The only things that are well-defined are scattering amplitudes in flat 10-d space-time, for asymptotically small string coupling. For any kind of realistic background, where 6 dimensions have been compactified, or we live on a brane, etc., there is no well-defined theory. Since you don't have...
No, there are no predictions
Unlike "moveon" (whoever he/she is) I'm not deliberately confusing or ignoring anything, rather making accurate scientific statements, unlike the misleading hype you see here. As for my motivations, the main one has always been to try and do something to combat...
Hi marcus,
Thanks for noticing this. Believe it or not, this is the first I've heard about this. I knew that rights to the book had been sold to Dunod, but hadn't heard anything at all from them since they bought the rights. I thought part of the deal was that I was supposed to be allowed to...
As for the claims from "Josh" that Lubos Motl is a great source to learn from, people might want to look into Lubos's posting earlier today claiming that the results announced by Miniboone confirm those of LSND. Most string theorists find Lubos to be a huge embarassment to their field, at more...
I just voted for "3", but this is kind of unfair since the year is almost over, and I think I've figured out how to fairly accurately use SPIRES to count citations by year. Just click on the link that gives the list of papers that cite the given paper, then add "and date 2006" to the search...
The subject of supersymmetry breaking is incredibly complicated and murky, but I think it's not quite right to say that the kind of KKLT mechanisms being used to justify the landscape also predict unbroken supersymmetry. KKLT involves things beyond purely perturbative string theory (e.g...
I know what the title of the paper says, my claim is that it is inaccurate and way overhyped, and I explain why in the posting. I've had a discussion involving e-mail from Distler and one of his co-authors. Distler just engaged in his usual melange of arrogance, sneering, refusal to address...
Marcus,
I only have written up notes for the representation theory course, and those are on-line. For differential geometry and QFT, I just have my hand-written notes to myself, which are kind of a mess. For differential geometry, pretty much everything I did is in one text or another...
selfAdjoint,
Sorry, but I am employed by the math department at Columbia, not by an administrative department at Columbia. I've explained this repeatedly elsewhere, but here's the exact situation:
I am a full-time faculty member at Columbia with the title of "Lecturer in Discipline". This is...
Unfortunately that's not the case. Although I think it would be a great idea if publishers sent me review copies of new books, that hasn't been happening. Here's my secret: at the Strand bookstore here in New York, they have on sale review copies they got from people who did get them, and...
Hi Marcus,
I don't think the trackback ever showed up on the list of trackbacks for that paper, presumably because it was rejected by the moderator, which is what I meant by "censored".
When I publish a new posting using wordpress, supposedly it sends out trackbacks to any of the sites...
A bit more about the book: I was trying to write something that both a general audience interested in math and physics as well as professional mathematicians and physicists would be able to get something out of. There aren't really any equations, but some of the sections are rather technical...
Hi Marcus,
Fun for the whole family!
I'm guessing 5-6 papers from 2001-2005 with >100 citations, and I'll even tell you which ones they'll be, roughly in order. I voted already and put 5 in my vote, but had forgotten about one. But leave my vote at 5, I think the last two on this list...
One. At this point the situation with M-theory is that one doesn't know what it is and whether it exists, but if it exists at all it is completely unpredictive. The last remaining hope, that somehow one could get predictions by a statistical analysis of the landscape, had just collapsed. All...