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

blogs.scientificamerican.com

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

#41

Post by yongjik »

eth0up wrote: post #37
scarejunba wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For others reading, this appears to be because he believed that in an accident the radio-thermal isotope generator on board Cassini would spread radioactive material all over the place.

...all over the place A small, but possible chance of Pu-238 spreading over Florida. I just read that 238 (half-life 87 years) emits mostly alpha, which is said to be easily blocked, even by paper. In FL, many go about half naked, so I'm not sure if this matters. I wonder how thoroughly Kaku considered everything. Seems his concern was based partially on NASA's (small but not null) history of failures. I don't know,…

Actually, alpha emitters are very dangerous when ingested, for the same reason they are readily blocked by paper - your body will absorb all the radiation. This is why Polonium 210 is one of the most toxic material known to us.

(Not agreeing with Michio Kaku, by the way.)

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

#42

Post by jsnk »

Whether you get it right or wrong, I really appreciate people making verifiable predictions about the future publicly.

On the other hand, I am less and less interested in post hoc analysis done by journalists and academics judging after the fact, what should've happened.

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

#43

Post by dilippkumar »

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…

> here are no wave functions or vibrating membranes out there, as there are no "triangles".

I wish you'd added "There is no spoon" here. Opportunity missed.

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

#44

Post by im3w1l »

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.

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

#45

Post by bllguo »

scottlocklin wrote: post #19
knzhou wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Why does he get more credit for not being a physicist?? So he made an uninformed conjecture that turned out to be true? (whether it is true also seems up in the air right now?)

I don't understand why that deserves kudos. I would very much prefer top scientists to listen to people who know what they're talking about, instead of paying heed to the less informed on the off chance their wild speculation bears fruit.

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

#46

Post by earthboundkid »

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’s a controversial topic in the philosophy of science. Your position is called anti-realism and has decent support but there’s no clear consensus either way.

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

#47

Post by improbable22 »

knzhou wrote: post #10

It's important to avoid conflating string theorists with all theoretical physicists. Plenty of people in particle physics either don't believe in string theory or don't think it can make useful predictions any time soon, even if it were assumed true. Furthermore, the vast majority of people called "string theorists" don't even work on traditional string theory day to day, but on more concrete ideas that have been par…

"would have trouble making predictions. Physicists have made this criticism since the beginning."

You can go one step further. If you regard string theory as an attempt to answer questions about quantum gravity, then this criticism applies to the whole question, not just to any particular school of thought about answering it. This was known since approximately the time when physicists first had access to Planck's constant, Newton's constant, and a spare envelope to write on.

But, as you say, this is far from all that people who get called string theorists work on. A great pile of mathematical tools have been developed, to the point where deliberate ignorance of all of them would be a very strange position. Not for all fields of theory, obviously, but for quite a few.

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

#48

Post by NotAnEconomist »

Why aren't TQFTs evidence for string theory?

If we know you can build quasiparticles and non-local effects out of braiding/knotting dynamics -- wouldn't the minimal assumption be that other things that can be explained by the same mechanism at a different resolution are?

Perhaps I don't understand the distinction between say, string theory and loop quantum gravity.

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

#49

Post by doubleunplussed »

Ma8ee wrote: post #30
knzhou wrote: post #10

It's important to avoid conflating string theorists with all theoretical physicists. Plenty of people in particle physics either don't believe in string theory or don't think it can make useful predictions any time soon, even if it were assumed true. Furthermore, the vast majority of people called "string theorists" don't even work on traditional string theory day to day, but on more concrete ideas that have been par…

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…

Im a physicist, and whilst Im an experimentalist, I work in the same departments as theorists and I don't know a single string theorist. I heard of one, once. A friend od a friend, but I never met them. Most high energy physicists seem to be working on supersymmetry.

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

#50

Post by max_zhou »

Correct me if I am wrong. i think string theory is searched not just because of its beauty, but also because of existing problems in general relativity. For example, the center of black hole is predicted to be `infinite` in terms of many metrics . But the center is also part of the spacetime, it should bear some measurable values. The answer might require quantum physics since it is microscopic. Therefore, the unifying of general relativity and quantum mechanics is asked for.
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