Blog Wars: Woit and Smolin vs Motl

[john baez]

I have read recently this paper by Weinstein

http://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/archive/00000834/

What do you think of his interpretation?

I wrote a little about this over https://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?p=1302598#post1302598". coalquay404's previous post was quite nice and detailed - I recommend it!

 

[ensabah6]

This is certainly part of the story. But, I think some of the anger surrounding the string wars comes from the desperation many theoretical physicists feel when it comes to making progress on big issues like the unification of forces and the quantization of gravity.

People have invested their whole careers in string theory and loop quantum gravity. Decades have gone by without any clear payoff in experimental results. Lots of good math, but no experimental confirmation! This makes people scared, and unhappy... and now, I think, it's making them fight.

Note how little fighting of this sort we see in cosmology, where people are making wonderful discoveries left and right: dark matter, dark energy, hints of inflation in the cosmic microwave background radiation.



Blogs provide a brand new forum for uninhibited and often anonymous fighting, just at a time when a bunch of physicists are getting desperate and miserable... it's a flammable combination.

Like you, I got sick of these fights. They helped convince me it was time to stop working on quantum gravity and focus on math.

For a long time these fights also kept me from starting a blog. But then, thanks to Urs Schreiber, I realized it's possible to have a pleasant and interesting blog, by keeping it technical and avoiding controversy.

It's a pity I have to avoid writing about controversial topics just to avoid fights. But, it's worth it.

Isn't it just the behavior of just of couple of obnoxious stingy theorists (including a famous one from Harvard)?

I thought of it more as the result of the business success that string theorists like Kaku, Randall, SUskind and Greene have made even Hawking, and the lucrative business model is being challenged.

 

[Careful]

This is certainly part of the story. But, I think some of the anger surrounding the string wars comes from the desperation many theoretical physicists feel when it comes to making progress on big issues like the unification of forces and the quantization of gravity.

Anger ? never seen such thing ; the large majority seems pretty pragmatic waiting for something better to come.

People have invested their whole careers in string theory and loop quantum gravity.

Hum, you forget to mention that the large majority got a career in the first place because they were doing ST or LQG. You can hardly call that an investment, mostly it is career opportunism.

Decades have gone by without any clear payoff in experimental results. Lots of good math, but no experimental confirmation! This makes people scared, and unhappy... and now, I think, it's making them fight.

Me think that most people are realistic enough to know that more or less convincing experimental indications for Planck scale physics (unless you are very quickly content) won't come before they die.

Like you, I got sick of these fights. They helped convince me it was time to stop working on quantum gravity and focus on math.

Really ? I mean if you are really passionate about something, nothing will stop you to do what it is you like.

It's a pity I have to avoid writing about controversial topics just to avoid fights. But, it's worth it.

And you feel the compelling need to stress that each time :rofl:

 

[marcus]

Care, you really are insufferable
JB is a sweet guy and you should just let him do what he wants and not bug him

 

[marcus]

... the large majority seems pretty pragmatic waiting for something better to come.
...

this is something I would like to agree with (if I had a wide enough statistical sample to be sure)

so maybe I share your attitude somewhat here.

It seems to me that the RANCOROUS VITUPERATION is confined to the minor figures.

I don't see Smolin or Witten as rancorous squabblers at all, or David Gross...or JB for that matter. They all seem to be above the squabble.

Smolin had some serious points about policy and science in general, which he made politely and respectfully (I thought)

Other people like Witten, Rovelli etc. have interesting research to work on and seem hardly to pay attention. Anybody who has anything interesting to work on is peacefully working on it. That's how it looks to me as outsider observer.

If you were a kind of centaur-like half media-journalist half theoretician then maybe it cramps your journalistic half. Because you can't get involved in the issues of the day without getting embroiled. So only half of you is getting to live fully (the theoretician part) and that cramping may hurt.

But look at what KITP did in January. Major bridge-build and olivebranch offering. Or? Gary Horowitz and Martin Bojowald organized a 3 week workshop on Singularities with a major Loop component---Ashtekar, Thiemann, Pullin, Gambini, Dittrich, of course Bojowald. that is not "war" or even anger. it was a remarkable and constructive step to take. BTW lovely halfhour performance by Ted Jacobson at blackboard.

(at end after most participants were gone there was a hand-wave vague put-down "were still the best" kind of face-save gesture by G.H. which only to be expected---but looking overall it was extremely positive and friendly, even hopeful---or so comes thru in the videos)

Am I missing something? It seems to me that at most we've got a squabble in the lower-echelons.

 

[Careful]

Anybody who has anything interesting to work on is peacefully working on it. That's how it looks to me as outsider observer.

Sure, so what is the hype you are constantly making ?

 

[Careful]

Care, you really are insufferable
JB is a sweet guy and you should just let him do what he wants and not bug him

You should not bug anyone either and neither should you express what you consider bugging or not, nor assess anyone's posting unless it is on a scientific (factual) basis.

 

[ccdantas]

I wrote a little about this over https://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?p=1302598#post1302598". coalquay404's previous post was quite nice and detailed - I recommend it!

Oh, I should have been sleeping, :zzz: I did not see that thread! What a coincidence. Thanks for the link.


Christine

 

[ccdantas]

Like you, I got sick of these fights. They helped convince me it was time to stop working on quantum gravity and focus on math.

It is a pity indeed, specially to hear from someone who contributed significantly to the field. (It's no news of course, I recall you said that last year or so). But in any case, I'm sure you are motivated and happy with your current interests.

The blog experience made me certain of two things: I continue more than ever curious about quantum gravity and also I do enjoy blogging (I'm back to it after all). It can be interesting and educative -- as far as you manage to keep out of things that bother you.:grumpy:

Christine

 

[ccdantas]

You might want to look at https://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=164352".

Thanks to you too!


Christine

 

[Sauron]

I have a question about these "string vs loops" war.
I have got from a library the Brain Green´s book "teh fabric of the cosmos" (the spanish edition), and I was very surprised to see that in his last chapter he has a words for Smollin and the LQG.

He says that the LQG is a valid road of investigation, he recomends the reading of "the threed roads to quantum gravity". He also claims that the idea of an discrete space time is a valid one (Lubos has denosted it many times). He finally says that probably the future of the string gravity field could come from some kind of fussion betwen the ideas of string theory and loop quantum gravity.

That is doubly surprising as Lubos has repeteadly mentioned Brian Green as an "antiloop" guy.

have readed that the engish version of the book os from 2005 (in Spain it has been published very recently) so maybe that is the cause of the disagreement. But if so, how could it be such a drastic change of viewpoint about LQG of the string comunity?

 

[marcus]

... how could it be such a drastic change of viewpoint about LQG of the string comunity?

one possible explanation was offered a few posts back:

...Note how little fighting of this sort we see in cosmology, where people are making wonderful discoveries left and right: dark matter, dark energy, hints of inflation in the cosmic microwave background radiation.

...Blogs provide a brand new forum for uninhibited and often anonymous fighting, just at a time when a bunch of physicists are getting desperate and miserable... it's a flammable combination.

talking about these things requires gentleness and tact. one can't put one's finger on the source of trouble without someone saying "ouch"

in some sense, less said the better. most of us tend not to talk about the more bitter altercations, I think, most of the time. I rarely even pay attention (don't visit rage blogs, etc.)

I think it is helpful to keep reporting the news, which is why I follow things like the Loop Quantum Cosmology presentations at the KITP workshop. LQC is not an area which has been experiencing frustration---it was invented in 2001 and has made a lot of progress in areas that people are interested in (BB, BH). When you listen to those folks you don't hear "desperation and misery"----and you don't hear them quarreling either AFAIK.

if anyone hasn't watched the LQC KITP videos and wants to, you can google "KITP spacetime singularities" which gets you here:
http://online.kitp.ucsb.edu/online/singular_m07/
and scroll down to Ashtekar or Bojowald or Thiemann talks.
Here's a direct link to e.g. Bojowald slides and video
http://online.kitp.ucsb.edu/online/singular_m07/bojowald/

 

[Kea]

You should not bug anyone either and neither should you express what you consider bugging or not, nor assess anyone's posting unless it is on a scientific (factual) basis.

Careful, I feel that you are mostly wasting your breath here, but your input is much appreciated. It is quite amazing to see people walk past an elephant and not even see it.

 

[josh1]

Careful, I feel that you are mostly wasting your breath here, but your input is much appreciated. It is quite amazing to see people walk past an elephant and not even see it.

I don't want to misinterpret this Kea. What did you mean by it? Who or what is the elephant?

 

[Kea]

Who or what is the elephant?

The Elephant is a very large creature with floppy ears, a trunk and cute eyes that anybody can see is in the room.

 

[Careful]

Careful, I feel that you are mostly wasting your breath here, but your input is much appreciated.

Whether I waste my breath or not depends upon the personal ``weight'' I attach to my posting here (and unlike what some want to imply, no ``deep'' feelings are involved at all, haha), but on the other hand I haven't noticed (since one year or so ) that anyone appreciates my input (although I am rather factual and open for discussion).

It is quite amazing to see people walk past an elephant and not even see it.

Could you for once not speak in sentences which can at least be interpreted in a threefold way (like you would have to do in real life) ?

Careful

 

[josh1]

Hi Careful,

If you know what Kea meant, would you mind telling me?

 

[Careful]

Hi Careful,

If you know what Kea meant, would you mind telling me?

Ohw, I suspect that she was referring to my sentence

``Me think that most people are realistic enough to know that more or less convincing experimental indications for Planck scale physics (unless you are very quickly content) won't come before they die.''

In another thread, some very cheerful people are already ``unifying'' the entire gamma of models revealing a shortest length scale (which should be confirmed by experiments at CERN). For some ``funny'' reasons, Kea baptized it ``elephant theory'' (although whale theory might even be more impressive). I am sure she knows how to argue why the conclusion that a shortest quantum length scale has been confirmed isn't like the famous needle in the haystack.

 

[Kea]

...but on the other hand I haven't noticed (since one year or so) that anyone appreciates my input (although I am rather factual and open for discussion).

Sigh. Yes, it really is a great shame that selfAdjoint has left us. He had a quiet way of encouraging interesting discussions.

 

[josh1]

Sigh. Yes, it really is a great shame that selfAdjoint has left us. He had a quiet way of encouraging interesting discussions.

Why did he stop posting?

 

[Kea]

Why did he stop posting?

We don't know, josh, but there is reason to believe that he has left this world for good, sadly.

 

[Ratzinger]

Why did he stop posting?

Given that selfadjoint spend such much time in this forum I wonder why no one asked that question here before.

 

[George Jones]

Given that selfadjoint spend such much time in this forum I wonder why no one asked that question here before.

Sad news; see https://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=165003".

 

[Kea]

More precisely, see here:

https://www.physicsforums.com/showpost.php?p=1273280&postcount=15

Oh, no, George, that is very sad. We did fear this, but did not know for sure. He will be missed.

 

[marcus]

... He will be missed.

True. He is already much missed.
Gentleman, scholar, ideal PF mentor.

 

[Hell_SD]

I'd like to think he's smiling somewhere on the other side of life knowing everything and still clocking into PF wishing he could post up the answers to all our questions but can't. Like us looking through an interrogation mirror where what we see is reflected back but in the soundproof room behind the mirror...

 

[Hans de Vries]

Given that selfadjoint spend such much time in this forum I wonder why no one asked that question here before.

We tried to figure out what happened to SelfAdjoint a while back when we started
missing him with the little bit bit of personal info we could find in his posts (and
which I placed on your thread now in his remembrance)

https://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=160724&page=6It seems he used to post on spr as DickT (Dick Thompson)
http://groups.google.com/groups/pro...jqMROIu04t5H4vEZoAYYh0OR845UJFpeFc45Ysw&hl=en

For instance here in this Peter Woit thread replying to Lubos:
http://groups.google.com/group/sci....183c4?lnk=st&q=&rnum=1&hl=en#11003445dbb183c4
Or promoting an LQG discussion on this forum to John Baez: :^)
http://groups.google.com/group/sci....deced?lnk=st&q=&rnum=4&hl=en#ab866a9f998deced
SelfAdjoint's full name was Richard Blackmore Thompson (linked by the
email address rthompson10@new.rr.com). The little note you don't want
to see in the newspaper is here:

http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/obituaries/orl-flaobit1406dec14,0,1636276.story?page=3 Regards, Hans

 

[Careful]

Sigh. Yes, it really is a great shame that selfAdjoint has left us. He had a quiet way of encouraging interesting discussions.

To put it mildly, it is rather strange that interesting discussions need to be encouraged in the first place (especially for such an exotic topic which concerns so few people).

 

[Chronos]

Evil mathematicians provoked the schism between QM and GR by pointing out 'hey guys, you can't have it both ways'. We haven't seen a physicist who can play a mean violin since.

 

[kakarukeys]

A friend of mine working in deterministic q.m. refuting Motl's "Myths about Einstein".

Motl's blog post (If you have the time and energy to read)
http://motls.blogspot.com/2007/05/myths-about-einstein.html

My friend's refutation:

Hi Lubos,
To me, it seems that you've misunderstood the points of Smolin's article.
a) Smolin is not at all trying to analyse Einstein's political attitude to understand his creativity. He talks about Einstein's true (not easily shown to public) political views in order to show that they are not as naive as people assumed. And I don't see that Smolin is in anyway criticizing Einstein's political views. By "the man himself was an embarrassment" Smolin is mentioning the views of the executors, not his. And all the following paragraphes with a word "embarrassment" are all the views of others, i.e. the director of IAS, the executors and Einstein's younger American colleagues. Smolin's own view is clearly opposed to them. So I failed to see why you sees Smolin as exactly the other way round.
b) About the old einstein. I think what Smolin is trying to do is this: the old Einstein remains, at the core, much the same as the young Einstein, in the sense of his priority of what a true story about Nature should be like. It is exactly his indifference to mainstream views and his emphasis on logical structure and conceptual issues of physical theories that makes him the creator of relativity and the disfollower of QM.
Smolin is not encouraging young people to merely copy and imitate Einstein. I think he is just saying perhaps Einstein's judgement of the difficulties of QM is a REAL difficulty, and thus we should perhaps take his criticisms seriously, and not just ignoring them by simply viewing the 'old' Einstein as no longer spectacular. This is far from "reliance on authorities".
c) as for Einstein's view on QM, I don't think your criticisms are convincing. You criticised Smolin's emphasis on 'sociological' factors, but it seems that you're implicitly using these factors yourself when you says there's no universal and objective methods for science to progress. Smolin is perhaps vewing that Einstein has a deeper glimpse of the observer-independent reality and so we should take his views on QM more seriously. But you seems suggest that a person's view/meethod can success for some times and then failed afterwords. This to me shifts scientific progress more towards the sociological realm.

 

[Fra]

What do you mean by "blind chickens"?

As originally noted by Marcus:

http://gesalerico.ft.uam.es/strings07/index.html

LOL. I almost fell off my chair reading this.

(I don't get around to read every thread, but today I was browsing some old threads, and I have to say some are very entertaining )

/Fredrik