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String Theory (edit)

Revision as of 18:35, 7 January 2026

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=== 2024 ===
=== 2024 ===


{{Tweet
{{Tweet
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But what she discusses here is totally well known within academe, and is in no way peculiar to her.
But what she discusses here is totally well known within academe, and is in no way peculiar to her.


While @skdh was failing, Claudine Gay, String Theory, and her detractors were “succeeding.”
While @skdh was failing, Claudine Gay, [[String Theory]], and her detractors were “succeeding.”


You might consider that when you next hear epithets.
You might consider that when you next hear epithets.
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|timestamp=6:32 PM ¡ Apr 5, 2024
|timestamp=6:32 PM ¡ Apr 5, 2024
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{{Tweet
|image=Eric profile picture.jpg
|nameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein/status/1778141545260331295
|name=Eric Weinstein
|usernameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein
|username=EricRWeinstein
|content=In the passing of Peter Higgs, we lost one of our last living connections to the Lagrangian of the Standard Model.
Peter Higgs was involved with both lines 3 & 4 of this “Recipe for the Universe.”
The level of the Higgs field φ becomes the as-if mass for the matter ψ in the mysterious ψy ψ φ term on line 3. This goes under the name “Yukawa coupling” if you wish to look it up.
How do you get that level (“vacuum expectation value” or VEV) to generate a positive mass m and not to be φ =0? That’s the job of the V(φ) term on line 4 which goes under the name “Mexican Hat potential” to induce “spontaneous symmetry breaking” for those googling.
Lastly, once you give life to this field φ which bears Higgs’ name, you have to animate it so that its excitations know how to move as waves. This is the job of the <nowiki>| D φ | ²</nowiki> “Kinetic Term” at the beginning of line 4. You can Google “Klein-Gordon Lagrangian” here.
I have recently heard commentators like  @michiokaku and @seanmcarroll opine that our Standard Model is “Ugly as Sin” or “It looks ugly. It’s both ugly and beautiful…It’s ungainly.” respectively.
I think that such physicists are *quite* wrong in that, but that is not the point here as I can guess how they see this. And in large measure they aren’t talking about lines 1 and 2 as “ugly”, which pretty much everyone agrees are beautiful as they come directly from Dirac, Maxwell and Einstein, and are present in the original Relativistic Quantum Field Theory (RQFT) called Quantum Electro-dynamics (or QED).
So to simplify matters, lines 1 and 2 are sort of canonically beautiful and appear so to essentially everyone. Lines 3 and 4 governing the Higgs field (with their expansion to 3 forces across 3 generations of matter) are what divide us. The only thing that forces them on us is the weak force and it’s bizarre decision to act only on “Left handed matter and right handed anti-matter.”
And so the legacy of Peter Higgs is tied up in the sui generis nature of the weak nuclear force and what makes the Standard Model “new” beyond QED.
I’m sad that I never met the man. But I believe what comes next is not [[String Theory]], but instead a recognition that the last two lines of this Lagrangian point the way to seeing the [[Standard Model]] as the classic “Elegant Swan” confused by many for an “Ugly Duckling” due to the misappraisal of its Higgs sector as if it were just an ad hoc mass mechanism. RIP.
|quote=
{{Tweet
|image=Fermilab-profile-sZ1TMaxM.jpg
|nameurl=https://x.com/Fermilab/status/1777786518393835759
|name=Fermilab
|usernameurl=https://x.com/Fermilab
|username=Fermilab
|content=Peter Higgs, after whom the Higgs boson was named, has left a remarkable impact on particle physics. The field changed forever on July 4, 2012 when the Higgs boson was discovered, cementing the final piece in the Standard Model of particle physics.
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/09/science/peter-higgs-dead.html
|timestamp=7:51 PM ¡ Apr 9, 2024
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|timestamp=7:22 PM ¡ Apr 10, 2024
|media1=ERW-X-post-1778141545260331295-GK05prgaIAAe-2V.jpg
}}
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This has gotten beyond ridiculous. Read this quoted tweet. WTF? What next?
This has gotten beyond ridiculous. Read this quoted tweet. WTF? What next?


“String theory is Planck scale physics that just happened to fall into the ElectroWeak regime.”
“[[String Theory|String theory]] is Planck scale physics that just happened to fall into the ElectroWeak regime.”


“String theory means never having to say you’re sorry.”
“[[String Theory|String theory]] means never having to say you’re sorry.”


“The true string theory has never been tried.”
“The true [[String Theory|string theory]] has never been tried.”


“What is the sound of one string scattering?”
“What is the sound of one string scattering?”


“String theory is what we will rename any outside ideas that successfully challenge what we before claimed was string theory.”
“[[String Theory|String theory]] is what we will rename any outside ideas that successfully challenge what we before claimed was [[String Theory|string theory]].”


Etc.
Etc.
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Many of those independent critical voices are actually focused on *institutional* sensationalism particularly surrounding outrageous claims for particle theory,  [[Quantum Gravity|quantum gravity]] and [[String Theory|String Theory/m-theory]].  
Many of those independent critical voices are actually focused on *institutional* sensationalism particularly surrounding outrageous claims for particle theory,  [[Quantum Gravity|quantum gravity]] and [[String Theory|String Theory/m-theory]].  


I generally view your public outreach work very favorably, communicating the beauty of the Standard Model, and to a lesser extent GR. Within research, you  mostly seem to be trying to connect String Theory and other speculative frameworks to things like experimental accelerator signatures. Despite my distaste for 4-decades of anti-scientfic String Triumphalism and dissembling from the Susskinds, Wittens, Motls, Grosses and others, I have never associated that with you.
I generally view your public outreach work very favorably, communicating the beauty of the [[Standard Model]], and to a lesser extent GR. Within research, you  mostly seem to be trying to connect [[String Theory]] and other speculative frameworks to things like experimental accelerator signatures. Despite my distaste for 4-decades of anti-scientfic String Triumphalism and dissembling from the Susskinds, Wittens, Motls, Grosses and others, I have never associated that with you.


Gregson clearly has a problem. He is strawmanning colleagues talking about a VERY real problem of denial, and anti-collegial behavior which is anethma to science.
Gregson clearly has a problem. He is strawmanning colleagues talking about a VERY real problem of denial, and anti-collegial behavior which is anethma to science.
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