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

#51

Post by Mugwort » Wed, Oct 09, 2019, 10:11 PM UTC

It's very likely a unified theory will win a prize maybe even the Nobel Prize but it isn't going to happen anytime soon. FWIW I'm about as convinced of the truth of string theory as I am of the truth of General Relativity. Sure a better version of M-theory or something else is sure to be discovered but it will be an outgrowth of the current enterprise. The problem is even if we had the correct theory right now it probably would not do us much good at all. It would be a puzzle box we couldn't even open or get answers from it. People underestimated the difficulties involved and the theory was over hyped. Now begins the long "string theory winter". Decades from now, some diehard whose career is foundering will make a significant breakthrough, enough to compel everyone's attention. Until then, there's plenty of interesting physics problems to work on that have been unjustly neglected for too long.

Einstein's theory of GR could end up being "wrong" but it would live on as a very good approximation to a more fundamental theory.

String theory could very well turn out to be completely wrong but it would fail in a very different manner. If ST is wrong, it's no longer useful. If GR is "wrong" people will still use it.

For various reasons which are by no means proof or even evidence I think ST is basically correct but we're simply unable to make proper sense of it.

Anyway, we're here at the string theory winter. Careers are ruined, people disappointed etc. That's just how it goes. Sometimes, things work out and sometimes they just don't. We didn't exactly walk away from all of this with ZERO but we're very far from the ultimate PRIZE or GOAL. In hindsight we'll probably look back on this and realize we were hopelessly unable to succeed given the tools and ideas of the day. Expert systems were simply unable to deliver and people were crushed. Careers were ruined. Hopes dashed. Naysayers vindicated then along comes this crazy guy who just won't give up on neural networks.

I think the future looks much brighter for unified physics now that string theory as we knew it has clearly failed. I don't want to leave these guys out too so let me add that loop quantum gravity has failed too, much more gracefully I might add. I think these guys were on to something and their ideas aren't going to completely disappear.

I've thrown away about 10,000 hours of my life on this stuff. Thanks for spending 3 minutes on my meager insights.

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

#52

Post by CharlesColeman » Wed, Oct 09, 2019, 10:24 PM UTC

fabiosussetto wrote: post #40

"It would culminate the ancient human quest for knowledge, which began when the first of our ancestors asked, "Why?"" I'm always baffled when I read these kind of quotes, especially coming from such smart people. Do they just forget that our theories are models of reality? I personally believe that there are no wave functions or vibrating membranes out there, as there are no "triangles". These are just names for our…

>> "It would culminate the ancient human quest for knowledge, which began when the first of our ancestors asked, "Why?""

> I'm always baffled when I read these kind of quotes, especially coming from such smart people. Do they just forget that our theories are models of reality?

Some people have a relationship with "science" that bears a strong resemblance relationship some other people have with various religions and/or religious concepts. I get a strong vibe of that from the quote you cited.

> Is it just me thinking this?

No, it isn't. I agree and generally think of science is basically a kind tool-making activity. Mathematical wrenches, so to speak.

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

#53

Post by jessriedel » Wed, Oct 09, 2019, 10:29 PM UTC

knzhou wrote: post #39

Ma8ee wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

String theory has completely dominated the field of theoretical high energy physics for decades. There have been some notable contrarians, e.g., Smolin and Woit with their books. But those haven't changed the fact that it has been very hard to get a faculty position in theoretical hep for decades without being a string theorist. It is only the last few years that has changed. In other words, it's not a biased view th…

That's just not true. Look at the statistics for hiring faculty in theoretical high energy physics [1]. String theory was never more than half, and usually much less than that. (It is true, though, that for a while they had a near monopoly on pop physics. But that's totally different from physics.) [1] http://www.particle.physics.ucdavis.edu/rumor/doku.php?id=st...

His statement can be true if you restrict it to "quantum gravity" jobs (of which string theory is one of many approaches, abeit the overwhelmingly most popular one). The other jobs you're talking about just don't try to answer the questions that string theory purports to addresses.

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

#54

Post by wuliwong » Wed, Oct 09, 2019, 10:34 PM UTC

im3w1l wrote: post #44

fabiosussetto wrote: post #40

"It would culminate the ancient human quest for knowledge, which began when the first of our ancestors asked, "Why?"" I'm always baffled when I read these kind of quotes, especially coming from such smart people. Do they just forget that our theories are models of reality? I personally believe that there are no wave functions or vibrating membranes out there, as there are no "triangles". These are just names for our…

Your perspective is a popular one, but a lot of people also think there is a "true" theory that will perfectly explain how the universe evolves.

>a lot of people also think there is a "true" theory that will perfectly explain how the universe evolves

Doesn't Godel's incompleteness theorems make this doubtful? Logic was not my area of focus but I thought the basic idea was that there is always going to be some un-answerable question(s) or un-provable answers in any consistent theory[1]? I'm pretty sure there is not significant work using non-axiomatic math, I'm honestly not even sure what that looks like. I'd actually be quite interested to find out about some theoretical physics work that did not fall under the auspices of the incompleteness theorem.

[1] There are certainly caveats to "theory" but I believe all those caveats are satisfied by any version of String Theory be actively researched.

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

#55

Post by bjornsing » Wed, Oct 09, 2019, 10:39 PM UTC

knzhou wrote: post #22

scottlocklin wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I mean, do you think literally everybody was doing string theory? There have always been plenty of theorists focused on more concrete things -- string theorists are not and have not been the majority. Grad students entering even in the 90s knew they had to make a choice between concrete, more easily testable physics and a long-shot approach to quantum gravity. String theorists have stories of faculty going out of the…

So as long as there is one physicist on the right side of the fence the “field” is somehow in the know...? Would you be willing to extend that kind of reasoning to the “pop scientists”?

I often wish Feynman (or anyone of his kind really) was still here. Science nowadays seems more and more like one big appeal to authority...

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

#56

Post by kelnos » Wed, Oct 09, 2019, 10:42 PM UTC

meowface wrote: post #6

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…

There are still a lot of prominent, respectable theoretical physicists who work on string theory. Leonard Susskind, for example. While no evidence of it has been found so far, is calling it "Noodle Theory" and a bunch of baloney really fair? There are plenty of big theories for which there's no evidence, but that doesn't necessarily mean we're certain yet that they're pseudoscience or unfalsifiable. Supersymmetry, Ma…

IMO calling it "noodle theory" is just a juvenile means to make fun of people who study it. If you want to tell people something is wrong, tell them why; don't invent childish names to put other people down by association.

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

#57

Post by kelnos » Wed, Oct 09, 2019, 10:45 PM UTC

anon1m0us wrote: post #33

undershirt wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder if you might try the subtler word myths instead of lies. Reality is formless, and we reason about it through what Foucault called grids I think, where every structure that we impose on it to bring something new into view necessarily obscures something else. This is a bit like what Alan Watts talks about when saying that stories are like music, in which it wouldn’t have any form unless there were notes left o…

When you say, "... it's bigger than what you may be suggesting." What is ... "it"? My despair? I understand your point about lies vs myths. If I substitute the two words in my mind according to your explanation of myths and their purpose, then everything actually does seem to make more sense and is more acceptable in my mind. If someone tells a lie the connotation is that it's meant to harm others to their own benefi…

The problem is that strongly-held myths can still cause a lot of harm to others. While it may be understandable for people to cling to some myths, we should still work to stamp them out, but compassionately.

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

#58

Post by DidISayTooMuch » Wed, Oct 09, 2019, 10:47 PM UTC

dmix wrote: post #14

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.

Kaku is the Deepak Chopra of physics.

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

#59

Post by chrisdirkis » Wed, Oct 09, 2019, 11:00 PM UTC

sampo wrote: post #21

Merrill wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There seems to be lots of forward progress in physics, e.g. in condensed matter physics, quantum computing, etc. Grand unified theories are sort of irrelevant so long as there are not measurable phenomena that cannot be explained without them.

> There seems to be lots of forward progress in physics, e.g. in condensed matter physics, quantum computing The theory of quantum computing is based on real physics, unlike string theory. But we have no idea if or when we will be able to build a quantum computer that actually calculates something useful. So far the progress has been only in theory. Edit: To downvoters, let's make a bet: In the next 18 years, no one…

Progress does not mean "Commercial success". Your bet is like hearing "my kid seems to be making lots of progress on their bike", and responding with "I bet he'll never cycle around the world in 18 years".

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

#60

Post by mantap » Wed, Oct 09, 2019, 11:03 PM UTC

wuliwong wrote: post #54

im3w1l wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your perspective is a popular one, but a lot of people also think there is a "true" theory that will perfectly explain how the universe evolves.

>a lot of people also think there is a "true" theory that will perfectly explain how the universe evolves Doesn't Godel's incompleteness theorems make this doubtful? Logic was not my area of focus but I thought the basic idea was that there is always going to be some un-answerable question(s) or un-provable answers in any consistent theory[1]? I'm pretty sure there is not significant work using non-axiomatic math, I'…

No, for instance you can perfectly describe the rules of Conway's Game of Life, and if you were an artificial intelligence living in the Game of Life you could presumably figure out the rules quite easily through experimentation. You wouldn't be able to prove those are the rules though, you'd have to make some assumptions that the rules didn't change in space and time, and that they weren't a manifestation of some more complex rules.