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to keep track of the response to Peter Woit's book here is a review by John Horgan, a well-known science writer, in the August 2006 issue of
PROSPECT magazine. Horgan's review is titles "Stringing us along":
====quote====
Stringing us along
The tide seems to be turning against string theory and its speculative attempts to produce a "theory of everything." Not a moment too soon
John Horgan
John Horgan is director of the Centre for Science Writings at Stevens Institute of Technology, New Jersey
Not Even Wrong by Peter Woit
Jonathan Cape, £18.99
"String theory is still promising," I once heard the physicist and Nobel laureate Frank Wilczek quip, "and promising, and promising." String theory is a so-called unified theory, which attempts to wrap quantum mechanics and relativity into one tidy mathematical explanation of all nature's forces, and it has been promising for more than 20 years now without delivering.
Depending on which variant you prefer, string theory holds that reality is woven out of infinitesimal strings, or loops, or membranes vibrating in a hyperspace of ten, or 11, or whatever dimensions. Advocates—I will call them "pluckers"—claim that string theory represents a "theory of everything" that will answer the most profound of all questions: how did the universe come to be? And why did it take this particular form rather than some other form that would not have permitted our existence?
In his 1988 blockbuster A Brief History of Time, Stephen Hawking nominated string theory as the best candidate for a solution to the riddle of the cosmos. Since then, proponents have continued...
====endquote====
the Prospect Magazine link is:
http://www.prospect-magazine.co.uk/article_details.php?id=7585
other links and review material are here:
https://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=122442
thanks to Peter Woit for pointing out this review
I highlighted Horgan's word advocates to clarify something in a later post.
PROSPECT magazine. Horgan's review is titles "Stringing us along":
====quote====
Stringing us along
The tide seems to be turning against string theory and its speculative attempts to produce a "theory of everything." Not a moment too soon
John Horgan
John Horgan is director of the Centre for Science Writings at Stevens Institute of Technology, New Jersey
Not Even Wrong by Peter Woit
Jonathan Cape, £18.99
"String theory is still promising," I once heard the physicist and Nobel laureate Frank Wilczek quip, "and promising, and promising." String theory is a so-called unified theory, which attempts to wrap quantum mechanics and relativity into one tidy mathematical explanation of all nature's forces, and it has been promising for more than 20 years now without delivering.
Depending on which variant you prefer, string theory holds that reality is woven out of infinitesimal strings, or loops, or membranes vibrating in a hyperspace of ten, or 11, or whatever dimensions. Advocates—I will call them "pluckers"—claim that string theory represents a "theory of everything" that will answer the most profound of all questions: how did the universe come to be? And why did it take this particular form rather than some other form that would not have permitted our existence?
In his 1988 blockbuster A Brief History of Time, Stephen Hawking nominated string theory as the best candidate for a solution to the riddle of the cosmos. Since then, proponents have continued...
====endquote====
the Prospect Magazine link is:
http://www.prospect-magazine.co.uk/article_details.php?id=7585
other links and review material are here:
https://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=122442
thanks to Peter Woit for pointing out this review
I highlighted Horgan's word advocates to clarify something in a later post.
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