Europe's most influential string theorist has an overview piece in Nature

[arivero]

I wonder why I never heard that pun until now about S-matrix being Chewish physics,

The pun is told by David Gross, who once was told "you don't look Chewish" or something so. http://impunv.blogspot.com/ also uses the word, as in "are you a member of the Chewish religion".

 

[marcus]

Aaarghh!
(what else can I say?)

 

[arivero]

Aaarghh!

Of course string theory has nothing to with science, nor is it meant to. It is purely a religion (and like a religion ignores what experiment --- reality --- requires). Replacing science by religion is not unusual in physics. A half century ago, for example, there was much excitement about ideas extended from dispersion relations, involving smoothness of surfaces. Its center was at Berkeley and its leader was Geoffrey Chew. There was so much excitement that people at Berkeley asked each other "are you a member of the Chewish religion?". That idea had no real rationale and was wrong but was not crackpot.

This is the parragraph by R. Mirman, in the aforementioned blog. The other reference, the one of Gross, is older, told in a paper titled "Nuclear Democracy". This paper also tells that Chew method, back in Berkeley, was to run simultaneusly a a good quantity of student research, grouped around another of these "secret seminars" where seniors are discouraged. This has as result that a lot of people got involved on Chew's quest; I think that even one or two of the PF regulars.