5 ms·

Greene and Woit are colleagues in the same department (Greene is in two departments) of the same university. This kind of public airing of grievances (at one po

by cvoss 2y ago

Greene and Woit are colleagues in the same department (Greene is in two departments) of the same university. This kind of public airing of grievances (at one point Woit calls something Greene writes "highly offensive") seems like not the appropriate mechanism for hashing out academic disagreements? Unclear to me. I'm also having a hard time understanding Woit's position given that he's a math department guy. Sure, string theory doesn't look exciting from an experimentalist's perspective. But from a mathematical perspective it is an incredible achievement and valuable even if it turns out to not actually describe our universe.

ak_111 2y ago
You say you haven't understood his position, you mean from reading this blog post which isn't supposed to be even an overview of his position? Instead he has written an entire book elaborating on his view, which seems to be a well-regarded text in the very small niche of anti-string theory popular books. Have you read his book? I think it is a perfectly valid and appropriate mechanism for hashing out academic disagreement and further should be welcomed by anyone who appreciates string theory. I personally haven't read his book but will be very surprised if he doesn't address your point that String theory makes good mathematics. I also personally think a simple answer for that objection would be that this is a perfectly valid reason to research it provided you are honest that is the only demonstrable benefit for it so far (which will then have implications on which funding pots you can propose to). String theory advocates (particularly the extreme ones, such as Greene) that Woit targets seem to imply that the benefit of string theory to mankind has far exceeded other pure mathematics branches' contribution (for example category theory), particularly that it helped us figure out the unification of all known laws of physics when there are practically zero evidence that it managed that.
photon_lines 2y ago
I 100% agree with you - I don't buy anything about string theory and I believe it has almost nothing to do with the state of reality, but the attempt itself is honorable and the mathematics behind it is beautiful and can be used to advance our understanding of the universe. If it also inspires others to get into physics and discover new things about reality - it's an overall win for humanity so kudos to any string theorists out there :)
almostgotcaught 2y ago
In undergrad I did physics so I used to tenuously be aware of this debate but I can't comment on the substance because I didn't go on to do my PhD in physics. But they're not colleagues in any meaningful sense. I don't ascribe any value to tenure or professorship but Woit is a "senior lecturer", which is basically an adjunct that's been around a long time, not a professor. For a long time his blog said he was the IT person for the department if I recall correctly. So Woit and his blog and lesswrong has absolutely always been more about click bait than substance to me. Greene isn't a paragon of scholarship either though - again, superficially, for many years now he's been a popsci celebrity rather than a real, actual, string theorist (much like Michio Kaku).
- photon_lines 2y ago
  'Greene isn't a paragon of scholarship either though - again, superficially, for many years now he's been a popsci celebrity rather than a real, actual, string theorist' - Working at Cornell and Columbia, doing research on string theory and writing best-selling books on physics today qualifies a person as a pop-sci physicist? What would you have grouped Einstein as when he was working at the patent office? No really - serious question.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  - lupire 2y ago
    Einstein published his work on relativity on 30 June 1905 in the German physics journal Annalen der Physik, not a pop science book
    - photon_lines 2y ago
      https://inspirehep.net/authors/1007642 https://inspirehep.net/authors/1007642
- lupire 2y ago
  IT person for the department is at the bottom of his list of professional responsibilities. He was in fact an assistant professor of mathematics at Columbia before his current role as senior lecturer. Is suspect that Woit would argue that they are colleagues because Greene is also a mathematician and former physicist. https://www.math.columbia.edu/~woit/ https://www.math.columbia.edu/~woit/
Sniffnoy 2y ago
> I'm also having a hard time understanding Woit's position given that he's a math department guy. Sure, string theory doesn't look exciting from an experimentalist's perspective. But from a mathematical perspective it is an incredible achievement and valuable even if it turns out to not actually describe our universe. Woit is -- like all of us hopefully are -- a person interested in the truth. That his specialty is in mathematics doesn't mean he cannot comment on physical problems in physical theories!

by cvoss 2y ago

ak_111 2y ago

You say you haven't understood his position, you mean from reading this blog post which isn't supposed to be even an overview of his position? Instead he has written an entire book elaborating on his view, which seems to be a well-regarded text in the very small niche of anti-string theory popular books. Have you read his book? I think it is a perfectly valid and appropriate mechanism for hashing out academic disagreement and further should be welcomed by anyone who appreciates string theory. I personally haven't read his book but will be very surprised if he doesn't address your point that String theory makes good mathematics. I also personally think a simple answer for that objection would be that this is a perfectly valid reason to research it provided you are honest that is the only demonstrable benefit for it so far (which will then have implications on which funding pots you can propose to). String theory advocates (particularly the extreme ones, such as Greene) that Woit targets seem to imply that the benefit of string theory to mankind has far exceeded other pure mathematics branches' contribution (for example category theory), particularly that it helped us figure out the unification of all known laws of physics when there are practically zero evidence that it managed that.

photon_lines 2y ago

I 100% agree with you - I don't buy anything about string theory and I believe it has almost nothing to do with the state of reality, but the attempt itself is honorable and the mathematics behind it is beautiful and can be used to advance our understanding of the universe. If it also inspires others to get into physics and discover new things about reality - it's an overall win for humanity so kudos to any string theorists out there :)

almostgotcaught 2y ago

In undergrad I did physics so I used to tenuously be aware of this debate but I can't comment on the substance because I didn't go on to do my PhD in physics. But they're not colleagues in any meaningful sense. I don't ascribe any value to tenure or professorship but Woit is a "senior lecturer", which is basically an adjunct that's been around a long time, not a professor. For a long time his blog said he was the IT person for the department if I recall correctly. So Woit and his blog and lesswrong has absolutely always been more about click bait than substance to me. Greene isn't a paragon of scholarship either though - again, superficially, for many years now he's been a popsci celebrity rather than a real, actual, string theorist (much like Michio Kaku).

photon_lines 2y ago
'Greene isn't a paragon of scholarship either though - again, superficially, for many years now he's been a popsci celebrity rather than a real, actual, string theorist' - Working at Cornell and Columbia, doing research on string theory and writing best-selling books on physics today qualifies a person as a pop-sci physicist? What would you have grouped Einstein as when he was working at the patent office? No really - serious question.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- lupire 2y ago
  Einstein published his work on relativity on 30 June 1905 in the German physics journal Annalen der Physik, not a pop science book
  - photon_lines 2y ago
    https://inspirehep.net/authors/1007642 https://inspirehep.net/authors/1007642
lupire 2y ago
IT person for the department is at the bottom of his list of professional responsibilities. He was in fact an assistant professor of mathematics at Columbia before his current role as senior lecturer. Is suspect that Woit would argue that they are colleagues because Greene is also a mathematician and former physicist. https://www.math.columbia.edu/~woit/ https://www.math.columbia.edu/~woit/

Sniffnoy 2y ago

> I'm also having a hard time understanding Woit's position given that he's a math department guy. Sure, string theory doesn't look exciting from an experimentalist's perspective. But from a mathematical perspective it is an incredible achievement and valuable even if it turns out to not actually describe our universe. Woit is -- like all of us hopefully are -- a person interested in the truth. That his specialty is in mathematics doesn't mean he cannot comment on physical problems in physical theories!