5 ms·

I understand that one huge reason for Ed Witten's optimism about strong theory is this very fact. That, in his terms, the process of building out string theory

I understand that one huge reason for Ed Witten's optimism about strong theory is this very fact. That, in his terms, the process of building out string theory has led to the uncovering of so much "buried treasure" in the form of novel developments of maths. Of course it's not anything like a proof but something that bolsters an intuition.

77pt77 2y ago
And that amounted to 60 years (and counting) of absolutely nothing in terms of how the physical world works. Even Witten's achievements objectively reduce to an alternate proof of the positivity energy theorem in GR. This is an abject failure by all metrics.
- paulpauper 2y ago
  And that amounted to 60 years (and counting) of absolutely nothing in terms of how the physical world works. this is in part because it's outside the scope of existing technology
- glenstein 2y ago
  Witten has revolutionized mathematical physics, and his development of topological quantum field theory was nothing short of monumental. Much of Witten's own point above is that advancements in string theory have cashed out in revolutionary new mathematical approaches that would be of lasting value even string theory itself never receives any experimental confirmation. I think article highlights something very beautiful about how physics, including string theory, have lead to the creation of new math, and how that is suggestive of an unmet promise. To ignore that just to come in and repeat for the 1000th time the world's most repeated thing about string theory, and take a completely unnecessary cheap shot at Ed Witten is the perfect embodiment of why comment sections can too often be a depressing waste of time.
  - 77pt77 2y ago
    The only cheap thing here is the amount of actual physics that came out of all of this ptolemaic endeavor. And writing ptolemaic is probably too charitable because the Almagest at least predicted movements quite well at the time (apparently it now deviates too much).
    - zachf 2y ago
      Is your preferred remedy that quantum gravity be entirely defunded, or instead that more funding be redirected to any of the other programs to study quantum gravity? If the latter, which ones in your opinion are more likely to be productive than string theory?
      - 77pt77 2y ago
        I have no remedies. But I refuse to say "thank you very much" when sand has been thrown at my eyes for decades.
        deleted 2y ago
        [deleted]
      - naasking 2y ago
        Your suggestion implicitly asserts that string theory was productive, which is exactly the claim that seems to be in contention. I don't think it's too wild to suggest that, without the constraints of string theory imposed by advisors, lots of novel approaches would have been tried. We have no idea what could have been produced. As for quantum gravity specifically, arguably not much progress will be made without more data, and we now have some proposed experiments that can be conducted here on Earth to test them.
        zachf 2y ago
        There are in fact exceptionally strong incentives to discover alternatives to quantum gravity which could be tested in experiments. These are the same incentives that always drive the scientific process, and new theories cost next to zero to produce. The reason string theory is popular is not because string theorists somehow prevent funding of other directions. It is because string theory has given us tools like AdS/CFT that are useful in other contexts to understand real physics—-and the alternatives have not (yet). There are many physicists who spend their lives studying alternatives to string theory with 100% of their time. I hope for their sake that there is a similar pot of gold at the end of their rainbows. It has not yet materialized.
- analog31 2y ago
  Something I've speculated about is that we just don't know if and when the next answer will arrive. The past few centuries have certainly stoked our expectations for rapid progress, but it's not guaranteed. There's no success-or-failure metric for the search, until an answer is found. It took humanity something like 1000 years between when the ancient Greeks could formulate general quadratic equations, and someone came along who solved them. And another several centuries before the solution was extended to included complex numbers. The problem that they tried to solve with string theory: Will it be solved in a decade, a century, a millennium, or ever. Is it possible that bending the rules of scientific methodology, even temporarily, will help us find an answer?
  - glenstein 2y ago
    I completely agree. As you say it could be that we don't get an answer for a century, a millenium, or ever. Even if string theory is on the right track, it might be that we never, ever, apprehend anything more than tantalizing clues. To quote Ed Witten from the same interview I was referencing previous [0], he likes to say that string theory is a 21st century theory that fell, by chance, into the 20th century. [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=77wN6C-NWD8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=77wN6C-NWD8

77pt77 2y ago

And that amounted to 60 years (and counting) of absolutely nothing in terms of how the physical world works. Even Witten's achievements objectively reduce to an alternate proof of the positivity energy theorem in GR. This is an abject failure by all metrics.

paulpauper 2y ago
And that amounted to 60 years (and counting) of absolutely nothing in terms of how the physical world works. this is in part because it's outside the scope of existing technology
glenstein 2y ago
Witten has revolutionized mathematical physics, and his development of topological quantum field theory was nothing short of monumental. Much of Witten's own point above is that advancements in string theory have cashed out in revolutionary new mathematical approaches that would be of lasting value even string theory itself never receives any experimental confirmation. I think article highlights something very beautiful about how physics, including string theory, have lead to the creation of new math, and how that is suggestive of an unmet promise. To ignore that just to come in and repeat for the 1000th time the world's most repeated thing about string theory, and take a completely unnecessary cheap shot at Ed Witten is the perfect embodiment of why comment sections can too often be a depressing waste of time.
- 77pt77 2y ago
  The only cheap thing here is the amount of actual physics that came out of all of this ptolemaic endeavor. And writing ptolemaic is probably too charitable because the Almagest at least predicted movements quite well at the time (apparently it now deviates too much).
  - zachf 2y ago
    Is your preferred remedy that quantum gravity be entirely defunded, or instead that more funding be redirected to any of the other programs to study quantum gravity? If the latter, which ones in your opinion are more likely to be productive than string theory?
    - 77pt77 2y ago
      I have no remedies. But I refuse to say "thank you very much" when sand has been thrown at my eyes for decades.
      - deleted 2y ago
        [deleted]
    - naasking 2y ago
      Your suggestion implicitly asserts that string theory was productive, which is exactly the claim that seems to be in contention. I don't think it's too wild to suggest that, without the constraints of string theory imposed by advisors, lots of novel approaches would have been tried. We have no idea what could have been produced. As for quantum gravity specifically, arguably not much progress will be made without more data, and we now have some proposed experiments that can be conducted here on Earth to test them.
      - zachf 2y ago
        There are in fact exceptionally strong incentives to discover alternatives to quantum gravity which could be tested in experiments. These are the same incentives that always drive the scientific process, and new theories cost next to zero to produce. The reason string theory is popular is not because string theorists somehow prevent funding of other directions. It is because string theory has given us tools like AdS/CFT that are useful in other contexts to understand real physics—-and the alternatives have not (yet). There are many physicists who spend their lives studying alternatives to string theory with 100% of their time. I hope for their sake that there is a similar pot of gold at the end of their rainbows. It has not yet materialized.
analog31 2y ago
Something I've speculated about is that we just don't know if and when the next answer will arrive. The past few centuries have certainly stoked our expectations for rapid progress, but it's not guaranteed. There's no success-or-failure metric for the search, until an answer is found. It took humanity something like 1000 years between when the ancient Greeks could formulate general quadratic equations, and someone came along who solved them. And another several centuries before the solution was extended to included complex numbers. The problem that they tried to solve with string theory: Will it be solved in a decade, a century, a millennium, or ever. Is it possible that bending the rules of scientific methodology, even temporarily, will help us find an answer?
- glenstein 2y ago
  I completely agree. As you say it could be that we don't get an answer for a century, a millenium, or ever. Even if string theory is on the right track, it might be that we never, ever, apprehend anything more than tantalizing clues. To quote Ed Witten from the same interview I was referencing previous [0], he likes to say that string theory is a 21st century theory that fell, by chance, into the 20th century. [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=77wN6C-NWD8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=77wN6C-NWD8