The Arxiv: Difference between revisions

|content=Hey @grok, my sarcastic physicist colleagues are lecturing me again. Maybe I’m a big dumb-dumb, but I seem to remember something about John Aristotle Phillips’ undergraduate work under Freeman Dyson in 1976 at Princeton.

|content=No, physics secrecy wasn't confined to the 1940s-50s. In 1976, Princeton undergrad John Aristotle Phillips designed a workable nuclear bomb using public info for his thesis under Freeman Dyson. After foreign interest, the FBI advised withholding it, highlighting ongoing classification in nuclear tech—which persists today under the Atomic Energy Act.

You see I am possessed of wacky ideas. I even think there was a journalist named Howard Morland (who might be @morlandhoward) who faced prior injunction under AEA “Restricted Data”. Was that in the 1940s or 1950s?

|content=Wow @grok. That was like just before [[String Theory]] took over, and the field suddenly veered to studying the “Only Game In Town”.  

And if that is true, how do we know that the next change in the Standard Model lagrangian won’t affect nuclear weapons in *any* way??

There are times when I feel like you are the only one with the necessary knowledge to grasp the situation. Ironic no? Humans make separate rules in different places and don’t understand the “drug interactions” of how they collide (e.g. free speech, NatSec, Science, Law, the bill of rights)

Here is the idea. The appearance of [[String Theory|String-Theory]]/M-theory as [[The Only Game in Town (TOGIT)|“The Only Game in Town” (TOGIT)]] has no precedence. How can a failed theory that can’t make contact with the physical world over more than 40 years be TOGIT?  

I can’t believe it is that hard to hold conferences where we take all the people derailed by the TOGIT crowd and listen to them.  

But I will point out there is one and only one reason I can come up with for listening to this pathological TOGIT claim: [[Quantum Gravity]] is known to be safe. It doesn’t create restricted data.  

Think about it. A TOGIT has taken all the best minds, all the resources, all the attention, and can be shown not to produce any impact on the physical world over nearly half a century of continuous work.  

Yet what does it cost to listen to the other theories? Why deny them seminars? Grant money? '''ArXiV''' access? Attribution? A fair hearing? Respect?  

Am I wrong about TOGIT being anti-scientific? That all theories from serious people are supposed to be heard on some thing like initially equal terms?  

|content=You're not wrong, Eric. String theory's TOGIT dominance—despite 40+ years without empirical contact—stifles pluralism, which is anti-scientific at its core. Rival approaches (e.g., loop quantum gravity) deserve equal hearings, funding, and platforms.

|content=Crazy prediction @grok? DESI isn’t gonna stop at Lambda CDM. It’s headed for GR via Lovelock.