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When people make these comments about string theory, are they at the forefront of quantum physics theory and have spent years on modern string theory? Or did th

When people make these comments about string theory, are they at the forefront of quantum physics theory and have spent years on modern string theory? Or did they just watch a YouTube video and then keep parroting this?

nullbio 2mo ago
This isn't a great argument. Researchers who do not think string theory is good are not going to spend years on it. There are plenty of experts that dismiss string theory. I have no skin in the game, and don't care either way, fwiw.
- panda-giddiness 2mo ago
  I don't think someone needs to be a (former) string theorist to have an informed opinion on string theory, but I do think they should at least have a physics research background. Like, if someone can't explain what second quantization is, then why should I care about their opinion on string theory at all? There's just not that much room for a discerning conversation. (With the obvious caveat that I have different expectations for a real-life conversation than a discussion forum.) Our grandparent is sort of the perfect example of an insight-free comment: confidently claiming string theory is useless (without supporting evidence) and then claiming (more like imagining, since there's again no evidence provided here) that an LLM would have abandoned such a research program long ago. What's there to discuss? The comment is based on a made-up scenario; it is, in other words, pure fiction.
the__alchemist 2mo ago
You could reductio ad-absurdum this logic quite broadly. We all form beliefs about the world and its aspects, and almost always through fallible sources. Should one be confident about ones of questionable provenance? I say no. But forming beliefs from the information we have is a useful skill.
- fragmede 2mo ago
  In the age of infinite bullshit generators, the even more useful skill is being able to say "I don't know." Or "I'm not qualified to have a useful opinion on this so I'm just not going to say anything." I could write a bunch of stuff about my personal opinions on string theory and waste everyone's time, or I could just shut up and not be a human stoichastic parrot.
- aurareturn 2mo ago
  Nothing wrong with learning and being influenced. However, many posters on HN are very confident that string theory is a dead end. It makes me question if they’ve done cutting edge string theory or it is just some random software engineers who watched Sabina on YouTube. The degree of confidence matters here.
lokar 2mo ago
Or the just read Woit, uh, 20 years ago now, “not even wrong”.
tcp_handshaker 2mo ago
Sabine has been at the forefront and has the goods: https://youtu.be/1mgxuVVUz40 https://youtu.be/1mgxuVVUz40 And for the inevitable critics of Sabine...maybe Leonard Susskind is good enough for you: https://youtu.be/2p_Hlm6aCok https://youtu.be/2p_Hlm6aCok
- cauch 2mo ago
  The error with this approach is that every single physics theory gets exactly the same criticisms. You can take any of the theories that Hossenfelder would spend time on instead of the ones she does not like, and you would find (basically) a similar percentage of physicists saying it's a mistake to continue in this direction. In other terms: for each physics theory, on 100 physicists, you have 5 physicists saying it is a mistake to continue working on it (number made up for illustration, and there is probably some variations, but you get the gist). You took one theory and found few physicists saying it is a mistake to continue working on it. You conclude, incorrectly, that it means this theory is fundamentally differently treated as any other theories. (on top of that, it is unfortunate that Hossenfelder later screw up her image by doing way too much mistakes that someone reliable would not do)
  - tcp_handshaker 2mo ago
    And in the meanwhile you ignored Susskind, literally one of the fathers of String Theory saying "we need to start all over again"... :-)) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leonard_Susskind https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leonard_Susskind
    - cauch 2mo ago
      I did not ignore Susskind at all. I literally say "for each physics theory, on 100 physicists, you have 5 physicists saying it is a mistake to continue working on it". I mentioned the name of Hossenfelder, but you can replace it by "Susskind" or "Hossenfelder and Susskind", and the argument is as valid. As for Susskind, the fact that he was a main contributor is not a factor, on the contrary, what I had in mind is about the percentage of experts in the subject that later criticize the field. You have plenty of other examples in other fields: Shiffman on SUSY, Loeb on WIMP, Hirsch on applied fusion, ... or even Einstein on quantum physics ("Yes, I may have started it but I always regarded these ideas as temporary. I never thought that others would take them so much more seriously than I did.") Some outsiders are seeing a normal scientific process where people are continuously questioning the validity or the efficiency of things, and they start in their fantasy "look, they say it should not be done this way, it's the proof it's all wrong". Again, what we observe with String Theory is not at all exceptional. The reason it is "a big deal" is because of the populist message and the scam around "these physicists who stole the public money". It is a bit like "vaccines cause autism": it got some media attention, it resonated with the populist conspiracy theory of "the physicists know but they are farming money" and the anti-intellectual trend, and now it has become both some kind of cultural war and an easy way to farm views and followings and show themselves as "so rebel, so edgy". Don't get me wrong, I personally think that String Theory is overrated (and I was thinking that way before it was popular to criticize it). And the return of the pendulum means that it may now be in the edge side of the average. But nothing significant to pretend there is a particular dysfunction.
OroPla 2mo ago
I also just keep parroting that the Earth is not flat and a bunch of other things I've been told and then never questioned, since it seems to make sense. When the flath-earth craze started I've been trying to at least get that bit actually personally verified. Haven't managed to do it to this day, though. So I'll just keep parroting various things without properly understanding them. C'est la vie.
- bhaak 2mo ago
  Your drive to verify must be very low then. There are hundreds of small logic reasonings or even experiments with which you can easily prove that a flat earth model is at least very complicated or even impossible. Explaining Moon phases gets very complicated in any flat earth model. With binoculars you can see the shadows of craters on the moon's terminator. Or the phases of Venus whereas Mars doesn't have any. Timezones are ridiculously hard to explain on a flat earth. A proper theory must explain all of them and no flat earth model can do that. A round Earth OTOH easily does.
  - OroPla 2mo ago
    None of that is an actual verification of round (or kinda potato shaped) Earth. You are just choosing to not think too deeply about it, essentially parroting things, just like I am. Disproving flat Earth does not verify round Earth, after all. And all your listed refutations of flat Earth do not really disprove anything, either. They might, if you do the actual work, but you did not, choosing to just parrot someone that did put in the work. Which was my point. It is much easier to speak vaguely and reference things than it is to actual prove something rigorously.
    - bhaak 2mo ago
      Disproving flat Earth doesn't logically prove round Earth, sure. But that's not how empirical reasoning works. If one model explains a bunch of observations naturally while another needs increasingly elaborate patches, that's evidence in favor of the first model. There's a difference between "I haven't verified this myself" and "there is no good reason to believe this." You're conflating the two. But then I've given you a few examples of thought and actual experiments that are very easy to do. That's the opposite of parroting as you can use your own mind to ponder those. But you seem to want to be ignorant, claiming that two theoretical models are equally bad just because you don't want to consider their properties for a second.
DiscourseFan 2mo ago
I agree but I think it’s a little hopeful to believe AI will save string theory
enquirewithin 2mo ago
I watch three YouTube videos. The Lambda-CDM model seems to be a dead end, but instead of recognising that, picking themselves up, and moving on, the Lambda-CDM Model Industrial Complex simply papered over the gaping holes with magical thinking. Sciencism.

nullbio 2mo ago

This isn't a great argument. Researchers who do not think string theory is good are not going to spend years on it. There are plenty of experts that dismiss string theory. I have no skin in the game, and don't care either way, fwiw.

panda-giddiness 2mo ago
I don't think someone needs to be a (former) string theorist to have an informed opinion on string theory, but I do think they should at least have a physics research background. Like, if someone can't explain what second quantization is, then why should I care about their opinion on string theory at all? There's just not that much room for a discerning conversation. (With the obvious caveat that I have different expectations for a real-life conversation than a discussion forum.) Our grandparent is sort of the perfect example of an insight-free comment: confidently claiming string theory is useless (without supporting evidence) and then claiming (more like imagining, since there's again no evidence provided here) that an LLM would have abandoned such a research program long ago. What's there to discuss? The comment is based on a made-up scenario; it is, in other words, pure fiction.

the__alchemist 2mo ago

You could reductio ad-absurdum this logic quite broadly. We all form beliefs about the world and its aspects, and almost always through fallible sources. Should one be confident about ones of questionable provenance? I say no. But forming beliefs from the information we have is a useful skill.

fragmede 2mo ago
In the age of infinite bullshit generators, the even more useful skill is being able to say "I don't know." Or "I'm not qualified to have a useful opinion on this so I'm just not going to say anything." I could write a bunch of stuff about my personal opinions on string theory and waste everyone's time, or I could just shut up and not be a human stoichastic parrot.
aurareturn 2mo ago
Nothing wrong with learning and being influenced. However, many posters on HN are very confident that string theory is a dead end. It makes me question if they’ve done cutting edge string theory or it is just some random software engineers who watched Sabina on YouTube. The degree of confidence matters here.

lokar 2mo ago

Or the just read Woit, uh, 20 years ago now, “not even wrong”.

tcp_handshaker 2mo ago

Sabine has been at the forefront and has the goods: https://youtu.be/1mgxuVVUz40 https://youtu.be/1mgxuVVUz40 And for the inevitable critics of Sabine...maybe Leonard Susskind is good enough for you: https://youtu.be/2p_Hlm6aCok https://youtu.be/2p_Hlm6aCok

cauch 2mo ago
The error with this approach is that every single physics theory gets exactly the same criticisms. You can take any of the theories that Hossenfelder would spend time on instead of the ones she does not like, and you would find (basically) a similar percentage of physicists saying it's a mistake to continue in this direction. In other terms: for each physics theory, on 100 physicists, you have 5 physicists saying it is a mistake to continue working on it (number made up for illustration, and there is probably some variations, but you get the gist). You took one theory and found few physicists saying it is a mistake to continue working on it. You conclude, incorrectly, that it means this theory is fundamentally differently treated as any other theories. (on top of that, it is unfortunate that Hossenfelder later screw up her image by doing way too much mistakes that someone reliable would not do)
- tcp_handshaker 2mo ago
  And in the meanwhile you ignored Susskind, literally one of the fathers of String Theory saying "we need to start all over again"... :-)) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leonard_Susskind https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leonard_Susskind
  - cauch 2mo ago
    I did not ignore Susskind at all. I literally say "for each physics theory, on 100 physicists, you have 5 physicists saying it is a mistake to continue working on it". I mentioned the name of Hossenfelder, but you can replace it by "Susskind" or "Hossenfelder and Susskind", and the argument is as valid. As for Susskind, the fact that he was a main contributor is not a factor, on the contrary, what I had in mind is about the percentage of experts in the subject that later criticize the field. You have plenty of other examples in other fields: Shiffman on SUSY, Loeb on WIMP, Hirsch on applied fusion, ... or even Einstein on quantum physics ("Yes, I may have started it but I always regarded these ideas as temporary. I never thought that others would take them so much more seriously than I did.") Some outsiders are seeing a normal scientific process where people are continuously questioning the validity or the efficiency of things, and they start in their fantasy "look, they say it should not be done this way, it's the proof it's all wrong". Again, what we observe with String Theory is not at all exceptional. The reason it is "a big deal" is because of the populist message and the scam around "these physicists who stole the public money". It is a bit like "vaccines cause autism": it got some media attention, it resonated with the populist conspiracy theory of "the physicists know but they are farming money" and the anti-intellectual trend, and now it has become both some kind of cultural war and an easy way to farm views and followings and show themselves as "so rebel, so edgy". Don't get me wrong, I personally think that String Theory is overrated (and I was thinking that way before it was popular to criticize it). And the return of the pendulum means that it may now be in the edge side of the average. But nothing significant to pretend there is a particular dysfunction.

OroPla 2mo ago

I also just keep parroting that the Earth is not flat and a bunch of other things I've been told and then never questioned, since it seems to make sense. When the flath-earth craze started I've been trying to at least get that bit actually personally verified. Haven't managed to do it to this day, though. So I'll just keep parroting various things without properly understanding them. C'est la vie.

bhaak 2mo ago
Your drive to verify must be very low then. There are hundreds of small logic reasonings or even experiments with which you can easily prove that a flat earth model is at least very complicated or even impossible. Explaining Moon phases gets very complicated in any flat earth model. With binoculars you can see the shadows of craters on the moon's terminator. Or the phases of Venus whereas Mars doesn't have any. Timezones are ridiculously hard to explain on a flat earth. A proper theory must explain all of them and no flat earth model can do that. A round Earth OTOH easily does.
- OroPla 2mo ago
  None of that is an actual verification of round (or kinda potato shaped) Earth. You are just choosing to not think too deeply about it, essentially parroting things, just like I am. Disproving flat Earth does not verify round Earth, after all. And all your listed refutations of flat Earth do not really disprove anything, either. They might, if you do the actual work, but you did not, choosing to just parrot someone that did put in the work. Which was my point. It is much easier to speak vaguely and reference things than it is to actual prove something rigorously.
  - bhaak 2mo ago
    Disproving flat Earth doesn't logically prove round Earth, sure. But that's not how empirical reasoning works. If one model explains a bunch of observations naturally while another needs increasingly elaborate patches, that's evidence in favor of the first model. There's a difference between "I haven't verified this myself" and "there is no good reason to believe this." You're conflating the two. But then I've given you a few examples of thought and actual experiments that are very easy to do. That's the opposite of parroting as you can use your own mind to ponder those. But you seem to want to be ignorant, claiming that two theoretical models are equally bad just because you don't want to consider their properties for a second.

DiscourseFan 2mo ago

I agree but I think it’s a little hopeful to believe AI will save string theory

enquirewithin 2mo ago

I watch three YouTube videos. The Lambda-CDM model seems to be a dead end, but instead of recognising that, picking themselves up, and moving on, the Lambda-CDM Model Industrial Complex simply papered over the gaping holes with magical thinking. Sciencism.