priceless.

3:24 PM · Feb 9, 2010

How GREAT science really looks at the brink. Wrong/Uncredentialed/Glorious. Teller-Gamow-Feynman on genes: http://bit.ly/dcbIxa

2:34 AM · Feb 16, 2010

The battle for primacy in physics between Hamilton & Lagrange was largely decided by Richard Feynman. But ZZ Top didn't hurt.

12:16 PM · Feb 24, 2010

Lamentably, ZZ Top took its name from bluesmen BB King/ZZ Hill rather than a Feynman diag. scattering heavy hadrons by neutral currents.

12:41 PM · Feb 24, 2010

"In what sense is what happens at one place in a string independent of what happens at another?" -Feynman's last BBoard http://bit.ly/FStrng

5:05 AM · Mar 3, 2010

"Take a risk w/ your lives that you will never be heard of again, & go off in the wild blue yonder & see if you can figure it out."R.Feynman

5:34 AM · Mar 9, 2010

Ron Unz was one of the smartest & most arrogant young people I met in HS.

One lunch, Feynman ate him for breakfast: http://bit.ly/aUmlvz

4:22 AM · May 12, 2010

If I recall correctly, "Foo" in pig latin is the name Feynman used to sign his artworks. #foocamp #foo

5:58 PM · Jun 25, 2010

"I detest the National Academy of Sciences. I didn't have the guts to resign as Feynman did." -Freeman Dyson ABD, (All But Dissertation)

6:02 PM · Jul 21, 2010

Feynman's 10 year correspondence oddessy to resign from the National Academy of Sciences (1959-1969): http://bit.ly/9Axzu9

6:08 PM · Jul 21, 2010

The subordination of the insobordinate elite: "That Feynman is becoming a real pain" http://bit.ly/moDE (as appendix F)

10:34 PM · Sep 1, 2010

2011[edit]

Oddly, a mural to R. Feynman is built directly into the Ross 'dress for less' at 449 Shoppers Ln Pasadena CA, visible in Google StreetView,

11:48 AM · Feb 8, 2011

2016[edit]

@BikeMath @CIA Dunno. It's often amazing what a single toxic person can do: R Feynman, M Davis, J Watson, W Pauli, etc... Not a short list.

8:06 PM · Dec 12, 2016

2017[edit]

@Aaron__FF Jim Watson rules for succeeding in science. Feynman and Einstein's prose. Double helix and 8th day of creation. Shape of space.

7:18 AM · Jan 27, 2017

2018[edit]

Arguably the second greatest physicist of the 20th century as drawn by another in the top tier (some would argue, top 5). Quite an honor.

The pair (Dirac & Feynman) are pictured at right. Dirac's odd leaning posture always reminds me: introverts need space from extroverts.

10:52 PM · May 31, 2018

In "Lost in Math", @skdh has written a necessary book that I've always hoped someone would never write. It lays out the argument that "Beauty" is a dangerous Siren for physics, which is almost always true. Except, unfairly, for a tiny top tier.

Beauty, it seems, loathes equity. https://t.co/t5QSsDJFyR

8:25 PM · Jun 28, 2018

@rcanacci @skdh Begin with Dirac, Einstein, Yang, Maxwell, Noether, Newton, Hamilton, Stuckelberg, Feynman as principle authors of the most fundamental equations and principles. And I'm not sure I am not stretching it slightly to appear broad minded.

8:34 PM · Jun 28, 2018

Was not expecting to bump into one of the most inspiring scientists of our time. Freeman Dyson’s trajectory is a life to study. In particular his defeat of Oppenheimer’s opposition to Feynman’s Sum-Over-Historys at the @the_IAS taught me a lot about how great minds spar.

6:20 PM · Oct 16, 2018

https://projecteuclid.org/download/pdf_1/euclid.bams/1183533964

If you want a great introduction to the unusual thinking and sui generis wisdom of this man, you could do worse than his article on “Missed Opportunites”:

6:44 PM · Oct 16, 2018

2019[edit]

Under no circumstances should you give this material to kids:

Great Brain Series
Surely Your Joking Mr Feynman
Pippi Longstocking Series
The Double Helix
The Phantom Tollbooth
Old Mad Magazines
Songs by Tom Lehrer
All the Trouble in the World
Harrison Bergeron
The True Believer

1:54 AM · Apr 3, 2019

Got to geek out on the death of Sydney Brenner.

This is one of my favorite documents. A letter from Gamow to Crick about Richard Feynman & Edward Teller contemplating homoerotic (see drawing) overlapping codon models of the as yet unknown genetic code. Brenner debunked all such!

1:50 AM · Apr 6, 2019

What a world. How exciting Science was. Can you imagine a world in which such big questions were comparatively elementary and wide open? Huge minds were so boldly imaginative. Playing. Like kids. Feynman/Gamow/Teller/Crick/Rich/Brenner.😮

And just a few decades ago.

Yesterday.

1:50 AM · Apr 6, 2019

@willwilkinson @seanilling It’s not all Feels. Look at E8 and tell me how you “feel”. Who came up with that? Killing? Freudenthal? Lie? No way. Not even Grothedieck and Witten with Feynman and Von Neumann’s help. None of us know what it is. Is hemoglobin socially constructed? Who asks this? No one I know.

6:42 AM · May 9, 2019

2020[edit]

Thoughts on where we are and why we are stuck. Also, the parable of Feynman and the Rogers Challenger Commission. https://t.co/uSXbLAaxVV

10:08 PM · Apr 25, 2020

Tom Lehrer
Noam Elkies
@LauraDeming
@MarcusduSautoy
@patrickc
@lishali88
@peterthiel
@thegoodtomchi*
@SamHarrisOrg
@joerogan
@tylercowen
@MsMelChen
James Simons
Jared Diamond
@StephenAtHome
@tferriss
@FutureJurvetson
@naval
Jimmy Kaltreider
@mkonnikova
@pmarca
Etc...

[no family]

2:09 AM · Oct 22, 2020

Freeman Dyson
@brookedallas
Sydney Coleman
@adamgazz
@balajis
@stephstem
Kevin Harrington
Jordan Greenhall
Daniel Schmachtenberger
@nntaleb
@annakhachiyan
@seanonolennon
@DavidYezzi
Raoul Bott
@DouglasKMurray
@jordanbpeterson
Isadore Singer
R Gomory
R Feynman
And on & on & on...

2:24 AM · Oct 22, 2020

2021[edit]

I have waited 55 years to see the richest man in the world stick it to “The Richest Man...IN THE WORLD!”

Also: imagine that the world’s wealthiest person can solve differential equations and knows what a Lagrangian is. Love this.

Mazal tov to @elonmusk for not giving a shit.

4:33 PM · Jan 7, 2021

Elon Musk

@elonmusk

Hamiltonians have +2V the potential of Langrangians and a play!

7:16 PM · Jan 7, 2021

Huh. I also have a preference for Hamilton due to geometric quantization using pre-quantum line bundles to explain Heisenberg (cf Woodhouse). Legendre & Feynman not withstanding.

In LA. We should talk “beyond Mars” before 4/1. I could really use your..uh..brain. Fine either way.

9:06 PM · Jan 7, 2021

We’ve never spoken. Lex and Joe have my contact info. I wanna get way outta here. Like yesterday.

9:11 PM · Jan 7, 2021

“Hell, if I could explain it to the average person, it wouldn't have been worth the Nobel prize.” -Richard P Feynman

Moral: A little Feynman is a dangerous thing.

3:44 PM · Mar 13, 2021

Neil deGrasse Tyson is picking on the wrong guy.

Richard Feynman was remarked upon as being very articulate & seemingly naturally gifted at everything (other than Piano), and famously had great Rhythm. Now what if he had been black?

I am sure Neil gets a lot of BS. Not from BK.

12:52 AM · Jul 23, 2021

It’s tough when you see patterns invisible to the 🌎. Ask any tall woman, and she will tell you all the comments she hears every day. Or any Sikh wearing a Turban. Or any soul who is blind. Or any gay couple with kids..

Brian is well aware of Neil’s hard work. Weird interchange.

12:52 AM · Jul 23, 2021

They were smart. We were smart. They had Spassky, We had Fischer. They had Shostakovich, we had Van Cliburn. Vysotsky v Dylan. Landau v Feynman.

That was a long time ago now.

Oddly, some things now actually make me miss the Cold War with Soviet Russia:

7:57 AM · Sep 29, 2021

“If I could explain it to the average person, I wouldn't have been worth the Nobel Prize.” - Feynman

Feynman was not able to simply explain a great deal of things to many people. Including experts. I know that many of you find that shocking.

But Internet’s take is wrong here.

6:39 AM · Dec 15, 2021

Prof. Feynman

@ProfFeynman

If you cannot explain something in simple terms, you don't understand it.

2:14 PM · Jan 21, 2018

Even the great Feynman said a great many meretricious things about science. Mostly because he wanted to speak in a powerful and overly simplistic fashion that lay people loved. “Hey, if I can’t understand you, it’s because YOU don’t get it! Ha.”

Except that isn’t how this works.

6:39 AM · Dec 15, 2021

This is a description of how Feynman’s brilliant “Sum Over Histories” technique went over at the Pocono conference in the spring of 1948. Feynman wasn’t able to explain what he was doing to even the world’s very top experts in Theoretical Physics!

And how did he explain failure?

6:39 AM · Dec 15, 2021

Very simply: “My machines came from too far away.”

The Internet needs to grow out of its expectation that it can use what is possibly Feynman’s dumbest quote to dismiss those it cannot quickly understand. But it won’t. Why? Because the quote is both powerful and totally wrong.

6:39 AM · Dec 15, 2021

Disagree? Great. Prove it!

Step I: Get someone who understands “The Families Index Theorem on Manifolds with Boundary” to fully explain it simply to you.

Step II: Explain it to us all!

I look forward to conceding to you. Until then? Maybe go easy on Feynman’s dumbest take?

6:39 AM · Dec 15, 2021

https://imo.universite-paris-saclay.fr/~bismut/Bismut/1990e.pdf]

If you still love repeating that Feynman quote despite the greater context provided, here’s some material. Ask your expository heroes to explain it.

Good luck. Because, if I’m not wrong, you’re gonna need it…

[Until then, here’s a primary source:

🙏

6:39 AM · Dec 15, 2021

Note: The quote in the original tweet has a typographical error. It should be:

"Hell, if I could explain it to the average person, it wouldn't have been worth the Nobel Prize."—Richard Feynman. As Quoted in “People”, 22 July 1985.

6:47 AM · Dec 15, 2021

@Eluminat1 Witten? Dirac? Did they make the cut?

6:53 AM · Dec 15, 2021

@karlbykarlsmith Not as I understand it. Feynman’s diagrams are just an indexing scheme for series terms albeit a provocative one. The apparent classical localization of position & momentum is taking place in the indexing diagram, NOT in the quantum propagator which the diagrams sum to construct.

7:02 AM · Dec 15, 2021

@NukeBeach Ultimately it required more time, more conferences, and Dyson, Bethe, and Wilson to put the full Theory in a form where it was accepted.

7:05 AM · Dec 15, 2021

@rolfascending @travislambirth Great. Just apply your critique in the terms you understand it to the challenge problem of the thread so I can fully appreciate the point of what you are saying. Thanks.

8:36 AM · Dec 15, 2021

@theoctobear It’s a test. Show us what it means to explain a proven theorem in simple terms. So easy. Find the experts who understand it and have them explain it in these simple terms that all interested parties can understand. Piece of cake I would think.

8:40 AM · Dec 15, 2021

@robnormal That’s the beginning. Then that the listeners be *highly* motivated. Also intelligent. Also, that no listeners are trying not to understand. Etc

Pretty soon it’s stone soup. You’re no longer explaining things quickly at a party but you’re now teaching QFT courses at university.

2:55 PM · Dec 15, 2021

2022[edit]

A beautiful visual illustration of the relationship between configuration space (position only) and phase space Hamiltonian Dynamics (position + momentum). The tip of their common pendulum is the orbit in phase space of the configuration space of any of the 8 balls.

So sublime.

5:10 PM · Jan 7, 2022

Here is the illustrated recipe for Hamiltonian dynamics.

A) Figure out the possible positions of one of these balls (configuration space).

B) Double those degrees of freedom to include ball momentum (phase space with a hidden ‘symplectic’ structure tying position to momentum).

5:10 PM · Jan 7, 2022

C) Write down the ball’s total energy as a function on phase space (kinetic + potential energies).

D) Differentiate that function as if you were taking its gradient.

E) Feed that ‘proto’-gradient to the symplectic structure of phase space to get a vector field on phase space.

5:10 PM · Jan 7, 2022

F) Flow along that vector field in phase space as the pendulum tip is doing.

G) Push those orbits back to configuration space by forgetting the momentum variable. That’s how your original system will evolve. In general. Not just for oscillating balls but for everything.

5:10 PM · Jan 7, 2022

That is one of the universe’s most beautiful stories. Arguably, its *most* beautiful (there is a rival version called Lagrangian dynamics).

I don’t expect you to be expert in this or to get it immediately. I just wanted you to know this story exists, and governs your world.

5:10 PM · Jan 7, 2022

I have plans to use the Portal to show you so many such things, but I get bored of endless negging and interpersonal drama queens (e.g. being told that Feynman could explain it to his poodle so I obviously don’t get it).

I’d love to get back to it & get rid of your drama queens.

5:10 PM · Jan 7, 2022

Interpersonal drama take the fun out of life for me & I have many things I enjoy doing besides the Portal. But I miss you all!

Thinking of using a walled approach. If you know how this is done, I’d love to do more. But I no longer have DMs open (yet again, Internet lunatics).🙏

5:10 PM · Jan 7, 2022

@AbleEyes4 No, he wouldn’t. He would instead walk on water powered only by science and never ego to distribute bread to the hungry with Christopher Hitchens who also was never wrong. And then w/ the dear leader, they were raptured to heaven on a mountain top near Pyongyang. Because Science!

5:22 PM · Jan 7, 2022

You aren’t getting it.

For example: Feynman’s story about “The Alibi Room” is also about great math-physics minds of the 1940s-60s dipping into Aerospace companies (Curtiss-Wright in Buffalo). Same with Solomon Lefshetz. Likely Wheeler, Deser, DeWitt.

Y’all just never noticed.

7:44 PM · Feb 12, 2022

That famous “G-mu-nu” story where Feynman can’t remember which North Carolina University is hosting the Gravity conference? Is about Bahnson and an *anti-gravity* initiative. Again, you just didn’t notice because of the way we tell the story. Higgs? UNC Physical Fields institute.

7:48 PM · Feb 12, 2022

The entire “Golden Age of General Relativity” is misportrayed. Feynman and Uri Geller? Pauling and Feynman at Esselen? The LSD stories? The story about nuclear powered airplane patents? It’s some super freaky pseudo-scientific seeming story about many of our greatest scientists.

7:51 PM · Feb 12, 2022

The fact that many of you never noticed is on you. Do I know what it means? No. My leading theory is that scientists disappeared into the military industrial complex to take $$ for pseudo-science. But that’s only one theory. Shoot the messenger if you like, but you didn’t get it.

7:54 PM · Feb 12, 2022

And by the way, everything I put together I ran by experts like physics historian David Kaiser at MIT.

What do I make of the fact that most physicists know zip about this? We fictionalized this story to make it respectable. But it wasn’t. Our rigorous minds were getting jiggy.🙏

8:01 PM · Feb 12, 2022

@AlexanderRKlotz @martinmbauer Outsiders? I see.

So those who think there is a problem are outsiders. Like Feynman? Glashow? Etc? Nah.

That’s not really what happened. Look at Hep-th or https://t.co/3By75PQ5o4

I don’t think this is a PR problem. Thinking this is just a PR problem *is* the science problem.

3:56 PM · Aug 24, 2022

I have no understanding of why we make the career paths of our most singular & powerful US scientists a living hell. We would today drive Feynman, Watson, and Einstein out of science.

Sooner or later someone is going to pay & *free* your top researchers.

https://t.co/iVxNg5Dwyd

4:54 PM · Sep 22, 2022

@dkb003 Official panels tend to be tightly controlled in advance through use of insiders. Occasionally that screws up and you get a Jeff Sachs (Lancet) or a Richard Feynman/Gen Kutyna (Challenger). Galileo Project is an outsider project. Prefer the latter.

12:14 PM · Oct 24, 2022

2023[edit]

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. https://x.com/MBKplus/status/1618356997107355649

8:14 AM · Jan 26, 2023

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.

8:14 AM · Jan 26, 2023

On January 21 1946, 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, Jewett allocated a grand total of...wait for it...$1500 for a conference in Long Island.

8:14 AM · Jan 26, 2023

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.

The actual cost of the meeting was...[drum roll please]...$872.00 in 1947 dollars. Which is about $12,000.00 in 2023 dollars.

8:14 AM · Jan 26, 2023

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 & the two Meson theory.

8:14 AM · Jan 26, 2023

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.

8:14 AM · Jan 26, 2023

The Pocono Manor Inn meeting in Pennsylvania & 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!

8:14 AM · Jan 26, 2023

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...

8:14 AM · Jan 26, 2023

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.

8:14 AM · Jan 26, 2023

That isn't the issue. The issue is that the leadership is not passing the baton and there are no McInnes or 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. ;-)

8:14 AM · Jan 26, 2023

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/

8:14 AM · Jan 26, 2023

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?

8:15 AM · Jan 26, 2023

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. ;-)

8:15 AM · Jan 26, 2023

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.

8:15 AM · Jan 26, 2023

@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.

Thread:

9:07 AM · Jan 26, 2023

casᴇʏ oʟsᴇɴ

@caseylolsen

This was a proper fuck you 🤌

8:45 AM · Jan 26, 2023

Nah. It’s a sensitive topic. Almost 40 years of 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.

9:19 AM · Jan 26, 2023

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

9:21 AM · Jan 26, 2023

James footy

@Jamesfooty1

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).

8:38 AM · Jan 26, 2023

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.

9:25 AM · Jan 26, 2023

James footy

@Jamesfooty1

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

10:09 AM · Jan 26, 2023

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.

12:25 AM · Jan 27, 2023

“String Theory is absolutely…the most likely to be true set of ideas about what sits at the intersection of the Standard Model and quantum gravity.”

8:16 AM · Jul 7, 2023

I can confirm this indeed blows up ones notifications.

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.

8:16 AM · Jul 7, 2023

Yes, that is precisely what I think.

8:21 AM · Jul 7, 2023

If you said “electrons are absolutely fractional spin fields in the standard model” I wouldn’t disagree with that statement. It isn’t at all about what you think. It is a true statement.

Here you are assuring lay people about what is absolute about String Theory within physics.

8:38 AM · Jul 7, 2023

My responsibility is to make accurate statements (and yes, everything is my (professional) opinion).

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.

9:15 AM · Jul 7, 2023

“IMO objectively true”

As with so many of these String Theoretic claims I have no idea what that means.

So for example if I make an argument that this is NOT objectively true, do you fall back on the idea that it was opinion?

“Objectively, Electrons are field theoretic at observed energy scales.” My opinion doesn’t enter into it. The claim that it is objectively true eliminates the role of opinion.

Does that mean that all who disagree with you and your String community are “not serious” as per the above?

5:27 PM · Jul 7, 2023

The arguments become more convincing/objective, the more one can use graduate-level theoretical physics in them.

But in 280 characters and no equations, it’s hard to develop these

In a book, easier to do so.

10:12 PM · Jul 7, 2023

I don’t think that’s the issue Joseph. At all.

Feynman, Glashow, Wilczek never found them objectively or absolutely compelling.

String theorists like Friedan have written harshly of the Failures.

And what you are saying about subjective opinion and absolute objective fact doesn’t make sense. I mean you can just see that, no? Not trying to be mean here. But I don’t see what you are claiming is absolute and objective beyond your opinion.

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!”

Again. Not trying to be combative. Feel free to correct me if I have this wrong.

10:48 PM · Jul 7, 2023

It is not objective or absolutely true that String Theory is our best theory. In fact, it has become, 40 years after the anomaly cancelation, our most thoroughly explored idea. No other path has been picked over like this one.

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.

11:59 PM · Jul 10, 2023

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

6:00 AM · Jul 11, 2023

Holography and AdS/CFT is the clearest example but there are others.

I think this is objectively, uncontroversially true — once people have the background in theoretical physics that they understand topics like QFT on a technical level and have some real sense of the subject.

6:03 AM · Jul 11, 2023

But most people (reasonably) don’t have this background. So I preface this with ‘my opinion’ in recognition that the core and guts of the argument, and the real reasons behind it, are not accessible to most people who read these tweets.

6:07 AM · Jul 11, 2023

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

6:09 AM · Jul 11, 2023

Joseph. Imagine I were to temporarily stipulate to the idea that of all the known approaches to quantizing the metric field that leads to gravitation, String Theory is by far the most advanced. I don’t think that is unreasonable whether or not it is true. It’s a solid argument.

3:14 AM · Jul 13, 2023

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?”

My argument is with that framing.

3:19 AM · Jul 13, 2023

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.

Try these instead:

A) Which approach is most likely to successfully alter or explain the Standard model?

B) Same as A) but for General Relativity?

3:22 AM · Jul 13, 2023

C) Which approach is most likely to shed light on why there are 3 generations of observed fermions?

D) Which approach is most likely to shed light on why the generations are chiral?

E) Which large community most regularly makes sweeping claims that it later must privately invalidate while publicly claiming a new revolution?

F) Which large community is most likely to ignore other ideas?

G) Which is the most aggressive large community despite no proven connection to observed reality?

3:27 AM · Jul 13, 2023

H) Which community is most likely to spend all their careers working on toy models with the wrong dimensions, signatures or field content claiming that we are building up the toolkit?

I) Which community is least likely to own up to the disaster of past public declarations about accessible energy SUSY?

3:30 AM · Jul 13, 2023

J) Which approach has been the most investigated and thus thoroughly picked over for low hanging fruit?

K) Which approach best explains the odd nature of a seemingly fundamental Higgs sector?

L) Which approach is most dogmatic that “Quantum Gravity” rather than “Unification” or “Gravitational Harmony” or “Incremental understanding” etc. *Is* the path forward when we don’t even know if gravity is quantized as we expect it at all in models beyond relativitistic QFT?

3:36 AM · Jul 13, 2023

M) Which approach comes closest to explaining the origin of the internal symmetry structure group of the Standard model?

N) Which approach comes closest to explaining why there appear to be 16 particles in a generation with their observed internal quantum numbers?

3:38 AM · Jul 13, 2023

O) Which approach is most at risk of invoking “The Landscape” of impossibly many theories to test after saying that the power of the approach was that there were only 5 possible theories?

P) Which community brags about “postdiction” the most because it has failed at predictions?

3:42 AM · Jul 13, 2023

Q) Which community is least collegial and most insulting to colleagues outside the approach?

R) Which HEP theory community consumed the most in resources over the last 40 years?

S) Same for brains?

T) Same for producing PR and puff pieces?

U) Which community has broken the most trust with lay people in HEP theory?

3:45 AM · Jul 13, 2023

V) Which community substitutes mathematics results for results about the actual physical world we live in when talking to the public?

W) Which community is most likely to restore the culture of successful physics research to HEP theory?

X) Which not yet successful approach has been most self-critical?

Y) Which community is most respectful in absorbing the results by others with proper credit?

Z) Which community relentless makes its argument by mis framing the question as if the question were simply “What is our deepest collection of ideas of how to quantize a massless spin 2 gravitational field?” when the previous 25 framings are all arguably more important after 39 years without contact with physics?

3:51 AM · Jul 13, 2023

That is why this conversation doesn’t work. It is what magicians call “Magicians Choice”: the lay person is lead into thinking they are free to disagree. But the question you keep asking is DESiGNED to make it look like String Theory is our top community.

Joseph: it failed in the terms it gave for taking over. It chose the terms. It said what it was and what it was going to do. And it flat out failed in EXACTLY those terms it chose when it said “Hold my beer!” back in 1984.

3:56 AM · Jul 13, 2023

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?

Again. Not personal to you. At all. But it is not a fair move to say “It’s the best yet-to-succeed approach to quantum gravity.” in front of the public. No?

🙏

4:00 AM · Jul 13, 2023

Some have been making this point for 39 years. We are not now “At a point where we really ought to question…”.

We were there in 1984. And I was not alone at the time. There were *many* of us. Before this String Theory/ Quantum Gravity mind virus took over.

I don’t know what to call the behavior pattern where institutions look to someone who has *NOT* been making the important point for forever so they don’t have to deal with the fact that they got EVERYTHING WRONG for 4-7 decades in an obvious fashion.

You have to ask yourself “Who are the real cranks when those accused of being cranks turn out to be right?” And the leaders who accused them turn out to be wrong. Over and over. Again. And again.

Glad to have the company however.

12:22 AM · Jul 15, 2023

Quanta Magazine

@QuantaMagazine

“We’re at a point where we really ought to question whether this drive and this challenge to quantize gravity was really the right thing to do.” https://youtube.com/watch?v=DkRbNXILroI

5:20 PM · Jul 12, 2023

Martin Bauer

@martinmbauer

I don’t even know where to start. Who exactly turned out to be right? About what?

You want to be taken seriously, yet the reason people disagree with you is a ‘mind virus’?

7:39 AM · Jul 15, 2023

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.

That isn’t a mind virus. The mind virus is specifically the tortured defense of string theory and quantum gravity by attacking colleagues without admitting its massive failure. And that is a mind virus. I stand by that. It’s atrocious.

2:01 PM · Jul 15, 2023

Who turned out to be right?

Everyone who said “Wait: why are we changing the core mission to ‘Quantizing Gravity’?? Weren’t we supposed to explain the observed particle spectrum? And the weirdness of the Higgs sector as Deus Ex Machina? And the origin of chirality? Etc etc.”

Feynman/Glashow/Perl/Etc.

It was a total switcheroo.

2:06 PM · Jul 15, 2023

It is an interesting question as to who inspires us in physics. Here is a list of 20th century giants whose work inspired me that might work as protagonists with interesting stories that deserve to be considered along with the best known Einstein/Hawking/Oppenheimer/Etc.:

CN Yang (with Lee and Simons)
Paul Dirac
Ernst Stueckelberg
Madame Wu
David Bohm
Abdus Salam
Ken Wilson
Emmy Noether
Ettore Majorana
Carlo Rubio
Shin'ichirō Tomonaga
Lev Landau
Simon Van der Meer
Freeman Dyson
Julian Schwinger
Paul Ehrenfest
John VonNeumann
Feza Gursey
Wolfgang Pauli
Louis and Edward Witten
Hans Bethe
George Sudarshan
Vera Rubin
Gerard 't Hooft

Not all of those stories are…uh…simple.

Would be curious to hear names from others.

4:54 AM · Jul 23, 2023

Sam Altman

@sama

i was hoping that the oppenheimer movie would inspire a generation of kids to be physicists but it really missed the mark on that.

let's get that movie made!

(i think the social network managed to do this for startup founders.)

5:48 PM · Jul 22, 2023

But let’s face facts: inspiration is not the issue. Fundamental Physics needs to be a good life. What is holding us back is:

A) Terrible Pay.

B) Worse Odds of Survival

C) Decoupling of Success at Physics from Success in Physics

D) The Matthew Effect.

E) Math and Physics Pricks

F) Tyranny of large programs over individuals.

G) Multi Decade Stagnation

H) Un Scientific And even Anti-scientific behavior.

I) The Matilde Effect

J) The Sudarshan Effect

K) Ethics Collapse

L) Needlessly long pedagogical sequence (e.g. intro physics -> Classical Mechanics -> Grad Classical Mechanics -> Symplectic Geometry) driven by history.

M) Socializing physics into a team sport in areas dominated by individuals and iconoclasts.

N) Tolerance for Program level failure (e.g. *obsessive* use of toy model physics to evade a reckoning).

O) Intolerance for individual error and failure by those in programs.

P) Failure to reward early contributions (e.g. *Abelian* Chern Simons QFT).

Q) Atrocious MSM journalism distorting the public understanding.

R) Relentless discussion of woo physics in public and 3-5 real topics (e.g. somebodies cat).

S) Learned Helplessness coming from over-learning Ken Wilson.

T) Inability to support motherhood of female physicists.

U) Inability to keep physics marriages easily together with jobs.

V) DEI loyalty oaths and loss of autonomy.

W) Flooding of markets with disposable labor and abuse apprenticeship as labor.

X) Kicking up on attribution.

Y) Overpaying for cherry topping.

Z) Fetishizing the quantum when innovation in classical field theory remains the heart of QFT.

4:55 AM · Jul 23, 2023

But lastly, if outsiders want to fund and fix movies, you will find that going to the “Leading physicists” won’t work. Peer review can’t work when the leadership *is* the problem. You get more failure.

You need to hold meetings where you get disagreement. So choose the leaders and iconoclasts with great care. Patrick Collison isn’t terrible at this. B+. Best I have ever seen. Start there. Good luck. 🙏

4:55 AM · Jul 23, 2023

@Perterra1 No. And it doesn’t include people for different reasons. Feynman is already known to the public. People have no idea who Robert Herman is. Etc.

4:59 AM · Jul 23, 2023

So you have my list. It is incomplete and idiosyncratic. I’d love to have your corrections and additions.

So….Where is yours? Thanks again.

5:14 AM · Jul 23, 2023

Huh. I had a very different read on that story. So did Feynman.

Let’s not forget General Kutyna who served it up to Feynman:

https://t.co/RdK3nsuilc

8:57 AM · Aug 6, 2023

Feynman was great. But I’d read that story again quite carefully in a Straussian fashion. Just a thought.

8:59 AM · Aug 6, 2023

2025[edit]

Ah. Why are European-Americans suddenly so inferior at math since like 1998? Why are the people of Newton, Einstein, Dirac, Crick, Feynman, Heisenberg etc suddenly no longer able to do first rate science? Excellent question!

Do you want the brutal answer? Those "white kids" are being forced into trying to figure out how to capture the value created by those brown kids, because STEM careers in actual research have cratered in prestige, freedom, support and compensation. It's awful. But true. Do you want to raise a serf?

I'm torn. Which is why I fight for scientists to capture wealth; science is my life, but I cannot stand the exploitation and abuse.

You actually know this already, you just don't realize it. How many STEM researchers and research scientists have you seen at Mar-a-Lago in photos and stories? Name them. Try.

When you think modern AI do you think about the 8 authors of the Transformer LLM architecture that changed our entire world with one paper? Can you name them? Any of them? Or do you think Altman, Musk, Zuckerberg, etc. like the rest of us (myself included)? Be honest. You think C-Suite or Sand Hill road VCs.

The researchers simply vanish or become businessmen.

We too often erase the people who do the actual STEM research. The PhD most responsible for the GFP revolution in biology (Douglas Prasher) got to drive a shuttle bus in Alabama for his career. Those who exploited his research felt so bad that they flew him to Stokholm to watch *them* get the Nobel prize. It's totally insane. No one knows this because we keep looking to Billionaires...those who capture the most value...to represent STEM.

STEM rests on "SCIENCE COOLIES". That is what a UCSF lab head (PI) called his army of Chinese and Indian biologists in an interview with me around 2000: "My Science Coolies tell me..."

The absence of white kids is because they generally come from native English speaking families before the 1965 immigration act that have been in the US a long time. Thus they get accurate information that grueling STEM research careers are now a terrible investment due to STEM EMPLOYER practices (e.g. H-1B, illegal collusion, lobbying) and the abandonment of STEM by the Federal Government beginning with the Mansfield ammendment 50+ years ago. They will eventually almost all move from the lab bench, the blackboard and the command line to signing pieces of paper in VC shops or Private Equity or some such higher value endeavor. We in STEM are all being pushed from creating the value to capturing the value. It's awful.

"गोरे बच्चे यहाँ क्या कर रहे हैं?" or something like it is what I heard in New Jersey when our family traveled to the science fair. Literally asking "Why are there white kids here?" Can you imagine?? In New Jersey!

Those Tamil and Bengali Brahmins from English speaking households will soon leave research too, to be replaced by Nepalese and Biharis. Then they will all get the message as well and search for non-research jobs.

Before long you will see a push for Vietnamese and Cambodians. The Nigerians, Philipinos and Ethiopeans will be welcomed, but will soon depart in turn as the STEM employers continue to search for servants and 'coolies' anywhere they can find them. All using one bizarre mantra "The Best and the Brightest!"

Because the employers treat researchers like servants. Fungible geeks. That is the culture we have to break.

Those brilliant brown American kids winning our Olympiads will dream of flying Business Class. Maybe even First Class one day. Those equally brilliant white kids who would have loved to do science leaving the olympiads, now dream of not even being on the same airplane as long as they are also avoiding coach.

Sorry "Cornered Hindu". I hate it. But you asked. Don't shoot the messenger.

5:23 PM · Feb 1, 2025

Woah. Slow down. Because then we would be stuck with American STEM workers. Ya know, those lazy, stupid, unmotivated can't do, low-IQ pseudoscientific stoners who play video games all day long and can't be bothered to crack a book.

It would be like being stuck with R. Feynman, J Watson, M Gell-Mann, K. Arrow, G. Hopper, JR Oppenheimer, S. Weinberg, P Samuelson, M. Nirenberg, J Lederberg, S. Smale, D. Mumford, J Doudna, S. Coleman, B. McClintock, and M. Ptashne all over again. And we can all agree that we need the best and the brightest.

;-)

cc: @VivekGRamaswamy.

3:50 PM · Apr 9, 2025

Let me be clear. This post is not targeted at foreign born STEM. [My apologies to those of you who know me well on this point for decades. But it is always deliberately misinterpreted by those who seek to depress salaries.]

Read carefully, it's target is American STEM employers who lie as a way of life about the quality of our own STEM people in order to gain access to foreign labor.

My contention is that we destroy American STEM which is the best in the world because it is expensive, irreverant and high risk/high return.

If you want to go shopping abroad for future americans who are expensive, irreverant and high risk/high return, let me know and I will design your labor market.

But I will never put up with Americans who misportray just how good U.S. STEM really is in order gain access to oceans of plient low variance high value labor.

4:00 PM · Apr 9, 2025

This is a pretty good thread. Likely true!

Consider, however, reading it from a different angle.

Stipulate for the moment that the power of mathematics and physics was so decisively proven at Los Alamos that it is obvious that The United States needs to run a secure *permanent* well funded Manhattan project, but that it cannot do so in the open, nor at a hidden location like New Mexico. In such situations what is standard operating procedure? You typically set up a “Front Company”. But this would be a Front University. And that doesn’t exist.

So what do we see: a secure campus with billions coursing through it. The returns are cartoonish: a story but with no real explanation. The fund discourages all outside investors with sky high commitments (notice the similarity to Epstein?) and is then outright closed to outside money. It employs exactly the right specialties for military work, and interacts closely with a national lab: Brookhaven. It also interacts with one of the greatest math departments anywhere SUNYSB that is consistantly and inexplicably officially ranked well *below* the level of its faculty. The fund strategy never leaks. The co-founder comes out of Defense Intelligence.

If I were a modern day Gen. Leslie Groves tasked with building Los Alamos 2.0 all over again, I would invent EXACTLY this. And I would look for Jim to lead it. He would have been one of the top 3 picks. If I were to do it today I might chose Daniel S. Freed.

I knew Jim. He was *absolutely* brilliant. But not obviously more or less so than his colleagues at the very top of mathematics. Like Oppenheimer level impressive among Feynmans, Fermis, VonNeumanns, Tellers etc. You get used to the idea that Genius tends to collect in Math, Chess, Physics and Music.

Everyone at this level is beyond impressive. And no one else has these returns.

Try reading this thread with both explanations in mind. I myself don’t know the answer. What do you think? Does the usual story work for you? Is the alternative just too crazy even to contemplate? What would you have said if I told you something didn’t add up with a lot of brilliant theotists at an Old School out in the middle of nowhere in New Mexico in 1944?

Let me know your thoughts. Thx!

🙏

1:49 PM · May 10, 2025

Kevin

@100baggerhunt

Jim Simons was the greatest investor of all time.

He turned $1000 in 1988 into $4B in 30 years.

His hedge fund achieved 66% returns annually by hiring mathematicians and physicists instead of Wall Street experts.

Here's how a mathematician became the world's best investor: 🧵

100baggerhunt-X-post-1920818296922009671-GqgeDjvaUAAdRlN.jpg

100baggerhunt-X-post-1920818296922009671-GqgeD10bcAUDuJH.jpg

12:29 PM · May 9, 2025

Quality Control: the scourge of Great Science.

You cannot quality control your nation to great theoretical physics. Can’t be done.

It’s about what has never been done. I could wipe out all of past theoretical physics with peer review & quality control.

https://t.co/kjQ3BLzQaF

5:50 AM · Jul 5, 2025

“Mr Feynman: what is the measure on that integral?”

“But then your eigenfunctions aren’t in your Hilbert space.”

“Wait: why are we adding ad hoc positivity conditions again?”

“So nature just gives us this magic sector Mr Higgs because it would solve all your problems? Have you considered going into screenwriting?”

“But Dr Einstein, your equations must be wrong because they lead to singularities that can’t be removed.”

“Dr Gell-Mann: you are just randomly applying SU(3) to totally different things. Like a man with a hammer thinking everything is a nail.”

“But Paul, then the election and the proton would have the same mass. Rejected for publication I’m afraid.”

“But Dr Aharonov: surely someone would have noticed this. I’m sorry. You can’t give a talk on magical E&M.”

5:50 AM · Jul 5, 2025

*electron. My bad.

Q: How do we get relocate these people at scale? How do they enter theoretical physics? It’s so bizarre.

6:12 AM · Jul 5, 2025

I would like to talk to @MickWest and @michaelshermer and @francis_collins and @neiltyson and @seanmcarroll and @nytimes about the role of debunking and discrediting professionals who do not buy into narratives that are later found to be cover stories about national interest.

3:38 PM · Jul 5, 2025

Marc Caputo

@MarcACaputo

For the first time since JFK’s assassination nearly 62 years ago, the CIA tacitly admitted Thursday that an agent specializing in psychological warfare, George Joannides, ran an operation that came into contact with Lee Harvey Oswald before the killing. https://www.axios.com/2025/07/05/cia-agent-oswald-kennedy-assassination

12:04 PM · Jul 5, 2025

We have a COVID=Wet Market narrative.
We have an Inflation and CPI narrative.
We have a Quantum Gravity narrative.
We have a Vaccine Narrative.
We have “Americans suck at STEM”.
We have a “Settled Science” narrative.
We have a “Peer Review” narrative.
We had a “Great Moderation” narrative.
We have “Independent Journalism”.
We have a “Disgraced Financier” story.
We have an “Aerospace and UFO” opera.

It’s all one thing that cannot be named:

National Interest “Managed Reality.”

3:38 PM · Jul 5, 2025

We need to talk about what debunking was before it became “Covert influence operations”, “Image Cheapneing”‘and personal destruction warfare.

So let’s talk.

3:41 PM · Jul 5, 2025

Are you buying into Anna Paulina Luna's narrative regarding Joannides?

Or Morley's? Posners? Ratcliffe's?

Which one do you pick, and why?

4:25 PM · Jul 5, 2025

This is part of the problem with debunking.

You see, I don’t know what Covid is. Is it a science project? A miraculous spontaneous mutation? A bioweapon leak?

I don’t know.

But what I do know was that there was TREMENDOUS pressure to say something false about the Wuhan Labs.

Likewise here: I don’t know what happened in Dallas. What I feel confidence in is that we have been lying about telling all we know about what happened in Dallas.

Same with UFOs. What do I know? Very little. But what little I do know is that too many grownups in Govt are talking about something real. That real thing could be a fake program. Or cover for physics research. Or many things.

But the debunking thing has a different energy. I appreciate all you do to explain videos and sightings that have genuinely prosaic explanations. Truly.

What I don’t believe at all is that there is no use of UFO SAPs by the USG. I think we create SAPs and we ruin people’s lives around them when good folks can’t let go of the fact that they saw or experienced or interacted with something we know a lot about.

That’s my issue. Discrediting behavior targeted on individuals to protect programs with claims of national interest.

5:21 PM · Jul 5, 2025

What exactly are you suggesting with this "different energy"?

That I'm just not polite enough?

Or that I'm part of a disinformation campaign?

Because I'd argue against both of those.

Something else?

7:18 PM · Jul 5, 2025

I think you are avoiding the reality that at a minimum, our government(s) is/are almost certainly faking a UFO/NHI presence from time to time. That we have UFO/NHI SAPs that we deny. That UFO/NHI is used as cover for aerospace at a minimum. That we do harm to our own people by pretending that everything has a prosaic explanation.

And that you are not debunking the govt bunk (at a minimum).

My issue is treating our own people like garbage. I despise gaslighting our own people. And the energy you bring is that we don’t need to go to that layer.

Again: I’m the only guy in UFO space who has seen nothing conclusive about NHI. I’m with you on that.

But I do think there was a secret serious physics research program that was affiliated with this UFO anti-gravity stuff. I think Roger Babson and Agnew Bahnson were likely CIA or IC cutouts. I think this is all bound up in the “Golden Age of General Relativity”.

And I wish you would stop pretending it’s all innocent mistakes, coincidences, people making silly claims. A lot of it is. Sure.

But after you strip that off, a lot of what’s left is toxic NatSec gaslighting. And if you can’t face that I’d prefer you stop. Because you then hurt the people who got gaslit.

8:21 PM · Jul 5, 2025

I am not avoiding that. We should absolutely look into topics like Yankee Blue, and Grusch's claims.

I don't treat people like garbage. When I engage with people I do so with facts, logic, and respect. I wrote a book on doing just that.

You're waving around a straw man.

8:58 PM · Jul 5, 2025

Let’s find out if true.

Do you believe that the U.S. may have created “Craft?” Like deliberate mock ups in hangars.

I do. I think it is likely that some of our people had *real* run-ins with fake craft.

Do you believe that there are *real* stories from our top people and ordinary joes about fake aerial events? Like where we know what people saw, and yet we tell them it was nothing. Like a seagull. Or a contrail. Or Venus. Or a Mylar balloon.

I do. And that is where I part company with you often. Not because you are mean. But because I don’t want this done to our own people, and I have never seen you aggressively go after this. If I am wrong, you have my apology in advance. Happy to make it.

Do you believe that the U.S. maintained a secret zero insignia airforce that operated by descending on citizens collecting information, and destroying and confiscating equipment / data and that it physically intimidated US citizens in large empty western states near testing areas without identifying itself?

I do. And it is so unbelievable that I didn’t think this was possible until friends reported it happened to them. I believe that this had to do with the CIA office of “Global Access”.

Do you believe that @pmarca and @bhorowitz were told that entire areas of theoretical physics were taken off line by the Biden Whitehouse, while researchers have been in 52 year denied stagnation in Standard Model Physics? Which makes no sense. Why aren’t we trying new things???

I do. And there has been bizarre lack of interest for any major news desk to get to the bottom of this claim.

Do you believe that there was a giant secret anti-gravity program, attached to UAP, with many of the world’sbtop physicists within it? And that it was funded by two likely IC cutouts Babson and Bahnson?

I do. It was called the “Golden Age of General Relativity.”

Do you believe that UFOs were cover for aerospace…and that aerospace was cover for physics? And that top physics people were in and out of Aerospace where they had *no* particular reason to be other than secret research?

I do. Like RIAS in Baltimore. And Feynman’s adventures in Buffalo. And L Witten at Wright-Patt. Etc etc.

I’m fed up with being lied to Mick by NatSec incompetents. I have my PhD in this area which is strangely unusable. No one is doing real fundamental research anywhere in physics Mick. Or haven’t you noticed that this changed in 40+ years. It’s like a medieval philosophy cult now.

This is all touching physics. Not Bokeh. Not Mylar. This is largely about the magic and power of a science that gave us god like power and then mysteriously stalled, and now cannot be restarted no matter how cheap and easy it would be to do it.

This (above) is a lot about post Manhattan Project public physics bullshit. Not seagulls.

Some of it is material science. Some of it is nukes. But gravity is in this game. And who knows what else. And quantum gravity is the nonsense we can’t question. The likely cover story if you will.

I don’t care about 👽. I care about NatSec gaslighting of our own PhD level mathematicians and physicists. The children of Teller (Particle Theory), Ulam (Geometry), and Einstein (Gravity). All of whom were central to the Bomb.

Wanna debunk the cover stories? If so I’ll join ya.

9:58 PM · Jul 5, 2025

"Do you believe that the U.S. may have created “Craft?” Like deliberate mock ups in hangars. "

I don't think it's impossible. I'm not sure WHY they would do it. Maybe to confuse the Russians into thinking we have advanced tech.

"I do. I think it is likely that some of our people had *real* run ins with fake craft."

Entirely possible, at least in hangers.

"Do you believe that there are *real* stories from our top people and ordinary about fake aerial events? Like where we know what people saw and we tell them it was nothing. Like a seagull. Or a contrail. Or Venus. Or a Mylar balloon."

Probably, to a degree, to cover up secret test flights of new tech. We know this happened with the U2. The degree of how much was invented and how much is just allowing organic stories to grow is unclear.

"I do. And that is where I part company with you often. Not because you are mean. But because I don’t want this done to our own people, and I have never seen you aggressively go after this. If I am wrong, you have my apology in advance. Happy to make it."

Aggressively go after what? The military saying things that are not true in order to keep secret stuff secret? Some people getting hurt? Sure, ideally that wouldn't happen. But also ideally, we'd have universal health care, the lack of which ruins many more lives than hyper-rare UFO-themed cover-ups. Yes, I'd prefer less lying and fucking with people, but forgive me if I don't get too excited about such a minor (albeit very interesting) issue.

"Do you believe that the U.S. maintained a secret zero insignia airforce that operated by descending on citizens collecting information and destroying and confiscating equipment and data and physically intimidated US citizens in large empty western states without identifying itself?"

I have no idea. Probably in the past, back when the cold war and nuke secrets were a big deal. There's the singular Bennewitz case 40 years ago (driven insane, or already part-way there?). But now? I really don't see it.

"I do. And it is so unbelievable that I didn’t think this was possible until friends reported it happened to them. I believe that this had to do with the CIA office of “Global Access”."

What happened to them? Vague stories are not helpful.

"Do you believe that @pmarca and @bhorowitz were told that entire areas of theoretical physics were taken off line by the Biden Whitehouse, while we have been in 52 year denied stagnation in Standard Model Physics? "

No. I'd like to see some evidence of this.

"I do. And there has been bizarre lack of interest for any major news desk to get to the bottom of this claim. "

It's because it's a cool but implausible-sounding story with no evidence.

"Do you believe that there was a giant secret anti-gravity program, attached to UAP, with many of the worlds top physicists within it? And that it was funded by two IC cutouts Babson and Bahnson? I do. It was called the “Golden Age of General Relativity.”"?

Sure, but the question is if they actually found anything. I'm not seeing any evidence of this. The stagnation of Standard Model Physics might simply be because the reality of physics is rather boring and incapable of actually giving us anti-gravity flying cars and starships. I've seen all the public UFO evidence, and indirectly heard about the secret stuff, and there's no strong case for gravity drives.

"Do you believe that UFOs were cover for aerospace…and that aerospace was cover for physics?"

The former, but again perhaps more "let it happen" than "make it happen"

"And that top physics people were in and out of Aerospace where they had no particular reason to be other than secret research. I do. Like RIAS in Baltimore. And Feynman’s adventures in Buffalo. And L Witten at Wright Patt. Etc etc."

Basic research is essentially speculative, especially in a practical setting. Stick a Feynman in the research department, and good things might happen. Worth a shot. It does not mean they are pushing the bounds of physics.

"I’m fed up with being lied to Mick. I have a PhD in this area which is strangely unusable. No one is doing real fundamental research anywhere in physics Mick. Or haven’t you noticed that this changed in 40+ years. It’s like a medieval philosophy cult now."

So you keep saying. But there have been lots of advances. It's sad they haven't solved gravity or anything revolutionary. But I don't think revolutions in science can simply be guaranteed with bigger and more focused funding. You ascribe this lack of progress to a conspiracy, but maybe it's just because they haven't found anything.

"This is all touching physics. Not Bokeh. Not Mylar. This is largely about the magic and power of a science that mysteriously stalled and cannot be restarted no matter how cheap and easy it would be to do it. "

Well, get Peter to do it then. If it's so easy, why doesn't he just put you in charge, solve gravity, and get to trillionaire?

"This (above) is a lot about post Manhattan Project public physics bullshit. Not seagulls. Some of it is material science. Some of it is nukes. But gravity is in this game. And who knows what else. And quantum gravity is the nonsense we can’t question. The likely cover story if you will."

There are plenty of people questioning quantum gravity. It's a model that seems to work, but has no real empirical evidence. It does not stop people trying other models.

"I don’t care about . I care about gaslighting PhD level mathematicians and physicists. The children of Teller (Particle Theory), Ulam (Geometry), and Einstein (Gravity). All of whom were central to the Bomb. Wanna debunk the cover stories? If so I’ll join ya."

You're going to have to give me some actual evidence that this is a deliberate cover story. Because I'm unconvinced.

10:30 PM · Jul 5, 2025

I appreciate the thoughtful answer.

I think it come down to this. You write:

“Aggressively go after what? The military saying things that are not true in order to keep secret stuff secret? Some people getting hurt? Sure, ideally that wouldn't happen. But also ideally, we'd have universal health care, the lack of which ruins many more lives than hyper-rare UFO-themed cover-ups. Yes, I'd prefer less lying and fucking with people, but forgive me if I don't get too excited about such a minor (albeit very interesting) issue.”

If I thought that this was a minor issue I might agree with you.

I think we may have just killed millions with an escaped science experiment called “COVID”. I think the government gaslighting its own scientists and intimidating those who refuse the gaslighting is an absolutely major issue. It’s immoral. It’s illegal. And it’s potentially world altering.

Our government is likely by far the most major actor in the science bunko story. And I want bunk out of science. Starting with Nature, Princeton, the Lancet, Harvard, NSF, and Communications in Mathematical Physics.

So that is where we differ. What you are looking at with junky video analysis is helpful. But in my opinion it is the “minor (albeit very interesting) issue”. The major issue is government control of and subordination of science to NatSec disinformation and misinformation. Like COVID.

So we found the source of our issue. I take @pmarca very seriously on this. I want top scientists in the room who can restrain those NatSec people who can’t keep a virus confined to a secure laboratory meant to circumvent our participation in the bioweapns agreements. I want physicists in the room who say “Wait: why are we doing the same thing for decades that clearly doesn’t work while not pursuing other paths?” I want economists saying “But that would be faking a lower inflation number to raise taxes and slash benefits in a way that the public couldn’t grasp.”

And you are more worried about ghost stories spreading unimpeded because people see ordinary things that are just kinda misinterpreted. That’s noble. But I don’t intuit why that is the major issue.

à chacun son goût…

Thx.

https://t.co/H683aAOGFv

11:56 PM · Jul 5, 2025

Yes. I’m saying that the Jim Simons, Richard Feynman, Jim Watson, Steven Weinberg, Sidney Coleman, Ken Arrow, Linus Pauling, Isadore Singer, Joshua Lederberg, Steve Smale, Paul Samuelson, Mark Ptashne, John Milnor, model of homegrown American scientific genius is being destroyed.

8:17 AM · Nov 15, 2025

Is anyone concerned about this? It sure doesn’t seem it.

Science needs academic freedom. It needs resources. It needs independence.

Fauci and Collins would have been impossible if we were healthy.

It is not safe to make scientists into mere employees.

It’s way too dangerous.

8:17 AM · Nov 15, 2025