Should top Universities engage in nonstring QG research

[kodama]

many of the top universities like Princeton, Harvard, MIT, Stanford have a string theory research group and only string theory for QG. in light of non-susy @ lhc, no proton decay, no dark matter discovered no extra dimensions,

is it now time for top universities like Princeton, Harvard, MIT, Stanford have a string theory research group to also sponsor a non-string QG research such as LQG, LQC, AS, NCG, twistor CDT?

QG remains an outstanding unsolved problem in physics, and nonstring QG faculty, research, grad students is absent at these top schools.

Penn state university is famous for having Abhay Ahsketar and a LQG/LQC faculty, grad students, they hand out phD's in LQG.

AFAIK, Penn state is the only university in the US that has this. there is one-two LQG Pullin is at LSU and John Baez is at SoCal. Princeton is famous for having Witten and several other string theorists on faculty, and they award phD's and grad students in string theory.

Should Harvard, Princeton, Stanford, MIT, Berkley, Carnegie Mellon, which all have string theory researchers, also have a LQG/AS faculty analogous to Penn state?

LHC found NO evidence of SUSY or extra dimensions so it seems it's time for top physics departments to fund nonstring QG research to be fully supported.

does it make sense for the top universities that have string theory research groups to continue to sponsor string theory and only string theory to the exclusion of alternatives QG like LQG, AS, which do not require SUSY or extra dimensions, when the LHC has found no evidence for SUSY, Dark matter, or extra dimensions?

not finding any hints of susy @ lhc after 36 fb-1 means it is unlikely LHC will find susy

china has expressed interest in building a 100km 100 tev collider $20 billion with timeline of 2040-50
and it may not find susy either

should string theory and only string theory be the primary QG research by top universities physics departments all to 2050 and beyond, even if a 100tev collider finds no evidence of susy, extra dimensions or dark matter or any hints of BSM?

sabine hossfelder bee was asked this and she said no, top physics research centers should not sponsor LQG/LQC research. i don't understand why it is a problem for princeton, harvard, stanford rutgers to have a LQG/LQC research group similar to penn state, or perhaps penn state's LQG should be shut down and abhay ashketar fired from his job and replaced with lubos motl.

 

[Haelfix]

What sort of answer do you wish to hear? People have answered you several times but it appears you don't like the responses.

At the end of the day the type of researchers a university hires is typically made at the highest levels and are done by search committees that are aiming to achieve specific criteria that are established in advance. It's important to note these criteria differ between institutions quite dramatically depending on whom they already have on staff, funding and expectations for the future.

A smaller university that feels it can't compete with a large, well funded institution like Harvard might opt to achieve a monopoly in a far less mainstream and riskier research direction (like LQG) with potentially large payoffs. Yet other universities will try to go for a bit of everything.

In any event, this doesn't answer the 'should we' question which is another matter, and gets into the very old, thoroughly well documented strings vs lqg war that you can find discussed in the blogosphere elsewhere. Nothing has really changed one way or the other so everything that was said before continues to apply.

 

[Demystifier]

If you want to study LQG, or collide particles, or explore non-oil energy, leave USA and go to Europe.

 

[kodama]

At the end of the day the type of researchers a university hires is typically made at the highest levels and are done by search committees that are aiming to achieve specific criteria that are established in advance. It's important to note these criteria differ between institutions quite dramatically depending on whom they already have on staff, funding and expectations for the future.

Nothing has really changed one way or the other so everything that was said before continues to apply.

thanks I've always wondered about how universities decide this

in light of recent LHC results of 36 fb-1@13tev of no SUSY + no proton decay + extra dimensions + no dark matter detected, doesn't that constitute a change?

should this specific criteria change in light of new experimental null results?

Since Harvard, Princeton, Stanford, Berkley MIT Rutgers Carnegie Mellon Univ of Chicago selection criteria is to have a world class physics department, with world class physics research, and to be a leader in physics, to be at the cutting edge of physics, including quantum gravity

they all have string theory research group, why not, at this time, in light of recent null results for SUSY, also add LQG, asymptotic safe gravity, emergent gravity etc

these top universities all offer both undergraduate and graduate level courses in string theroy to undergraduates and graduates
should these top universities also offer LQG/LQC, asymptotic safe gravity, emergent gravity etc for undergraduates?

 

[mitchell porter]

In the history of research on gravity, you have work on classical topics like black holes and gravitational waves. Then perhaps the two pivotal concepts in the beginning of quantum gravity, are Feynman's treatment of the metric as just another quantum field - giving you the graviton; and Wheeler's wavefunction of the universe, leading e.g. to Hawking's quantum cosmology.

There is "nonstring QG research" which is continuing these older lines of research. For example, Andrew Strominger hasn't done any string research for about a decade, that I can see. It's all been symmetries of black holes and "soft graviton theorems". Or another current topic, which falls in the category of gravity as just another quantum field, would be "double copy relations" between gauge theory amplitudes and graviton amplitudes. The study of gravity as a quantum field is a living topic with applications (see John Donoghue), and that is technically "nonstring QG research".

However, I think it's true that one can draw a rough dividing line between nonstring QG research which is string-compatible, and that which is not. The "classic" topics that I mentioned, and their contemporary continuations, are string-compatible because they are based on general relativity, and general relativity is the field-theoretic limit of stringy gravity.

A lot of what you are calling for (though maybe not all of it) seems to be in the category of "not compatible with strings". For example, if you want to treat Feynman's field-theoretic quantum gravity as the final theory, you appear to have a problem of predictivity - infinitely many parameters (different couplings for arbitrary numbers of gravitons meeting at a point). String theory solves that by replacing particles with strings and Feynman diagrams with string diagrams, in which only one coupling constant is needed. Asymptotic safety wants to solve the problem by demonstrating the existence of a finite-dimensional attractor in the "running" (RG flow) of those infinitely many parameters.

There are other field theories of gravity, apart from general relativity, which seem to be string-compatible. Conformal gravity is one (but not all work on conformal gravity is string-compatible, e.g. Phillip Mannheim). I am not sure about topologically massive gravity, but I see very mainstream theorists working on it, so I think it must be. On the other hand - again judging just by who does the research - I think unimodular gravity might be "not string-compatible".

Verlinde's emergent gravity is a borderline case; it was inspired by string theory, but it doesn't seem to be compatible with string theory any more, but it hasn't reached its final form yet. Twistors are a special case, basically an unusual approach to quantum field theory including quantum gravity, that ended up being highly string-compatible in certain forms. Noncommutative geometry is a similar story, there are parts of NCG that are within string theory and parts that are not.

To understand the appeal of string theory you also have to remember that it's not just a theory of gravity, it's also a theory of everything else. It was particle physicists using quantum field theory who decided that grand unification and supersymmetry are probably true, and those things are also found in string theory. But string theory is obliging in this regard, and if particle physicists do abandon those topics, the string phenomenologists will be able to follow suit.

So if you want a nonstringy quantum gravity to be part of a total theory, it has to be coupled to other quantum fields. And of course many of the other QG research programs investigate this: NCG, asymptotic safety. One thing that string theory can do in principle, that is not so easy for a field theory, is to explain the values of coupling constants (e.g. as deriving from the volumes of branes) and particle masses (e.g. as deriving from surface areas of string interaction vertices). In a field theory, if those quantities are not to be arbitrary, you need other mechanisms like RG fixed points (as with Higgs mass from asymptotic safety) or perhaps discrete symmetries (see the study of neutrino "textures").

 

[kodama]

there are Loop quantum gravity papers on ads/cft
Loop Quantum Cosmology makes some empirical contact with inflation.

AFAIK, physics prodigy Jacob Barnett is at PI studying Loop quantum gravity under Lee Smolin.

regardless of whether Loop quantum gravity is "not compatible with strings" is there a good reason for Princeton not offer Jacob Barnett an academic research position in Loop quantum gravity provided Barnett produces quality LQG research? as well as undergraduates interested in LQG

to put it another way, by definition of a top physics university research department, whose mission is cutting edge physics in QG, who have string theory researchers like Princeton, Stanford, Harvard, MIT, shouldn't they have Loop quantum gravity researchers on faculty?

some teenage physics prodigies like Jacob Barnett are interested in QG specifically LQG. shouldn't top physics universities offer courses in LQG for those students interested?

 

[Ddddx]

What research is done by physicists is up to the physicists themselves, based on their own judgment. You should be aware that people at places like Harvard, Princeton etc don't consider LQG to be "cutting edge physics in QG", so they are unlikely to hire colleagues who work in that area.

Finding supersymmetry at the LHC was never a necessity in string theory, so it doesn't change anything.

 

[kodama]

What research is done by physicists is up to the physicists themselves, based on their own judgment. You should be aware that people at places like Harvard, Princeton etc don't consider LQG to be "cutting edge physics in QG", so they are unlikely to hire colleagues who work in that area.

Finding supersymmetry at the LHC was never a necessity in string theory, so it doesn't change anything.

this could be an error in judgment. if SUSY doesn't explain the naturalness problem, it is no longer well motivated. SUSY may not be a fundamental symmetry in nature nor GUT nor extra dimensions.

Should places like Harvard, Princeton hire colleagues who based on their own judgment want to research LQG, whose graduate thesis and dissertation work was based on LQG, and meet acceptable qualifications?

 

[Vanadium 50]

People have answered you several times but it appears you don't like the responses.

This is true.

Finding supersymmetry at the LHC was never a necessity in string theory, so it doesn't change anything.

This is also true. But see above.

some teenage physics prodigies like Jacob Barnett are interested in QG specifically LQG. shouldn't top physics universities offer courses in LQG for those students interested?

The idea that universities should make multiple 30-year appointments to accommodate "teenage physics prodigies" is ... well, there are so many possible adjectives it's hard to pick just one. Let's just go with "unrealistic".

 

[kodama]

The idea that universities should make multiple 30-year appointments to accommodate "teenage physics prodigies" is ... well, there are so many possible adjectives it's hard to pick just one. Let's just go with "unrealistic".

would you feel differently if Jacob Barnett was studying string theory at Princeton under Witten, and seeking an academic position?

 

[Vanadium 50]

If Jacob Barnett wanted to study LQG, I would expect him to go somewhere that had a good LQG program. I would not expect some other university to set one up just for him.

 

[kodama]

If Jacob Barnett wanted to study LQG, I would expect him to go somewhere that had a good LQG program. I would not expect some other university to set one up just for him.

I never suggested some other university to set one up just for him

this is Jacob Barnett's bio

Jacob Barnett is an 18-year-old theoretical physicist at Perimeter Institute. His research areas are loop quantum gravity and quantum foundations. He boasts an IQ of 170, that is believed to be higher than Albert Einstein.

his phD advisor is Lee Smolin

would you have any problems with him seeking a full faculty research position at a top physics department like Princeton, Harvard, Stanford MIT?

 

[Vanadium 50]

I have no idea what you are talking about if you're not talking about opening faculty positions for non-string QG research in a thread titled "Should top Universities engage in nonstring QG research"

 

[kodama]

I have no idea what you are talking about if you're not talking about opening faculty positions for non-string QG research in a thread titled "Should top Universities engage in nonstring QG research"

I do think top universities should open faculty positions for non-string QG researchers, but not specifically teenage prodigies like Jacob Barnett which is what you seem to imply when you said

The idea that universities should make multiple 30-year appointments to accommodate "teenage physics prodigies" is ... well, there are so many possible adjectives it's hard to pick just one. Let's just go with "unrealistic".

Jacob Barnett is just an example of someone earning a phD in LQG, non-string QG.not to specifically accommodate a teenage prodigy for multiple 30 year appointments but simply bc he is qualified and nonstring QG is worthwhile research that a top university physics department should research in.

 

[PIgradstudent]

I hate to crush your dreams, but Jacob is just a teenager. He's nowhere near the level of other grad students at PI, and there are rumors he might not even pass his PhD. Comparing him to professional physicists is beyond ridiculous.

Of course, it's already a great achievement from him and his parents that he was admitted at university at such a young age, so I don't mean disrespect. I just wanted to clarify this point, since you seem to have a distorted view on things.

 

[kodama]

I hate to crush your dreams, but Jacob is just a teenager. He's nowhere near the level of other grad students at PI, and there are rumors he might not even pass his PhD. Comparing him to professional physicists is beyond ridiculous.

Of course, it's already a great achievement from him and his parents that he was admitted at university at such a young age, so I don't mean disrespect. I just wanted to clarify this point, since you seem to have a distorted view on things.

i'm just going by what the news media says

Jacob Barnett,12, with higher IQ than Einstein develops his own theory ...
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/.../Jacob-Barnett-12-higher-IQ-Einstein-develops-theory-relativi...
Mar 24, 2011 - Jacob Barnett has an IQ of 170 - higher the Albert Einstein - and is now so far advanced in his Indiana university studies that professors are ...

5 kids smarter than Albert Einstein - The Week
theweek.com/articles/471294/5-kids-smarter-than-Albert-einstein
Oct 17, 2012 - While Albert Einstein reportedly had an IQ of 160, a 6-year-old Ohioan ... At age 2, Jacob Barnett was diagnosed with a mild form of Asperger's.

what is his phd thesis on? i understand he is doing LQG under lee smolin

do the other grad students at PI have IQ even higher than 175?

what are the career prospects for those grad students at PI working on LQG?

 

[PAllen]

i'm just going by what the news media says

Jacob Barnett,12, with higher IQ than Einstein develops his own theory ...
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/.../Jacob-Barnett-12-higher-IQ-Einstein-develops-theory-relativi ...
Mar 24, 2011 - Jacob Barnett has an IQ of 170 - higher the Albert Einstein - and is now so far advanced in his Indiana university studies that professors are ...

5 kids smarter than Albert Einstein - The Week
theweek.com/articles/471294/5-kids-smarter-than-Albert-einstein
Oct 17, 2012 - While Albert Einstein reportedly had an IQ of 160, a 6-year-old Ohioan ... At age 2, Jacob Barnett was diagnosed with a mild form of Asperger's.

what is his phd thesis on? i understand he is doing LQG under lee smolin

do the other grad students at PI have IQ even higher than 175?

what are the career prospects for those grad students at PI working on LQG?

Do you really believe historical IQ estimates are meaningful, and that IQ correlates with physics genius? I find both propositions utterly absurd.

 

[kodama]

I use Jacob Barnett as an example of a grad student at PI who is researching LQG under Smolin.

there are physics majors who have inquired about doing a phD in LQG, and are often advised to go into string theory instead, since the academic positions are for string theorists.

given that LHC has found no evidence of SUSY and extra dimensions, i think the situation should change.

What are the job prospects of a grad student in LQG?

i.e

Advice for preparing to do a thesis on Loop Quantum Gravity (self.Physics)

Hey there, so I'm finishing my third year of my physics undergrad now and I know a fair amount of General Relativity and am currently taking a particle physics class and a graduate quantum field theory class.

...

"Advice for preparing to do a thesis on Loop Quantum Gravity"

Do not do a (PhD) thesis on loop quantum gravity.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Physics/comments/2xin4w/advice_for_preparing_to_do_a_thesis_on_loop/

 

[Denis]

If you want to study LQG, or collide particles, or explore non-oil energy, leave USA and go to Europe.

If you want to develop some new ideas in fundamental physics, start some other job to make money for survival, and do fundamental physics in your free time.

To do some other physics would be a nice idea, but only if this "other physics" job would be a permanent one which does not require "publish or perish", but can be done in 8 hours per day, so that there is free time for fundamental physics.

 

[kodama]

do physicists take research papers written by non-faculty seriously?

similarly, if the top physics departments at princeton harvard mit stanford establish a nonstring QG in AS/LQG research group with tenured faculty, would their LQG/AS papers be taken more seriously?

 

[atyy]

do physicists take research papers written by non-faculty seriously?

similarly, if the top physics departments at princeton harvard mit stanford establish a nonstring QG in AS/LQG research group with tenured faculty, would their LQG/AS papers be taken more seriously?

You already don't take their lack of AS/LQG papers seriously.

 

[kodama]

You already don't take their lack of AS/LQG papers seriously.

what do u mean?

 

[Denis]

If some physics department would like to reach something in fundamental physics, which is a completely speculative domain, they should completely change their way of hiring people. They should offer from the start low paid but permanent positions, without any "publish or perish" pressure. That means, those who don't publish remain low paid but do not lose their jobs. Job security gives them the independence they need to develop new, alternative approaches from zero. Scientists who have to care about their job after the end of the next grant will never develop new physics. All they can do is to develop established physics.

And therefore the next revolution in physics will come from some patent office or so, where somebody with job security can do what he likes without necessity to care about the next grant.

 

[Fra]

the next revolution in physics will come from some patent office or so, where somebody with job security can do what he likes without necessity to care about the next grant.

The tragedy here would be if novel ideas become patended and protected algorithms :(

But that is a possible outcome especially if first found by some poor researcher that had to struggle without funds, then its only fair that he turna it into a patent he can sell for a fortune.

There are connections with ai reasearch and the information perspective of fundamental physics so once we understand unification as interacting info processing agents, there is no doubt that it will be of much larger utility than satisfaction of a academical physicists. Areas that also has a lot more money than physics world.

I think its already quite late to face that the solution to unification requires a new way of looking at the issuea. I rather find it amazing what takes people so long to see the flaws in the traditional paradigm. I think we need to get some philosophers back onboard.

/Fredrik

 

[Denis]

I rather find it amazing what takes people so long to see the flaws in the traditional paradigm.

Everybody knows and understands, say, the flaws of string theory, after the books of Woit and Smolin. This is not the problem. The problem is that this paradigm still controls grants and jobs.

I think we need to get some philosophers back onboard.

Tell this the moderation team. I they catch somebody who philosophizes, they will ban him.

 

[weirdoguy]

Tell this the moderation team. I they catch somebody who philosophizes, they will ban him.

Philosophy is not physics and most of the philosophers don't know much about physics, especially the most modern part of it.

BTW, at Warsaw Univeristy we have groups that work on LQG, string theory, teleparalell gravity, and some other stuff. So I guess we're lucky here

 

[Fra]

This is not the problem. The problem is that this paradigm still controls grants and jobs.

1) Ok part of point taken :)

My guess is that we need to wait a generation to get decisionmakers get replaced.

I think ppl that start study today will have a different bias when they grow decisionmakers.2) But i did not just have strings in mind!

My comment was not just a string complaint.

LQG is just as stuck in old paradigms as ST, they are just sticking to different parts of it. Which is "better" i don't know as both have its bright spots.

3) which philosophers i didnt mean literally speaking it was just a metaphor that science undoubtedly rests on a philosophy of a scientific method. And must do so. But fundamental physics and unification is quite different from other natural science.

The problem we face here with observer dependence vs objectivity and the process by which law is discovered and HOW law rules can't be treated unless we are allowed to at least take some scary words in our mouth.

My point was that ST vs LQG isn't the question anymore to me. That horse i beaten enough by now and the question is much bigger. That not to say they arent both interesting.

/Fredrik

 

[kodama]

Everybody knows and understands, say, the flaws of string theory, after the books of Woit and Smolin. This is not the problem. The problem is that this paradigm still controls grants and jobs.

that the concern i have and why i started this thread.

the LHC showed weak scale supersymmetry does not exist, so any hope of connecting string theory to experiment is dashed.

quantum gravity is physics most important unsolved problem.

princeton harvard stanford mit have the world's top physics department
yet not a single nonstring QG researcher in say LQG

Jacob Barnett a child prodigy hailed as the next Einstein wants to be a faculty at a top physics department like Princeton
but his research interests is LQG.

any reason a top physics department shouldn't hire a physicists whose research interests is in QG specifically LQG?

 

[kodama]

Philosophy is not physics and most of the philosophers don't know much about physics, especially the most modern part of it.

BTW, at Warsaw Univeristy we have groups that work on LQG, string theory, teleparalell gravity, and some other stuff. So I guess we're lucky here

bascially that's my position on the top physics departments here in the USA like Princeton stanford harvard mit

 

[Denis]

My comment was not just a string complaint.

Yes, strings are simply the most obvious example, the greatest hype with the most obvious failure. I see the main problem in the extremal job uncertainty for scientists. Almost everybody has a more safe job than a scientist, almost nobody has to look for a new job regularly after two years or so when the grant ends, with the risk of the end of the carer as a scientist if he does not find another grant. Such extremal job uncertainty is the opposite of what one would need for an independence of science.

You want judges who get a grant for two years, and have a hope for a continuation only if they win in a "punish or perish" competition? I'm not. I prefer judges which are really independent. And the way to reach this is to give them a safe job.

 

[kodama]

doesn't tenure address this?

 

[Fra]

I see the main problem in the extremal job uncertainty for scientists. Almost everybody has a more safe job than a scientist, almost nobody has to look for a new job regularly after two years or so when the grant ends, with the risk of the end of the carer as a scientist if he does not find another grant. Such extremal job uncertainty is the opposite of what one would need for an independence of science.

Agreed. Which is why i didnt go this route myself.

My conclusion was that the only way i can keep and defend my own research "independent" was to not mix up my intellectual quest with the practical problem of making a living.

But even so nature limits the extent to which they can ever be truly independent of course, just to avoid illusions!

However ppl have different mindsets and current system likely recruit those which don't insist too strongly on following their own belief.

You want judges who get a grant for two years, and have a hope for a continuation only if they win in a "punish or perish" competition? I'm not. I prefer judges which are really independent. And the way to reach this is to give them a safe job.

What does "truly independent" actually mean?

Resources are bounded so even tenure deployments needs a risk analysis otherwise we should all get tenures. So academia as part of society can never be truly independent. So i argue that the dependence is not a pathology.

/Fredrik

 

[Denis]

But even so nature limits the extent to which they can ever be truly independent of course, just to avoid illusions!

Of course. Independence in fundamental physics is, given the actual situation, restricted to one-person groups without experimental support. But fundamental physics is the domain where experiments do no longer matter anyway. And to create a new direction, one person may be sufficient.

Resources are bounded so even tenure deployments needs a risk analysis otherwise we should all get tenures. So academia as part of society can never be truly independent.

"All get tenures" was the Soviet system. And even if they got almost every wrong in their economy, they were very good in fundamental sciences. So, it worked, and was not even risky. The payment can be low, this is not what scientists care about if they can do what they like.

 

[Fra]

The payment can be low, this is not what scientists care about if they can do what they like.

Yes agree. A passionate scientist value intellectual freedom and growth more than material growth and can thus trade a lower income for freedom.

But i think some kind of quality control is still needed as society face a lot of challenges in which the endavors of those seeking a GUT seem like a luxury problem. And the majority of society most probably does not grasp the potential future benefits of this. And unfortunately we are all in the hands of these people.

Another reason i did not go the mainstream way was that i concluded that i would have to spend significant time in research political battles - also something that does not attract me.

/Fredrik

 

[Denis]

But i think some kind of quality control is still needed as society face a lot of challenges in which the endavors of those seeking a GUT seem like a luxury problem.

This control is easily done over the number of physics students, and evaluation of their knowledge via graduation. In the university, competition among the students may be heavy. If society does not need that many physicists, no problem, don't pay that much for physics departments of the universities.

It may be as well made by payment. Those who work in applied physics, doing things for industry and so on, will get higher payments. High payments for theoreticians may be restricted to those really successful.