Pati-Salam
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I’d propose total reassessment of the National Physics program.
Much greater autonomy for theorists.
*Much* higher salaries.
Much greater *diversity* of approaches.
More high precision work.
Fewer graduate programs.
Physics = economic/security priority.
Admit String Thy failure.
We need to hire people who will upset the living hell out of the people doing the hiring.
We need to put fundamental physics theory in receivership. No theory lead advance in fundamental physics for almost 50 years, yet no soul searching about who lost physics?? Are we kidding?
It’s time to stop listening to the same voices as if they hadn’t failed. This is a national priority, not a cult of personality for a STEM generation that had their time..and then ate their own young across every field. Is no one following what we did to destroy our own capacity?
Or should we do yet more 2D Yang Mills on irrelevant groups in non physical signatures? Squarks/Sleptons? Ha!
Let’s say it clearly as everyone young is terrified to say it: the baby boomer theorists were successful as geometers while avoiding actual physics over entire careers.
By mumbling “Quantum Gravity” every 2 minutes as a mantra and recasting actual High Energy Physics as “Phenomenology” they mis-educated an entire generation to think “toy physics” was real physics. It’s unbelievable.
Toy physics is real geometry & topology. But it ain’t physics.
Real physics:
A) Works with dimension 4.
B) Works with SU(3)xSU(2)xU(1).
C) Uses observed quantum numbers.
D) Accepts Lorentzian Signature.
E) Focuses on 3 Generation.
There is *Nothing* wrong with toy models now and then. But we are talking *entire careers* playing with toys.
We tell people who are basically mathematicians that they’re physicists.
Well, they aren’t. Physicists say things about the world. And those things *need* to be potentially wrong to qualify as physics.
We have a culture of people who can’t *afford* error. So they just do math.
Also, to be a fundamental physicist you really should be telling us what we now have wrong. Every advance partially recovers the one before it but also invalidates it, telling us where to look for error. We’ve made hidden assumptions so you have to tell your elders they goofed.
Well, young people can’t say that to elders who hold their academic lives in the palms of their hands. That’s why young/iconoclast physicists need FU salaries.
Elder “You should work on AdS/CFT or ‘BH information’ if you want to get a job.”
Young Colleague: “How does NO sound?”
When I say “There are only two true generations of Fermions.” I’m potentially wrong.
When I listed quantum numbers of the remaining particles, I’m potentially wrong.
As when I claimed Pati-Salam is a maximal compact subgroup of the normal bundle of metrics.
That’s not a bug.
Yet you can’t do this in academic depts.
Moral: we destroyed our ability to self-police. Peer review won’t work. We need to go back to doing physics. What’s holding us back may not be physics but the political economy of academic labor, citation, reputation & attribution.🙏
One last thought. If there aren’t very compelling UAF revelations coming our way, I’d redirect our interest in aliens towards terrestrial physics done by humans. If there were such revelations, then I’d *still* look to physics before tech, as 👽 *still* implies new physics to me.
2022[edit]
Instantly stop all progress in the world’s most successful scientific community using only two words inducing permanent paralytic failure that cannot be questioned.
I’ll go first: “Quantum Gravity”
you're confusing the symptom with the disease
Hi Sabine!
I don’t follow your statement here. How am I confused?
I just meant the cause of the problem is that theoretical physicists don't understand the responsibility they carry when experimental tests take longer and longer. That they got stuck on (a particular idea of) quantum gravity is the effect, but not the cause.
Hmm. As you know I’m historically a big supporter of your courage & insight as critic. Perhaps you know something here that I do not as a nonphysicist. Open to that.
But I disagree. The Q-Gravity Mass Delusion is quite different in character. It is highly specific in its effect.
It is tied to all sorts of weirdness involving top physics and math people, bizarre funders, forgotten research institutes, aerospace companies, post Manhattan Project government secrecy, the golden age of General Relativity and…words fail me…outright quackery.
GUTs are a good test case. I believe you are in error going after Beauty when it comes to Grand Unified Theory. Your critique to Neil Degrasse Tyson recently applied to Georgi and Glashow Basic SU(5)…but not to Pati-Salaam SU(4) x SU(2) x SU(2) for example.
I caution that you not fall into the trap of using Beauty as critique.
The abuse of Beauty in String Theory and Quantum Gravity more generally is valid as a target.
Critiquing the use of beauty, by contrast is a suicide mission. And I don’t want to see you on it. As a friend.
Beauty *is* a light in the darkness as experiment becomes less accessible. Perhaps our best one.
But not all lights in the darkness are natural daylight leading to the exits from Plato’s cave.
2023[edit]
Wow! Holy smokes.
I think I understand this proposition. And I accept!
And I'm happy to do an extra talk on EDI for FREE. My complexion is fair.
@IBJIYONGI I would also be happy to debate you on DEI. I think we can both agree we don't want to do damage to the field. And I am worried that you may NOT be speaking out for many marginalized voices who are intimidated by this relentlessly invidious rhetoric in science.
In any event, I'd be most interested to talk on the following two topics:
3 Generations of fundamental Chiral Fermions vs 2 Fundamental Families + 1 Emergent non-chiral SM Gen plus two exotic families which become emergently Chiral.
Pati-Salam & GR: What is the linkage?
But I am hearing from some terrific researchers that they are SCARED in their workplaces to talk science now for fear of being targeted by science activists. And it has me concerned. We can't let Black physicists be intimidated by politics! Let me know?
And remember, you can't get mad. We outsiders are HYPER-marginalized & I'm accepting extra work that you find oppressive & wont do. I'm EXACTLY following what I understand of your tweet and proposition. My concern is also attracting & retaining top talent from all pools. 🙏