Finally we get to some real substance in the program! (See earlier notes, and thoughts.) Jeff actually mentions all the effort going on string theory and experiments at Brookhaven, and asks that question I keep asking everyone… “why oh why is this never mentioned by the press in these discussions?” I’ve asked this of Peter Woit on his blog a lot too, for example, and have never got much of an answer. Peter and Lee want the world to believe -by reading their books- that the entire field of string theory is just people sitting around discussing the Anthropic Principle and lots of different universes, and blah blah blah… It serves the purpose of the books in question to completely distort the view of what is actually going on in the field. They claim that there is no experimental support (true) or hope for experimental support (how can they know that?) for string theory… but they ignore the fact -they intentionally don’t tell you, dear reader- about the interesting work going on by a huge percentage of the field to use string theory to study the structure of nuclear matter. It is still in its early stages, and may not work, but it is rather interesting. As Jeff put it, about the new form of matter that is constructed in these experiments, string theory is “the only approach that I know of” that currently seems to be able to explain the observed properties….
Lee, about the omission of this huge effort in string theory research from his book: “At least it is alluded to…”
That’s just lame.
He then proceeds to rather poorly attempt to claim that such contact with experiment (if this is indeed the case we don’t know for sure yet, I should say) is essentially beside the point. Nothing to do with whether string theory is a fundamental theory of Nature.
Sigh.
Dear reader, did you think I was exaggerating when I used the words “Storm in a Teacup”, “Self Interest”, and “Counter-Hype”?
-cvj
I ask in all sincerity as someone who is not even remotely near the field of string theory (or physics for that matter): Is there any experimental support for string theory and if not what is the potential?
No. We are still working on it. The theory is not well developed enough (as far as we know) to
yet make firm contact with Nature. There are remarkably exciting results (as I say in the post) in applying string theory ideas -the whole shebang of strings, branes, black holes, gravity, etc- to understandng the new forms of matter being discovered at Brookhaven. This may welll be a great way of testing the remarkably intricate structures that string theory puts together… and give us lots of clues about how to develop the theory better.
But it may all be a red herring. We shall see.
There may also be some clues (we hope) from the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN. Everrybody is excited about the prospects for new clues for strings and other theories from this machine. Then there are more satellites and ground based experiments to get more data about the parameters of the universe from the Cosmic Microwave Background. There’ll be exciting hints (we hope) from those…. and so on… Since we do not know how far we are from the story coming to fruition, or not, I cannot tell you what the prospects are.
But progress is continuing in the field of developing the theory further… the work continues.
-cvj
The atomic theory took about 2500 years in being verified. Therefore, ten or one hundred years are an insignificant lapse of time to find the truth
JoseIRS:- Yes, another excellent point…(JoseIRS is referring to my remarks about Lee’s “ten years” made here.)
-cvj
Clifford,
Let’s see if I can respond a bit to some of what you have to say here that directly refers to me. While I agree with Lee about some things, there are plenty of others that I see differently, so I don’t want to even try and defend whatever he was saying on this radio program (I haven’t even had time to listen to it, don’t know if I’ll find the time anytime soon).
About overhyped argumentation: I wrote an entire, rather dense, book precisely because I think this is a complicated enough subject that it requires a long argument to do it justice. If string theorists want to have a serious discussion with me about my point of view, it is laid out there very carefully, in a form I am willing to stand behind and defend, and I don’t think there is anything overhyped at all in it.
I’m not out there trying to generate media attention on this topic. An unexpectedly large amount of it has occurred, for various reasons, including the huge effort many string theorists have put into promoting to the widest possible public a highly overhyped description of some extremely speculative and not particularly successful scientific work. Lots of journalists have been contacting me and wanting to discuss this, with all of them I do the best I can to give them an accurate, unsensationalized, description of what I think about the science and about what is going on in this field. Often they don’t know much about the subject and need to produce something very short and simplified for their audience. Whatever I tell them generally gets truncated and simplified, with caveats and complexities removed. I’m generally not completely happy with the results, but I on the whole the journalists do a reasonably good job, considering the constraints they are operating under. In a few cases I’ve participated in unedited radio interviews. One of those (the BBC one), you link to with a comment about “poisoning the well for everyone”, when you yourself acknowledge after listening to it that I was being rather reasonable. What’s up with that???
String theorists would like to characterize the problem of the overhyping of string theory as something that occurred for a little while back in the mid-eighties. That’s just not the case, it is an on-going problem, with plenty of all-too-current examples. Besides the Susskind et. al. landscape business, exaggerated claims related to cosmic superstrings, and exaggerated claims about the use of string theory to predict what RHIC sees continue to be made regularly to the general public. This stuff is not intellectually honest.
As for the overall degree of intellectual honesty and willingness to debate scientific issues in a respectful and serious fashion, I’ll gladly defend my behavior and Lee’s against that of most of those members of the string theory community willing to publicly discuss these issues. While most string theorists behave reasonably, there are some who definitely don’t, and these often have a high public profile. The worst example of course is Lubos Motl, but he’s just an extreme version of what afflicts others. Remarkably, his colleagues at Harvard promoted him and so far have been willing to tolerate his behavior (although his recent public calls for my imminent death may change that situation).
I have answered before the substantive question you raise about what the difference is between the Landscape and the fact that there are an infinite number of QFTs, but I’ll try again here. The point is that theories are rarely simply falsifiable, since you can often fix them by complicating them. The hallmark of a bad theory is that you have to keep making it more complicated every time you learn how to calculate something in it. This is what is going on in “string phenomenology”, and the “anthropic landscape” philosophy is a bizarre attempt to claim that this is really all right. The reason quantum gauge theories are such successful science is that they can reproduce correctly a huge array of physical phenomena using a very rigid structure, one of the simplest theories in a general class. If one had to use very complicated gauge groups, fermion and scalar representations, and keep adding more complexity as experimentalists discovered new things, these theories would have the same problem as string theory. But they don’t.
I’ve discussed with you too many times your claims that I don’t give AdS/CFT enough credit. One more time. I actually spent a fair amount of time as a graduate student in the early 80s trying to learn about string theory approaches to solving QCD, and I definitely acknowledge that then and now finding a string theory dual is the most promising way of getting a more useful way to calculate things in strongly coupled gauge theories like QCD. The AdS/CFT idea of nearly 10 years ago is by far the most promising advance in this area, and it has rightly gotten a lot of attention. On the other hand, despite a huge amount of effort, it hasn’t achieved the goal of being something you can use to understand QCD, and the latest claims about its usefulness in heavy-ion physics are overhyped. People should be working on AdS/CFT, but they should also be working on other ideas about solving QCD. One thing they should not be doing is refusing to admit that idea of unifying gravity and the standard model in a 10 or 11d superstring/M-theory has failed and using it to promote support for their research when there is no evidence that this research has any prospects for getting around the reasons that idea has failed.
Hi Peter,
Again, you are characterizing all people who work on string theory the same way. We are individuals, not an army walking in lock-step. Some people may be overstating the promise of the stringy applications to QCD, others are not. I hope that my remarks in this post are not taken as hype. To downplay how interesting it is -and the fact that a large number of people are working on that and not the landscape and the anthropic principle- is not a fair representation of what is going on in the field. There is a great deal of diversity of effort in the field beyond that too…. they don’t seem to be ever mentioned in your public portrayal of the research going on in the field. Why is that, Peter? What about all the work on black hole physics… is that all worthless?
Now even if that was all compleltey disconnected, and separate work within string theory, it would still be remarkable that it is not commented on in the discusson of the worth of the string theory effort… but there is an additional feature…. it is all very well connnected together. So work on getting the physics of RHIC -real experiments- to fit into a stringy framework tests the entire framework since (as I hope you are aware) all that stuff that is being used in the quantitative aspects of the landscape studies and other aspects of phenomenology, and all the stuff that is being used to study the physics of black holes…etc… all of that shows up in the physics of String/RHIC studies too. Strings, branes, holography, AdS-like throats…. etc.
Should you not be encouraging us to use these possible experimental clues to sharpen our understanding of string theory more, instead of trying to make it seem irrelevant or less than significant? I thought that your goal in all of this was to advance physics? I am puzzled.
Are we trying to stop others -or our young people- from trying other approaches to understanding RHIC physics? I’m not aware of such an effort to do so.
I nowhere said that the hype about strings was confined to the 80s. You will recall that last year I coined the term “stringevangelist”, and used it quite a lot in a contemporary context.
Please keep your affair with Lubos out of our conversations and off this blog. He, his practices, and his manner are -not to put too fine a point on it- not to my tastes, and irrelevant to the substance of what we are discussing.
About poisoning the well. I was not referring to your fine BBC appearance. I was referring to the whole practice of having a tit-for-tat series of books and press appearances from one side or another of the hype camps out there confusing the general public by deceiving them into thinking that science is done in this way… In this, rather than (trying to) bring down the house of string theory, you and Lee are (trying to) bring down the house of theoretical physics (at least in this area of high energy physics). In this latter enterprise, I do hope that you will not succeed. If you want to write books and give public talks and radio appearances, write something positive about the work you are doing that is alternative to strings….. don’t just write negative and largely over-blown critical remarks. This does not help the cause of physics.
As to the other things you say again about the effort in string theory. You have no idea whether it is right or wrong, and you should not go about saying that it is wrong. you don’t know that. Neither do I. It is the subject of ongoing research. Nobody knows. Let us carry on wiht the research. If you want people to work on other ideas, please present those other ideas and convince your peers about the merits of those ideas, what promise you see for them, and people will work on them if they agree with you. This is the way science proceeds. People work on the best and most promising things they see. They don’t just stop working on a huge body of ideas, clear their desks, and then sit there hoping new ones will come to fill the void. It does not work that way. Sorry about that.
Cheers,
-cvj
Isn’t it true that string theory also inspired and helped the development of 2D field theories? Aren’t these theories relevant for describing some condensed matter systems? I have even seen applications of the stringy methods to biological membranes.
Clifford,
Sorry, but I do think that your comments on the relation of RHIC results to string theory are heavily overhyped. I really don’t have the time to enter into a long discussion about this here, there was a similar one on my blog a couple months ago.
I just don’t accept your notion that one can’t evaluate whether ideas can possibly work out or not until they are completely understood. One can properly evaluate the results of the last 22 years of attempts to connect string theory to the standard model and I claim that by an honest such evaluation the idea is a failure, with nothing but wishful thinking and recourse to pseudo-science left of it.
Your identification of the interests of string theorists with “the cause of physics” is just ridiculous. The overhyping, less than honest behavior, and willingness to engage in pseudo-science that has characterized too much of this field has done a lot damage to the credibility of the subject. You appear to be unwilling to criticize any of this in anything other than the mildest terms, while taking great exception to the fact that Lee and I are publicly raising theses issues. I’m not happy at all to have spent a lot of time on this. I really wish someone else had, and that I could have spent the time instead working on something more positive, instead of trying to stop the ongoing trashing by others of the subject that I care about. I don’t accept your argument that I should keep my mouth shut about what has been going on unless I have a convincing alternative to offer.
I think the current debate is a necessary one and that string theorists need to admit that the problems Lee and I have raised are real and and be willing to engage in serious discussion of them. It’s not just us, see the essay in the latest Physics Today by Burt Richter. Sean Carroll likes to claim that string theory deserves its dominant position because of its triumph in the “marketplace of ideas”. The situation in this marketplace has recently started to change dramatically, and what I am seeing from string theorists is much too little willingness to engage in serious debate, and much too much whining about how unfair the changed market conditions are.
Help me here then… which sentence of mine is an overstatement? Won’t take too much time out from your busy day to point it out. Please…. help the cause of anti-hype and show me. Is this really lack of time? Or lack of knowledge about the state of play in this area? It’s ok to admit to not knowing about develpments in an area…. I can comfortably list pages of topics I know nothing about… What I don’t do is publicly trash research effort on those topics on the list.
Wow. You really said that. Ok.
I made no such identification, as I’m sure you’re aware.
I did not say that you should keep your mouth shut, but I am happy to see that you seem to agree that you have no convincing alternative to offer. The current debate indeed has some interesting parts to it, amidst the noise and hype about claims that you and Lee know that string theory is wrong (how do you know that, guys, and if you are not saying that, then please explain the titles of your books and why you are letting the press run with that story?), but you don’t carry out such a debate constructively by having a public press-drive mud-slinging match. Please remember the points I made in an earlier post:
* Fighting fire with fire leads to everything burning.
-cvj
Clifford,
“Won’t take too much time out from your busy day to point it out. Please…. help the cause of anti-hype and show me. Is this really lack of time? Or lack of knowledge about the state of play in this area?”
Sorry, but for a lot of reasons (including dealing with the problem of a string theorist who wants me dead), I’ve been working 14 hour days and weekends, am behind on way too much and really don’t have time for this, as well as zero interest in trying to have a serious discussion with someone who ignores the legitimate things I have to say and engages in this kind of stupid sneering and ad hominem attack. It doesn’t help your cause one bit.
I just don’t accept your notion that one can’t evaluate whether ideas can possibly work out or not until they are completely understood.
Wow. You really said that. Ok.
Actually, I agree with Peter on this, but not in this context.
An idea does not have to be completely, perfectly understood for us to know that it’s perhaps not a good one, or for us to have excellent suspicions that it is a great one. It just has to be understood enough.
As a straw-man example, consider Intelligent Design. I’m not sure that anybody really fully unerstands ID; certainly the ID people are claiming that we should all be doing more research to flesh the idea out. However, as scientists, I think we’re all pretty comfortable realizing that ID is an idea that odesn’t have any scientific meat behind it.
String Theory is different. From the outside, it has been frusturating, because, yes, back in the 80’s, there was much string hype in the public suqare, and since the publication of The Elegant Universe there has been a lot of string hype in the public square yet again. But as scientists who aren’t string theorists, we see a theory that most of us can’t hope to really understand (y’all are smarter than us), and that admittedly does not have any testable predictions at the moment. That’s kinda frusturating.
BUT — from what I do know, I believe that Peter is wrong in suggesting that we understand enough about String Theory at this point to be able to put it in the “crap” bin with Intelligent Design. It wouldn’t have to be completely understood for us to be able to do that — but I don’t believe that as a field we understand it enough to be able to say that yet. Lee and Peter, obviously, would disagree, but enough other people whose judgement and intelligence seems to be sound still think there is something to string theory, so I think it’s worth continuing to pursue it to see if eventually something does come out of it.
And if something RHICish connects to string theory in a concrete, testable way, that would be really cool. ‘Cause I don’t think that anybody expected RHIC to do that. (Or did they? I don’t really know. I usually work at z
Rob,
My point -and you agree, essentially, from what you said later- is that the whole field is highly underdeveloped, and manifestly so. So how do they know that it is wrong? How can they be so sure? So sure as to resort to publicly claiming that it is a closed shop, a cult, a religion, etc? That’s indeed my main point.
Progress stilll continues ay quite a pace, and, as everyone keeps pointing out what are the alternative ideas we are supposed to be abandoning it for in order to work on?
Cheers,
-cvj
Graduate Student:- Thanks! Yes, there’s been an awful lot of valuable work on two dimensional field theory that tracked, benefitted from, and also fed back into string theory. I’m not aware of the biological membranes aspect. Feel free to give links/references.
Cheers,
-cvj
You might want to look at the papers of former string theorists, like Phil Nelson and Mark Goulian. In fact, I’d commend to you Phil’s biophysics textbook.
I wouldn’t go so far as to call any of these “applications of string theory,” only because I think the classical Nambu-Goto action (etc) is a relatively trivial part of the story we call string theory.
As to the RHIC results, I think that the attitude of the nuclear theorists speaks for itself. If one had to choose, say, between Shuryak’s and Woit’s assessment of the relevance and importance of the AdS/QGP results, one should probably take Shuryak a bit more seriously.
Unfortunately, actual expertise seems to count for very little these days.
Jacques: - Thanks!
-cvj
Peter:- It’s on record for everyone with an open mind to see:- In the time it took you to write the comment pointing out how busy you are -a comment that is almost 1/4 the length of the actual post that I wrote- you could have easily pointed out the sentence in my post that you consider to be an overstatement. That’s all I asked for… help in identifying what I said was hype.
It is this sort of inconsistency (to be polite about naming it) in your position and in Lee’s position that I’m trying to point out to the people who care to avoid the … hype… in your campaigns.
Cheers,
-cvj
Rob:- Yes, there was a big surprise. Nobody expected the shear viscocity to entropy ratio of the QGP to be so spectacularly low. Nowhere near where standard analyses would put it, as far as I understand.
Turning to the string theory constructions, whcih models the gauge theory using branes, higher dimensions, AdS black holes, and all that stuff that we are told by Peter and Lee is irrelevant, you see quite easily that the physics of the dual black holes that controls exactly the right regime in the gauge theory tells you that you should be counting on it being incredibly low… It is quite a robust result as far as we understand so far. And really really encouraging.
Cheers,
-cvj
“I’ve been working 14 hour days and weekends”
Yeah…so do a lot of us to! Peter, you and Lee make it seem like we just sit around working on this big ad campaign to sell string theory to the masses, or pressuring unsuspecting students into working on the latest fad and, well, this is just not true. Pretty much every string theorist I know would LOVE to be able to connect the theory with experiment but the truth is that we’re just not there yet. But most of us are trying really really hard. My intuition tells me that eventually, in some form or another, we will succeed…yours tells you that we will not. But that’s all it is. Intuition. You do not know for sure that string theory is wrong any more than I (or anyone else) know that it is correct. Lubos is an outlier.
“…as well as zero interest in trying to have a serious discussion with someone who ignores the legitimate things I have to say…”
but what would be the fun in a debate where the other side always agreed with you…
Jeff,
Nothing I have ever said or written anywhere corresponds to
“you and Lee make it seem like we just sit around working on this big ad campaign to sell string theory to the masses, or pressuring unsuspecting students into working on the latest fad”
I’m not telling you my “intuition” says you can’t connect the theory with experiment. There is a very long history now of people trying to do this, and there are well known obstructions. If you have a plausible idea about how one might get around them and are working on that I’d be interested to hear about it.
I’m quite happy to try and find time to engage in serious discussion with knowledgeable people who disagree with me about these issues. Whenever I ‘ve done that I’ve generally found that in the end we agree about much more than we disagree and it is often enlightening. I’m not interested though in wasting time by trying to have a discussion with people whose idea of a discussion is to sneer at or insult me, ignore whatever I write and instead make up straw man arguments I’ve never expressed.
Please list the well known obstructions for us. I don’t think I got the memo.
-cvj
Clifford,
I have a long experience with trying to have serious discussions with Jacques Distler, all of which were a complete waste of time since he ignored what I wrote, instead divided his time between insulting me as an incompetent and making up straw man arguments he could triumphantly defeat. I’m not surprised to see he’s back in action here in his usual mode. From your response to what I wrote you seem to be intent on behaving in the same way. At other points in life I had time to try and deal with this, right now I don’t.
Priceless.
Thanks Peter.
-cvj
When given the floor to point out examples of the hype that he accused me of, and when given the floor to tell us the “well known” obstructions to experimental verification that illustrate why he is so certain that string theory is wrong, Peter says he is busy.
Sad thing is, folks, you’ll never read about this in the press.
-cvj
Clifford,
“Priceless.
Thanks Peter”
If you ever decide to stop dealing with what I have to say with Distlerian sneering, and are instead willing to seriously engage in a mutually respectful discussion, let me know and I’ll try and find time to participate.
But Peter… you haven’t said anything…!
-cvj
Priceless.
Thanks Clifford.
Peter,
I just remembered… the last time I asked you -on your blog- to tell me the facts as you see them, you cited how busy you are. Don’t you think that this is a bit odd for someone who is so concerned about the health of the field, and the infection that is string theory? That when given the opportunity to enlighten us clearly about why he knows string theory is wrong, he declines to state his case ?
For those interested, I’ll point them to the comments Ii made on a post of yours on the 7th of July (here and here) where I tried to have a discussion… some others joined in too (people can read by scrolling in the neighbourhood of those comments)…. on the one hand you said (again) that you were busy and did not have time to respond, while also, you seemed remarkably preoccupied with making odd remarks about your commenters, and deferring comments on technical physics content to others to answer. You never told us the “well known” obstructions there either. I’d really love to know them.
You can’t hide behind a claim that I am “sneering”. It is not fooling anyone actually. I’ve asked you some pretty straight questions and given you some pretty straight responses in this thread… and you’ve backed away again when given the chance to tell us exactly where we are going wrong.
Cheers,
-cvj
Clifford,
You are being dishonest. If people follow the links you give, they’ll see that I began by politely apologizing for not having a lot of time because I had to get up early for a flight to LA for a short vacation the next morning. I went on to spend some time that evening trying to respond to what you had to say, writing two messages, the second of which I finished writing at 2:10am. I didn’t get much sleep that night, and also had to fit in trying to politely respond to you with dealing with some rather nasty personal attacks from multiple anonymous string theorists.
Sorry, but I’m still having trouble believing you actually are willing to engage in serious discussion. For one thing I just don’t believe that you think there aren’t well-known problems with trying to predict anything new about particle physics using string theory. Why do you think no one has been able to do this for 22 years? If you honestly believe there are no such problems, I’m willing to try and find time tomorrow to discuss this. If you know what they are and want to play a game with me, I’m not playing. If you feel that my responses to your questions on the evening of July 7th were insufficient, let me know what was not addressed and I’m willing to try again.
But not now, it’s Friday night and I’m leaving the office in one minute to spend some time engaging in non-professional activities.
Peter… sorry that your message got held up by the spam blocker. That happens sometimes.
How would I be being dishonest by pointing readers to answers that you gave if I wanted them to think that you’d not given answers? I’m puzzled by that logic. Your answers on July 7th were not very contentful answers in fact, which is why I pointed to them. They contain vague and often repeated statements about the landscape, and that’s it. I don’t understand how that even comes close to a proof that string theory cannot be conencted to Nature when we barely understand just a few scraps of the non-perturbative physics. Even if the landscape exists, we’ve discussed how to do physics within such a framework before, well over a year ago (read the comment thread in the link). There’s an infinite number of field theories, yet we make remarkable connection to Nature using them, in the form of the Standard Model of Particle physics…. etc, etc. What is your well-known evidence that we can’t do that with strings? I’d like to hear it.
I’ve re-read the 2:10am message, and the 8:48pm one on your non-data-based view of the sociology of the field, and I don’t see anything compelling there. Are those the “well known’ obstructions to making contact between nature and string theory that you’re talking about? Gosh. Later on in that thread, when just on the cusp of having to make an actual technical statement, you punt the questions.
Heh, I’m sorry to have to inform you of this Peter, but you’ve been engaging in non-professional activities for quite a bit now by deliberately distorting the public’s view of the field quite as much as you have.
Cheers,
-cvj
Clifford: You will recall that last year I coined the term “stringevangelistâ€, and used it quite a lot in a contemporary context.
I find it easier to discern who said what if you itaclized the quote you use of the other person.
Clifford your position came through then as well now, loud and clear as to the responsibility people should have with respect to any model and putting all our eggs in one basket. As a lay person this warning was listened too.
I have been watching string theory for a few years now as a lay person and it is really serious that such a junction has been reached, that what is in essence crucial to developing perspective and means to see the deeper working of RHIC , would have been lost on the views of those who were not doing the research and homework to understand the nature of the particles and the value of the blackhole in this research.
Dismayed that they could have cast off strominger’s work without commenting on it specifically.
This is a conversation that must continue and one that Peter must respond too as you are asking. If he made as much time as he does on his own blog “promoting” then such a conversation here would be speaking directly to the demands of the scientist who is currently engaged. As lay people, watching a process that works.
Shall we return to the Solvay of 1927 methods, thought experiments presented for consideration?
Clifford,
Sorry, but after having an evening to think about it, it’s obvious that trying to seriously discuss any of these issues with you is just a complete waste of time, and your last message confirms this. You continually accuse me of not addressing issues, but whenever I do, you completely ignore what I have to say. The answer to your latest complaint that I don’t address the difference between the Landscape and QFT is in my first comment on this thread, which as far as I can tell you never bothered to read. You certainly did not respond in any way to the argument that I made there.
The behavior of you, Jacques, Lubos, Susskind, anonymous referees, “Hmm”s, “Michael”s and others in response to criticisms of string theory is a large part of the reason that your physics colleagues, journalists and the general public have now become skeptical of what has been going on in this field. The fact that you refuse to discuss the behavior of Lubos and the fact that his string theory colleagues tolerate and even encourage him, and your reaction to his calls for my death as “not to your taste” is just disgraceful. Your problem is not me, Lee, or the publicists at Houghton-Mifflin and Basic Books, it is yourselves.
More on name. Hopefully this example is up to par. Notice question at bottom of this post. Sound familiar?
Scientists May Soon Have Evidence for Exotic Predictions of String Theory issued by Northeaster University
“
”
Here above is an example of what the modelling approach does and let’s see if it was warrented to take a stance on critizing “the use of” in the way it was for any future students?
Tell me, that without comprehension of RHIC and deductive methods to this research, that any attempts at future perspective would gone on without “high energy” recognition?
Do microstate blackholes exist or not? In theory. In concept, or as an idea?
For those of you too busy to keep up with this exciting intellectual debate, here’s the recap:
PW: String theory is wrong for reasons I have explained in great detail somewhere! Why will no one discuss this with me?
CVJ: OK, where did you explain in great detail?
PW: You know where! Stop being exasperating!
CVJ: Huh? Seriously, can you link to something?
PW: There you go again, with the ad hominem attacks and the evasive arguments! When will it end? See how I am mistreated?
CVJ: This is nonsense.
PW: See? Ad hominem attack! I told you! You string theorists are abusive! Whereas my rational arguments are so well-known I don’t even have to explain them.
CVJ: ??????
Of course, Peter is telling only part of the story here. In fact the scientific conspiracy is far vaster! I have made the remarkable discovery that in Newtonian mechanics there is an infinite Landscape of possible worlds! This means that, despite hundreds of years of cover-ups and indoctrination, Newtonian mechanics is fundamentally unpredictive, even in principle! Take the facile argument of the groupthink-blinded Newtonian mechanic: that he can drop an apple from his balcony and predict how it will hit the ground. This is a lie! Why, in most of the worlds allowed by Newtonian mechanics, that apple might not even exist!
“..but they ignore the fact -they intentionally don’t tell you, dear reader- about the interesting work going on by a huge percentage of the field to use string theory to study the structure of nuclear matter.”
I haven’t yet read the books, but I had thought the objections raised by Smolin and
Woit were to the use of string theory as a “Theory of Everything”, in particular
something that encompasses the Standard Model and General Relativity. Maybe
string theory belongs in the math department, or in the nuclear physics department.
I thought the question was whether it belongs in the particle physics department.
The claim of “intentionally don’t tell you” is a serious one, IMO, and needs an
answer.
I also think “huge percentage of the field” in the quote above is hype.
I could try to do a count of authors in arxiv.org to establish this one way or the
other.
Lastly, I do think that if one can remain silent about Motl, one may as well
extend that silence to Woit and Smolin as well.
Re: Lubos Motl, he’s an embarassment for all physicists, the way he carries on, not just for string theorists.
He’s also an embarassment to Harvard, but then again, Harvard seems to like having prominent public figures that embarass them….
-Rob
There are many personalities with their own “quirks of nature.”:)
Shall we assign character asassination based on “personality of the work” that is shown, or what the work shows of itself?
While we may become critical of “such behaviors,” what is lasting is the “quality of the work” I would say?
The character had to be looked past? Not saying that you cannot have your own points of view about the character, just that you recognize the work being shown. Not that you let eccentricity go unchecked, just that you recognize the quality of the work.
For the lay people we’re either just right or wrong, for the scientist you have to be right or possibly wrong with your proof?
Please correct me if I am wrong? :)Lol
anon:- brilliant!
Arun:- Please please do the count. You will find that the number of people studying string theory because they want to understand phenomena like confinement, high temperature phase transitions, and other phenomena of the strong nuclear interactions –that I remind you are part of Nature!– is a large percentage of the effort in the field. Certainly not a percentage that can be ignored by prominent nay-sayings about the “failure” of the research effort in string theory and the supposedly unfair distribution of resources. In the context of this discussion therefore, the word “huge” is not hype.
Given the fact that this work has been discussed by and with the authors of the books several times, that they both acknowledge that they are aware of it, and that they both know that there is a large percentage of activity in the field in that area….. how can one conclude that they left it out of (or sidelined it in) their books’ discussions anything other than intentionally?
Peter and Lee say that string theory has failed as a theory of Nature. Peter in the comments above said that you cannot connect string theory with experiment. This has nothing to do with “theories of everything”. That whole discussion is a red herring — not everyone who works on string theory believes in the (probably) naive idea of a theory of everything. Physics carries on whether or not such a thing exists. See anon’s rather insightful Newton/apple discussion above. If theorists find powerful descriptions of fundamental phenomena in Nature that use the framework of string theory, I would say that this is an unprecendented and remarkable step in our understanding of Nature. Pretty much everything that has gone before has been in terms of field theory, I’ll remind you. How can anyone who seriously understands and cares about progress in theoretical physics and its description of Nature honestly belittle that effort? It boggles my mind.
Everyone:- Motl is irrelevant to this discussion. Let us discuss the issues of substance on the table and not the antics, child-like, and -we probably all agree- often despicable behaviour of indivuduals who have nothing to do with the discussion of the physics. I will enforce that, I’m afraid, by deleting further comments whose content are in large part about him.
Cheers,
-cvj
Peter:
But Peter, that response is not a proof of anything. It is an expression of your distaste for the idea of building models of Nature, and then steadily improving them by having to refer to Nature from time to time by doing experiments and finding out new things or measuring certain parameters, confirming some of your predictions of new phenomena, refining your models, making new predictions…. and, yes, finding totally new phenomena sometimes (in other words, maybe even if we find that strings usefully describe some significant regime of physics, something will take over from a stringy regime one day, to answer questions and describe phenomena that we have not even thought of yet). This dislike that you express for this process puzzles me since this is how science has proceeded since science was invented/disovered/whatever. Where is the “well known” proof that one cannot do this (or some of this) successfully with string theory? That is all I ask. Please answer the question, and cease trying to hide behind excuses of:
first: being busy,
second: being terribly offended by my tone/manner
third: being not convinced that I want to have a serious discussion
fourth: having to go out to do non-professional things
and now…
fifth: my not responding to your clear answers to my question of what is the well known proof that string theory cannot be tested (answers that so far I am failing to find).
Looks to me like you’ve rather blown your cover here. Again.
And once again, folks, I must point out how sad it is that nobody will hear of this in the press, since they don’t seem to be interested in the actual facts behind the distortions of Woit and Smolin’s campaign, but just the juicy “underdog vs the establishment” story.
-cvj
I think I understand PW’s point here, though I’m obviously only
speaking for myself, and though I don’t know to what extent that point
is actually applicable to ST.
The SM model works beautifully below the EW scale. But, what would we
think of the SM if every time some experimental result came out, the
SM would have to be fixed by adding to it a few dozen additional Higgs
bosons in some weird high-dimensional representations, and another
handful of extremely heavy fermions, etc. etc.? Something like this
happens with some unification and technicolor models, and that is why
they have been virtually abandoned. It’s just that in order to avoid
conflict with experiment they have to be complicated ad infinitum.
But, of course, if it turns out that there actually are many hundred
different Higgs bosons out there, those models will then turn out to
be correct…
Navellung… that is not the process I am talking about. There is an infinite number of gauge theories. The standard model is a rather random way of putting some of them together to make a model of our world. It needed to be constructed in this particular way, not by some grand dynamical principle that we discovered, but by reference to particle physics experiments over several decades. It needs experimental input of parameters that it cannot fundamentally determine. Within its own framework, it made predictions about Nature that we have gone out and tested, with remarkable agreement. How can it make predictions? Becasue even though there are an infinite number of gauge theories, gauge theories still work in a very tightly constrained manner that allows us to say “yes this can happen”, “no this can not happen” once we have input the required parameters that need to be measured. ….At some point down the road, the framework needs to be replaced by another framework in order to understand the answers to questions that it cannot fundamentally address. This is how science proceeds. If the landscape picture of vacua of string theory is true, then string theory may give us *at least* the above procees (it may give more, and we shall see as we do more research). Why need the process of the dialogue between theory and experiment that I described above be any different within a string theory context? What is the proof that it must be different, that it fails for strings?
Let us not forget that the Standard model was not just written down all in one go! It was built up, bit by bit, by making reference to experiments. Stuff was added as we learned more about Nature. Why on earth are we not allowed to do the same process of discovery for String Theory?
Peter’s point is one of aesthetics, and little else. It is certainly not the “well known obstruction” that is the entire basis of the thesis of his book.
-cvj
Frankly Clifford, reading through your comments above, I can empathize with Peter Woit’s stated reluctance to try to continue carrying on a serious conversation with you. It isn’t that your questions are unreasonable; it is the tone of your questions, your choice of phrasing and frequent appearance of posturing that convey a condescending or sneering attitude to me. For example, just within your comments related to this post:
1. Wow. You really said that. Ok.
2. But Peter… you haven’t said anything…!
3. anon:- brilliant! (This praise to ‘anon’ was in response to a phony “summary” of interaction between you and Peter, where you are the “good and reasonable” guy and Peter is the “unreasonable and evasive” guy. Apparently for you this cheap shot was priceless, but it was also a fabrication.
4. Heh, I’m sorry to have to inform you of this Peter, but you’ve been engaging in non-professional activities for quite a bit now [...]
5. Gosh. Later on in that thread, when just on the cusp of having to make an actual technical statement, you punt the questions. (This phony-sounding amazement is really irritating to someone who is trying to have a rational discussion, but I suppose you know that and intentionally chose to do it.)
This list is by no means exhaustive (you appear to me to be very free with the condescension), but it gives some examples of what would convince me that you were more interested in dishing out ridicule than having a respectful discussion. I certainly wouldn’t choose to spend my time discussing in this kind of environment.
As far as your implications that Peter is trying to run away when you press him for more details (e.g., asking him to elaborate on why your RHIC claims are hype), that kind of behavior is not what I have usually seen from him in the past. Above, you pointed out past example(s) where you saw him being evasive, and he explained why he disagreed with this assessment; rather than taking his explanation at face value, you appear to interpret his actions as running rather than defending an indefensible position. However, on his blog and elsewhere over the past 2-3 years, I have repeatedly seen him correct himself or acknowledge that he overstated his position when someone has legitimately pointed it out. In fact, he seems to be much more willing to publicly admit his mistakes than most other people I have seen, including the owner of this blog. So the behavior you accuse him of does not at all fit with my perception of his usual public behavior. If you doubt my assessment about his willingness to acknowedge error, I think you should read through the comment sections of his past posts on his blog, his comments on the blogs of others, and his posts on sci.physics.research.
Finally, regarding your belief that he “ran away” from your question, you commented:
Peter:- It’s on record for everyone with an open mind to see:- In the time it took you to write the comment pointing out how busy you are -a comment that is almost 1/4 the length of the actual post that I wrote- you could have easily pointed out the sentence in my post that you consider to be an overstatement.
Perhaps you believe that it should only take him a few minutes, but if I were in his position I would probably assume that if I simply pointed out one sentence that I thought was hype in your post you would simply: respond with a defense of your statement; then explain to the “dear readers” (frankly, I find this a condescending way of referring to your readers) how I didn’t know what I was talking about. That expectation would be consistent with the behavior I have seen from you at various times in the past. I expect Peter also saw it this way, and wasn’t willing to give a more detailed argument that answered your question because probably he really didn’t want to spend the time then (especially if he believed you wouldn’t discuss it seriously with him).
I really didn’t want to spend my time writing a comment defending Peter, but distaste for some aspects of your “debating” style finally got to me enough to say something. This style is something I found disagreeable in some of your discussions at Cosmicvariance (not just about string theory topics), and now here too. It is your privelege to behave this way, but I sure wish you wouldn’t.
Hi
If there have to be sides, I agree with Clifford’s side in the substance of the discussion.
But I also agree with another grad student above that Clifford’s tone is sneering and unpleasant. Maybe one can argue that’s justifiable (and most likely born of frustration in previous debates with PW), but I don’t think it’s necessary.
Which goes to the point I was making earlier, about “the substance” versus the denigration of the subject becoming?
You had to look past this regardless if it was Clifford or even Peter Woit. You take the shots, and listen for what that substance is that is being defended? Most certainly it takes awhile to remove the covers.
While I had supplied an example above, another one is here for consideration about where the physics breaks down? What use any “geometical tendency to describe” if we had thought we could arrive ever closer to the essence of what reductionism had implied on a “cosmological level” with regards to QGP?
So we make the microstate blackhole as part of that deduction about the elementary particle creations?
How did you get there?
Dear Graduate students of comments here and here,
Thanks for your comments. I make no apology if my tone was, in this case, somewhat strong. I’ve attempted to politely debate with Peter for a long time now…. you are seeing the end of a long series of pointless debates where I try to get firm substance from him, and to no avail. What Peter has been doing in his campaign of distortion of what the field is doing is very dishonest and highly damaging to the field at large. It is shocking to anyone who cares about the field of physics that his key point about which he claims he is so sure -that string theory cannot be tested- is in fact a mirage. It is frustrating to see him - when asked directly for the evidence - be so disappointingly and disgracefully (not to mention transparently) evasive.
A cornerstone of the practice of science should be the kind of honesty that I’ve been asking Peter to display. One should have the courage to state clearly the difference between one’s gut feelings and what one knows for sure… especially if one is going to try and smear the effort of an entire field of people. When I see this honesty being so spectacularly violated -especially when part of the claim is that several others are being dishonest- I get rather firm in pressing the person in question to clean up their act, and (in what you consider to be condescending or sneeering remarks) I carefully point out where they are falling short.
I make no apology for pointing out Peter’s wriggling in the manner that I did. It really needs to be seen. If you don’t like it, I am sorry, but you’d better get used to it if you are going to work in science, since nobody likes a cheater.
Cheers,
-cvj
As you well know, Clifford, I have been trying to challenge Peter Woit on these matters for far longer and gave up trying to get a meaningful response a long time ago. Sad to see that you, with your sunny disposition and seemingly infinite forebearance have given up too.
I think you need make no apology for the tone of your comments. Actual scientific debates, between actual scientists, are rarely the thoroughly genteel little affairs that PW demands as the prerequisite for answering your questions:
The real reason he won’t respond to you (or me, or — come to think of it — anyone else) on a technical level is, I think, that there’s no percentage in it for him.
a) He doesn’t have the technical arguments on his side.
b) His target audience is not high energy theorists, who might be persuaded by technical arguments, but, rather, lay people (or scientists from other fields). A technical argument would simply go over the heads of his target audience. They might, however, be persuaded of his charge that the “string theorists” are “arrogant” and out-of-touch. So he’ll consistently try to focus on atmospherics over substance and will cry foul and walk away from any debate where he has no alternative but to respond on substance.
As to AdS/QGP, and the fact that the Press seems to be quite oblivious of this application of string theory to real world physics, as you know I’ve written quite a number of semi-technical reviews on my blog. Maybe someone (you?) should post a somewhat less technical review that would be more accessible.
Thanks Jacques. Yes, I should have a go at a post like that at some point, although I don’t think it will make much of a difference to those writing articles in newspapers and the like. But we can indeed try to reach those who have begun to come directly to the scientists for news of what we are doing, rather than through intermediaries. (Although, as I am always keen to point out… some journalists do a good job.. I’m not trying to demonize the whole enterprize).
Until then, or until someone else does a post (and people should point to links if they know of any), I will place links to some of yours, which I think do a good job actually:
http://golem.ph.utexas.edu/~distler/blog/archives/000885.html
http://golem.ph.utexas.edu/~distler/blog/archives/000820.html
http://golem.ph.utexas.edu/~distler/blog/archives/000812.html
http://golem.ph.utexas.edu/~distler/blog/archives/000608.html
Cheers,
-cvj
Jacques Distler:
I think this is a good thought in regards to setting the record straight so that the subject is not tainted by “loose speculation of Peter” where even I am guilty “being lost in the struggle to make sense,” of it all to have found good explanations of value in leading any future perspective. You watch the debate.
But now you even have Lee Smolin to contend with. Who is going to explain the theoretical adventure so us lay people will undertand what the physicist is being challenged along with their maths to “possibly explain the natural” to us that we see where you are headed?
So why is it important that any researcher stays close to the forefront in terms of the work being done in regards to string theory? Keeping it real perhaps? So the points you list and encourage Jacque.
Perhaps the challenge has been put out there to sit and discuss at the table the way you would want any of society to conduct themself?? A round table?
Just make sure you have a good exposure to the laptop of real time, so the public can see what’s going on.
It seems that this is mathematical physics versus theoretical physics.
When one reads the commentaries it is easy to spot the difference between those whose primary interest is in math and those whose primary interest is in physics.
Sad.
Dear Clifford,
The tone of your comment to “Other another graduate student” and me showed no hint of sneering or condescension, and so whether or not I agree with everything you said is not important — at least I can feel comfortable carrying on a discussion here without feeling like I’m under attack. I wish you would use a similar tone when discussing issues with Peter (and anyone else) — forceful yet without undercurrents of disprespect or contempt. You said that
I’ve attempted to politely debate with Peter for a long time now….. you are seeing the end of a long series of pointless debates where I try to get firm substance from him, and to no avail.
I have seen those debates between the two of you (maybe not all of them, but I have seen the ones on Cosmicvariane, Asymptotia, and Not Even Wrong), and unfortunately, while I agree that they start out politely enough, I have felt in every case I can recall that your tone descended into condescension, sneering and mockery before Peter cut off the debate. Further, his comments conveyed a definite impression (to anyone who would notice) that he didn’t think you were treating him respectfully, again before cutting off the discussion. I don’t think this current example is any different. (I don’t think I am particularly siding with Peter here — I felt that your tone was going downhill before seeing Peter’s response, so it didn’t surprise me when Peter reacted negatively to it.) I also recall at least one case on Not Even Wrong where it was you who cut off the debate for whatever reason, so it isn’t always the “other guy’s” fault. However, Peter accused you of being dishonest, for example in a comment above, and I think that is a pretty serious accusation that shouldn’t be made lightly; clearly the mud has flown in both directions.
My perception of the debates between Jacques and Peter parallel those of your debates — the condescension and sneering by Jacques seemed to invariably presage the end of the debate, and advance warning was given about how things were heading.
So even though you and Jacques seem to say that you have repeatedly tried to carry on reasonable conversations with Peter, but that Peter is a slippery character who always manages to cut and run rather than answer the probing questions you ask, the whole context surrounding the debates seems to invariably include an atmosphere of sneering, disrespect and implication that Peter has ulterior motives. That context makes yours and Jacques’ claims about “reasonable” or “polite” attempts very questionable. In fact, I would say that neither you nor Jacques have ever actually “Done The Experiment” and debated forcefully yet without ad hominem attacks and put-downs. If you want to point to a specific counterexample that I can view, I would like to be wrong about this.
I wish you and Jacques would take Peter up on his offer:
If you ever decide to stop dealing with what I have to say with [...] sneering, and are instead willing to seriously engage in a mutually respectful discussion, let me know and I’ll try and find time to participate.
Those “terms of engagement” seem quite reasonable; I would think that the level of respect and sincerity that you showed in your response to “Other another grad student” and me would be quite enough (nothing at all like Jacques’ sample “respectful” phony dialogue). Tempers would be bound to fly at times, but that can happen between people who respect each other. The main problem I see is that from all indications neither you nor Jacques do respect Peter, and both of you do very poorly at hiding it. Both of you also seem to have a similar feeling of righteousness in your behavior, that somehow sneering can be justified, e.g.,:
I make no apology for pointing out Peter’s wriggling in the manner that I did.
(At least your unapologetic attitude here is consistent with the number of times I have seen you apologize in the past!) That you think public sneering is justifiable is unfortunate, because it tends to make observers more sympathetic to the target of the sneering, especially if the target is seen as a nice guy who is standing up for what he believes. It seems like everyone would be better served by a little more mutual respect.
Clifford:
>Why need the process of the dialogue between theory and
>experiment that I described above be any different within a
>string theory context? What is the proof that it must be
>different, that it fails for strings?
Good point… What I would say here is that, even at the
beginning of the seventies, it would have been relatively
easy to use known phenomenology to rule out, e.g., a
proposed electroweak gauge group different from SU(2)xU(1).
(Another example: the “uniqueness” of SU(3) as the flavor
symmetry of the strong interactions is discussed in Ch. 1 of
Coleman’s book, which was written in 1966. Flavor is not a
gauge symmetry, of course, but the elimination process is
essentially the same, i.e., selection rules.)
To understand the ST point of view, I would like to know
what kind of experimental input would be needed in order to
extract from the set of all ST vacua a much smaller subset
of (in principle) phenomenologically viable ones.
Obviously, this is not the place to start a set of lectures
on the topic, but I could use a pointer to the literature
or two.
Dear Clifford,
I have not been following this, but just to clarify what I recall from the discussion with Jeff. When Jeff mentioned the application of string theory to QCD calculations, in particular heavy ion physics, I said something like, “I think this is great, its good physics and I’m all for it.” Jeff asked why it wasn’t mentioned in the book. I replied that applications of string theory to QCD were mentioned, mentioned that an expert in that area had read the book carefully, and said that the application to heavy ion physics was alluded to. When Jeff asked why, I pointed out that to assert that a theory was useful when applied to some particular phenomenology is very different from saying that that theory is a candidate for a fundamental theory of nature. Jeff said it still was a check of the theory and I didn’t disagree.
So I don’t see why you are excited. I do mention in the book that there are promising applications of string theory to QCD. But I would think it clear that the success or failure of string techniques in heavy ion physic would not provide evidence for or against the claim that the fundamental theory of nature is a string theory. Indeed, the idea that QCD is dual to a string theory is very old, and I would think it well understood that the dual to QCD is not going to be a critical string theory with massless gravitons and photons. It may be true that some properties of the non-critical string theory that would be a QCD dual can be calculated within string theory or supergravity duals of supersymmetric gauge theories that do have massless particles. If so this is great, and I said it was. But it does not bear directly on whether critical string theory is a fundamental theory of nature. Since my book is about the status of a search for a fundamental theory, it was not necessary to go into this application in more detail.
Unless I’m wrong, it would be precisely the same to argue that Newtonian physics should be studied and taught because it is useful when applied to engineereing. This is true and unproblematic but the fact that engineers use Newtonian mechanics does not provide evidence that Newtonian physics is the correct fundamental theory.
I can mention that there was much more about applications to QCD, and much more generally about AdS/CFT, in an earlier draft, but many thousands of words about this and other details were cut so as to come down to a reasonable length. To do this I had to focus on the main argument of the book, which is the status of attempts to solve the five key problems mentionedin chapter 1. Aspects of string theory not relevent to them were cut down.
Finally about hype etc. I am doing no more and no less than is asked of me. I worked hard on this book and it says pretty much exactly what I wanted it to. It is an argument, carefully structured. I am not at my best in debate in a live format, but if invited there I try to do my best. Since various things have been implied let me emphasize that I solicit no interviews or public appearances, and give out no press releases. I would much prefer to be home with my baby boy, working on new stuff I’m excited about. But I do think that when a journalist calls or emails we should spend the time to communicate clearly. And I have always taken time to do public outreach and continue to do so when asked.
I wrote the book to make a careful, structured and respectful argument, directed mainly to colleagues like yourself, about what we should be doing in fundamental physics going forwards. I am very interested in what you think, but I would ask that if you respond you do so not to some impressions of a radio show or some superficial review, but to the actual words and arguments that I worked hard on to get right. I also have no problem admitting if I am wrong about something, I am interested in making a constructive contribution and I would be very happy to be proved wrong about the conclusions I came to while writing the book.
Thanks,
Lee
Another grad student said:
Peter Woit is not some timorous graduate student, easily intimidated, were Professor Johnson to scowl, or speak sharply to him.
In fact, he didn’t seem intimidated at all, going on to post 7 more comments after Clifford challenged him to justify his statement, “Sorry, but I do think that your comments on the relation of RHIC results to string theory are heavily overhyped.”
In those comments, he went on to accuse Clifford of engaging in “stupid sneering and ad hominem attack,” and Distlerian sneering, ending with “You are being dishonest” and “it’s obvious that trying to seriously discuss any of these issues with you is just a complete waste of time”
Finally, on his blog, he apparently makes some wild-ass (and, as far as I can tell) totally unsubstantiated accusations against Clifford.
Doesn’t seem intimidated at all…
No, this is merely a debating tactic.
Think about it: if you were arguing with one of your peers, would you suddenly turn and stomp off, if you felt he wasn’t being “sufficiently respectful”?
I kinda doubt it. In fact, if you felt you had facts and logic on your side, you’d stick around to prove a point, and show him wrong.
Lee wrote:
But it is precisely that expectation that we have now learned is wrong. 4D gauge theories (similar to, but not precisely QCD) are dual to critical string theories, with gravitons and photons and all the rest. They’re just not 4 dimensional critical string theories.
That’s a profound and deep observation. And the fact that it has observational consequences at RHIC strikes some of us as rather noteworthy.
(In the same breath, it can, and should be mentioned, that in the context of large-N theories, it had long been expected that the correlation functions would be determined by a “Master Field.” Indeed, that turned out to be correct, but the Master Field, again, turned out to be higher-dimensional.)
CIP:
To add to Clifford’s remarks …
For a discussion of finiteness of string perturbation theory, look at this comment thread.
As to the convergence of the perturbation series, there’s no interesting QFT whose perturbation series converges. So, as far as I can tell, complaining that the string perturbation series doesn;t converge seems like a complete red herring.
Indeed, string theory would be dead in the water if its perturbation series were convergent. So it’s rather a good thing that it isn’t.
Hi Lee,
I think that we might have a fundamental disagreement about what the word “fundamental” means in the context of describing Nature. Perhaps you are using a narrower definition than I. I’ve always been hampered by the lack of ability to sharply draw a distinction between physics topics as being “fundamental” and “other”. They connect up in so many intricate and beautiful ways, in my experience and opinion. So I tend not to make any sharp distinction. If string theory turns out to be a key aspect of the description of some experimentally accessible regime of the strong interactions describing the nuclear stuff we are made of, that would be truly wonderful in my opinion. If it does so by using higher dimensions, gravity, branes, and all those same structures that are being applied elsewhere in studies of physics (the stuff you call “fundamental”), I’d say that was very promising indeed and highly suggestive that Nature may have stringy descriptions elsewhere. As I’ve said before, I don’t see how research on those matters can be excluded from a book or books that claim to be a fair assessment of whether it is worthwhile to support research in string theory. That’s what I’m trying to say, and have done a number of times earlier in the thread.
Cheers,
-cvj
Jacques, CIP seems to be on the wrong thread so I will link your comemnt to him/her and hope that he/she will put further remarks (if any) on this thread. You need not go to the other thread.
Cheers,
-cvj
Bah! Sorry, Clifford.
One of the perils of juggling too many comment threads between my Feed Aggregator and my Web Browser.
Another grad student,
You’re always welcome to have a discussion here. I thought I’d say that in case you’re in doubt. I particularly hope that students of all persuasions feel welcome. Several read and comment here already. I would defend you or any other student from someone who is trying to intimidate or bully. (Incidentally, and ironically, I did that on Peter’s blog in that exchange I spoke of earlier… but never mind.)
I hear what you are saying, and have remarked upon your remarks as much as I can. I agree that it is unfortunate when anyone ends up using a less-than-polite tone in a discussion, and I think that I usually am well away from (and on the correct side of) the borderline in most of everything I say and do here and elsewhere. You may disagree, based upon your apparently selective reading of various comments, and it’s sad if you do, but there is nothing I can do about that. I am particularly careful of this in arguments when students and others who are still learning and developing are involved. I think I’ve explained why I’ve lost my patience with Peter. I’ve already pointed to discussion threads elsewhere where I’ve tried my best too be patient and listen to what he has to say and address each point. (see e.g. the thread here where you’ll find exactly the same discussion we’ve had here all over again….)
But when you’ve addressed all the points, well over a year ago, and again and again… and seen other address the same points too,… and then to see it all forgotten (conveniently or otherwise)… you begin to wonder about the motives, and lose a bit of patience. Like I said, I do not think that it is innocent. To go to the public with such a deliberate distortion is damaging to physics in general, and so I’ve lost a lot of patience. That’s why I’ve lost a civil tongue with Peter.
I’ve really nothing more to say about the topic of tone. If you like, we can talk about the physics now.
Cheers,
-cvj
His [PW's] target audience is not high energy theorists, who might be persuaded by technical arguments, but, rather, lay people (or scientists from other fields). A technical argument would simply go over the heads of his target audience. They might, however, be persuaded of his charge that the “string theorists†are “arrogant†and out-of-touch. So he’ll consistently try to focus on atmospherics over substance and will cry foul and walk away from any debate where he has no alternative but to respond on substance.
As to AdS/QGP, and the fact that the Press seems to be quite oblivious of this application of string theory to real world physics, as you know I’ve written quite a number of semi-technical reviews on my blog. Maybe someone (you?) should post a somewhat less technical review that would be more accessible. - Jacques Distler
Dear Jacques, if he forces one of you to get deeper into explaining stringy arguments at less technical levels, that is a step forward. You can’t expect a string critic to be totally expert in every aspect of string, which is a vast enterprise. (Similarly, the restaurant critic need not sample every dish on the menu before writing a review.)
Clifford,
Until the connection to experiment is made, this argument between Woit, Smolin, Richter, etc., and you all, as far as the general public is concerned, is about whom to trust. It is hard enough for ex-physicists to evaluate the various claims made. It is outside the reach of the scientifically literate public.
So it is not silly or irrelevant whether you were the alleged blocking referee for the Cambridge University Press or whether K.C. Cole wrote that stinky LA Times review of the two books with your input or not. He-who-should-not-be-named’s behavior is not irrelevant either.
-Arun
> 4D gauge theories (similar to, but not precisely QCD) are dual to critical string theories, with gravitons and photons and all the rest. They’re just not 4 dimensional critical string theories.
I have a silly question about this. IF 5d (+5d) critical string theories exist in this sense (consistent and stable), would this not make the landscape problem much worse?
Why do we not live