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The string theory hype machine will never die

math.columbia.edu

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Re: The string theory hype machine will never die

#11

Post by qarl »

isolli wrote: post #6

It reminds of this quote from Roger Penrose's book, Fashion, Faith, and Fantasy in the New Physics of the Universe: “My nervousness was perhaps at its greatest because the illustrative area that I had elected to discuss, namely string theory and some of its various descendants, had been developed to its heights in Princeton probably more than anywhere else in the world.” “Moreover, that subject is a distinctly techni…

Well... Penrose got himself into serious trouble speaking on issues beyond his expertise. I respect that he is now being more careful. And it's entirely possible that he isn't up to date on their tech. Why would you doubt his own words?

Re: The string theory hype machine will never die

#12

Post by Animats »

isolli wrote: post #6

It reminds of this quote from Roger Penrose's book, Fashion, Faith, and Fantasy in the New Physics of the Universe: “My nervousness was perhaps at its greatest because the illustrative area that I had elected to discuss, namely string theory and some of its various descendants, had been developed to its heights in Princeton probably more than anywhere else in the world.” “Moreover, that subject is a distinctly techni…

> Penrose book...

That's from 2003, when the string theory theorists were riding high and attacking string theory was bad for a physicist's career. Now, "with string theorists now virtually unemployable unless they can figure out how to rebrand as machine learning experts...", the situation has reversed.

String theorists understand high-dimensional math, so maybe they can do something for machine learning theory. Probably not, but we can hope. It's frustrating how much of a black box machine learning systems are.

Re: The string theory hype machine will never die

#14

Post by prof-dr-ir »

Among theoretical physicists there is little doubt that Edward Witten is currently the greatest living theoretical physicist. Here is an interview with him from a few weeks ago:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sAbP0magTVY

I think it is a great watch for anyone with an interest in the field.

Re: The string theory hype machine will never die

#16

Post by AnimalMuppet »

ekjhgkejhgk wrote: post #10
rbanffy wrote: post #2

All it needs is an experiment that can test it.

One day when I'm not being lazy I might publish a point by point refutation of the usual nonsense anti-string theory memes. Until then, here's what I said on this point 25 days ago, specifically the first paragraph starting with "like another commenter". https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46336655

OK, but if there are no predictions that we can test for several generations, how do you tell the difference between science and science-sounding nonsense?

Re: The string theory hype machine will never die

#17

Post by ekjhgkejhgk »

prof-dr-ir wrote: post #14

Among theoretical physicists there is little doubt that Edward Witten is currently the greatest living theoretical physicist. Here is an interview with him from a few weeks ago: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sAbP0magTVY I think it is a great watch for anyone with an interest in the field.

Yeah Witten is unusual. He's not just a little bit better than everyone else, he's on a different league.

I knew a someone who was a temp visitor at the Institute for Advanced Studies who was given temp office next to Witten. And he said he wouldn't hear a noise, and the one day he starts typing and doesn't stop until 100 pages of paper are written, like he has it finished in his mind before he starts typing. Somehow I'm inclined to believe it can't be far from truth.

Re: The string theory hype machine will never die

#18

Post by queuebert »

ekjhgkejhgk wrote: post #15

I notice not-even-wrong-woit doesn't bother refuting any of the claims on their merits. Just calls it "ridiculous hype" and moves on. It's about the same level of rigor he applies to his research in LQG - Loony Quantum Gravity.

Lumpy Quantum Gravy is real. I've seen it at Thanksgiving.

Re: The string theory hype machine will never die

#19

Post by ekjhgkejhgk »

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #16
ekjhgkejhgk wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One day when I'm not being lazy I might publish a point by point refutation of the usual nonsense anti-string theory memes. Until then, here's what I said on this point 25 days ago, specifically the first paragraph starting with "like another commenter". https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46336655

OK, but if there are no predictions that we can test for several generations, how do you tell the difference between science and science-sounding nonsense?

Good question, I touch on this on the same comment, in the paragraph starting with "I keep repeating these things on HNs".

The TLDR is that you can never expect the same level of certainty when you don't have direct experiments, but you can still rule out _some_ hypothesis, and see how far other hypothesis take you. This is called theoretical physics. Just because you can't make an experiment doesn't mean you can't do anything.

Re: The string theory hype machine will never die

#20

Post by Animats »

rbanffy wrote: post #2

All it needs is an experiment that can test it.

High-energy physics is kind of stuck on that. Most of the interesting questions involve energies or distances way beyond what's reachable by experiment today.

Meanwhile, there's interesting experimental action in low-energy physics, down near absolute zero. Many of the weirder predictions of quantum mechanics have now been observed directly. Look at the list of Nobel laureates in physics since 1990. A big fraction of them involve experiments with very low energy states, where thermal noise is small enough that quantum effects dominate. Some of that work led to useful technology. That's forward progress.

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