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Approaching 50 Years of String Theory

math.columbia.edu

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Re: Approaching 50 Years of String Theory

#41

Post by mtoner23 »

bluGill wrote: post #33
tejohnso wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But we've discovered a number of useful tools and techniques that are applicable to other areas of research have we not? The billions of dollars spent on string theory hype might have unlocked a strategy or technique that ends up being useful in a civilization changing way that we just don't know about yet. Maybe string theory and the hype it was able to generate was just the catalyst that we needed.

what didn't se develop because those people were working on string theory? That is an unanswerable question. It is also the important question.

Compared to all the other useless endeavors we send our brightest minds to work on (optimizing ad sales, high frequency trading, crypto) I'd say physics research has the highest chance of being useful

Re: Approaching 50 Years of String Theory

#42

Post by raverbashing »

athrowaway3z wrote: post #25
UncleMeat wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hossenfelder is not really comparable to Collier. Collier's video is critical of string theory as a testable framework but she ultimately still supports people who do research in string theory. Most of her criticism is with media coverage of string theory, not the research or the researchers. Hossenfelder has gone off the "the physics establishment is all idiots and they are suppressing the real physics" deep end and…

I'm not a fan of Hossenfelder, especially for casting quacks like Weinstein, but AFAICT she isn't about "suppressing the real physics" but more of a "establishment physics is wasting money and time, and a lot is equally bad/good as some alternative physics."

Yeah I think most of what (negative) people attribute to her is mostly her being hopelessly German.

Most, but not all

Re: Approaching 50 Years of String Theory

#43

Post by snapplebobapple »

jshaqaw wrote: post #29

[flagged]

i dont think it has anything to do with threats to way of life. It has everything to do with public subsidy of physics that has pushed peripherary mathematics forward without much to show for actual physics advancements. New observations cause changes to string theory not validation of string theory. String theorists can keep do*ng their string theory but its time to subsidize something(so else and see if that leads to actual advancement. I think sabbine hossenfelder is largely correct about this

Re: Approaching 50 Years of String Theory

#44

Post by ekjhgkejhgk »

setopt wrote: post #6
ekjhgkejhgk wrote: post #2

[flagged]

Physicist here. Would you like to enrich our world view by linking to counter-examples? My understanding was that string theory being more "hypothetical physics" than "theoretical physics" at this point is still a pretty legit criticism.

Physicist here. My PhD is in an area that was spawned into existence due to inspiration coming from string theory, not string theory proper.

I've made some comments here [1] to discuss how I see the situation. It's difficult to be thorought in the world of research, and even more so in an HN comment. I'll be writing more as the subject pops up in HN.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46336655

Re: Approaching 50 Years of String Theory

#45

Post by 20k »

tejohnso wrote: post #27
UncleMeat wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hossenfelder is not really comparable to Collier. Collier's video is critical of string theory as a testable framework but she ultimately still supports people who do research in string theory. Most of her criticism is with media coverage of string theory, not the research or the researchers. Hossenfelder has gone off the "the physics establishment is all idiots and they are suppressing the real physics" deep end and…

I thought her rant about bullshit papers was pretty convincing and poignant.

The problem with sabine is that she's become the worst person to make a correct point for the wrong reasons

If you do research it becomes pretty apparent that a high number papers are not great. There's varying issues, but a big one is that the funding model incentivises pumping out papers which are often of low quality, researching whatever happens to be in vogue at the moment

Literally everyone I've ever talked to in research as a frank conversation knows that this is a massive problem, but nobody wants to talk about it publicly. Research funding is already completely screwed as it is, and researchers are incredibly aware of how fragile their livelihoods are

Its clearly leading to a big reduction in the quality of the literature. I went on a replication spree recently and found that a pretty decent chunk of the field I was working in was completely unreplicable by me, with a few papers that I strongly suspect 'massaged' their results for various reasons

I wish someone would talk about this who wasn't also in bed with right wing grifters, and was actually credible. We need someone more like ben goldacre for physics

Sabine's most interesting content is the paper reviews, and where she sticks to actually examining the evidence - but it makes up a tiny fraction of what she produces these days, and her support for some truly grim figures is just gross

Re: Approaching 50 Years of String Theory

#46

Post by Levitating »

UncleMeat wrote: post #20
michaelcampbell wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for posting that; as soon as I saw the title here I was going to look that up if no one else had already. Sabine Hossenfelder too, though there's far too much content from her on this to put a list, but anyone interested might like some of her takes. A few debates between Brian and other notables; Hossenfelder, Eric Weinstein, and Roger Penrose to name a few; have popped up in my youtube feed lately which are…

Hossenfelder is not really comparable to Collier. Collier's video is critical of string theory as a testable framework but she ultimately still supports people who do research in string theory. Most of her criticism is with media coverage of string theory, not the research or the researchers. Hossenfelder has gone off the "the physics establishment is all idiots and they are suppressing the real physics" deep end and…

Collier made a video fairly recently where she showed disappointment that her videos are watched by people who also watch Hossenfelder.

https://youtu.be/miJbW3i9qQc

Re: Approaching 50 Years of String Theory

#47

Post by Levitating »

athrowaway3z wrote: post #25
UncleMeat wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hossenfelder is not really comparable to Collier. Collier's video is critical of string theory as a testable framework but she ultimately still supports people who do research in string theory. Most of her criticism is with media coverage of string theory, not the research or the researchers. Hossenfelder has gone off the "the physics establishment is all idiots and they are suppressing the real physics" deep end and…

I'm not a fan of Hossenfelder, especially for casting quacks like Weinstein, but AFAICT she isn't about "suppressing the real physics" but more of a "establishment physics is wasting money and time, and a lot is equally bad/good as some alternative physics."

I think here more recent takes are not nearly as nuanced.

Re: Approaching 50 Years of String Theory

#48

Post by PunchyHamster »

ecosystem wrote: post #30
PunchyHamster wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So the grift can continue

Non-Euclidean geometry (geometric axioms in which one postulate is rejected such that the 3 angles of a triangle are not exactly 180 degrees) was considered a meaningless word game and fundamental mistruth. Later, non-Euclidean geometry was actually essential to modern physics. It's intellectually sketchy to judge future value by the present.

Might as well fund someone researching whether quantum theory run on little gnomes, if there is no serious path to verification after 50 years, why not quantum gnomes?

Re: Approaching 50 Years of String Theory

#49

Post by saghm »

cess11 wrote: post #39
ecosystem wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Non-Euclidean geometry (geometric axioms in which one postulate is rejected such that the 3 angles of a triangle are not exactly 180 degrees) was considered a meaningless word game and fundamental mistruth. Later, non-Euclidean geometry was actually essential to modern physics. It's intellectually sketchy to judge future value by the present.

I imagine that elliptic geometry had some use before modern physics.

Yeah, even just trying chart a course on a ship across a reasonable distance will cause you to need to reevaluate some "obvious" things (like "what path is the shortest between these two ports" being a curve rather than a line).

Re: Approaching 50 Years of String Theory

#50

Post by gnfargbl »

People often say that the problem with string theory is that it doesn't make any prediction, but that's not quite right: the problem is that it can make almost any prediction you want it to make. It is really less of a "theory" in its own right and more of a mathematical framework for constructing theories.

One day some unusual observation will come along from somewhere, and that will be the loose end that allows someone to start pulling at the whole ball of yarn. Will this happen in our lifetimes? Unlikely, I think.

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