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I can't help but feel cynical about this piece: 1. 20 years ago the author wrote a paper asserting that string theory was a fruitless field of study. 2. The p
by l0b0 6y ago
I can't help but feel cynical about this piece:
1. 20 years ago the author wrote a paper asserting that string theory was a fruitless field of study.
2. The paper is written in a confrontational and snarky tone, for example: "The theory has been spectacularly successful on one front, that of public relations." Not a way to build bridges.
3. The author seems bitter that the paper wasn't accepted into Physics Today, and that the suggested rewriting into a letter to the editor did not result in publication either.
4. The author is sticking to their guns.
No matter how well-founded the idea that string theory is a dead end, this isn't likely to improve things.
- meowkit 6y agoHard disagree on #3. He seems annoyed that he didn’t get any followup, which is totally warranted.
- l0b0 6y agoI assume a publication like Physics Today gets a lot of submissions, and that probably the majority of them are rejected. Maybe there would've been a better chance of acceptance if the article (and presumably also the letter to the editor) wasn't so confrontational.
- cycomanic 6y agoPhysics today is not a scientific journal. I highly doubt that they get a lot of submissions. In my experience with similar publications in a different subfield it's typically more that the journalists/editors at those magazines think that some topic is interesting and talk to some of the more famous researchers in the field to write an article. Sometimes it's also a bit the other way around and the researchers suggest articles to editors they know. Not to publish a letter to the editor seems a very strange decision, these are very short letters and sometimes really cover some quite niche topics. Also not getting back to the author after asking him to rewrite in a different format is just bad form.
- hitekker 6y agoThe scientist saw BS, he called BS, and then 20 years later, the field he criticized turned out to be mostly BS. If you're offended by the audacity of scientists criticizing pseudoscience, you may want to read about the concept of "polemics". It's an acceptable, longstanding form of rhetoric for when a respected figure publicly disagrees with a direction of another group of people. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polemic https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polemic Incidentally, the author even noted his article was a polemic in the original abstract https://arxiv.org/abs/physics/0102051 https://arxiv.org/abs/physics/0102051
- paulpauper 6y ago>The scientist saw BS, he called BS, and then 20 years later, the field he criticized turned out to be mostly BS. I don't think it is possible to make such a determination yet.
- gfodor 6y agoSome things are un-falsifiable due to logic, some are un-falsifiable due to the limits of technology. String theory may just be the latter, but all un-falsifiable theories have the same problem.
- zepto 6y agoWhat would need to change in order to make such a determination?
- Koshkin 6y agoThe name.
- jariel 6y ago"No matter how well-founded the idea that string theory is a dead end, this isn't likely to improve things. " If string theory is in fact a flub - and the field can't take a basic article of this 'tone' without flinching - the science has a problem.
- sgt101 6y ago3 - when I have had rejections it has been by email, directly, with specific reasons. Hurts like hell, but can't really feel bad about it.