7 ms·

Eric Weinstein may have found the answer to physics' biggest problems (2013)

33 points by allenleein 8y ago

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
hprotagonist 8y ago
From wikipedia, Eric Ross Weinstein (born October 1965) is an American mathematician, economist, writer, and managing director of Thiel Capital, Peter Thiel's investment firm.[1] He writes on investments, capitalism, science, and mathematics. ... In May, 2013, Weinstein delivered a lecture, Geometric Unity. It was promoted by Marcus du Sautoy as being a possible answer to some of the problems in modern physics.[5] Few physicists attended the original lecture, and no paper or preprint was published. Sounds like he may not have found the answer, after all. He is certainly not a practicing physicist, anyway.
- gricardo99 8y ago
  Sounds like something that could have been said to dismiss Einstein, the patent office clerk.
  - hprotagonist 8y ago
    Einstein published papers. To date, Weinstein has not. https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/cocktail-party-physics/dear-guardian-youve-been-played/ https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/cocktail-party-physics/... I haven't seen anybody claim Weinstein shouldn't have been invited to give a colloquium at Oxford, and had his claims been less extraordinary, I'm sure nobody would have minded if he gave some preliminary details without a paper. They're more informal affairs, these colloquia; they should be about exciting new ideas. But given his grandiose claims, it would have been wise to have provided physicists with the gory details beforehand so they could better assess the merits and target their questions accordingly. That's how science advances. Combine that with an ill-advised major media splash -- well, that's a recipe for a PR trainwreck, which is precisely what happened. For my part, I've been especially struck by how careful every single physicist I've seen comment on this publicly has been to correct this misperception that the physics community is unwilling to listen to radical new ideas from outside some kind of elistist "Inner Circle." Again, it's an appealing narrative; that's why this particular framing was used, to cut off any immediate objections at the knees. No doubt there are some hidebound traditionalists lurking in the Ivory Tower, but there are far more dynamic, passionately engaged physicists excited about any new revolutionary ideas that could set physics on an exciting new course -- regardless of where they come from.
- King-Aaron 8y ago
  I don't know if the anonymous poster on 4chan who helped advance that permutation problem was a practicing mathematician or not, but if third parties verify that a persons reasoning might be sound, what does it really matter?
pietroglyph 8y ago
This is a good starting point on all of this (with links to criticism): https://www.math.columbia.edu/~woit/wordpress/?p=5927 https://www.math.columbia.edu/~woit/wordpress/?p=5927 Has this gone anywhere since 2013?
pgt 8y ago
Link to lecture? The only video I can find is https://youtu.be/h5gnATQMtPg https://youtu.be/h5gnATQMtPg It’s strange how much meta-content has been written about how wrong Weinstein is, but none of the publications articulate his position or refute it. Show us the math, and we’ll decide for ourselves. If anything, denials without formulas strengthen the perceived novelty of his ideas - whatever they are!
- hprotagonist 8y ago
  >Show us the math, and we’ll decide for ourselves. as far as i can tell, Weinstein has not done this step, either. Google scholar and arxiv searching hasn’t lead me to anything, anyway.
- cygx 8y ago
  but none of the publications articulate his position or refute it Because as long as he doesn't publish, all we can do is speculate what his position actually is...
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
cygx 8y ago
And 5 ½ years later, I'm still waiting for a paper or at least a video recording of the talk[1]. Maybe he did manage to "unify the twin geometries (Riemannian and Ehresmannian) thought to ground the two most fundamental physical theories (General Relativity and the so-called Standard Model of particle theory respectively)" [2] - he does have the necessary mathematical background; but making grand claims while keeping silent about the actual content makes you look like a fraud or an ass... [1] https://twitter.com/EricRWeinstein/status/339742655296716800 https://twitter.com/EricRWeinstein/status/339742655296716800 [2] https://www.ineteconomics.org/research/experts/eweinstein https://www.ineteconomics.org/research/experts/eweinstein
rurban 8y ago
Some of the predicted particles should have already been found by the LHC, but they weren't observed. So it just remains a nice aesthetic theory, as many others. https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn23632-how-to-test-weinsteins-provocative-theory-of-everything https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn23632-how-to-test-wei...

33 points by allenleein 8y ago

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

From wikipedia, Eric Ross Weinstein (born October 1965) is an American mathematician, economist, writer, and managing director of Thiel Capital, Peter Thiel's investment firm.[1] He writes on investments, capitalism, science, and mathematics. ... In May, 2013, Weinstein delivered a lecture, Geometric Unity. It was promoted by Marcus du Sautoy as being a possible answer to some of the problems in modern physics.[5] Few physicists attended the original lecture, and no paper or preprint was published. Sounds like he may not have found the answer, after all. He is certainly not a practicing physicist, anyway.

gricardo99 8y ago
Sounds like something that could have been said to dismiss Einstein, the patent office clerk.
- hprotagonist 8y ago
  Einstein published papers. To date, Weinstein has not. https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/cocktail-party-physics/dear-guardian-youve-been-played/ https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/cocktail-party-physics/... I haven't seen anybody claim Weinstein shouldn't have been invited to give a colloquium at Oxford, and had his claims been less extraordinary, I'm sure nobody would have minded if he gave some preliminary details without a paper. They're more informal affairs, these colloquia; they should be about exciting new ideas. But given his grandiose claims, it would have been wise to have provided physicists with the gory details beforehand so they could better assess the merits and target their questions accordingly. That's how science advances. Combine that with an ill-advised major media splash -- well, that's a recipe for a PR trainwreck, which is precisely what happened. For my part, I've been especially struck by how careful every single physicist I've seen comment on this publicly has been to correct this misperception that the physics community is unwilling to listen to radical new ideas from outside some kind of elistist "Inner Circle." Again, it's an appealing narrative; that's why this particular framing was used, to cut off any immediate objections at the knees. No doubt there are some hidebound traditionalists lurking in the Ivory Tower, but there are far more dynamic, passionately engaged physicists excited about any new revolutionary ideas that could set physics on an exciting new course -- regardless of where they come from.
King-Aaron 8y ago
I don't know if the anonymous poster on 4chan who helped advance that permutation problem was a practicing mathematician or not, but if third parties verify that a persons reasoning might be sound, what does it really matter?

pietroglyph 8y ago

This is a good starting point on all of this (with links to criticism): https://www.math.columbia.edu/~woit/wordpress/?p=5927 https://www.math.columbia.edu/~woit/wordpress/?p=5927 Has this gone anywhere since 2013?

pgt 8y ago

Link to lecture? The only video I can find is https://youtu.be/h5gnATQMtPg https://youtu.be/h5gnATQMtPg It’s strange how much meta-content has been written about how wrong Weinstein is, but none of the publications articulate his position or refute it. Show us the math, and we’ll decide for ourselves. If anything, denials without formulas strengthen the perceived novelty of his ideas - whatever they are!

hprotagonist 8y ago
>Show us the math, and we’ll decide for ourselves. as far as i can tell, Weinstein has not done this step, either. Google scholar and arxiv searching hasn’t lead me to anything, anyway.
cygx 8y ago
but none of the publications articulate his position or refute it Because as long as he doesn't publish, all we can do is speculate what his position actually is...

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

cygx 8y ago

And 5 ½ years later, I'm still waiting for a paper or at least a video recording of the talk[1]. Maybe he did manage to "unify the twin geometries (Riemannian and Ehresmannian) thought to ground the two most fundamental physical theories (General Relativity and the so-called Standard Model of particle theory respectively)" [2] - he does have the necessary mathematical background; but making grand claims while keeping silent about the actual content makes you look like a fraud or an ass... [1] https://twitter.com/EricRWeinstein/status/339742655296716800 https://twitter.com/EricRWeinstein/status/339742655296716800 [2] https://www.ineteconomics.org/research/experts/eweinstein https://www.ineteconomics.org/research/experts/eweinstein

rurban 8y ago

Some of the predicted particles should have already been found by the LHC, but they weren't observed. So it just remains a nice aesthetic theory, as many others. https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn23632-how-to-test-weinsteins-provocative-theory-of-everything https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn23632-how-to-test-wei...