Blog Wars: Woit and Smolin vs Motl

[ccdantas]

(...) the reason we attend lectures to take notes in college is because although we could just read a bunch of textbooks, it makes more sense to have an expert tell us what is important to know.

Hm. I wouldn't phrase it that way. I'd probably say that "it makes more sense to deeply think over about what an expert tell us what he thinks is important to know".

From my personal experience, blogs do amplify things.

But the debate around string theory is interesting for several reasons, which have been scrutinized over and over elsewhere.

One thing that I find obvious, but it is my personal view of course, is that the debate is not about winners and losers. It's mostly about a fight for limited resources, and how the scientific activity is conducted in our era.

Winners x losers is one strong paradigm of the american society, and I often find it funny from my latin american perspective. Yes, it can lead to useful achievements in some aspects, but not always. And I don't see scientists as winners or losers. Great scientists had their moments of discovery and failure.

As much as Nature "does not care" about the coordinate system one uses (so that the physical theory should be independent of any coordinate system), she "does not care" about such an anthropocentric view of "winners and losers". Just because most high energy physicists are working on string theory this does not mean they are "winners" in the correct path.

I think string theory is a high achievement in many senses and research in this area should continue to be promoted. But there is yet not a clear, undisputable argumentation that string theory is the right path. There could be elements of it in the right path. Or it could be wrong.

It seems highly strange to me that other approaches -- under the hypothesis that they are based on reasonable and testable assumptions -- should be considered as "loser approaches". This is not how scientific advancement should proceed. At least, not in my view. These other approaches -- again, as far as they offer interesting and reasonable material for investigation -- should be promoted as well. Why not?

This is quite obvious to me, but as I said, the problem is about resources and how science is practiced nowadays.

I run a blog during one year and I felt myself suddenly in the middle of war that made no sense to me and I got tired, bored, and lost sleep. Yes, blogs amplify things. And scientists should have a responsability for what they write in their blogs because at the same time that things can be entertaining (I confess that I laughed to myself many times around the blogosphere), others might turn out to be damaging to the laymen and interested readers, not to say to professional colleagues, who are often called crackpots. Just absurd.

Christine

 

[josh1]

Hm. I wouldn't phrase it that way. I'd probably say that "it makes more sense to deeply think over about what an expert tell us what he thinks is important to know".

Nobody is saying that you shouldn't consider carefully what you've learned. I'm just saying that if you're interested in learning about something, starting with the mainstream ideas makes more sense then beginning with ideas that are less conventional. My annoyance comes from some people who try to willfully mislead others about what are the mainstream ideas. LQG is not the mainstream, string theory is, so that’s where people should begin.

…the debate is…mostly about a fight for limited resources, and how the scientific activity is conducted in our era.

Whatever the debate is about, it takes place much more in the public then the professional arena and isn’t important because the kind of science we’re talking about has no practical implications for human beings. Again, other’s try to mislead here by arguing that scientists should base their decisions on what to study according to the sales of popular books on science.

…there is yet not a clear, undisputable argumentation that string theory is the right path. There could be elements of it in the right path. Or it could be wrong.

No argument there. But even if string theory is dead wrong, we should be honest about the fact that it is still the mainstream approach.

It seems highly strange to me that other approaches -- under the hypothesis that they are based on reasonable and testable assumptions -- should be considered as "loser approaches". This is not how scientific advancement should proceed. At least, not in my view. These other approaches -- again, as far as they offer interesting and reasonable material for investigation -- should be promoted as well. Why not?

Nobody is forbidding people from working on other approaches. But there are fundamental theoretical reasons why most physicists believe that the basic difficulties with these other approaches are insurmountable. As far as how science should advance, don’t worry about it. It will advance no matter what your views on the subject are.

…tired, bored, and lost sleep.

I never get bored.

 

[ccdantas]

As far as how science should advance, don’t worry about it. It will advance no matter what your views on the subject are.

Yes. Science advanced before me and will (probably) advance after me. I never claimed my views would have any role in the advancement of science. And, evidently, anyone who claims such a thing is a fool.

I never get bored.

You're lucky. I get bored with repetitiveness.

 

[Bohr_Wars]

There are so many areas of important scientific and medical research that barely get a mention in the popular press. So it's odd that physics at its most theoretical and obscure, ie string theory, has been able to capture the public's attention.

I was recently asked by someone who knows even less math than I do, "Are you for or against string theory?" That's fun, as though it makes a difference what one thinks one way or the other, as though we are qualified to make a judgement. String theory has become a topic of conversation, much like any mundane subject one might talk about.

Strings, and other competing theories and ideas, have worked their way into pop culture thanks to Brian Greence, Lee Smolin, Lisa Randall, Peter Woit, etc, not to mention the dreaded Motl blogs. I haven't a clue whether that's good, bad, or it doesn't matter a fig. But it's a remarkable achievement.

 

[marcus]

Marcus, I was reading Paul Davies the other day. He suggested there has been a big shift in recent years towards a public interest in scientific research. He dates it back to the publication of Stephen Hawking's first popular book. Until that time, intellectuals were considered to be people like film and literary critics, philosophers, theologians, social scientists. Scientists were thought of by the public as rather boring people who measured stuff, did a bit of estimating and forecasting. (Everyone knew that Einstein was something greater than that, but they didn't bother to read or understand his theories, or they were ill-equipped to understand relativity).

The old intellectuals were angered by the huge reception to Hawking's book. Suddenly a scientist was talking about big issues, the beginning of time, and making the subject sexy.

That's pretty much the picture today. I think we have stopped expecting philosophers and lit.critics to have exciting ideas, and we don't think they'll say anything surprising. The exciting stuff is happening in science: extra dimensions, strings, branes, loops, DSR, twistors.

Unfortunately, most of us have to play long and difficult games of catch-up to understand the math. We are utterly dependent on popularizations for forming our opinions. Add to that the internet, blogs, Physics Forums, etc, and so much more information is available and immediate.
...
...tells us the theory isn't that great, which causes more of a storm and more interest in science. Fascinating stuff, I think.

this post of B_W, #47, is still unreplied. it was nominally to me but I didn't have a ready answer. Anyone feel free to respond to the issues raised.

The root idea apparently comes from a book by Paul Davies (I haven't read).
B_W or anybody feel free to list some titles of Davies or cite chapter and verse. Copy and paste anything that gives a handson feel for what you are talking about.

I will try to paraphrase, or put in my own words. The following attempt to respond ot B_W post is based on my own guesswork vision.

 

[turbo]

As much as Nature "does not care" about the coordinate system one uses (so that the physical theory should be independent of any coordinate system), she "does not care" about such an anthropocentric view of "winners and losers". Just because most high energy physicists are working on string theory this does not mean they are "winners" in the correct path. Christine

This is an important concept IMO, that is often overlooked. The universe does what it does regardless of whether we are here or not, and just because we humans overlay coordinate systems on it in order to try to express what it does in mathematical terms, that should not imply that the coordinate system has some sort of independent reality or importance, apart from the theory that requires its implementation in order to be predictive.

Modern cosmology bothers me. The more convoluted a cosmological theory is, the more likely it is to be wrong because nature cannot follow a complex set of rules and remain so wonderfully consistent everywhere and everywhen we look. Chess has few rules, but it can be one of the most complex mind-bending games to play. Similarly, I believe that nature has very few rules and that the complexity we see around us is the result of the natural interplay of matter and energy within those simple rules. Some might consider this view philosophical in nature, but I believe that it is pragmatic and realistic.

 

[marcus]

here's my sort of paraphrase of post #47

human societies tend to canonize or sanctify some group of "guru" or "magus" or philosopher-priesthood who tell them stories which address their ultimate concerns like
why is there life?[/color]
and will there always be life?[/color]
and what is the sun?[/color]
and what are the stars there for?
and are giraffes and elephants for real?

and different elites can get into turf-wars where they elbow and crowd for centerstage and compete to see who tells the best stories.

the Peace of Galileo was negotiated in the 1600s and is based on Scientists not being aggressive so the Scientist elite can discover and tell each other marvelous stories that explain all sorts of things and have wonderful highly graphic imagery, but they restrain themselves from getting in the way when the Biblical folks are telling their stories (which are also very dramatic and beautiful).

The Church(es) had to settle for that because they were busy with the Reformation at the time (1618 Defenstration of Prague start of 30 years war, terrible awful fights betw. Prots and Caths). The religious authorities had their hands full with in-house conflict, so they settled for peaceful coexistence with Science. This became the customary mode of decorum, the entrenched standard attitude.

The Scientific method of Francis Bacon was also described in detail around the same time 1620. (title of 1620 book Novum Organum means "a new instrument", he was an elizabethan and contemp of shakesp).

OK so we have had about 400 years of a kind of CEASEFIRE where we make a point of NOT seeing who tells the best stories. and we do NOT try to upstage each other.

As I see it, what B_W tells us that Paul Davies says is that this sort of 400 year truce is BREAKING DOWN.
Also I see that Paul Davies is making money from this.
https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/...ks&field-author=Paul Davies&tag=pfamazon01-20
Cosmic Jackpot: Why Our Universe Is Just Right for Life by Paul Davies
Mind of God: The Scientific Basis for a Rational World by Paul Davies
The FIFTH MIRACLE: The Search for the Origin and Meaning of Life by Paul Davies
God and the New Physics by Paul Davies
The Last Three Minutes: Conjectures About the Ultimate Fate of the Universe by Paul Davies
The Ghost in the Atom: A Discussion of the Mysteries of Quantum Physics by Paul Davies and J. R. Brown
The Matter Myth: Dramatic Discoveries That Challenge Our Understanding of Physical Reality by Paul Davies and John Gribbin
Are We Alone?: Philosophical Implications of the Discover of Extraterrestrial Life by Paul Davies and P. C. W. Davies
Science and Ultimate Reality: Quantum Theory, Cosmology, and Complexity by John D. Barrow, Paul C. W. Davies, and Jr, Charles L. Harper

(one of the reasons it is breaking down is that prestige scientists can make money doing the story-teller act where they tell the populace about the big questions and the ultimate concerns---there is an economic motive)
I listed the titles of Davies books just to show you. But Hawking would also be an example.

And if you haven't visited the webpage of FQXi FOUNDATIONAL QUESTIONS INSTITUTE funded by TEMPLETON FOUNDATION, it would be instructive. People suspect that some Templeton billions are aimed at crashing down the neat, carefully maintained pickett fences between various science disciplines and
\mathfrak{religion}

 

[pelastration]

String theory has become a topic of conversation, much like any mundane subject one might talk about.

Strings, and other competing theories and ideas, have worked their way into pop culture thanks to Brian Greene, Lee Smolin, Lisa Randall, Peter Woit, etc, not to mention the dreaded Motl blogs. I haven't a clue whether that's good, bad, or it doesn't matter a fig. But it's a remarkable achievement.

BW,

Maybe it's very good marketing. Look how much is published. Every string expert published at least one book, to become mainstream popular, gain status and make extra money. Brian Greene had his own TV show. Interviews. It's big business; yes maybe playing on the human need to have some (religious) security, or at least the feeling to understand. And people who say that their theory was found by chance ... 50 years in advance ... aren’t they self-promoting their genius status? Whaw that must be a very, very smart guy thinking 50 years ahead! That deserves a Hollywood movie. Where is the contract?

 

[Bohr_Wars]

Marcus,
I've found the Paul Davies' quote. It's in his book, "About Time", p184. Davies writes about the response to Hawking's "A Brief History of Time":
"Especially outraged by Hawking and his daring ideas were the British chattering classes. By tradition, British intellectual life is dominated by the arts-and-literary fraternity... Indeed, scientists are rarely even afforded the status of 'intellectuals'. Science, to the extent that it is considered at all by British opinion-formers, is regarded as at best a necessary evil required to propel money-spinning technology, and at worst a technocratic conspiracy... The chorus of anger that rose in response to Hawking's book took the form of public denunctiation by self-righteous politicians and journalists... The feeble argument was trotted out that that any important truth ought to be transparent to all thinking people".

Davies is a physicist and prolific author.

 

[josh1]

...it's odd that physics at its most theoretical and obscure, ie string theory, has been able to capture the public's attention.

Is it odd? After all, it's human nature to wonder about the nature of reality and existence. So to the extent that the public understands that fundamental physical theories like string theory - which in particular they learn is a candidate theory of everything - are supposed to be sciences way of giving meaning to such things, they'll be interested.

 

[Bohr_Wars]

Josh,
The way you put it, no it's not odd at all. As you say, the theory/theories with claims to be the TOE are going to be of interest because they'll provide the foundation on which everything else is built. How much we understand of those theories is another matter.

 

[Careful]

This is an important concept IMO, that is often overlooked. The universe does what it does regardless of whether we are here or not, and just because we humans overlay coordinate systems on it in order to try to express what it does in mathematical terms, that should not imply that the coordinate system has some sort of independent reality or importance, apart from the theory that requires its implementation in order to be predictive.

You have to be very careful here : (a) when we do observations, we always endow coordinates with a *physical* meaning, that is we image our x,y,z axis to be *straight* lines with respect to an imaginary Minkowskian geometry, we can also put a priori restrictions upon the conformal factor (e.g. put it = 1 in these coordinates) of the ``real geometry'' for example ...
(b) Of course, the relational laws expressing our *observations* should be the same no matter which coordinate system has been chosen (but this invariance does not need to be *manifestly* present). However this does not preclude one from considering one coordinate system more real than another one (and rebuild the theory from there).

The whole ``quarrel'' is about wheter general covariance is something trivial or whether it is not : it goes between a worldpicture of spacetime atoms carrying non local relations amongst themselves and a picture of atoms traveling on a continuous background geometry. The thing is that the only more or less rigorous *classical* proposal for space time atoms that I am aware of and which recovers GR (at low energies) in a convincing way comes out of condensed matter physics (which uses a background).

 

[Chronos]

Long as it works, any coordinate system is fine. If they can't be interchanged, the problem is with the coordinate system, not physical reality.

 

[Careful]

Long as it works, any coordinate system is fine. If they can't be interchanged, the problem is with the coordinate system, not physical reality.

The point is that any theory can be made manifestly covariant, manifest covariance simply requires extra ``gauge degrees of freedom'' which results into constraints and into people wondering whether it is impossible to give an objective status to the evolution of the universe and whether the theory only allows for expressing relations between partial observables. On the other hand, the funny thing is that LQG as it stands now, does not even make proper work of the spacelike diffeomorphisms : although one does not meet the difficulty here that the constraints only generate diffeomorphisms on shell (such as is the case for the H constraint) and therefore diffeo invariance can be implemented at the kinematical level, one still needs implement the constraint itself (which is impossible since the action of the diffeo group is discontinuous).

 

[ccdantas]

The point is that any theory can be made manifestly covariant, manifest covariance simply requires extra ``gauge degrees of freedom'' (...)

Dear Careful,

I have read recently this paper by Weinstein

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

What do you think of his interpretation? He makes an interesting point, but it seems like there could be some contra-argumentation. I`m not sure. I appreciate any inputs.

(Perhaps we should start a new thread on this?)


Christine

 

[Careful]

Dear Careful,

I have read recently this paper by Weinstein

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

What do you think of his interpretation? He makes an interesting point, but it seems like there could be some contra-argumentation. I`m not sure. I appreciate any inputs.

(Perhaps we should start a new thread on this?)


Christine

Dear Christine,

I just gave one brief look so I might be wrong here : but I suppose the main criticism will be that gravity is not a gauge theory in the sense of what we usually mean with this (defined through fibre bundles). If I am correct, you should know that I agree here (all strict gauge theoretical attempts require the introduction of torsion - arriving therefore at Einstein Cartan theory which is not a bad thing btw), that is why I put ``gauge degrees of freedom'' between brakets. If you want to know what I actually was talking about, you might want to study the paper of Doran, Gull and Lasenby : ``Gravity, gauge theories and geometric algebra'' gr-qc/0405033.

 

[ccdantas]

If you want to know what I actually was talking about, you might want to study the paper of Doran, Gull and Lasenby : ``Gravity, gauge theories and geometric algebra'' gr-qc/0405033.

Thanks for the reference, I'll read it.


Christine

 

[George Jones]

Dear Careful,

I have read recently this paper by Weinstein

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

What do you think of his interpretation? He makes an interesting point, but it seems like there could be some contra-argumentation. I`m not sure. I appreciate any inputs.

(Perhaps we should start a new thread on this?)


Christine

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

 

[Careful]

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

Indeed, in the Doran, Gull and Lasenby paper, there is a clear separation between the usual local rotation symmetry and the nonlocal ``translation symmetry''. However, there is a large number of other benefits to it which are not mentioned in the post you refer to.

 

[john baez]

One thing that I find obvious, but it is my personal view of course, is that the debate is not about winners and losers. It's mostly about a fight for limited resources, and how the scientific activity is conducted in our era.

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.

I ran a blog during one year and I felt myself suddenly in the middle of war that made no sense to me and I got tired, bored, and lost sleep. Yes, blogs amplify things.

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.

 

[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

 

[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.

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.