String Theory Does Not Win a Nobel, and I Win a Long Bet • Hacker News Board

Re: String Theory Does Not Win a Nobel, and I Win a Long Bet

#11

Post by jessriedel » Wed, Oct 09, 2019, 8:52 PM UTC

haolez wrote: post #4

scottlocklin wrote: post #2

FWIIW, Horgan is a well known science writer and author of a 1996 book called "the end of science" which pointed out that science in general and physics in particular has reached a point where there is no appreciable forward progress and is obsessed with non falsifiable woo like string theory. It's a provocative book; and people have raised the issue that Kelvin said something similar 120 years ago, but it's really w…

What’s wrong with complexity theory? I remember seeing a talk about it a long time ago and the concepts were super interesting, but I didn’t (I don’t) have the mathematical maturity to understand it in depth.

I don't think it ever congealed into a coherent field, say, with an established canon of techniques and a heirarchy of results that built on itself.

Re: String Theory Does Not Win a Nobel, and I Win a Long Bet

#12

Post by jessriedel » Wed, Oct 09, 2019, 8:53 PM UTC

raspasov wrote: post #5

Quantum computers might be able to perform simulations which will be indistinguishable from reality. Many theories can be tested that way once we have a sufficiently powerful quantum computer.

You can't test string theory with a quantum computer.

Re: String Theory Does Not Win a Nobel, and I Win a Long Bet

#13

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Oct 09, 2019, 8:55 PM UTC

haolez wrote: post #4

scottlocklin wrote: post #2

FWIIW, Horgan is a well known science writer and author of a 1996 book called "the end of science" which pointed out that science in general and physics in particular has reached a point where there is no appreciable forward progress and is obsessed with non falsifiable woo like string theory. It's a provocative book; and people have raised the issue that Kelvin said something similar 120 years ago, but it's really w…

What’s wrong with complexity theory? I remember seeing a talk about it a long time ago and the concepts were super interesting, but I didn’t (I don’t) have the mathematical maturity to understand it in depth.

[deleted]

Re: String Theory Does Not Win a Nobel, and I Win a Long Bet

#14

Post by dmix » Wed, Oct 09, 2019, 8:57 PM UTC

Michio Kaku has long been my least favourite of the celebrity talking head scientists. And he has some good competition for that label. His pop-science books tend to read more like coming from a Hollywood screenwriter than a careful and thoughtful scientific mind.

Re: String Theory Does Not Win a Nobel, and I Win a Long Bet

#15

Post by krastanov » Wed, Oct 09, 2019, 8:57 PM UTC

raspasov wrote: post #5

Quantum computers might be able to perform simulations which will be indistinguishable from reality. Many theories can be tested that way once we have a sufficiently powerful quantum computer.

While I agree on the promise of quantum computing, the way you phrased it is somewhat misleading (hides plenty of complications (even theoretical ones) under the rug). Moreover, even if we can simulate a theory efficiently, we can not use that simulation to learn the value of a (hyper)parameter, without being able to make an observation.

And this is the main problem: it is infeasible to make observations in the parameter regime of interest. The difficulty of simulating the theory is borderline inconsequential in this case.

Re: String Theory Does Not Win a Nobel, and I Win a Long Bet

#16

Post by knzhou » Wed, Oct 09, 2019, 9:00 PM UTC

scottlocklin wrote: post #2

FWIIW, Horgan is a well known science writer and author of a 1996 book called "the end of science" which pointed out that science in general and physics in particular has reached a point where there is no appreciable forward progress and is obsessed with non falsifiable woo like string theory. It's a provocative book; and people have raised the issue that Kelvin said something similar 120 years ago, but it's really w…

> a super unpopular position at the time (1996); pretty much the only prominent person in agreement with him was Nobel Prize Winner Phil Warren Anderson, who disagrees with him in many other respects. Ultimately many other writers came out in agreement on this issue at least; Woit and Smolin most notably, though others agreed.

Ugh, almost everything about this narrative is wrong; see my other comment. Science writers didn't invent skepticism of string theory, that was in good supply among physicists even 50 years ago. You only think they did because, well, you rely on them to tell you what happened, and they puff up their own roles. They turn it into "me vs. the establishment" while cribbing off conversations that are already happening within the field.

For example, Glashow, one of the architects of the Standard Model, tried to bar string theorists from ever being hired at Harvard, but you never hear about that.

Re: String Theory Does Not Win a Nobel, and I Win a Long Bet

#17

Post by ErotemeObelus » Wed, Oct 09, 2019, 9:01 PM UTC

Maybe physicists should just stop. There has to be a bottom to the barrel and we probably reached it.

Re: String Theory Does Not Win a Nobel, and I Win a Long Bet

#18

Post by krastanov » Wed, Oct 09, 2019, 9:02 PM UTC

whatshisface wrote: post #3

> Gaining access to the infinitesimal microscales where superstrings supposedly wriggle would require an accelerator 1,000 light years around. Has anyone ever proven that there aren't any better accelerator technologies left to be discovered? What about natural accelerators like the charges that build up and produce cosmic rays?

This is a common suggestion and it is used more and more. The problem is the data rate: with LHC you have a flood of interesting events to record in a very controlled environment. On the other hand, super-high-energy cosmic rays are very rare and frequently you do not know many of the initial parameters necessary to interpret the measurement.

Cosmological measurements seem to be promising (akin to looking for footprints in the cosmic background from extremely high-energy phenomena from the early universe).

And excitingly, extreme precision "table top" experiments are also promising. Check stuff like the recent work on measuring the (nonexistent) dipole moment of the electron.

Re: String Theory Does Not Win a Nobel, and I Win a Long Bet

#19

Post by scottlocklin » Wed, Oct 09, 2019, 9:04 PM UTC

knzhou wrote: post #16

scottlocklin wrote: post #2

FWIIW, Horgan is a well known science writer and author of a 1996 book called "the end of science" which pointed out that science in general and physics in particular has reached a point where there is no appreciable forward progress and is obsessed with non falsifiable woo like string theory. It's a provocative book; and people have raised the issue that Kelvin said something similar 120 years ago, but it's really w…

> a super unpopular position at the time (1996); pretty much the only prominent person in agreement with him was Nobel Prize Winner Phil Warren Anderson, who disagrees with him in many other respects. Ultimately many other writers came out in agreement on this issue at least; Woit and Smolin most notably, though others agreed. Ugh, almost everything about this narrative is wrong; see my other comment. Science writers…

Thousands of grad student careers, faculty appointments, glowing documentaries and ruined lives later and "oh, we knew that all along." They sure didn't act like they knew it at the time. Horgan deserves credit for making the right call. Even more credit because he wasn't even a physicist.

Credit to Glashow, and apologies for forgetting him, but Horgan deserves his victory lap.

Re: String Theory Does Not Win a Nobel, and I Win a Long Bet

#20

Post by anon1m0us » Wed, Oct 09, 2019, 9:05 PM UTC

scottlocklin wrote: post #2

FWIIW, Horgan is a well known science writer and author of a 1996 book called "the end of science" which pointed out that science in general and physics in particular has reached a point where there is no appreciable forward progress and is obsessed with non falsifiable woo like string theory. It's a provocative book; and people have raised the issue that Kelvin said something similar 120 years ago, but it's really w…

oh, I wonder if this is fitting with my current obsession with truth and lies.

Not only are we increasing the number of lies in the world, using lies to get what we want has become more and more acceptable through social media, politics, capitalism, etc...

But we are increasing the number of things you can't prove are lies. You can't falsify me, therefore I am right.

OMG, this is very religious. This is all because of postmodernism! Prior to today, you couldn't prove that my religion was wrong. The more people I could get to believe my lie about the origins of the universe, the more powerful I was.

Tribalism requires agreed upon unfalsifiable lies. I am with you because I believe the same thing you do.

Postmodernism has done this to us. With religion and an omniscient being watching us, heaven for the good, hell for the bad, we had a -- conscience.

Now, it's the internet. The internet is omniscient. Facebook is watching us. Google is watching us. The CIA and FBI are watching us through the internet.

We've replaced god with ... the internet. The internet is the new god. And thus, we are evolving toward the biblical God that created us in his image. We are walking down the path to omniscience via the internet.