A quick update:
- There was a second installment of the discussion led by George Johnson about press coverage of string theory. He went back to look to see what exactly some of those early articles said… How much coverage was there to start with? When did it start? When did it begin get out of hand? Did it get out of hand? Is this all just part of a standard bubble that happens for any field that the press decides to cover, a sort of manufactured (my word not his) boom and bust cycle? All issues that were touched upon in the discussion. Note also that the discussion broadens out considerably -as it should, (finally!)- to talk about the broader issue of coverage of topics in physics and science in general. The positive and negative effects of press coverage on attracting the next generation of students was also discussed. The discussion (this aspect in particular) was especially interesting because of the remarks by a number of senior people in the audience who were able to talk about their experiences over the years having seen the cycles recruitment of students in their own departments. Worth a listen/look at the archive here.
- Lee Smolin has written a “Dear Friends” letter in response to some of the things that have been pointed out about his book, and about other points he’s made publicly in various discussions*. He’s given over some time to write quite a bit, which in general is a good thing to have done. You can find it here.
I’ll leave it to you to form your own opinion about Smolin’s remarks (I’ve not had time to read it in detail yet), and start a discussion here. Maybe ask him some followup questions here, for example. To help with context and build a more complete picture, do read some of the earlier comments and discussions involving him -and questions put directly to him- on the threads that share the name of this post. (e.g., Here and here.) Put those alongside the discussion with Peter Woit and of the central thesis of Woit’s book too. They are inseparable.
My set of opinions on the issue is the same as it was before. Even though I’ve said it all so many times here, since blogs seem to have no memory, I will summarize a bit:
- The bulk of the discussion is media hype, ironically, knowingly (in my humble opinion) exploited by the authors. I think this is harmful for the whole field of theoretical physics in this area. Once you take out the short term financial gain on the part of the authors and publishers, it does not help anyone. I don’t see how adding hype to hype combats hype. I’d really like someone to explain that to me.
- The picture of research into string theory that they paint -and then attack- is an unfair charaicature, my main criticism being that they’ve overblown the focus, and virtually totally ignored a lot of valuable work that is being pursued by a rather large portion of the field -it does not fit very well with the negative picture that they are trying to draw, you see, so best leave it out.
- They want to say that the discussion is really about the young people. They are being pressured and duped into working only on string theory, which they are sure (without offers of actual proof) will not succeed in saying anything about Nature. So they want to have a discussion about the distribution of resources. Very noble cause indeed, but carried out in the most manifestly ignoble way…. Why hide this admittedly interesting and valuable discussion inside the shell of a mischariacature and negative attack on the work of a huge number of people (including, for example in the case of Smolin, effectively ignoring and sidelining as essentially unimportant or irrelevant the valuable work of your colleague down the hall at the Perimeter Institute (see the exchange around here)), when the discussion is just not about string theory? The discussion is about the larger structure of academic careers and research priorities. If they really want to talk about that, why not write their books about that?
- Perhaps most importantly of all. If they want people to work on alternative ideas, why not present these ideas to everyone - develop these research programs to the point where people will work on them because they can see their merits? Theoretical physicists will work on the best or most promising tools out there that will do the job. We’re fickle. We don’t care whether they are loops, strings, or whatever. Just that they get the job done. Show us something more promising than string theory and we’ll drop string theory like a hot ton of bricks and work on that. So, Smolin and Woit: Please do some research that will help us get the job done by providing us with real alternatives through the usual channels which are available to everybody. The job won’t get done in the media-assisted way you are doing it right now.
-cvj
(*Thanks Bee!)
On this day on Asymptotia...
- Little Urchin - 2006
- The 2006 Nobel Prizes: Who, What and Why! - 2006
Some Related Asymptotia Posts (not exhaustive):
I look forward to seeing this thread inflate chaotically beyond all recognition. Unfortunately, I am behind my schedule of rants I promised to deliver to other people, so I won’t be able to contribute my own trademark blend of cynicism and ignorance.
Uh… thanks Blake, but I think if we all try we can actually have a constructive discussion (on balance, at least). It is a matter of will. Some value can and has come out of these discussions…. It has happened before. I learned from last time for example that Smolin and Woit are just concerned about the welfare of the youth in the field. That’s what they really want to talk about. Lee goes as far as to claim that it was totally accidental that his book appears to be an attack on string theory. Ok. We could do this: Run with that for the sake of argument and have the actual discussion….
I’d like very much to hear what these youths think of this concern, whether they agree that they are being duped as claimed, and what their own expeiences are…do they see it as a string theory problem? a larger problem? I’d like to hear about their perceptions of the programs of research in physics in general.
A starter question - if in physics right now, what attracted you into it? If not in physics, does it seem attractive? Repulsive? This could be valuable to the discussion…. If that really is the discusssion.
Best,
-cvj
I’d like very much to hear what these youths think of this concern, whether they agree that they are being duped as claimed, and what their own expeiences are… and their perceptions of the programs of research in physics in general
As a young person in the field, I find the “concern” of Woit and Smolin on my behalf rather amusing. The notion that beginning theoretical physicists are so stupid that they need to be “protected” from being led into misguided research is a little insulting. All of the smart young people I know are perfectly capable of deciding for themselves which research directions are interesting. I also find the monolithic picture of theory research that they paint a little odd. There is plenty of diversity in active research directions, but they seem to single out particular narrow directions that are not popular as evidence that the community is monolothic. Woit, for instance, seems to believe that the problem is that there are not enough formal approaches to particle theory outside of string theory. He thus avoids ever having to confront the fact that there are many phenomenologists in theory groups who are not string theorists; they are not “formal” enough for him. He also avoids ever mentioning the great strides that have been made in nonperturbative understanding of field theories using SUSY an example (he mentions Witten often enough, but surely Seiberg and Intriligator have done as much for formal, non-stringy particle theory as anyone in the past fifteen years?). In the end, it seems that his criticism of the narrowness of the community amounts to “why aren’t more people trying to study non-SUSY chiral gauge theories nonperturbatively?” The answer to that, of course is, “we’d love to, but it’s really hard!”
Anyway, I’ve written enough for now, but for any observers out there who are worried about the state of us poor helpless young people, rest assured we’re not so poor and helpless.
Dr. Johnson:
Actually I am beginning to be kind of skeptical of this notion that there is concern. The only thing I’ve ever come on physics blogs to do is to:
1. Learn about professional scientists in a more informal setting
2. Read about interesting aspects of physics and mathematics that I might not have heard otherwise.
So, I think of myself as a ‘young’ person who would like some help. And I want to say I appreciate the books and the blogs for what they are.
But since I tend to be frank, I have to say that I don’t think Dr. Woit is all that worried about young people at all. I almost said as much a week or so ago when he said his site was for professionals. As apparently when he says this, he also seems to mean questions from students aren’t welcome.
I think it’s illustrative to contrast his blog to yours. You have pictures of yourself helping young people. You start threads discussing issues that affect young people. I would say you care about young people and it’s up there among your main interests.
I think maybe when Dr. Woit says he wants to help young people what he really means is something like he would like to kill string theory which might perhaps help young people.
Dr Smolin spent about a fifth of his book on problems that affect young people maybe a little less. It’s not zero but it’s not 50% either. I think that about quantifies things.
onymous:
“… rest assured we’re not so poor and helpless.”
Some of us are more young than others and might not mind some help. (I have no idea what to work on.)
“All of the smart young people I know …”
Okay maybe this is my problem … well I guess if the smart people are okay then there is nothing to worry about.
Hi Clifford,
The bulk of the discussion is media hype [...] I think this is harmful for the whole field of theoretical physics in this area. [...] it does not help anyone. I don’t see how adding hype to hype combats hype.
Sadly enough, I totally agree with you. What would you suggest for damage control?
Hi onymous,
The notion that beginning theoretical physicists are so stupid that they need to be “protected†from being led into misguided research is a little insulting. All of the smart young people I know are perfectly capable of deciding for themselves which research directions are interesting.
I am not sure where you got that from, but it’s not how I understand Woit’s and Smolin’s concerns. Ask yourself: if a beginning theoretical physicist has the intention to start working in some field he is interested in, can he actually do so? How strongly is his decision necessarily subject to open positions, and how does that distort the spectrum of original interests? How much of his ‘interests’ are dictated by a supervisor, and his grant, or somebody else’s research proposal?
All the smart young people I know are perfectly capable of figuring out which move is career-wise and which isn’t. And, to add what upsets me frequently: how old does the smart young guy have to become before he can actually decide his for own research direction? Indeed, I’d think after 10 years of education one could trust a postdoc to work on his own projects. But that’s most often just not the case.
If your interests fall were positions are, you are a lucky guy, be glad about it. What do you tell those who aren’t as lucky as you? Do you tell them not to be stupid, and decide for themselves that your research direction is more interesting?
but for any observers out there who are worried about the state of us poor helpless young people, rest assured we’re not so poor and helpless.
Great! Then go fight for your right to decide ‘independently’ what your research will be on. And keep in mind that you might not always be among those whose interests fall were the jobs are.
Best,
B.
I’m not going to bother to respond to what Clifford has to say about me here, past efforts were a waste of time and I don’t see any reason that new efforts would get anywhere. But I would like to try and respond a bit to comments from others.
onymous,
I don’t think people getting Ph.Ds in theoretical physics are “stupid” and have never anywhere expressed any opinion anything like that. Neither have I ever not acknowledged that there are many particle phenomenologists in theory groups who are not string theorists.
I do think that many of the popular books aimed at a non-specialist audience that have been available often give a misleading view of the current state of particle theory and I tried to write one that didn’t. Many students have contacted me to thank me for doing so. I do think that most students are smart enough to make up their own minds, and if they read both books like Brian Greene’s, Lisa Randall’s and Lenny Susskind’s, together with mine and Lee Smolin’s, they will be exposed to some very different perspectives, which is a good thing.
My concern for the young which is being made so much of here is of a very specific kind. As you note about the problem of understanding non-SUSY chiral gauge theories: “it’s really hard”. Exactly. You can agree or not agree with my point of view, but it is that the fantastic success of the standard model and the lack of experimental results that disagree with it leave us in a situation such that to make any sort of progress is “really hard”. My argument is that the field needs to be thinking about what can be done to encourage ambitious young people to try and tackle these “really hard” problems.
I should also be clear about what I’m not trying to do, and this is partly in response to “TheGraduate”. The kind of outreach that Clifford and others at Cosmic Variance and other blogs are doing is great and should be encouraged, but what I’m trying to do with mine is something different (and the great thing about blogs is that they allow these different possibilities). It’s aimed at a much more limited audience and I’ve been surprised at how many people find it worth reading and take an interest in what is going on there. I hope to find time to do more in the way of writing expository posts about various topics in math and physics, but I’d like to aim at people who already have a background in the fields I’m concerned with.
The book is different than the blog, it was my one attempt to write for as wide an audience as I could while still doing justice to the topics I wanted to discuss. I mentioned above one of the main reasons for doing this, to provide a different perspective for students interested in particle theory. It’s also true that I think the public has over the years gotten a rather misleading view of the status of string theory and I felt that this should be corrected with a more accurate one. In this view I seem to be joined by Andy Strominger, who recently was quoted as saying: “I’ve felt for a long time that the general public’s impression of what string theory had accomplished and how much of it was correct was too positive”. I think it would have been much better if he and other string theorists had done something about this, and the fact that they chose not to means that they’re not in the best position to be complaining about my book and Lee Smolin’s.
Hi Peter,
On the one hand you have cautionary remarks about the fact that research is ongoing and that the outcome is still to be determined, and that the string picture may or may not be wrong. I and many others constantly say this, and would dearly love it if the press printed more of that sort of thing in their articles covering this research. This is indeed what I suspect Andy was talking about.
On the other hand you have a declaration in a media storm that string theory is manifestly wrong, and that it has brought about the fall of a science, and other things that you and Lee Smolin have been saying.
These things are not the same. Do not equate them. For example, one (the former) is true, and the other is not.
Best,
-cvj
Having agreed that media hype is not the way forward, what is?
I think that one of the things contributing to the lower morale among young people these days is the collapse of the citation market. [Look at the number of cites for this nearly-year-old paper for instance: http://arxiv.org/abs/hep-th/0512039 Imagine that 10 years ago!] End result is that young people slave away to get a paper on the arxiv….which promptly sinks like lead. Older folks, who can remember hitting 50 cites within a couple of months purely on the strength of getting into something early, might find it hard to imagine the dismay of a postdoc whose magnum opus never gets beyond single digits, a very common situation these days. I’d like to see everyone with a physics blog, particularly those concerned for the young, taking note of good papers they have seen lately, especially if it is by someone young or otherwise unlikely to be cited. It may not be as exciting as announcing the end of physics as we know it, but it might make a small positive contribution.
Wait, hang on… what is the evidence of this “lower morale among young people these days” ? It’s been tough as long as I remember… is there some new malaise that I do not know about? I’m admittedly possibly out of touch.. but I’d like to hear from some more young people before I conclude that there is a crisis of morale.
Thanks Holmes… This would indeed be rather constructive indeed. Peter Woit? Lee Smolin? How about it? Blogging can be a powerful tool…. How about forming a network, a forum, etc… encouranging and promoting those alternative ideas and those young people you consider to be struggling to work off the mainstream… a focused and constructive endeavour.
Best,
-cvj
Even though I fail to fit any description of any person (including either the young or the old) in the field, I - nevertheless - fall under the heading of outside observer.
Because outside observing and objectivity usually go hand in hand, I’ll contend that my point of view does carry a degree of worthiness. On top of this, because I’ve been following this media-driven backlash against strings from the get-go, I’ll further contend that my point of view carries added weight to this degree of worthiness.
Apparently, a central argument used by Lee@Peter,Inc. as a means to toughen their stance is this: diversity of ideas/thoughts is severely lacking in this quest to uncover quantum gravity. In my humble opinion, however, after factoring-in this crucial ingredient called “viability”, I’ve ascertained that - in both depth and breadth - more diversity of ideas/thoughts exist inside (as opposed to outside) the field of string theory.
Dr. Woit, Dr. Johson:
A big part of Woit’s and Smolin’s criticism of string theory has to do with job selection and grants. What criteria do you think are applied in how these decisions are made and why do you think string theory has been especially successful at dominating under these decision criteria? Why have LQG and other approaches not done as well?
There’s a simple answer: Merit.
It is this way largely on the relative merits of each. Both are speculative, yes, so you have to look at the promise of the subject. String theorists have demonstrated its manifest promise, and its usefulnmess to a variety of physical problems. They done this by solving a number of theoretical problems, and being able to explain very clearly too their peers from other fields what they are trying to do, and what they have done so far. LQG people have done this less successfully for their subject. Correspondingly, fewer jobs, etc.
Bring along another set of tools with as much or more promise….. people will work on it, and there will be more resources for it. No question about that.
-cvj
Holmes,
I regularly do exactly what you suggest, linking to new papers that I think deserve attention. I’m sorry, but I think the reason that string theory papers like the one you mention are not getting cited is that they’re not that significant. The collapse is not in the “citation market”, but in the intellectual health of string theory.
TheGraduate,
I think Smolin in his book gives an accurate portrayal of the problems with how decisions about grants and jobs are being made.
As measured by you - An active and highly informed member of the string community, right?
Come on, Peter. That’s a highly loaded judgement, don’t you think?
-cvj
Hi There,
Before you start arguing about the significance of string theory papers based on the citation index, I would like to know what the citation index actually says in your opinion.
I.e. for whatever reason, it’s in some fields wide practice to cite every paper on related subjects, whereas others do consequently only cite papers from which they actually use results. Then there are those people who essentially add a sentence like: I am not going to discuss the approaches of Refs [15-33], and then cite all their former papers, related or not. Some cite friends and colleagues for political reasons. Some fields have more frequent meetings and therefore they are just better informed about whether someone else pursues a similar way. Also, with increasing numbers of coworkers, citations tends to add up faster (I guess because there are more people advertising the work). And so on, and so on. As long as peer review does not have any policy about which papers should or - more importantly - should not be cited, the cite index imo is not a very good criterion for anything. (The only policy that I am aware of is one of copyright).
Hi Holmes,
I’d like to see everyone with a physics blog, particularly those concerned for the young, taking note of good papers they have seen lately, especially if it is by someone young or otherwise unlikely to be cited. It may not be as exciting as announcing the end of physics as we know it, but it might make a small positive contribution.
The problem that I personally have with this is the short attention span in the blogosphere. It takes me some while, sometimes quite a while, to read, understand and being able to judge on somebody else’s work. I am very hesitant to advertise papers I haven’t fully understood, and I don’t want to distribute semi-knowledge. If I finally come to like somebody’s work, that might not be a paper that would fall under your criterion of ’seen lately’. I have a long list of papers that I could tell you are NOT worth the time reading, but maybe I’m too nice a person to write that on my blog.
One way or the other, I don’t think the blogosphere is a good place to form an opinion about other people’s scientific work. That finally brings me to …
Hi Graduate,
Why have LQG and other approaches not done as well?
One thing that other approaches haven’t done as good as string theory is causing excitement.
Best,
B.
Holmes:
Your comment about high quality papers by young people *sometimes* not being highly cited is not a new
phenomenon. This happened also to people who entered the field in the late 80s and throughout
the 90s. For instance, can you imagine any paper NOT about AdS/CFT hitting a high citation meter
between 98 and 2001? (I am sure there were a few; but my point is that so many theorists were on
a certain bandwagon that it surely distracted attention from other important developments).
This is not necessarily a bad thing. In the case of AdS/CFT, this was a merited intense focus on a
truly revolutionary insight. In other cases, such bandwagon effects are perhaps driven by little
other than sociology. It seems to me that one very healthy sign for string theory research is that
there are now several interesting developments being pursued simultaneously, and that no one
subject is dominating the “marketplace” of ideas within string theory. AdS/QCD is being developed,
string compactification (and…dare I say it…study of the landscape) is being developed, study of singularities is proceeding, string cosmology is getting ever closer to realistic models…to me this is much healthier than a situation where everyone works on non-commutative QFT for 1 year, or whatever.
If you are going to succeed in this field, you need to have a thick enough skin to persevere when
papers of your own that are of high quality, seem to fall on deaf ears. This happened to many theorists early on, and many of them are quite successful now. In fact, it is hard to find anyone who doesnt feel
that his/her papers are always falling on deaf ears (even if widely cited; many citations tend to miss
the point of the works they cite almost completely, in my experience). Keep in mind that experienced theorists who will be judging job applications, at least at the best places, can tell the difference between
a third rate “trendy” paper that is cited 100 times and a quality piece of work that is less well known.
You are better served (both for your own sanity, and your future prospects) by writing the latter.
Clifford,
The discussion is about why recent string theory papers by well-known string theorists are not being cited by other string theorists. I think this is the most objective measure available of string theorist’s evaluation of the significance of each other’s work.
Peter:
Works about AdS/CFT and RHIC, or works about flux compactification and model building,
seem to be frequently appearing on the arXiv and citing each other. A comparison of citations
of some of the latter works shows a similar hit rate to e.g. Strominger/Vafa on black holes, or
the other duality revolution papers. (It is early to do this for AdS/CFT and RHIC since it just took off).
Of course none of these matches the original AdS/CFT paper, but that means that was an
exception, not that the field is quiet when no paper is cited at that rate,.
Actually, if you watch hep-ph, what you say is more true. It is a bit quiet. The model builders are
taking a collective break from model building, by and large, it seems.
The reason is actually quite clear in that case: there is going to be data soon, and a lot of the
relevant ideas that will need to be combined to explain it, are already (many people think) out there.
So it makes more sense to invest in other research directions for a bit, and wait for the data to come.
Your perverse attack on string theory (and Smolin’s) was cynically timed just right: two years before
LHC turn on. No one can say that experiment has confirmed the ideas inspired by strings (or worked
on by people who also understand and support string research), and for two years, people can debate
your book instead of focusing on the real, exciting physics to come. It is hilarious that you have
managed to make this, the most exciting time in particle theory/cosmology in the past 25 years (due
to data!), seem like a low period. Congratulations. Thats a real intellectual service.
pig,
Look at the numbers of citations that recent string theory papers are getting, and compare to the numbers that string theory papers of similar age were getting before 5-6 years ago. Among the very few recent string theory papers getting a lot of citations is the KKLT paper, and that’s a sign of the sickness of the field, not its health.
“the most exciting time in particle theory/cosmology in the past 25 years”
I virtually never comment on cosmology, other than to say that it has been an exciting time for cosmology in recent years. As for particle theory, the only thing exciting about the current time is that there’s a hope that because of the LHC it will be over in the not too distant future.
“cynically timed just right: two years before LHC turn on”
My book was mostly written in 2002, cynically timed to appear in 2003, 5 years before LHC turn on. The actual timing of its appearance was determined by the fact that this was stopped by string theorist referees.
And what is it with string theory partisans, do you really think it is professional or ethical behavior to publicly attack people from behind the cover of anonymity?
Clifford wrote:
I’m a young person who’s traveled around meeting other people, young and old (the Wandering Physics Student, as it were). I haven’t noticed a real malaise among my coevals — not among the string people, the neutrino people, the nanoparticle people or the biophysics people. Maybe I’m living in my shell too much?
Peter,
Even as someone who has been active in string theory for [
14] 16 years, I would not have the gall to claim that the papers currently being written are not significant. First, I can’t read all of them, and second, I’m not qualified to make that determination, and third…. It is very well known that the significance of a huge number of papers is not often not recognized until very many years later. Sometimes decades. You have some idea of how science proceeds, I think, so I’m pretty sure you must know that. So why would you -especially as someone who is outside the field- feel able to say such a bizarrely unsubstantiated sweeping statement? It would be like me claiming that about the analogous papers in theoretical condensed matter physics!On the other hand, it’s not dissimilar to your claim that there is “well known proof” that string theory can make no contact with experiment… proof that we’re all still waiting for you to supply for us. So maybe your statement is in keeping with that level of rigour?
So (1) How do you know that these papers are not significant? and (2) How are you defining “significant”?…. since maybe that is the source of my misunderstanding/incredulity.
Cheers,
-cvj
Dr Johnson:
You pointed out that string theory had been judged on its Merit. But in part you seem to have acknowledged something of a popularity contest in that string theorists have been able to win over people from other fields to their side. How do you reconcile these ideas?
Secondly, the idea of “solving a number of theoretical problems” has been a huge bone of contention in these debates. How would you define ’solving’ ?
Dr. Woit:
You said that you agreed with Dr. Smolin’s view. Luckily I have read Dr. Smolin’s book carefully.
I would summarize Dr. Smolin as saying that string theorists are quite established on funding boards and they also are quite powerful in many of the most prominent physics departments. They also naturally have a tendency to promote people like them. Therefore, other quantum gravity approaches are locked out.
I am trying to picture what kind of system you would like to replace this. My question is whether you would replace this with another kind of monopoly where scientists like yourself are more empowered? You can imagine that you might consider some approaches as idiotic and not want to include them in your more diverse area. Similarly, string theorists might have a low opinion of your ideas and not want to include you. In other words, would you replace the string theory monopoly with a ‘quantum gravity’ monopoly where quantum gravity means a group of fields acknowledged by you or Smolin or people like you.
Bee:
So you think string theory is simply more popular. Do you think there is anything wrong with this system? And if so, how would you change it?
Clifford,
You’re not responding in any way to what I wrote, did you read it?
“The discussion is about why recent string theory papers by well-known string theorists are not being cited by other string theorists. I think this is the most objective measure available of string theorist’s evaluation of the significance of each other’s work.”
If you know of a better objective measure of what string theorists think of the significance of each other’s work other than how often they use it and cite it, let us know. What I’m quoting to you here is not my judgment, but that of the community of string theorists. Maybe you think they’re kind of slow and unable to recognize significant work by well-known people in their own community.
I’ve never said anything about “proof” that string theory can make no contact with experiment, that’s not a word I would ever use in this context. You completely ignore what I do write, and make up something I never said to argue with. It’s a complete waste of time to try and have a discussion about any of these issues with you.
Peter,
I *did* read what you wrote, and I still question your or anyone’s ability to claim so broadly that papers in a field (whoever they are written by) are not significant. Could you tell us who some of this “community of string theorists” you cite might be?
Using that single measure -which is affected by so many obvious variables- without taking account of other variables is incredibly naive, Peter. Consider for example the fact that the field has changed its working practices quite a bit.. there are several more topics being worked on by more people, and the details of previous breakthroughs are being worked out … all of this takes hits away from papers in terms of citations. Peter, this represents a *healthier* state of the field than if everyone is just all working on the same thign and citing the same few people. Come on, you *know* this. It is precisely the non-fad-driven behaviour you claim that you want to see more of!! Why are you using evidence of that diversity to claim tht the field is dead? This is a poorly constructed arguemtn that’s falling apart before you’ve even set it upright.
And on the other thing… I did not make that up. We spend an entire thread trying to get you to back up your claim that it was “well known”… but instead of telling us what it was, all you did was throw a hissy fit and retreat to your own blog to hurl insults, accuse me of doing things, etc. Not good.
Please let’s stay on topic. Every time I try to press you on something you said - to back it up with further argument, or some actual facts - you decide to claim that I am ignoring what you say or being impolite, etc, and that it is a waste of time to argue with me…. Why is that?
-cvj
TheGraduate,
What I’m trying to do is to publicly put forward arguments about what the current state of particle theory is, get people to take them seriously, and see if I can convince them that the current situation is problematic and something should be done. It’s then up to them to take appropriate actions . What’s really upsetting string theorists these days is that they’re not happy at all with how much success Smolin and I have had at getting people to agree with our points of view (which are not the same, for one thing, my interest is in particle theory, not especially in quantum gravity).
Peter,
Additionally, for the record, you might not have used the word “proof”, but i think you implied the physcist’s equivalent of it in your October 6th 2006 statement here:
… and is the entire thesis of your book, from the title “Not Even Wrong” onwards, not an implication of your certainty? I still want to know the basis for your certainty about this…. (even though, I remind everyone, the theory is still being worked on.. is not even satisfactorily formulated, etc, etc.) Once again… I don’t mind you claiming that you have a feeling that it might be wrong…. but to claim that you know, that the reasona are well known, that an entire field continues working nevertheless - especially to the general public… That’s a lie. That is why I press you on this point, and why you collapse every time under this pressure.
Best,
-cvj
Peter:
My limited understanding is the following. The KKLT paper and other related ones (both earlier and later) are well cited for what seems to me a good reason: the data supports a positive cosmological constant and absence of massless scalar fields. Solutions with these properties were not known before, and the KKLT paper (and the others) argue for their existence. That seems like good physics to me and that is why the papers are well cited. It is hardly a sickness of the field, to realize what remaining problems in making contact with real world physics are, and move aggressively to try and solve them.
It is of a course a goal distinct from your interests in mathematical physics of Dirac operators, but that is neither here nor there. The subject will not revert to the 1970s regardless of what happens to string theory.
Some smaller subgroup of these papers also describe the so-called “anthropic principle.”
I am no lover of anthropic principles, but that is a different story, and finding good solutions of string theory with more realistic properties seems to me one of the major goals of the subject. Or if its not, I would really like to know why, since to an outsider it seems like it should be one of the main goals! (Also, as Sean always points out, dislike of the anthropic principle does not necessarily make it incorrect — so even those papers, may really have value in the end).
spacepig,
can you tell what is exciting in particle theory in this period?
I think that it is preferable to say that, despite some good attempts in doing theory without data, particle physics will become really interesting only in 2009/2010 when first LHC data will be released.
Clifford,
For about the 100th time, I described in detail what some of these obstructions are here:
http://www.math.columbia.edu/~woit/wordpress/?p=473
and I referred you to Michael Dine’s talk where he goes over the same obstructions, see
http://online.itp.ucsb.edu/online/bblunch/dine/
There’s also a more recent talk by Wati Taylor explaining the same issues:
http://www.phys.hawaii.edu/indico/contributionDisplay.py?contribId=96&sessionId=168&confId=3
If you have any idea other than invoking wishful thinking about what to do about these problems, which I’m claiming are deadly for attempts to connect string theory to experiment (and explain why no one has been able to do this), let’s hear it.
About the validity of the number of citations by people in the same field as a measure of how significant they think a paper is. Yes, it’s an imperfect measure, but I don’t know of a better objective one, and you don’t seem to either. If you do, let’s hear it, and see what it says in this case.
Pig,
As discussed in the above places, the problem with “finding good solutions of string theory with more realistic properties” is that people have found that as they try and do this they are forced into more and more complicated constructions, ending up with a framework that can’t be used to make predictions.
If you actually want to have a serious discussion, you should stop hiding behind anonymity, and from that protection saying stupid things about how how I want to “revert to the 1970s”.
M,
I really meant what you say: the excitement is anticipation of what will be measured soon.
But I note that really exciting new ideas (large extra dimensions, randall/sundrum, little higgs models,…)
were developed in the past few years. None have the 20+ years of development time of SUSY and all seem more problematic, but one may well turn out to be correct.
And of course, the evidence for neutrino masses is exciting; as are the developments in understanding the phase diagram of high density QCD at RHIC. I would call both of those developments in particle theory.
If you also include “real” cosmology, the list of interesting developments grows, since inflation has become almost a precision science with more constraints soon to come. And many of the particle theorists (arkani-hamed, dimopoulos, randall, etc) also work on those models. Along with string theorists (kachru, maldacena, polchinski, silverstein, tye…).
Peter,
The error dine and taylor make in their thinking, is that one should “derive” the low energy world
from string theory. No one “derived” the low energy world from QFT, and it is a tremendous success.
The fact that dine and taylor see obstructions to their goal does not mean there is an obstruction to
connecting string theory with reality, it means they have chosen a bad goal. Almost any physicist with moderate common sense would immediately see this distinction. Branding string theory a failure because of this, would be like calling optical physics a failure because we cannot make lasers that make the “Star
Wars” missile defense program practical, or calling nuclear physics a failure for not attaining “cold fusion.”
Failure to attain impractical goals (however desirable) is never surprising, and more practical goals are
often within reach.
In that spirit, there is plenty of progress in string theory now, and the obstructions you cite are red
herrings, obstructions to attaining a goal that few serious physicists would think possible anyway.
Dr. Woit:
Would it be fair summarize your approach as an attempt to reduce the influence of string theory by political means?
Dr. Johnson:
Sorry to be repetitive but when you broke down the idea of merit, one of your points was that string theory had garnered the respect and enthusiasm of people outside the field and that other approaches had not done so. Isn’t this in a way a popularity contest and how do you reconcile that state of affairs with the idea of Merit.
Your second point was that string theory had solved theoretical issues in other fields. This notion of solving has been higly contentious. How do you define ’solve’ in this instance? Has there been an instance where a whole field has adopted a string theory approach to something and has progressed in their own goals as a field because of this?
TheGraduate wrote:
You did not have to repeat.. I was writing a long response for you…. see below:
Call it a popularity contest if you like. I call it “making your case”.. this is how things work. You are trying to get someone to give you some money…. you make the case for it, and someone else makes their case. The money-giver makes up their mind on the basis of the case….. This is what everyone reasonably calls “the merits of the case”. I don’t see any other way of doing it. Call it a popularity contest if you will, but that’s just obscuring the realiteis of the situation.
Also, you asked:
A huge bone of contention? Really? I’d challenge anyone to dispute even the rough list I compile below:
Before string theory as an idea or as an approach to some problems, there were all sorts of remarkably interesting questions that were posed about a huge variety of theoretical problems. After work in string theory work so far, we have so many new insights, new tools for computing things we could not compute before… in other words, answers to those questions. This is how I define “solving”. (E.g.1 black holes behave like thermodynamical objects… what is the underlying microscopic reason for this, analogous to what happenes in the rest of physics? The answer is well known in string theory for a large class of black holes. Solved. Lots more to do.. but solved in terms of giving totally new insigths and mechanisms for a theoretical physics problem. E.g.2 At strong coupling, some gauge theories exhibit confinement….flux tubes might form with a certain tension… what are the criteria for this? Why does it happen? This is important. How to describe this directly, and get numbers out? String theory gives you a very good set of techniques for doing this for a wide class of gauge theories… tells you how to make the flux tubes out of string.. tells you how to compute their tension…. get real numbers out…… etc etc…. Solved. Lots more to do.. but solved in terms of giving totally new insigths and mechanisms for a theoretical physics problem.)
Quite long list continues here, and it is just a start:
I could go on. Now, let me stress here:
(1) I am not saying that there are other approaches that do not address some of the above questions here. You asked me about strings, and this is what I know and have addressed.
(2) We do not know whether any of these things have anything to do with our world…. that succesful quantum gravity conceivably might not turn out to be *our* quantum gravity for example…. but as a list of things where significant progress has been made in so many theoreticsal physics topics by a single framework….. you must agree it is very impressive. This is why it is regarded as “promising”. This is also largely why young people flock to it (rather than being purely about pressure as is claimed by Woit and Smolin)… and lastly, and to get at your question: This long list all contributes to demonstrating “merits” when making the case for funding….. or , if you prefer, the “popularity contest”.
Thanks for asking.
Cheers,
-cvj
Peter,
Once again, let me point out that your blog post does not constitute a demonstration of firm knowledge on your part or anyone’s that the far from unfinished research into the poorly understood thing called string theory will result in no experimental contact with nature. Not even close. And see spacepig’s points about Dine and Taylor.
Saying that you are sure of a result does not make it a result.
Let’s just set this out clearly:
(1) Your position is that you -having never worked in the field- know absolutely for sure, before the research is done (even though the research program is remarkably healthy…. despite your awfully shaky and naive argument abotu citations to the contrary) and so research should stop.
(2) My position is that I do not know one way or the other (and I actually *work* in the field)… I’d dearly love to know the answer…. I’m letting people get on with their research (which has had so many great spinoffs in the meantime).
Don’t you see something odd here?
Best,
-cvj
Clifford:Once again, let me point out that your blog post[Peter Woit's site] does not constitute a demonstration of firm knowledge on your part or anyone’s that the far from unfinished research into the poorly understood thing called string theory will result in no experimental contact with nature.
In brackets, my addition and reason why, in bold. The very exercise has not be “without it’s science” in relation?
Before the onslaught of this “opposing views and string wars,” presented by Peter I was looking for those who could help, “negative or otherwise” paint some kind of picture of this “theoretical view” which would have “some possible relation” to reality.
How are the physics in relation?
Instead, “the tone itself” arose above the reasons why? Does a disservice to the “critical analysis” of why this model may not be good model of approach?
Regardless of the view I may portray, it has been fun learning, and by going to the leaders in this research, how else could us poor lay persons learn without having the insults dominate the reason, that this may not be a good avenue for research?
So by Bee and yours example, those who stand and face this kind of thing I appreciate the learning that has been placed before us, and do find, “blogging of extreme value,” where some may not think so. Even in light of, Peter’s bloggery work.
We are all entitled to our opinion even at Peter’s Site? The “string evangelistic war” is working itself out.
A lot of interesting points raised…..
CVJ: OK, maybe morale is better in your neck of the woods. Hereabouts there is a bit of a feeling that there is not much happening *now* that is very exciting. Clever ideas come up and then seem to sink with disturbing rapidity. People don’t like the feeling that if they work on something for a year, by that time the whole approach has died out. In that sense I have never agreed with the idea that [adequately long-lived] bandwagons are a bad thing. Well, like life, they seem bad until you consider the alternative. Anyway I do feel that it is the young people who are most affected, particularly those who are in small groups. Seeing their paper discussed on prominent blogs [like this one...] might be helpful, even if the discussion is critical [but civil]. Most people would rather be criticized than ignored.
Bee said:
Hi Holmes,
The problem that I personally have with this is the short attention span in the blogosphere. It takes me some while, sometimes quite a while, to read, understand and being able to judge on somebody else’s work. I am very hesitant to advertise papers I haven’t fully understood, and I don’t want to distribute semi-knowledge.
And you call yourself a blogger?
I think it’s ok to post something like, “Last week Dr Frankenstein posted this really interesting paper where he claims that the theory of left-pseudo-heaps permits a calculation of the cosmological constant. I don’t understand that, because I thought that only right-pseudo-heaps can be paraholomorphic. Anyone know what he was talking about?” You never know, Dr Frank might write in to explain. And surely Dr Frank, working alone in the University of Outer Boratistan, will be delighted to be reassured that somebody looked at his paper.
If I finally come to like somebody’s work, that might not be a paper that would fall under your criterion of ’seen lately’.
Better late than never.
I have a long list of papers that I could tell you are NOT worth the time reading, but maybe I’m too nice a person to write that on my blog.
Maybe.
But let’s leave such judgements to referees, we all know what a good job they do of it……….
One way or the other, I don’t think the blogosphere is a good place to form an opinion about other people’s scientific work.
No indeed. But it might be a good place to find out what people are *thinking* [rightly or wrongly] about other people’s work. Dr Frankenstein will suddenly realize that he was mistaken in thinking that everyone is familiar with pseudoparaholomorphicity. Somebody else will be relieved to find that he is not alone in secretly believing that the anthropic principle is closely related to certain functions of the mammalian alimentary canal, and that his words to that effect in his recent preprint will not instantly brand him as a crackpot. And so on.
Dr. Woit:
I assume you agree with the process by which string theory attained dominance that Dr. Clifford outlined. He points out that this is a normal way to do things in academic circles. Would you agree that alternative views have thus far simply done a bad job of promoting themselves?
Holmes,
Stop what you’re doing right now and write up that paper on pseudoparaholomorphicity! It sounds *great*!
-cvj
TheGraduate… Be sure to realise that it is not that researchers in string theory are better promoters to their peers deciding on funding, jobs, etc…… it is that they seem to have had rather a lot or good results to promote, as you can see by looking at the partial list I gave. I’m sure if alternative approaches had a list like the one I gave above, they’d have a lot more people working on them.
That’s the point. Ideas followed up and supported on the merits of the idea… a list of convincing results, and credible promise of more to come. If others do that with their ideas, they will get support. The claim that this is all about peer and other pressure and nepotism, as is trying to be claimed by Woit and Smolin, is vastly inaccurate.
-cvj
Dr Johnson:
I am curious to hear your opinion about what the output of theoretical work is.
I would consider the the ideal output to be explanatory power and the verification of explanatory power via verified predictions.
I have started to sort of hear other criteria such as consistency of the theory (I have my doubts about this. After all, “Lord of Rings” is pretty consistent but not very useful as a theory of physics. Alternatively, quantum mechanics and relativity are not consistent and yet make for good predictive physics.)
I guess what I am trying to do here is understand the epistemological basis for how you would rate and categorize the achievements of string theory rather than specific achievements which are a bit hard for me to digest as they are completely out of my realm to judge.
Hi,
Obviously. any physicist would agree with you. But we are not there yet. The research is still being carried out. We are talking (at your request) about the process of geting support for doing research toward that goal. An assessment has to be made about what avenues to pursue. You asked me what the merits of strings were and how it came to be this way, and I told you. If an alternative approach came up that had *already* made verifiable contact with experiment, then if would be highest on the list of things to support, of course…. but that is not what we are talking about, since we are talking about research that *may* lead to such a point, not research that is at that point already.
Wait. I am not aware of any inconsistent theories which are predictive. The two you list are not in that category. They are consistent in all places when deployed correctly in their realm of applicability. When they break down is a different issue… In my opinion that is not an issue of inconsistency.
I’m going to stick with the specifics, if you don’t mind. You asked me what things were used by people working on strings to convince a peer review panel, etc, to send financial support their way. I told you. I want to stick to that issue this time. I addressed the issue in the terms that would be used in that context. To use other terms would have been mistleading. I have neer seen the phrase “epist….cal basis” (I can’t even spell it) used in the context of deciding who gets research money in *physics*, and frankly, I hope I *never* see it in that context. Concrete pragmatism is what applies here, and rightly so.
As to the meaning of the thigns I talked about. You need to learn about them to understand the debate. There is no getting away from it. My best advice is to read up on the things I mentioned, and then form your own opinion that way. It is by *not* sticking to specifics that the substance gets lost in the rhetoric. Woit and Smolin’s campaigns have been able to seed and sustain this media storm largely by engaging in rhetoric, and staying away from the substance. If the public knew more of the substance, they’d see this all for what it is…. nonesense. But as they are largely not in a position to asses the actual facts, such as the merits of the research programs under discussion, it just sounds like people arguing technical details over their heads and then the “outsider vs the establishment” darling aspect can get a foothold, as it is the only thing they can relate to. So I’m not going to play with phrases like “epist….cal basis”. I’m just going to offer the raw facts and hope that you’ll see the sense in trying to do a bit of research on the ideas and successes I talked about in detail, and judge for yourself why people consider string theory such a promising theoretical framework.
Once again… if someone wants to get more research done on other frameworks, they should supply their own list of reasons why those frameworks are more compelling… not write books publicly attacking made up pictures of the research of others.
Best Wishes.
-cvj
I have spectacular new results on pseudoparaholomorphicity and its application to the decay of metastable DeSitter into *exact* Minkowski, but the margins of this blog are too large to contain them.
Hello Dr. Johnson,
I hope I am not being too difficult.
Perhaps I should clarify that I am asking my questions from a journalistic stand point of getting to the bottom of the story. As a science student, I would of course want to read the specifics if I eventually decide to go into quantum gravity or particle theory. Though to be honest, as you said, pragmatism should be primary and given the job situation and the current nastiness, it seems a bit unpragmatic to go into a field that might get severely defunded over the next few years. But of course, there is nothing that stops me from reading and thinking about string theory on my own time.
I should also add that I am curious about the sociology as well as the science, what people think is important, what people value etc. I think it might be helpful in graduate school.
TheGraduate:- Thanks. I think I’ve answered. What people think is important, and the end of the day is “what is the best tool to do the job?”. They then take the tool and do the job. That’s allwe are looking for:- the best tool for the job. The strings approach seems to be the most promising tool so far. That may change, with further research. Or it may well be fashioned into a powerful tool for studying nature when we understand it better. Nobody knows. It is *so* exciting to be part of the quest to find out.
Best,
-cvj
Clifford,
you should not write that Peter and Smolin have success only among outsiders who cannot understand the substance. And why do you want that Peter makes a formal proof that string theory is useless? If you want to pursue strings (or any other approach), it’s you who has to show that it can be interesting.
String theory seemed intersting many years ago, but nowadays the main hope seems that not-well-defined landscape statistical distributions, when restricted by not-well-defined anthropic considerations, might turn out to be so peaked that observing a single event (our vacuum) is enough to test string theory. At this point somebody has to try this, altough it seems a desperate attempt, not a promising approach.
If you or “spacepig” think that this is not the only game in the string town, it will be interesting to hear your better concrete proposals for making connection with physics.
(As an aside remark, I guess that the “efficient computational framework…” you mention among successes of string theory is twistors. However, it is not used in practical applications because techniques previously developed by QCD people turned out to be computationally more efficient, despite being less famous).
Dr Johnson,
You said “That’s all we are looking for:- the best tool for the job.”
Would agree that this is all that Drs. Woit and Smolin are doing also?
TheGraduate:- “We” = “Scientists”.
M:- Feel free to go on and on about the landscape. In the meantime, the field works on many many aspects of string theory in addition to that, making lots of progress, as I’ve said before. Also, see my earlier remarks in detail about why Peter’s claims need to be backed by actual substance, as opposed to words. I’ve made all the points rather clearly by now. As to your last paragraph… you are entirely missing the point of the list that TheGraduate asked me for.
Thanks.
-cvj
I do not quite understand this, doubtlessly because I’m ignorant.
I would say that the connection between QFT (in particular, the SM) and the “low energy world” is pretty well understood, though not always in a fully quantitative way. In some cases the relation between the SM and low energy physics is fully quantitative, for instance in the computation of relativistic corrections in atomic and solid state physics, weak processes in atomic and nuclear physics, and some strong processes in nuclear physics.
If, on the other hand, relating string theory to the low energy theory is not considered a realistic goal by string theorists, or if there are obstructions of principle, then I don’t see how we can hope it will ever make contact with experimental data.
M wrote:
(As an aside remark, I guess that the “efficient computational framework…†you mention among successes of string theory is twistors. However, it is not used in practical applications because techniques previously developed by QCD people turned out to be computationally more efficient, despite being less famous).
This might be a “depends who you ask” issue, but given that Zvi Bern and Lance Dixon have been doing QCD calculations for many years and seem enthusiastic about the twistor stuff, I wouldn’t be so quick to dismiss it. It’s true that there were computationally useful recursion relations already in existence (hence codes like Alpgen), but I’m pretty sure the Britto–Cachazo–Feng on-shell recursion relation is currently the most efficient way to compute tree diagrams. There was an existing on-shell recursion / unitarity method from Bern et.al. for loops, but the tree diagrams with many particles are much easier now. This has fed back into the loop-level stuff. Now, it’s true that the BCF recursion relation doesn’t really involve twistors, but it did emerge from the milieu of string theorists focusing on perturbative techniques after Witten’s twistor paper. Anyway, while it certainly can’t be claimed that the technique has revolutionized the way people are calculating collider backgrounds, for instance (though it might help Bern et.al. or other groups with certain difficult NLO predictions that have not yet been computed), I think it’s clear that it’s produced interesting insights. The fact that amplitudes are supported on simple curves in twistor space is pretty cool regardless, no? It seems like the recent work on perturbative QCD is leading to lots of odd and poorly-understood observations, which hint at deeper underlying structures. I do think the utility of these things for the LHC was initially blown out of proportion a bit, but nonetheless it’s interesting, and it is certainly possible to imagine that in the future techniques like this will dominate the way we calculate.
onymus: table 1 of hep-ph/0602204 shows the speed of the old (1988) Berends Giele recursion, compared to recent alternatives: when things get tough it is faster than everything else, including BCF. Furthermore, I believe that present tools are already enough for understanding LHC data.
Clifford: I don’t go on and on about the landscape because I am a fanatic, but because it seems to me that whatever you do in the meantime, at the end you will have to deal with it, and it will be the problem.
Dr Johnson,
Well, thanks for answering my questions. The only thing left to do now is to study hard so I can join you and the other physicists and be part of the quest. It’s kind of scary though, the idea of spending so much time and money only to find out there are no jobs. It weighs on my mind.
I do agree with you that when figuring out good science, only the specifics can really matter and clearly nobody likes the current disconnect with experiment.
@TheGraduate
Bee:
So you think string theory is simply more popular. Do you think there is anything wrong with this system? And if so, how would you change it?
No, its not that simple. But there’s no doubt that string theorists have done a better job getting their work across to a broader public than other Theory-of-Everything-Related-Program-Activities. I think communicating what we do is an important part of our job and shouldn’t be neglected. For this reason, I like Peter Woit’s and Lee Smolin’s books very much. However, from the scientific side, writing a book and causing excitement isn’t sufficient. And I don’t think it’s the right way to lead this discussion.
But leaving aside the String/Anti-String issue, yes, I think there’s something wrong with ‘the system’ - not exclusively with string theory though. I’ve extensively commented about that elsewhere, and I’m currently not in the mood to repeat it. See e.g.
Science And Democracy I
Science And Democracy II
or some recent comments on NEW. In big parts I agree with what is written in Lee Smolin’s book, last part.
@Holmes
And you call yourself a blogger?
I like to call myself a scientist who happens to write a blog.
I think it’s ok to post something like, “Last week Dr Frankenstein posted this really interesting paper where he claims that the theory of left-pseudo-heaps permits a calculation of the cosmological constant. I don’t understand that, because I thought that only right-pseudo-heaps can be paraholomorphic. Anyone know what he was talking about?†You never know, Dr Frank might write in to explain. And surely Dr Frank, working alone in the University of Outer Boratistan, will be delighted to be reassured that somebody looked at his paper.
If that’s the case I don’t put it on my blog, I send an email to Dr. Frankenstein asking him to explain what I didn’t understand.
I have a long list of papers that I could tell you are NOT worth the time reading, but maybe I’m too nice a person to write that on my blog.
Maybe. But let’s leave such judgements to referees, we all know what a good job they do of it……….
well… yes… actually a considerable fraction of these papers are papers I had to referee at some point… and again, I wouldn’t put that on the blog…
One way or the other, I don’t think the blogosphere is a good place to form an opinion about other people’s scientific work.
No indeed. But it might be a good place to find out what people are *thinking* [rightly or wrongly] about other people’s work. Dr Frankenstein will suddenly realize that he was mistaken in thinking that everyone is familiar with pseudoparaholomorphicity. Somebody else will be relieved to find that he is not alone in secretly believing that the anthropic principle is closely related to certain functions of the mammalian alimentary canal, and that his words to that effect in his recent preprint will not instantly brand him as a crackpot. And so on.
No. I don’t think scientists should distribute publicly what they are *thinking* [rightly or wrongly] before they have really thought it through. That’s okay if you do it in a discussion with your colleagues who know that you are just trying to sort out your thoughts. But it’s not okay to babble around in front of an audience who is likely to respect your opinion because it considers you an expert. Worse, without doubt, the blogosphere triggers fast judgements that get easily amplified by being echoed back and forth. This is NOT a good way to do science. If you want to convince me that your work is interesting, you’ll have to come up with something better than a praising blog piece.
There are cases though in which online discussion can work very nicely, e.g. in some cases a blogs or a forum can be very useful to discuss a paper, and clarify its content. If moderated wisely, I think that’s a good development.
Best,
B.
Bee:
Thanks. I will read the threads you’ve pointed me to. It’s hard to read someone’s whole blog to get an idea of what they think about specific things but when they point you to a page or two, in my book, that’s good enough.
Bee,
Us “lay people” always find it interesting, and some will ask, “what use any of this stuff?”
Well, I think all you have to do is ask them if they like to eat, “Campbell’s tomato soup?”
More on name. More on the experimental science?
Dear Clifford,
Thanks for discussing this. Let me respond to your main challenge, which comes at the end of your piece. “If they want people to work on alternative ideas, why not present these ideas to everyone - develop these research programs to the point where people will work on them because they can see their merits?… do some research that will help us get the job done by providing us with real alternatives through the usual channels which are available to everybody.â€
Of course, I agree, what we seem to disagree about is whether the work that has been done till date on manifestly background independent approaches to quantum gravity doesn’t pass the threshold of “providing us with real alternatives.â€
In fact, there is a lot of work in this area with a number of key results in the last few years.
Among them are: 1) the derivation of the graviton propagator in 4d spin foam models by Rovelli et al, 2) the derivation of an effective field theory on a non-commutative manifold from a 3d spin foam model with matter, 3) the evidence for the emergence of 3+1 spacetime from a causal dynamical triangulation model by Ambjorn, Loll et al, 4) the discovery of emergent matter degrees of freedom in quantum gravity models by Markopoulou et al. 5) the removal of cosmological and black hole singularities in models of quantum cosmologies and black hole interiors, 6) predictions of possibly observable order L_Pl corrections to CMB spectra from such models (Hoffman and Winkler) 7) the LOST uniqueness theorem, and others.
I would very much like the chance to try to convince you and others on the merits that these and other results are very much worth paying attention to. (As I emphasize in my note they are significant even if the world is ultimately stringy, because string theory itself needs a manifestly background independent formulation.) If you would agree to be open to being convinced I would make a few suggestions that might help you to better evaluate these developments:
-Study the papers referenced in my article in the current Physics Today-which was written to communicate with colleagues about the recent results-just what you asked for. If you want background references (as they have a strict limit on references) I’d be glad to supply them.
-Invite several of the key people responsible for these recent developments to give a seminar. I’d be happy to make suggestions of good speakers, here is a very incomplete list: Alexander, Amjorn, Ashtekar, Bojowald, Dreyer, Freidel, Husain, Livine, Loll, Markopoulou, Rovelli, Sing, Speciale, Wen, Winkler.
-Invite someone working in this area as a visitor, or consider people in this area as potential postdocs or colleagues.
Finally, let me respond to your, ““The job won’t get done in the media-assisted way you are doing it right now.†You seem to think that Peter and I orchestrated a media campaign. That is absolutely not the case. Nor did I hope to cause some effect by manipulating the media. Instead, I hoped to communicate with colleagues like yourself through the straightforward means of writing a book that, I hoped, would be serious and constructive.
The amount of media interest is actually of no importance for the questions of whether the arguments made in my book are true or useful, that can only be settled by a discussion based on the actual content of the book. I would be very grateful to know what you think in response to the actual arguments made in my book.
The fact that there was a lot of interest from the media was not something that I particularly wanted, and I did nothing to instigate it-I made not a single call or email to a journalist that was not in response to an inquiry from them, nor did I put out a press release etc. The publishers did do the standard things to publicize a book, but that certainly does not account for the interest that was generated, because in the majority of cases they do the same-and in some cases much more- and there is no such response. It is you and not me who keeps making the issue the media response, when I want-for example, in my letter that is the subject of this post- to discuss the actual scientific issues that are the content of the book.
Thanks,
Lee
Finally, let me respond to your, ““The job won’t get done in the media-assisted way you are doing it right now.†You seem to think that Peter and I orchestrated a media campaign. That is absolutely not the case. Nor did I hope to cause some effect by manipulating the media. Instead, I hoped to communicate with colleagues like yourself through the straightforward means of writing a book that, I hoped, would be serious and constructive.
And you thought that the best way to do that was to write a book called, The Trouble with Physics: The Rise of String Theory, The Fall of a Science and What Comes Next?
And then, in that book, instead of simply dealing with scientifc questions, you to essentially accuse an entire field of being enthralled to “groupthink”.
And there’s this from Sabine’s blog:
One was from Houghton Mifflin, and contained the long awaited copy of Lee’s book. But more interestingly, it came with an information sheet. Actually, it’s not so much information but advertisement for some book that reveals allegedly shocking details about faith based science that penalized young physicists. It seems, I’ve read a different book. At least that explains the contents of many reviews I’ve seen since September, which basically repeat what’s written on these accompanying pages. Well, the publisher know their job: ”In the coming months a heated debate raging on the Internet and at physics conferences is poised to break wide open, and THE TROUBLE WITH PHYSICS will serve as a rallying cry.”
Or, have you bothered searching the internet for what the reactions to your book has been outside of the scientific community?
This was all really unexpected to you? What exactly did you expect the reaction to your book to be?
M:
Interesting link, thanks, I didn’t notice that before.
It seems Berends-Giele becomes more efficient for large numbers (>~ 9) of external gluons, because the helicity patterns that are far from MHV become more complicated in BCF. Interesting. (On the other hand, when do you need to calculate nine-gluon scattering?)
Regardless, I think BCF is serious and interesting work. I’m not sure whether you meant to denigrate it or if you just wanted to point out the older techniques. I think both are worth knowing about. It’s a different point of view: Berends-Giele is a very field-theoretic, Schwinger-Dyson-esque sort of technique, while BCF has a more 60s bootstrap / S-matrix flavor. And BCF generalizes simply to things with mass and spin (e.g. hep-th/0507161), which is worth noting. All this talk of many-gluon scattering amplitudes doesn’t really address the most interesting things for experiment, but the techniques can be applied to those too.
As for whether current tools are enough for understanding LHC data, I think it depends on what we mean by “understand.” We certainly don’t know, say, W or Z + n jets cross sections at NLO for n=4,5,…. We probably don’t really need to, but it would definitely be nice, no? Granted, if we have to pull a new physics signal out of background where the NLO corrections are as large as the new physics, we’re probably screwed no matter what. But nonetheless it’s nice to have a somewhat reliable error bar on SM predictions. And talking to some of the people who work on these NLO calculations, it seems they take the new techniques seriously.
Anyway, I’m no expert on these things, just an interested observer, and perhaps you know much more than I do, but I think what Clifford said originally was pretty reasonable. He didn’t say these were the only efficient techniques or the most efficient, just that they are remarkably efficient. I don’t see how one can argue with that.