Search Results for: "string theory"

What is String Theory?

Posted on April 11, 2024 by woit

This semester the KITP has been running a program asking What is String Theory?, which is winding up next week, and was promising to “arrive at a deeper answer to the question in the title.” It seems though that this … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 21 Comments

String Theory Hype Fest

Posted on January 5, 2024 by woit

I just finished watching the video here, which was released today. Since this was advertised as a panel discussion on the state of string theory, I thought earlier today that it might be a good opportunity to write something serious … Continue reading →

Posted in This Week's Hype | 62 Comments

Unification, Spinors, Twistors, String Theory

Posted on November 22, 2023 by woit

Last month I recorded a podcast with Curt Jaimungal for his Theories of Everything site, and it’s now available with audio here, on Youtube here. There are quite a few other programs on the site well worth watching. Much of … Continue reading →

Posted in Euclidean Twistor Unification, Uncategorized | 22 Comments

Frenkel on String Theory

Posted on September 20, 2023 by woit

Curt Jaimungal’s Theories of Everything podcast has a new episode featuring a long talk with Edward Frenkel (by the way, I’ll be doing one of these next month). A few months ago I wrote about a Lex Fridman podcast with … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 30 Comments

string theory lied to us and now science communication is hard

Posted on April 27, 2023 by woit

I want to make up for linking to something featuring Michio Kaku yesterday by today linking to the exact opposite, an insightful explanation of the history of string theory, discussing the implications of how it was sold to the public. … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 61 Comments

String Theory and the Real World

Posted on October 6, 2021 by woit

I just noticed that Gordon Kane has recently published a second edition of his 2017 String Theory and the Real World. Columbia doesn’t seem to yet have full online access to the second edition, but one can already compare the … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 11 Comments

DAU. String Theory

Posted on January 4, 2021 by woit

I first wrote here in 2015 about DAU, the unusual film project based to some extent on the life of Landau. Parts of the film first were shown in Paris early in 2019, and this past year started appearing on … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 9 Comments

Various Links, String Theory now Untethered

Posted on November 13, 2020 by woit

I’ve been spending most of my time recently trying to get unconfused about Euclidean spinor fields, will likely write something here about that in the not too distant future. Some other things that may be of interest: I did an … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 27 Comments

Isn’t string theory just as predictive as quantum field theory?

Posted on August 21, 2020 by woit

This has become probably the most common argument made by string theorists when string theory is criticized for being non-predictive. When I first heard it, my reaction was that this was a joke. How could anyone seriously try to claim … Continue reading →

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Who are you to criticize string theory? Aren’t you just an embittered failure?

Posted on August 21, 2020 by woit

Actually, professionally I’m happy as a clam. I live in one of my favorite places in the world, and am well-paid to work at a great university with wonderful colleagues who I continually learn from. I also learn a lot … Continue reading →

Comments Off on Who are you to criticize string theory? Aren’t you just an embittered failure?