7 ms·
Problems with Eric Weinstein's “Geometric Unity”
- francisduvivier 6y agoSo we are now at the point that peer reviewed papers are being written as a response to YouTube videos, with timestamped YouTube links in the paper? Has this happened before? Is this the mark of a new era in scientific research? Not sure if should be asking this seriously or not.
- n4r9 6y agoI don't see much reason for taking Weinstein's proposed "theory" seriously. Or much else that he says for that matter, but I'm happy to be proven wrong. However, he's found a platform and I suppose that's pressured academia into demonstrating that they're not ignoring a self-proclaimed lone outcast genius.
- nbardy 6y agoThis is a incredibly contrived version of events. Whether Weinstein's theory is correct or not. He's had a career in mathematics and isn't a self proclaimed lone out cast genius. His peers recognize him and he's decided to do this outside of Academia for being burned in the past.
- n4r9 6y agoAs I understand it he got a PhD from Harvard then did a couple of stints at other institutions (without writing any further research) and then moved into industry a long time ago. The only researcher I have seen supporting his work is Frenkel, conversely there are many pieces by academics which are critical of his claims.
- ineedasername 6y agoIt's not ivory tower. Research needs to be structured in some form or fashion: I don't care if it's APA style or whatever, but a YouTube lecture video certainly doesn't have any reasonable degree of structure for something proposed as a groundbreaking ToE when the lecturer hasn't also presented more concrete documentation somewhere else. If the author of this post had some compelling research from Weinstein that Weinstein had tossed up on his blog and was complaining about it not being peer-reviewed, I'd say sure-- there's a bit of ivory-tower-ism. But it seems a pretty valid complaint against a scientist when the primary material for their grand theory is a YouTube video. In fact after 8 years without much more than that, I'm surprised anyone paid enough attention to bother addressing the theory at all. Pretty much anyone in any job can't propose a single thing without giving specific reasons justifying it. If Weinstein isn't willing to pass that bar, it's not some kind of insider's-club to dismiss what he's done as insufficient.
- zokier 6y agoI can't find the “A Response to Geometric Unity” paper actually published anywhere, implying that it hasn't received peer review in the conventional sense.
- SurfingToad 6y agoWeinstein doesn't 'believe' in peer review ...
- qqj 6y agoThis is crackpot physics. The only reason this gets any sort of publicity is because Mr. Weinstein has a (non-scientific) podcast and is associated with Joe Rogan and Sam Harris. People wasting their time invalidating the work of a man who can't be bothered to even publish it is completely ludicrous.
- macinjosh 6y agoSounds like you're someone who enjoys gates and keeping them.
- Waterluvian 6y agoWithout posing an opinion on the matter, I find it somewhat humorous to see the author complaining about having to timestamp a video for citations because the subject refused to put their work into an industry standard format. There's a certain ivory tower je ne sais quoi to it. Got me thinking about that superpermutations solution posted on 4chan leading to a paper with "Anonymous 4chan User" as the lead author.
- omginternets 6y agoThe thing is those ivory tower conventions serve a purpose. They make it easier for others to evaluate (and credit!) your work. Obviously some of these conventions might be pedantic, and criticizing an argument's form doesn't invalidate its essence, but I don't think it's a bad idea to insist on standards, even somewhat arbitrary ones. It seems like you're wishing for a world in which every citation is equivalent to "Anonymous 4chan User". I don't think that would improve things.
- nbardy 6y agoThey used to serve a purpose, but now it's turned our academy into a dog and pony show. Where publish or perish reigns supreme. Everyone rushs paper, suicide rates in Academia are sky rocketing and most smart young people opt for tech or startups instead.
- omginternets 6y agoI don't disagree with the pathologies you're pointing out, but I don't agree that this was caused by the mere act of imposing standards and practices. And even if publishing conventions are part of the problem, doing away with all convention is likely to make things worse, not better. It would amount to throwing the baby away with the bathwater.
- pmiller2 6y agoExactly. That's how we got academia's version of the minimal viable product: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Least_publishable_unit https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Least_publishable_unit
- afro88 6y ago> The most glaring deficiency in Weinstein’s presentation is that it does not incorporate any quantum theory. Establishing a consistent quantum theory of gravity alone has defied the efforts of nearly a century’s worth of vigorous research and is part of what makes formulating a Theory of Everything an enormous challenge. For GU to overlook this obstacle means that it has no possible claim on being a Theory of Everything. From what I gather, Weinstein regards quantum theory as an intellectual distraction, and not a useful theory in a practical sense. So if you disagree with that, then that's his whole theory out the window.
- n4r9 6y agoWhether or not you think quantum theory is intellectually substantial, you have to be able to predict and explain phenomena such as the double-slit experiment or violations of Bell's theorem. Does his proposal do that?
- afro88 6y agoI have no idea. But I'm interested to see how his theory plays out now that it's getting more eyes on it.
- ryan93 6y agoThere is zero chance his theory has any merit. Why are some people so susceptible to this stuff?
- Randor 6y ago>There is zero chance his theory has any merit. That seems a bit harsh. There is a certain beauty in the geometry equations Weinstein presented. I find it interesting that EFE, Yang-Mills and Dirac emerge from that. He certainly hasn't shown a complete theory of everything but I wouldn't say that it doesn't have any merit. If I had one criticism of Weinstein it would be that he's never put anything down on paper for anyone to deeply review.
- kevinventullo 6y agoA perhaps relevant post from Frank Calegari on Mochizuki’s purported proof of the ABC Conjecture from a few years ago: https://www.galoisrepresentations.com/2017/12/17/the-abc-conjecture-has-still-not-been-proved/ https://www.galoisrepresentations.com/2017/12/17/the-abc-con... My favorite quote: “To take an extreme example, if Mochizuki had carved his argument on slate in Linear A and then dropped it into the Mariana Trench, then there would be little doubt that asking about the veracity of the argument would be beside the point.“
- ineedasername 6y agoWeinstein regards the conventional requirement of writing a paper to be flawed, since he questions the legitimacy of peer review, credit assignment, and institutional recognition I'm fine with skepticism of the traditional research publication path, but "take my word for it" is a significantly worse alternative.
- jorgesborges 6y agoHe said recently in a conversation with Lex Friedman that he intends to release a complete paper April 1st.
- ineedasername 6y agoWhich would be great if he follows through. Unfortunately he has made promises in the past and not followed through, so I can't take his word on that.
- trap_chateau 6y agoI'm surprised Weinstein doesn't consider it important to put technical details out there, especially when it's not like anyone is going to steal this research. All it takes is a submission to arXiv to not only popularize his ideas but to submit them to the peer review of everyone, since he holds a quarrel with institutional review.
- ummonk 6y agoNotably, it is not uncommon for math and physics researchers to bypass journals as a gatekeeper and directly publish to arXiv. This still allows for other researchers to see the claims presented in a rigorous format and rebut them.
- woopwoop 6y agoIt's pretty uncommon (read: I've literally never heard of this outside of one obvious famous exception) for math researchers to put something important on arxiv and never submit it to a journal.
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- ALittleLight 6y agoI don't know enough math or physics to really have an opinion here, but my impression as a layperson familiar with these people is that if Sabine Hossenfelder (or someone writing on her blog) says X and Eric Weinstein says !X then Hossenfelder is probably right. Whenever I watch her videos she seems clear and makes sense. When I watch/listen to Weinstein I get an uneasy feeling of not quite understanding or believing the things he is saying. Hossenfelder makes things clearer, Weinstein tends to speak in dramatic and grandiose language that unnecessarily obfuscates things.
- macinjosh 6y agoYour argument is bereft of logic and is based on your personal feelings about 2 individuals, not really a convincing argument
- ALittleLight 6y agoObserving that Hossenfelder seems reliable and Weinstein doesn't and therefore putting more trust in what Hossenfelder says seems perfectly logical to me. As an analogy, I have an aural thermometer and an infrared thermometer. From what I've read (and discussed with my doctor) the aural thermometer is the more accurate one. If my aural thermometer and my infrared disagree on someone's temperature, I believe the aural thermometer. Is this because I am bereft of logic and using only my personal feelings about the two thermometers, or because I reasonably trust one device more than another? In areas that I don't have lots of familiarity with, like the kinds of math and physics discussed in the article, I think I can use the feedback of experts as sensing tools. Just like I can't directly infer someone's temperature by looking at them or feeling them, I can't directly infer the truth about competing claims related to Geometric Unity. What I can do though is rely on the sensing tools or experts with established credibility and see what they say.
- techbio 6y agoThen again, no. Not being an expert in thermometers, but having a vested interest in normal human body temperature, at first I thought aural was a homophone for oral, another common type of thermometer, and a strange speech recognition error. Having googled the term "aural thermometer", I see it is a popular product, and the descriptions show that it measures the temperature inside one's ear by infrared, as in an aural thermometer is, logically, also an infrared thermometer. If this simplest of everyday health monitors can have that much confusion in clear writing, I wonder how it is possible to believe that laypeople listening to a podcast on groundbreaking theory could expect to usefully interpret any part of it.
- qqj 6y agoIt’s sad to see Mr. Weinstein squander his supposedly not entirely inconsequential intellect on nonsense out of some misguided angst against “the establishment” and deeply rooted insecurities and egotistical tendencies. Not to mention the embarrassing and cringe-inducing attempts to coin the term “The Intellectual Dark Web” as a way for him to leverage Joe Rogan’s and Sam Harris’s popularity. Dark indeed, alas not for the adolescently edgy reasons he has in mind. Here’s to him rebounding from this foolishness and doing some actual scientific work worth of merit.
- Gatsky 6y agoI find Weinstein very irritating. This whole GU thing is just another example. It is the typical mix of “I have discovered the extremely important X, the establishment is oppressing me.” So far X has included a theory of everything, a conspiracy by academia to keep wages low, a nobel prize worthy discovery by his brother on mouse models and a nobel prize worthy economic theory he helped his wife develop. He had some good stuff on his podcast sure but it just isn’t worth the effort when it is interspersed with these self-aggrandising narratives. I also question his motives when he quit recording his podcast for no reason despite talking about how lucrative it was (?) and going on and on about the importance of the community he was building, and the ‘distributed idea suppression complex’ which his podcast was supposed to combat.
- mgamache 6y agoI am glad the merit of ideas are proportional to the likeability of the author.
- ryan93 6y agoAre you saying you buy Weinsteins claims?
- SurfingToad 6y agoAs opposed to, you know, providing proof for your claims?
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- mgamache 6y agoI think people are missing the bigger picture... This doesn't have to be 100% correct or it's worthless. Sometimes there's gold in a failed effort. Maybe some part of Weinstein's approach moves the field forward even if the proposal is not complete. The physics community has been obsessed with string theory for a generation. Maybe this is a way to restart other areas that might lead to something.
- foxes 6y agoWhy don’t they just post something on arxiv as everyone else seems to.
- alexashka 6y agoCan someone explain like I'm 5: if someone has a physics theory, can't we just use it to predict stuff in the real world and see if it works? What does Eric Weinstein's theory enable that can't be done with what we've already got? That's what I'm interested in and I haven't heard anyone say anything on the matter, which strikes me as rather strange, given that uh, that's why people presumably do science?
- leephillips 6y agoI asked Dr. Weinstein about this directly (on Twitter) and his response is (I think I am being fair here) that this isn’t developed (he says “instantiated”) to the point where you can predict things, or even reproduce known behavior. At this point he is guided by not much more than mathematical beauty, he doesn’t expect that it is a correct theory of physics yet.
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- prof-dr-ir 6y agoIt was nice of the author of the linked blog post to dissect these ideas in detail. It really is a public service he has provided here, since almost all professional theoretical physicists recognize the pseudoscience from miles away. Maybe in the new media landscape it is important to debunk pseudoscientific theories more publicly? Is this going to be an integral part of interacting with the public? As opposed to normal outreach activities, such debunking would would be boring and annoying work for an academic -- but maybe it should be viewed as having become part of the job.
- saeranv 6y agoAll the Weinstein defenders here should really read the article first. This excerpt gets at Weinstein's massive credibility gap: >> I also became increasingly skeptical of Weinstein’s claims when I pressed him about his alleged discovery of the Seiberg-Witten equations before Seiberg and Witten (see here, here, here, and here), a set of equations which was the central focus of my PhD thesis and several resultant papers. When I asked Weinstein for certain mathematical details about how he had arrived at the Seiberg-Witten equations, his vague responses led me to doubt his claims. Though Weinstein proposed to host a more in-depth discussion about GU and the requisite math and physics, no such discussion ever materialized.
- kypro 6y agoI like Eric Weinstein as a person. I find he asks important and interesting questions about academia, economics, politics, etc. He's also full of interesting quotes, historical facts and alternative perspectives on the world which I enjoy listening to. That said whenever I listen to him I feel my BS detector lighting up in head. He's a smart guy, but he always comes across as a little too confident in his own intellect to know when he's out of his depth. I suspect this is a good example of that. I see myself in him a bit. I think a slight over-confidence in your own abilities can often be a useful trait to have – especially if you're an entrepreneurial person. I guess what I'm saying is that I don't think he's trying to deceitful and I think he's an interesting guy, but you really have to take everything he says with a pitch of salt if you want to get any value from him. Lex Friedman did a wonderful podcast with him last year. It's probably one of my favourite podcasts of 2020. They talk about all kinds of things from music to the nature of love and for me I think this is Eric at his best. Also, the way he's cynicism contrasts with Lex's child-like nativity is really fun to listen to. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o2nG7-eXxko https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o2nG7-eXxko
- DemocracyFTW 6y agoQuote: "When I asked Weinstein for certain mathematical details about how he had arrived at the Seiberg-Witten equations, his vague responses led me to doubt his claims."—and this is the crux I guess. There have been people who went unknown and unrecognized in their times, there have been theories that got laughed at before being confirmed. There are people who just dreamed up something with no real foundations or data to back up that later got vindicated. But likelihood was never in favor of grand theories being correct when not grounded solidly. I for one find Weinstein creepy and just downvote any Youtube suggestion that pops up in my stream. When someone like Roger Penrose comes up with a far-flung theory (multiverse, quantum foundations of consciousness, etcpp) at least you can be confident he has thought long and hard about what he's talking about (and tons of other stuff that does have standing). Not this guy. Weinstein makes a claim and when you ask for proof, he gets evasive, pointing fingers at people. I'm sorry sir but if you feel unjustly ostracized from the scientific community you still have to publish and discuss. If you don't we can know for pretty sure your exclusion was either self-induced or done for good reason. No research department benefits from a grifter. That said, I'd give him the benefit of a doubt. Many people seriously believe in counterfactual stuff as we now, sadly, know so much better than a mere twelve months ago.