Blog Wars: Woit and Smolin vs Motl

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In summary: You`re wrong about lubos and woit. Lubos uses genuine physical arguments to back up his views. Even if some of these don`t hold up to closer scrutiny - though by and large they do - at least you can point to these arguments and say this is where I disagree with you: Motl`s blog is for physicists, not laymen or dilettantes. By the way, the physics community does agree with motl`s point of view, they just don`t say anything about it because they view it as a waste of time. Woit on the other hand does not offer these sorts of detailed arguments. His comments are simply shallow, manipulative and dishonest rhetoric designed to appeal to people who
  • #1
Bohr_Wars
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I am one of those laymen who wish to go beyond the popularizations of Greene, Randall, Smolin and others. I thought it might be worthwhile to follow the blogs of scientists/researchers such as Peter Woit, Lubos Motl, etc.

Unfortunately, those blogs are little more than mud-slinging contests between string theorists and their critics. Motl's blog in particular is a harsh rant against anything and anyone who dares question string theory. Smolin, among others, is called an idiot, imbecile and crackpot.

Woit's blog is better. He doesn't resort to personal attacks.

I wish these folks, Motl in particular, understood they have a huge audience of interested readers, folks who don't know the ins and outs of all the math. It's dismaying when you find out that Harvard profs such as Motl are no better than fundamentalist preachers, who go on the rampage against anyone questioning "The Truth" as they see it.

Thank goodness for Physics Forums.
 
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  • #2
Welcome B.W.,
Bohr_Wars said:
...
Woit's blog is better. He doesn't resort to personal attacks.

Yes, it is a real difference between the blogs. And it makes an appreciable difference in quality.
Another thing is that over the past 3 years some string folks such as Urs Schreiber and Aaron Bergman have been frequent commentors at Woit's blog. John Baez and Lee Smolin have also dropped in there now and then.

Opposing views are not suppressed. Peter is patient, even with obviously hostile individuals.
This let's a mix of people with various viewpoints participate without too much quarreling.

Thank goodness for Physics Forums.

We have lively (sometimes heated) discussion here but I do think that personal attack is normally discouraged. It isn't very effective anyway.
 
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  • #3
Bohr_Wars said:
I am one of those laymen who wish to go beyond the popularizations of Greene, Randall, Smolin and others. I thought it might be worthwhile to follow the blogs of scientists/researchers such as Peter Woit, Lubos Motl, etc.

Unfortunately, those blogs are little more than mud-slinging contests between string theorists and their critics. Motl's blog in particular is a harsh rant against anything and anyone who dares question string theory. Smolin, among others, is called an idiot, imbecile and crackpot.

Woit's blog is better. He doesn't resort to personal attacks.

I wish these folks, Motl in particular, understood they have a huge audience of interested readers, folks who don't know the ins and outs of all the math. It's dismaying when you find out that Harvard profs such as Motl are no better than fundamentalist preachers, who go on the rampage against anyone questioning "The Truth" as they see it.

Thank goodness for Physics Forums.

"Thank goodness for Physics Forums"? All I see here is a rant by you that has nothing whatsoever to do with the subject of this forum. Your no better than Woit.
 
  • #4
I don't see that this is a rant. It's a comment. I tried to find the best place for the comment, which has to do with research beyond the standard model. But perhaps I found the wrong place. Yes, you are right -- as a mathematician and physicist I am a lot worse than Woit, Motl, Randall. Smolin, Rovelli, any of those people, which is why I read their books and blogs. My point is that Motl, and some of the others, are shooting themselves in the foot by ranting and belittling, rather than talking things through amicably.
 
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  • #5
We live in a chaotic universe. No need to go into attack mode here. Who cares if they set logic traps for each other. Lubos has been shooting himself in the foot for years with his condescending remarks about everything and everyone who questions his world views.
 
  • #6
Chronos said:
We live in a chaotic universe. No need to go into attack mode here. Who cares if they set logic traps for each other. Lubos has been shooting himself in the foot for years with his condescending remarks about everything and everyone who questions his world views.

You`re wrong about lubos and woit. Lubos uses genuine physical arguments to back up his views. Even if some of these don`t hold up to closer scrutiny - though by and large they do - at least you can point to these arguments and say this is where I disagree with you: Motl`s blog is for physicists, not laymen or dilettantes. By the way, the physics community does agree with motl`s point of view, they just don`t say anything about it because they view it as a waste of time. Woit on the other hand does not offer these sorts of detailed arguments. His comments are simply shallow, manipulative and dishonest rhetoric designed to appeal to people who simply don`t know enough to see the difference: He and smolin lost their battle in the arena of science a long time ago, so now they`re trying to win it in the court of meaningless public opinion. I`m so sick and tired of these know-nothings coming here and creating more opportunities for the idiots here to engage in exchanges that have nothing whatsoever to do with what`s actually going on in twenty-first century physics. One simply can`t learn from polemicists like smolin or woit why it is that an overwhelming majority of physicists continue to have so much confidence in string theory and virtually none in lqg.
 
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  • #7
josh1 said:
You`re wrong about lubos...rant rant rant ST is most popular and everbody else is stupid rant rant rant...

it is this sort of reaction that reveals the most about the state of Theoretical Physics right now- I have mentioned before how ironic it is that Lubos' Asperger-esque rants have turned more blog-reading physics students from String Theory than Smolin/Woit books ever could!

a side comment: the truth is that neither ST nor LQG could be described as dominating theoretical physics right now- it's the "Third Road" that has been exponentiating in research/funding and technology- Quantum Computation Cosmology/ Information Theory/ Causal Sets/ Black Hole Thermodynamics/ etc- both Strings and LQG offer insights to this- but are taking a second seat as computer technology exponentiates allowing us to see how simple rule systems like cellular automata can emerge all the complex dynamics we observe- and that 'quantum gravity' should really be understood as the complex pattern of interactions that simple algorithms generate and evolve when ran- and so QG cannot be a fundamental TOE- but rather an abstract model of an emergent structure produced by a simple rule-system- in quantum computing we are seeing that ideas like Quantum Gravity are actually abstractions of the probabilistically distributed sum-over-histories of many rule-systems in superposition [Hawking's BHIP stuff deals with this] so the very concept of any TOE at this level is probably wrong-headed

computer science/ sets/ formal systems are taking over where theoretical physics has been sort of stagnating-simply because we have the technology to run ever more complex toy universes on computers [with total physical equivalence between simulations and the 'real' world projected by most computer scientists within only decades http://www.idsia.ch/~juergen/computeruniverse.html ]- this is the concept behind what Wolfram calls "A New kind of Science" that started with Turing/ Von Neumann/ Zuse/Feynman but is now exploding due to the exponentiation of computing technology- so it hardly matters if physicists are still clinging to String Theory or if they turn to LQG- at the end of the day it is computer scientists and mathematicians who are advancing the actual WORK now-

most classical and quantum computer scientists expect to see something like Strings [or spinfoams] emerge from cellular automata at the proper scales- however it is not the abstract statistical models of the output of the CA that corresponds to our universe which will be printed as a TOE on t-shirts- but the CA's description ITSELF
 
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  • #8
With all respect, Josh, you are missing the point. Also, you are not the board's policeman telling us what we can and cannot talk about. If you find my posts tiresome, ignore them, don't waste your time responding. Who are you to call anyone an idiot?

What makes you think I come down on one or other side? I am interested in where physics is headed. For you it is headed in one direction: string theory. Believe that if you must.

By the way, Motl's blog is about physics some of the time. He also wastes a lot of space and energy ranting about politics, global warming, etc, subjects about which he obviously knows nothing.
 
  • #9
Bohr_Wars said:
I am interested in where physics is headed.

So you`ve been wondering where physics is headed. Good. My question to you is how should someone who is not a physicist with specialized knowledge answer this question?
 
  • #10
I don't find that a very interesting question. If someone wishes to answer it, feel free.
 
  • #11
Bohr_Wars said:
I don't find that a very interesting question. If someone wishes to answer it, feel free.

Okay, I`ll take you up on that by answering instead the question how should one not find out where physics is headed. The answer is that one should learn about the various research programs from the people that actually pursue them rather than hate them. This sort of physics is quite hard and takes a lot of time and energy to learn about. If 99% of the people in quantum gravity and high energy theory work on string theory, wouldn`t you agree that this should be an important consideration in deciding what you should learn about? Would you really want to devote equal time to something like lqg which is only a popular subject on blogs and websites like this one? Do you really believe that string people believe what they do because they have a bad attitude? I know that you think your position to treat lqg and strings equally is reasonable, but it really isn`t. If it was, it would be reflected in the work of researchers. After you understand what goes on in the mainstream, you`ll be in a better position to assess other ideas. I will tell you that my efforts to change the opinions of people who show up here with your attitude have by and large failed. I'm guessing that this will be the case with you. I guess I'm not much of a politician.
 
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  • #12
Hi Bohr-Wars

Given the current climate in physics, I believe your posts are far from 'off-topic'. The reason such heated debates exist is really very simple: they are all wrong. You should spend some time famaliarising yourself with the condensed matter point of view, which is closer to the heretical Third Road.
 
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  • #13
Kea said:
Hi Bohr-Wars...your posts are far from 'off-topic'.

None of his posts in this thread are off-topic since he initiated the thread.

Kea said:
The reason such heated debates exist is really very simple: they are all wrong.

I'm unsure what you meant by this.
 
  • #14
Bohr_Wars said:
Thank goodness for Physics Forums.

So, have we changed your mind yet? :smile:
 
  • #15
josh1 said:
I'm unsure what you meant by this.

With the word wrong, I only include the physics of conventional string theory, LQG and other mainstream approaches. I do not include various categorification programs, condensed matter ideas, foundational QM ideas or some recent work in spin foams.
 
  • #16
josh1 said:
You`re wrong about lubos and woit. Lubos uses genuine physical arguments to back up his views. Even if some of these don`t hold up to closer scrutiny - though by and large they do - at least you can point to these arguments and say this is where I disagree with you: Motl`s blog is for physicists, not laymen or dilettantes. By the way, the physics community does agree with motl`s point of view, they just don`t say anything about it because they view it as a waste of time. Woit on the other hand does not offer these sorts of detailed arguments. His comments are simply shallow, manipulative and dishonest rhetoric designed to appeal to people who simply don`t know enough to see the difference: He and smolin lost their battle in the arena of science a long time ago, so now they`re trying to win it in the court of meaningless public opinion. I`m so sick and tired of these know-nothings coming here and creating more opportunities for the idiots here to engage in exchanges that have nothing whatsoever to do with what`s actually going on in twenty-first century physics. One simply can`t learn from polemicists like smolin or woit why it is that an overwhelming majority of physicists continue to have so much confidence in string theory and virtually none in lqg.
Interesting. Like most resident idiots here, I find enlightenment a refreshing oasis in the sea of ignorance. Do you have specific claims in mind, or is this merely a soliphistic exercise?
 
  • #17
Josh, I am a newcomer here. You seemed to assume that I should know there were folks favorable to LQG here. I did not know that. As an outsider interested in physics I have no bias: I am not qualified to have a bias. I interest myself in current research, books, papers, and blogs.

I don't know what makes you think I hate any researcher or research program. I am as interested in String Theory as anything else. As a non-specialist I am dependent on folks such as Motl making the subject intelligible to me. I believe he does physics a disservice by ranting and spewing bile on research programs outside his own field.

Smolin and Woit are clearly not idiots. They might not be string theorists, and they might be wrong, but they are not fools. Seth Lloyd is no fool either. I follow all approaches with interest.
 
  • #18
The kid is funny. Maybe he should inform Nobel crackpots like

Sheldon “string theory has failed in its primary goal” Glashow - http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/elegant/view-glashow.html

Martinus “string theory is a figment of the theoretical mind” Veltman -

Phil “string theory a futile exercise as physics”Anderson
- http://www.edge.org/q2005/q05_10.html#andersonp

Bob “string theory a 50-year-old woman wearing way too much lipstick” Laughlin - http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2005/03/14/MNGRMBOURE1.DTL

that they are idiots.
 
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  • #19
Thomas Larsson said:
The kid is funny. Maybe he should inform Nobel crackpots like

Sheldon “string theory has failed in its primary goal” Glashow - http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/elegant/view-glashow.html

Martinus “string theory is a figment of the theoretical mind” Veltman -

Phil “string theory a futile exercise as physics”Anderson
- http://www.edge.org/q2005/q05_10.html#andersonp

Bob “string theory a 50-year-old woman wearing way too much lipstick” Laughlin - http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2005/03/14/MNGRMBOURE1.DTL

that they are idiots.

Clearly these scientists aren`t idiots. By "idiots" I meant only certain members of PF, as a careful reading of my post should show. Duh!

Having said that, the overwhelming majority of their colleagues find the stridency in the attitudes of people like Glashow to be mystifying. After all, what do these critics expect us to do? Just give up on the only really good idea we have? Just forget about the fact that string theory appears to have all the ingredients one would expect in a theory uniting gravity with all other interactions? Their attitudes simply make no practical sense, and since they're all giants of the physics community, one wonders how much of their difficulties with string theory are just psychological. Perhaps they simply can`t adjust to the fact that, at least for the time being, this sort of research is going to be largely theoretical. It's not like people aren't trying to discover in what ways string theory might be testable. What more can we do right now? Not everyone can be an Einstein.

But even these scientists agree that string theory - such as it is - has no serious competitors. The message I'm trying to get across is simply this: First learn about what's going on in mainstream research, which at present is dominated by string theory. It simply makes no sense whatsoever for neophytes to start anywhere else.
 
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  • #20
josh1 said:
Clearly these scientists aren`t idiots. By "idiots" I meant only certain members of PF, as a careful reading of my post should show. Duh!
Having said that, the overwhelming majority of their colleagues find the stridency in the attitudes of people like Glashow to be mystifying. After all, what do these critics expect us to do? Just give up on the only really good idea we have?

Those of us who are spectators, and who can therefore make no contribution to the science, are dependent on the opinions of experts and popularizers. It would be stupid and pointless for someone like myself to suggest that one theory is correct and another false. For example, I read about Smolin's current interest in DSR. It seems serious and interesting. Then I read Motl's remarks about DSR, which suggest that the entire notion of DSR is based on crackpot misunderstandings about the speed of light. It's baffling.

I suppose I could play the numbers game and assume that because string theory has attracted most attention, money and scientists, it is more likely to be right than other theories. The problem with that, and contrary to what Motl says (perhaps tongue in cheek), is that I can't accept that Smolin, Rovelli, Markopoulou, etc, etc are cranks and crackpots. I don't think you get to be a physics prof at a reputable university/research institutue by being a clown/crank/idiot/crackpot. But I might be wrong.

In short, I follow the subject and debates with interest and bemusement. It beats watching American Idol.
 
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  • #21
josh1 said:
First learn about what's going on in mainstream research, which at present is dominated by string theory.


talking about IRONY! learning about what is going on is what YOU need to do Josh1- you aparently live in you own private 1995! String Theory still has some merit and I think will play an important role in modeling the statistical output of computer models of toy universes as they get exponentially more complex and accurate- but as I/Kea/ and others have tried to show you the specific field of quantum gravity is not where the progress is being made- QG is emerging naturally from more fundamental work in classical and quantum computation/sets/n-categories/ BH thermodynamics/ and especially meaningful to this forum: the latest LQG-ish work with Causal dynamical triangulation/ Noncommutative geometry/ toposes/ and the like
 
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  • #22
Bohr_Wars said:
Josh, I am a newcomer here. You seemed to assume that I should know there were folks favorable to LQG here. I did not know that. As an outsider interested in physics I have no bias: I am not qualified to have a bias. I interest myself in current research, books, papers, and blogs.

What if in some science versus religion forum I said to you that I'm neither religious nor scientifically minded and therefore have no bias about the issue of creation versus evolution? Would you encourage me to remain unbiased or tell me that my "diplomatic attitude" is actually unhelpful and that before anything else I need to learn why scientists believe so deeply in evolution?

Bohr_Wars said:
I don't know what makes you think I hate any researcher or research program.

This comment had nothing to do with you. My problem with you is the way you trade on your lack of bias as if this is a good thing. It’s not since it’s founded in ignorance.

For a neophyte such as yourself, the best place to start is with mainstream ideas and not the backwaters. Let me give you a warning about this forum. One of the main tricks people use here to convince guys like you that lqg is valid is to try to make it look as if lqg is more popular in the physics community than it actually is. They even start threads to report on how popular science books are selling as if that was relevant in some way. They know it's not relevant, but they seem to be quite free of the kind of conscience you seem to have, however misguided it is on these particular issues (…he said in his usually undiplomatic way).

Bohr_Wars said:
As a non-specialist I am dependent on folks such as Motl making the subject intelligible to me.

He's really the only blogger that gives so much insight into his field. His knowledge of string theory is encyclopedic. Just try to get woit to give a purely physics based and detailed response to any question about string theory. I've tried repeatedly, along with many other string theorists, and he has never even once met the challenge. He isn't interested in physics, he's interested in something else.

Bohr_Wars said:
I believe he does physics a disservice by ranting and spewing bile on research programs outside his own field.

However much vitriol he expresses them with, his opinions represent virtually to the letter the mainstream view, and this is really all that should matter. It's not like people are expecting you to marry the guy, right?

Bohr_Wars said:
Smolin and Woit are not...fools.

Recall my remark about how they lost their argument in the arena of science a long time ago and now they’re trying to win it in the court of public opinion. But the public are easily persuaded one way or the other since they don’t know any better and shouldn’t be expected to because of the very difficult and subtle nature of the subject. So I ask you, what kind of victory would it be for smolin and woit to “win” these people over? The answer is a pyrrhic one. It is in this sense that they are fools and why nobody in the mainstream wastes their time with them.

Bohr_Wars said:
Seth Lloyd is no fool either.

Where did I say that Seth Lloyd is a fool?
 
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  • #23
Josh, first of all Physics Forums is one place I visit and one of the many things I read. So I am not in danger of fishing in backwaters.

The comparison with religion v science is not quite the same because religion and theology's questions can be understood very quickly using the language we all use. It does not demand anything approaching mathematics, which is most definitely involved if one wishes to have more than a superficial understanding of physics.

I am not being diplomatic by refusing to choose sides. I'm honest. I am not qualified to make a decision. If I made a choice in favor of string theory or against it, it would be a meaningless act. Of course I understand that it is the theory with the strongest scientific support (in terms of profs, postdocs, grants, etc).

If I am also interested in finding out about LQG, twistors, or whatever, it is because I wish to broaden my knowledge. Again it is pointless for me to take a stand. This isn't a dogfight where my decision which dog to support is of interest or importance. I could say that based on what I have read so far, the people and money involved, the books published, there seems to be a majority in favor of string theory and it is therefore more likely to be closer to the TOE than any competing theory, but so what?

There are more books out there about string theory than anything else, so I have probably devoted more time to understanding string theory than other theories. I don't know why you think that my presence in this forum makes me a foot soldier for alternatives to string theory.
 
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  • #24
Bohr_Wars said:
The comparison with religion v science is not quite the same because religion and theology's questions can be understood very quickly using the language we all use. It does not demand anything approaching mathematics, which is most definitely involved if one wishes to have more than a superficial understanding of physics.

Have you ever heard the very useful expression "Don't listen to what I say, listen to what I mean"?

Bohr_Wars said:
Of course I understand that [string theory] is the theory with the strongest scientific support (in terms of profs, postdocs, grants, etc).

Great, since this is the case. But it's amazing how even people like you can very quickly begin agreeing with so many of the completely ludicrous remarks that are commonly made around here. My policy is that the kinder and more helpful a member may initially seem, the more they should be pressed on the details. Don't worry about politics, I don't, and everyone around here just loves me to bits. :rofl:
 
  • #25
setAI said:
talking about IRONY! learning about what is going on is what YOU need to do Josh1- you aparently live in you own private 1995! String Theory still has some merit and I think will play an important role in modeling the statistical output of computer models of toy universes as they get exponentially more complex and accurate- but as I/Kea/ and others have tried to show you the specific field of quantum gravity is not where the progress is being made- QG is emerging naturally from more fundamental work in classical and quantum computation/sets/n-categories/ BH thermodynamics/ and especially meaningful to this forum: the latest LQG-ish work with Causal dynamical triangulation/ Noncommutative geometry/ toposes/ and the like

This is complete BS. There's not a single result that has ever been generated by any of these backwater programs that can unambiguously be interpreted as representing a true advance in our understanding of quantum gravity or anything else related to the physical world. It's simply amazing to me how you people criticize such a deeply physical theory like string theory as being just a bunch of mathematics when your list of approaches above is about as purely mathematical as you can get. All of the truly powerful clues about quantum gravity, and in relation to it the other interactions above currently accessible energies, have come from string theory and black hole thermodynamics (for which string theory is the only theory to have produced the correct area-entropy relation).

But maybe I'm wrong. Maybe there is a watershed paper that I haven't heard about. Maybe such papers are published on a regular basis and for some unexplainable reason are missed by everyone else. If you know such a paper, please feel free to bring it to the attention of the rest of the physics community.
 
  • #26
josh1 said:
However much vitriol he expresses them with, his opinions represent virtually to the letter the mainstream view,

in 1995 perhaps- but now even Witten and Greene are publically questioning the end-game for ST- even though they are still cautiously optimistic


Recall my remark about how they lost their argument in the arena of science a long time ago and now they’re trying to win it in the court of public opinion. But the public are easily persuaded one way or the other since they don’t know any better and shouldn’t be expected to because of the very difficult and subtle nature of the subject. So I ask you, what kind of victory would it be for smolin and woit to “win” these people over? The answer is a phyrrhic one. It is in this sense that they are fools and why nobody in the mainstream wastes their time with them.


2 things-

first I'm calling you out on the first statement about how Smolin already "lost the argument in the arena of science" because you just outright lied- or are getting skewed information- the most recent debate of note reguarding Smolin and ST debates was the debacle with Susskind- Smolin published this on the arxiv: http://arxiv.org/abs/hep-th/0407213 then Susskind was supposed to respond- but his rebuttal was so full of unscientific ad hominem attacks that arxiv would not publish it! instead Smolin was gracious and they moved their debate to the Edge site http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/smolin_susskind04/smolin_susskind.html

so not only did Smolin NOT lose- but Susskind did not even provide a legitimate argument that could be published!

second point- Josh1 you keep spouting off your antiquated notions of what value "lay" opinions on blogs has- you clearly haven't been paying attention to the implications of how knowledge is changing because of the Internet- this is not the 20th century where only a handful of professional physicists have access to textbooks and papers or training in mathematics- now ANYONE can teach themselves from the bottom up- and access the latest research in real-time as it is published- a 21st century lay-person is a totally different thing than a 20th century one- you simply can no longer dismiss the lay public this way- papers even link to blog enteries now! look at the last Time "Person of the Year"- it is a different world now- the internet has started the liberation of Information with a big-"I"- and now people working in more fundamental and or more general fields like Mathematics/ Computer Science/ Philosophy / and other fields of physics are talking- and what they are finding is that the way theoretical physics has gone on for the last 30 years or so is not very good at all- hece the backlash- it's not something you can dismiss as noise from the mob

This is complete BS. There's not a single result that has ever been generated by any of these backwater programs that can unambiguously be interpreted as representing a true advance in our understanding of quantum gravity or anything else related to the physical world. But maybe I'm wrong. Maybe there is a watershed paper that I haven't heard about. Maybe such papers are published on a regular basis and for some unexplainable reason are missed by everyone else

you fail:

http://arxiv.org/abs/quant-ph/0501135

that is just one heavily cited and peer reviewed paper from the quantum computational cosmology approach- and yet by itself it essentially renders moot the very notion of quantum gravity- a statistical analysis of the output of a local system's rules is not a theory- the rule system ITSELF is the theory! in 15 years a teenager who doesn't know what they are even doing will be able to run a more accurate and predictive model of our universe on their PC than any physicist can today- just by imputing simple cellular automaton rules from a site like Mathworld-

and here is a link to one of the best funded research institutes in the world: the very un-stringy fq(x )http://www.fqxi.org/who.html

If you know such a paper, please feel free to bring it to the attention of the rest of the physics community.

it seems you are claiming to be a scientist yourself- if so it speaks volumes to your myopia- I on the other hand work as an academic and financial administrator for the University of California Regents for my boring day-job- the largest research institution in the world- so I am far more aware of what the physics community knows about than YOU- I deal with allocating funds to all our research efforts and those of our partners across the world- you can imagine how many scientists that entails- I deal mostly with my neuroscientists and stem-cell microbiologists- but I can say quite confidently that among the physicists and other professionals that I deal with the whole String debate is NOT as you describe- professional physicists are indeed firmly invested in Stringy physics- but the debate about it's ultimate value as a theory and alternative approaches like LQG are VERY much appreciated and discussed- and there is a sense of paradigm-shift in the air

BTW: in case you are interested- in some of my meetings at work our various research depts have a panel to talk to the regents / vice chancellors and administration about what they are doing and what books to read to get a sense of the big-picture for us going forward- occasionally we get some of our physicists from Lawrence Livermore/ Berkeley to come in- in recent months two suggested books were Smolin's and the last Penrose book- as well as Seth Lloyd's - just to give you a birds eye view of what physicists are thinking about right now


It's simply amazing to me how you people criticize such a deeply physical theory like string theory as being just a bunch of mathematics when your list of approaches above is about as purely mathematical as you can get.

-pay attention: you obviously are just in knee-jerk mode if you are trying to claim that I would call any mathematical structure 'just a bunch of mathematics'- I am for all sakes in purposes a mathematical Platonist and Pythagorean - and I certainly appreciate Strings more than most here [some of the BH entropy stuff works too well to be wrong]- I have already stated that it is pure mathematics and computation that is the future [the present really]- so this comment makes no sense- the universe IS 'as purely mathematical as you can get" [or rather computational or formal-] read Tegmark's new paper and catch up: http://arxiv.org/abs/0704.0646
 
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  • #27
setAI said:
-pay attention: you obviously are just in knee-jerk mode if you are trying to claim that I would call any mathematical structure 'just a bunch of mathematics'…

Sorry, I should’ve been more careful.

setAI said:
first I'm calling you out on the first statement…because you just outright lied- or are getting skewed information- the most recent debate of note reguarding Smolin and ST debates was the debacle with Susskind- Smolin published this on the arxiv: http://arxiv.org/abs/hep-th/0407213- [Broken] then Susskind was supposed to respond- but his rebuttal was so full of unscientific ad hominem attacks that arxiv would not publish it! instead Smolin was gracious and they moved their debate to the Edge site
http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/smolin_susskind04/smolin_susskind.html

so not only did Smolin NOT lose- but Susskind did not even provide a legitimate argument that could be published!

Firstly, I must tell you that I don't appreciate your intimations that I've somehow lied.

Scientists should be judged as scientists by their best work, and Susskind is a giant. I doubt that anything occurred in that debate that requires Susskind’s contributions or anything else of any significance be reassessed.

setAI said:
second point- Josh1 you keep spouting off your antiquated notions of what value "lay" opinions on blogs has- you clearly haven't been paying attention to the implications of how knowledge is changing because of the Internet- this is not the 20th century where only a handful of professional physicists have access to textbooks and papers or training in mathematics- now ANYONE can teach themselves from the bottom up- and access the latest research in real-time as it is published- a 21st century lay-person is a totally different thing than a 20th century one- you simply can no longer dismiss the lay public this way

What are you talking about? Where did I say that people can’t learn on their own? By “laymen” I mean people who don’t know what their talking about. But maybe you know of a different definition of the word?

setAI said:
in 1995 perhaps- but now even Witten and Greene are publically questioning the end-game for ST- even though they are still cautiously optimistic

I'm pretty sure motl wasn't on the scene in 1995, but "cautiously optimistic" does describe my own current feeling.

setAI said:
http://arxiv.org/abs/quant-ph/0501135

that is just one heavily cited and peer reviewed paper from the quantum computational cosmology approach

- and yet by itself it essentially renders moot the very notion of quantum gravity- a statistical analysis of the output of a local system's rules is not a theory- the rule system ITSELF is the theory!

Sounds like your pretty bullish on these ideas. Seth is a very smart guy. But what well-known open problems does this paper solve? These theories do not really posit new principles. Rather they’re a synthesis of familiar ideas. The history of physics has shown that these sorts of attacks are naïve and do not succeed. String theory on the other hand was not synthesized from familiar ideas. It was discovered by chance, and we’ve been trying to understand it ever since. There is nothing naïve or contrived about string theory. It is a true wonder.

setAI said:
… professional physicists are indeed firmly invested in Stringy physics

This is my basic point, so why are we arguing?

setAI said:
- but the debate about it's ultimate value as a theory and alternative approaches like LQG are VERY much appreciated and discussed-[/b]

At the end of the recent symposium on black holes and cosmology at the KITP to which both stringy and LQG people contributed, they compiled a list of the problems with string theory and LQG. The problems with LQG where listed as “the whole theory”.

setAI said:
BTW: in case you are interested- in some of my meetings at work our various research depts have a panel to talk to the regents / vice chancellors and administration about what they are doing and what books to read to get a sense of the big-picture for us going forward- occasionally we get some of our physicists from Lawrence Livermore/ Berkeley to come in- in recent months two suggested books were Smolin's and the last Penrose book- as well as Seth Lloyd's - just to give you a birds eye view of what physicists are thinking about right now

I do not recall saying anything about my research, but my focus is on the problem of understanding the gravitational physics of the vacuum. The main ideas can be understood without appealing to string theory, but an understanding of string theory is required to fully appreciate them.
 
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  • #28
Phew! I go for a walk, some sleep, some breakfast...and when I return...

Thanks, setAI. I think it's time these blind chickens woke up to what's happening around them.
 
  • #29
Kea said:
...I think it's time these blind chickens woke up to what's happening around them.

What do you mean by "blind chickens"?
 
  • #30
josh1 said:
What do you mean by "blind chickens"?

As originally noted by Marcus:

http://gesalerico.ft.uam.es/strings07/index.html [Broken]
 
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  • #31
A kinder, gentler universe is still on the menu, folks. Better to learn than lecture. I like Josh's brash enthusiasm, as well as SetAI's well grounded reality checks. Not many ST enthusiasts here to help josh out. I really liked ST back in the day, but it has disappointed me. I really liked DSR when it first emerged, but it too has had its share of disappointments. To be specific, quantized spacetime does not appear to work. Wavelength dependent diffraction patterns should appear in the spectrum of high redshift objects were that the case - they do not. I consider it one of the dirty little secrets embedded in the Planck satellite mission.
 
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  • #32
Chronos said:
I like Josh's brash enthusiasm

Very charitable. Thankyou very much.

Chronos said:
Not many ST enthusiasts here to help josh out

It’s this strangely topsy-turvey attitude at PF compared to that of the physics community towards string theory versus other ideas that I was trying to warn Bohr_Wars about.

Chronos said:
…quantized spacetime does not appear to work. Wavelength dependent diffraction patterns should appear in the spectrum of high redshift objects were that the case - they do not. I consider it one of the dirty little secrets embedded in the Planck satellite mission.

Really? I`m not aware of lqg having been ruled out on this basis.
 
  • #33
I stumbled into this forum, and Josh assumed I had purposefully made my way here to fly a few flags for LQG and "anti-string" theories. Not so. If nothing else, I have learned that this is a subject that arouses a lot of passion. It touches a nerve, suggesting, in years to come, that a lot of physicists will have been barking up the wrong tree. The debate itself is great entertainment.

I like this quote from Lawrence Krauss: "If string theory is the right direction, and I'm willing to argue that it might be, even if there's just no evidence that it is right now, then a new idea that tells us a fundamental principle for how to turn that formalism to a theory will give us a direction that will turn into something fruitful. Right now we're floundering. We're floundering, in a lot of different areas."

If he's floundering, then I have every right to be non-commital on the question of strings or not strings.
 
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  • #34
Bohr_Wars said:
…I have every right to be non-commital on the question of strings or not strings.

Don’t worry about this thread. The kind of heated exchanges in it are not typical of this forum, which is really meant to be recreational. Enjoy it.
 
  • #35
Chronos said:
To be specific, quantized spacetime does not appear to work. Wavelength dependent diffraction patterns should appear in the spectrum of high redshift objects were that the case - they do not. I consider it one of the dirty little secrets embedded in the Planck satellite mission.

That's quite interesting. Please, could you give any details or references (perhaps it would be appropriate to open a new thread)? I know about specially organised observations of high-redshift objects to detect quantum fluctuations of space. But you are talking about something different: an attempt to verify the quantized nature of spacetime, aren't you?
:confused:
 

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