Last Wednesday night, a paper appeared on the arXiv that spelled very bad news for the whole “Landscape” scenario of how to get physics out of string theory. This paper produced what appears to be an infinite number of possible vacuum states for string theory, ruining hopes for getting predictions out of the Landscape by doing a statistical analysis of vacuum states.
Tonight a new paper by a prominent Landscapeologist (Michael Dine) has appeared. The abstract gives no hint of trouble, claiming evidence of “distinctive predictions for the structure of soft breakings”, but the beginning and the end of the paper tell a different story. The second paragraph of the paper admits that the infinite number of states destroys this research program, but deals with this by saying that the author will just ignore the problem for now:
“If this (infinite number of states) is true, many of the ideas discussed in this paper will have to be reconsidered…. the discussion of this paper will be predicated on the assumption that the number of relevant states in the landscape is finite and naive statistical ideas can be applied.”
In the paper’s conclusion, Dine states:
“There are many ways, as we have indicated, in which the ideas described here might fail. Perhaps the most dramatic is that the landscape may not exist, or alternatively that there might exist infinite numbers of states, whose existence might require signficant rethinking of our basic understanding of string theory and what it might have to do with nature.”
I’m looking forward to Dine and others finally getting around to “rethinking what string theory might have to do with nature”. It’s about time.
Alejandro,
I don’t know what would be a precise definition of “completeness”, with respect to how our brains think.
One way I’ve thought of it is how marketing and advertising folks are experts at manipulating people into thinking that they are “incomplete”, and that the easiest way to feel “complete” is to buy their products.
Beyond the animal fear mechanism -which, btw, happens to be the title of this blog entry-, linguists have pointed out that the repression of some grammatically correct but unnatural phrases could be in the origin of religion. So for instance “you rain”, “I died”. In western culture, especially the later. This remark is interesting because it asks for some extra steps of sophistication in logic. Deictics must have evolved to be able to point to the speaker, and verbal tenses need be no trivial. Thus, when logic/language evolves to be sophisticated, the pretension of completeness creates a series of conflicts that are usually solved by religion. I do not know if this inability to cope with logical conflicts is a hallmark of modern theorists or just a naive comparison…
Ah, Tony, here there is a taoist quote for our collection (-:
“hence they hold that ‘what is not‘ is no less real than ‘what is‘” [Arist. Metaphys. A 4 985b4]
Alejandro,
It’s very well understood that for most people, uncertainty produces more anxiety in their minds than in scenarios of certainty. If for no other reason, ideological/fanatical type thinking brings about a sense of certainty to someone’s mind (albeit, perhaps a false sense of security). More “certainty” seems to give many people a “peace of mind”, even if only at a psychological level. If nothing else, it seems to be largely a psychological coping mechanism to flee away from “danger” in the form of “predators” and/or “barbarians”.
People who are major “control freaks” seem to fall into the pattern of only feeling “secure” in themselves if they have total certainty and control over the things in their lives which they have direct control or access over. Control freaks seem to go ballistic when their sense of self certainty and/or control becomes more uncertain.
In the case of religion, perhaps the sense of a “god” looking over us and being the ultimate explanation of almost everything in the world, is what gives followers and believers a higher “certainty” outlook in life. Explanations of things happening by random chance and/or “shit happens” at random, doesn’t quite have the same “warm fuzzies” feeling as explanations like “god’s will”.
I’m not really sure how this would apply to something like string theory, unified field theories, etc … other than perhaps these “theories” produce a false sense of “theoretical” certainty in the minds of the people working on them. (Whether their theories are right in the end, is a completely different question altogether).
Yes Tony, this blur betwean creator and created is a hallmark of the approach to religion of a lot of scientists, and probably the only way for them to keep a religion while being productive in science. And this approach is already heretic for most established religions. But I believe that the acting scientist climbs a new step when s/he becomes aware that the scientific study of the description of the world has wiped away any fear of future or death; in such state religion does not have any role to fulfil anymore, and it becomes unnecessary.
(Incidentally, and as a less ambitious example, I have always though that a reason for physicists to be good at Banking and Finance is that they do not have the same faith in money that economists have. )
Going back to topic, I wonder this view, of Faith as an analgesic against Fear, could be applied to analize String Theory from the positions claimed by Juan R.and JC. We should inquire which Fear are theorists trying to exorcise.
Alejandro said “… that the continuous application of science and reason drives one towards Epicureim … while Western pre-chemists declared themselves as disciples of Leucipo and Democritus (thus Epicurus?), Eastern pre-chemists declared themselves as disciples of Lao-Tze, and then users of the Taoist inspiration. …”.
I tend to agree with Prof. Cooper’s course outline for Philosophy 335 on the web at http://www.princeton.edu/~johncoop/Phil335/Phil335.html where it says: “… the two main post-Aristotelian or (as they are more usually called) Hellenistic schools of philosophy, [are] the Epicurean and the Stoic. …”, and I tend to agree with Stoicism as described at http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Delphi/8309/philosophical.html where it says: “… What is referred to in Stoic writings as “Zeus” in one place, may be referred to as “Nature” elsewhere. … there is still little distinction between creator and created, or between physical and spiritual. The Stoic worldview is thus closer to that of Daoism, Vedanta or some varieties of Sufism than to orthodox Christianity or Islam. …”.
It seems to me that the “reading Nature book” approach has worked well in some instances, such as Einstein’s development of special and general relativity, and that such an approach need not necessarily lead to Epicurus, but might as well lead one to Stoicism/Daoism, or also to the Hegelian Dialectical Materialism of the Nagoya school in Japan that motivated Kobayashi and Maskawa in their formulation of a 3-generation model that explains, among other things, CP violation.
Tony Smith
http://www.valdostamuseum.org/hamsmith/
Well, probably the Spinozian/Eistenian view is heretic for most of the established religions. G-d aware scientists have usually tried the “reading Nature book” approach in order to justify their research in the inner works of Nature, but it has not worked very well. It seems that the continuous application of science and reason drives one towards Epicureim, in the sense preached by Lucretius.
Which is not bad, because if the goal of religion is to calm soul anguish and fears, it can be told that acting by Science and Reason also do a good work.
About symbolism, it is interesting that while Western pre-chemists declared themselves as disciples of Leucipo and Democritus (thus Epicurus?), Eastern pre-chemists declared themselves as disciples of Lao-Tze, and then users of the Taoist inspiration.
If Alejandro is correct in saying: “… Probably the use of “religious” by JC there was implied to mean “based on faith, irrational, inaccessible to human reason”….”,
then JC’s position would be in direct opposition to that of Einstein, to whom “religious” means “… at least to a certain extent, accessible to human reason. …”.
Personally, I prefer Einstein’s definition, but it may be that many people prefer the definition attributed to JC by Alejandro.
Tony Smith
http://www.valdostamuseum.org/hamsmith/
Probably the use of “religious” by JC there was implied to mean “based on faith, irrational, inaccessible to human reason”.
JC referred to “… the mindset of people working on “unified field theories”, resembling religion …” in the derogatory context of “… “physics envy” … “theory” in the social sciences …”.
I think that such derogation of “mindset … resembling religion” in working on “unified field theories” is unfortunate and misguided.
For instance, it is well known that Einstein, who worked on “unified field theories”, said: “I believe in Spinoza’s God who reveals Himself in the orderly harmony of what exists … I have not found a better expression than ‘religious’ for the trust in the rational nature of reality that is, at least to a certain extent, accessible to human reason. …”. Even though Einstein did not succeed in his search for a “unified field theory”, he did accomplish some useful things, including general relativity, along the way.
Some other attempts at constructing “unified field theories”, such as GUTs, supergravity, and superstring theory may have also failed in that they have not produced a model with the content of gravity plus the standard model, but they have at least been useful as no-go theorems, and the people working on such things (Glashow, Hawking, Witten, et al) vary widely in the extent to which they openly discuss “religion” in the context of their “mindset” with respect to their approaches to physics.
Perhaps it might be useful to distinguish between two different types of “mindset … resembling religion” with respect to physics:
an Einstein-type belief in the existence of a Platonic ideal orderly harmony
and
a cult-like belief in a particular approach that is embraced by a particular powerful bureaucratic social/political instituion, such as the Roman Catholic approach to astronomy hundreds of years ago that led to the burning of Giordano Bruno, and such as the current superstring bureaucracy.
In my opinion, the former (Einstein) view is good constructive motivation, while the latter view is obstructive to progress in physics.
In order to make clear my personal biases with respect to such things, I should say that my personal work, a summary of which is available on the web as a 15 Mb (about 300 pages) pdf web book at http://www.valdostamuseum.org/hamsmith/philophysicsbook/PhiloPhysics.pdf ), is an attempt to unify gravity with the standard model and to connect that unified model with things “resembling religion” that have motivated me, including but not limited to the writings of Ibn Arabi, divination systems of IFA, Shinto, and I Ching, Tarot, and the Rig Veda.
Although I think that it would be quite fair to criticize my physics model with respect to objective criteria such as whether or not its calculated results are consistent with experiment and observation, and even with respect to subjective criteria such as whether or not its mathematical structure is perceived by a critic to be elegant or ugly,
I do not think that it would be fair to criticize it (or me) because it is to a large degree motivated by my perception of such things “resembling religion”.
In other words, I am opposed to derogation of work on “unified field theories” that is motivated by a “mindset … resembling religion”.
Tony Smith
http://www.valdostamuseum.org/hamsmith/
Most “theory” in the social sciences such as economics, finance, etc … isn’t much more than the equivalent of “physics envy”. In some ways it is similar to the mindset of people working on “unified field theories”, resembling religion more than anything else.
A hardcore Machiavellian type of person will use all kinds of “theory” to justify all kinds of things for their own “political” gain, when they know very well that the “theory” is largely BS for the most part. As far as they’re concerned, the “theory” provides a good “cover story” to justify their schemes, while “hiding” their ulterior movtives.
They wrench it out of its designed functional zone for the greater good of profit.
-drl
“…although I’m the first to know what management does with code and coders”
Ok I’m curious as to what they do with the code?
I thought financial mathematics was only differential equations.
I have recently stumbled onto a book called “Quantum Finance : Path Integrals and Hamiltonians for Options and Interest Rates”. Haven’t read it, though. Maybe it’s some kind of joke.
With best regards,
Aleksander
Juan R. said
Hum!! you sound a bit radical
Hum, maybe I should stick to physics and leave the satire to the experts. I’m obviously not that talented.
Quantoken might be interested in Benjamin Franklin’s bequest http://www.mathsci.appstate.edu/~sjg/class/1010/wc/finance/franklin1.html
JC – there are a lot of smart people (math and physics PhDs who didn’t get academic jobs by choice or fate) on Wall St. and they aren’t all doing BS work. The idea behind derivatives is fine, although I’m the first to know what management does with code and coders.
-drl
Well ksh95
i disagree a bit with you.
I think that the dead of SSC is not the cause of scandal of string theory in mass media. For example, LQG also suffer that many of their predictions cannot be tested (e.g. departures from energy momentum Einstein relationship to high energies) still i think that they are been rather honest when compared with the average of string theorists.
I still think that a large part of humanity will feel distrut regarding science due to scandal of string theory, already known in specialized circles but still unknown for great public. Public still think that says Brian Greene Elegant universe is true and string theory is computing all.
And Elegant universe was a best-seller, not a book for two or three fans of science.
“When that happens the communists will take over and we’ll all be speaking Chinese.”
Hum!! you sound a bit radical
JC said:
“If somebody can predict with 100% certainty how the future is exactly going to unfold, they can easily become a zillionaire with zero risk!”
I know a way of getting rich with 100% certainty, and with zero risk. Just deposite $1 in your bank and never withdraw it for the first 500 years. You won’t get rich yourself but your offsprings will. At just 5% annual interest rate, you could easily beat Bill Gates when one of your offsprings withdraw the money 500 years later.
Seriously there are surely many ways one can get rich if that’s all you want. Most people simply can not do it. Most people can not do simple things like save some money in the bank and keep their books balanced. Hey not even the president of this country can do that. What can you say?
Quantoken
DR Lunsford,
Most financial “prediction” methods aren’t much more than the equivalent of “snake oil”, or in some cases outright fraud. If somebody can predict with 100% certainty how the future is exactly going to unfold, they can easily become a zillionaire with zero risk! A good test as to whether an economic theory and/or “prediction” is the real deal, is to see whether the author/promoter of it is richer than Bill Gates or Warren Buffet.
I thought everything was differential equations.
BTW it’s likely that these financial industry predictive techniques will find their way into camcorder stabilization and so on.
ksh95 said,
“BTW. I thought financial mathematics was only differential equations.”
You’ll probably get a different answer depending on who you ask.
In the case of Enron, former CEO Jeff Skilling jokingly referred to financial math as HFVA “Hypothetical Future Valuation Accounting”, which “can add a kazillion dollars to the bottom line.”
In principle, the “textbook” derivative securities valuation stuff is largely stochastic differential equations. This should already make things suspicious considering economics Nobel Laureates Myron Scholes and Robert Merton won the economics Nobel Prize in 1997 for the Black-Scholes equation stuff. A year later in 1998, the hedge fund LTCM (Long Term Capital Management) which Scholes and Merton were involved with, collapsed during the Russian ruble default. The Federal Reserve Bank of New York ended up strongarming LTCM’s creditors in “bailing out” LTCM and dismissing the management, in order to prevent the credit markets from collapsing if LTCM ended up having to liquidate their portfolio in a “panic selling” manner in order to satisfy margin calls. (The Federal Reserve Bank seems to be very concerned about the credit markets collapsing, while not really paying as much attention to the stock markets).
The Black-Scholes stuff was also behind the “portfolio insurance” strategy which was popular in the 1980’s. Some folks blamed the portfolio insurance stuff for really accelerating the downward crash of the stock market on Oct 19, 1987.
For the rest of practical everyday finance, a lot of it doesn’t use much calculus for the most part. In principle things can be done without much more than a calculator or excel spreadsheet.
A lot finance seems to resemble religion a lot more than science, especially when it comes to the stock market and other investments.
No one is interested in your facts Tony, they just cloud the waters. I think my argument is a perfect example US congressional logic.
Scientists usually predict or postdict experiments. Without experiments theorists are left without guidance and inevitably go off the rails. When theory goes of track the foundations of innovation are shaken. The pillars of capitalism are at stake. At this point the communists take over, terrorism runs rampant, and oil prices sour.
See? It all makes perfect sense.
If we could somehow relate the SSC to gay marriage and social security we may even secure the Super Duper Superconducting Collider (SDSC).
BTW. I thought financial mathematics was only differential equations.
Tony Smith wrote: “[…] it is easier for the USA government to see through bullshit supporting a bad experimental project than it is for them to see through bullshit supporting a theoretical program […]”
More likely, the cost of supporting a theoretical program is negligible compared to the cost of building a superconducting supercollider. With a budget deficit in the billions, cutting a few millions on academic wages (such as they are) + pencils and paper won’t get you very far. Cutting the largest hardware project ever, now that’s something else.
ksh95 described “… string theory as an object lesson describing what happens when congress kills large projects (the SSC comes to mind) …”.
The relevant chronology is:
1984 – Weinberg and other influential physicists announced their support for Schwartz’s Superstring theory;
1987 – Reagan announced plans for SSC and Green, Schwartz, and Witten published their 2-volume Superstring book;
1993 – SSC killed early in Clinton Administration
1994 – second superstring revolution (based on dualities etc) began
2005 – superstring theory is still dominant, devouring about 90% of theoretical elementary particle physics funding.
I fail to see how string theory is a consequence of the death of the SSC. It seems to me that the glory days of string theory, during which it became the dominant approach to theoretical physics, coincided with the glory days of the SSC rather than the death of the SSC.
Maybe ksh95 is referring to the fact that the second superstring revolution occurred shortly after the death of the SSC, but it seems to me that to the extent there may be a connection there, it may be that the superstring folks decided that they needed a second revolution to avoid the fate of the SSC, and that they hyped the dualities as the needed revolution.
Perhaps the fact that the SSC was killed off in 1993 while string theory continued to prosper financially is an indication that it is easier for the USA government to see through bullshit supporting a bad experimental project than it is for them to see through bullshit supporting a theoretical program involving mathematics that is even more sophisticated than the math used for financial derivatives etc.
Tony Smith
http://www.valdostamuseum.org/hamsmith/
Juan R. Said:
“…String theory has caused more damage to the public image of science that the last 100 scandals…”
The public image of science looks something like; a bunch of nerdy guys in thick glasses and white lab coats running around a lab full of beakers. The overwhelming majority of the public is blissfully unaware of the very existance of string theory…The image of science will be just fine.
If we’re smart we’ll use string theory as an object lesson describing what happens when congress kills large projects (the SSC comes to mind).
I would recommend pg. 429 from the Carl Rove playbook.
The sky is falling. China and India are passing us in science and we will lose our technological advantage. When that happens the communists will take over and we’ll all be speaking Chinese. The only way to preserve our way of life is a new accelerator. It should be the greatest accelerator the world has ever seen because Americans are the greatest people in the world.
We should end with chants of USA…USA…
As said
The only correct ST equation
String theory = Faith
The Faith move mountains, therefore String theory move also mountains. In one or another form it remained with us in several centuries. Always someone in some place claimed that the theory is correct and the he/she has solved his current flaws.
The idea of string theory is correct is so scientific like the idea of that a new planet near Sun is the cause of anomalous orbit of Mercury. It was a hypothesis (beatiful?) but only that.
String theory was a hyphotesis, initially beatiful i believe, but with each new revolution the stuff was more and more uggly, inefective, and unelegant.
String theory has caused more damage to the public image of science that the last 100 scandals (e.g. Pons cold fusion, quantum telekinesy by Uri Geller, etc.) joined.
TL – very nice. But, GR is not strictly local (g_mn is in a sense reducible).
The industry purrs merrily along; see hep-th/0505232. (LS is among the co-authors.)
String Theory and its M-theory progeny will continue on to attract the interest of pure mathematics; just as it should have from discovery of supernumbers.
For as long as there is money, there will continue to be super string theory and super string theoretists. Just as astrology has been in exist
Hmm the main use of astrology chit-chat does not involve money: it is about flirting.
Tell us what that Something Else *is*, and we’ll gladly listen.
hep-th/0504020. So now you are gladly listening? Didn´t think so.
Hobbyists?? I bet that isn’t what they tell the people funding them. I bet people like Kachru might even claim they do this kind of thing for a living. If they don’t, it’s more a time for a change in personel then ever.
As an aside, while in Alaska recently I talked quite a bit with many different people who made a living off fishing, and got to see some of how they worked. In any other circumstance I would consider it a shame to spend so much time on an analogy. Here, however, it seems quite appropriate, given how the mistake you are making in the analogy and the topic seem to be in the same vein.
If you are a hobby fisher, then you fish to see if there are fish. If you are professional, you have ways of determining whether there are fish before you fish, and you don’t sit around a fishing hole that doesn’t produce.
I see that you have never talked to a professional fisherman. The ones I know go out every night to try to catch fish, no matter what anyone tells them about the failings of the fisheries industry.
So are these hobby theorists we’re discussing, or professionals?
Since 1998, we are all hobbyists . Jeez, guys, we are living at a time when we have one of the most sensational observations of all time, the acceleration of the universe, in front of us, and nobody has a clue as to why it is happening. Do you really think that “People should be trying Something Else” is an adequate response? Tell us what that Something Else *is*, and we’ll gladly listen. Meanwhile I suggest that we all go off and try to write some papers. A paper showing how string theory constrains possible cosmological models would be good, even *if* string theory *is* a failure as a unified theory. It’s still preferable to “Something Else” theory!
Incidentally, Thomas Larsson, are you a physicist?
At least I once was. I ran out of funding after completing a four-year postdoc a decade ago. But then again, I didn’t try very hard to hang around, since at that time I felt that starting a family and having a permanent income was a much higher priority than staying in academia. You can judge for yourself whether I’m still a physicist by looking at hep-th and math-ph.
Incidentally, are you a physicist? An anonymous poster doesn’t have much credibility.
Following the work of Georgi and Glashow on SU(5), there were lots of works in the early 80’s on GUTs that became more and more complicated, lost any hope of being experimentally testable. Serious people like Callan, Coleman, Gross and Witten, never got into that.
There was also a lot of work at some point on the so-called technical fine tuning problem. Lots of papers were generated, but no serious person ever worked on it.
I’m afraid, you are right, I don’t think Kachru, Arkani-Hamed, Dimopoulos and others that you mention, are of the same calibre as Gross and Witten. I also don’t think that any of them would think of himself as being in the same calibre.
The only man in the landscape business that I take seriously as a very talented theoretical physicist is Michael Douglas. His work, at least from the late 80’s on low dimensional strings and integrable models is great.
I know that I’m voicing strong opinions, but that’s how I feel.
Incidentally, Thomas Larsson, are you a physicist?
Actually, Q brings an interesting point. Phenomenology existed in particle physics long before strings. It meant fitting experimental data by simple theoretically-motivated formulas.
The highest point of particle phenomenology was the discovery of Bjorken scaling that led to the present formulation of QCD and last year’s Nobel prizes.
The definition of superstring phenomenology is essentially “non-testable hypotheses, inspired by superstring theory, made by physicists who would not be able to compute the Veneziano amplitude”.
Jean-Paul
If this string landscape stuff dies a painful death, what is there left to do in string theory besides banging one’s head harder and harder on KKLT type stuff or just plain giving up?
Aaron said:
“This is completely absurd. There are more jobs in phenomenology than in strings right now. Plenty of string theorists are moving in that direction (and towards astrophysics) to better position themselves for the upcoming job market.”
What is absurd is the invention of the English word phenomenology, and the creation of a whole profession out of that hype? What exactly is a phenomenologist?
In all other branch of scientif research, you are either a theoretical researcher, or an experimental researcher. Either theory or experiment, or both. There is no third kind. There is no phenomenological biology. No phenomenological chemistry. No solid state phenomenologist, and no phenomenological mathematician.
Why should fundamental physics theory research be an exception and create the weirdness called phenomenology. If you start that route, you could also invent super string hypertheologist, or super string speculatologist, or landscapologist, or a bunch of other names. It’s all vacuous!
I think that the very fact that they needed to invent a middle ground called phenomenology, reflect the truth that they really can not make any prediction or connect their theory in any way with the reality. Otherwise, like in all other fields, theoretists do the calculation on their theory and make verifiable predictions, and experimenters simply do experiments and verify the prediction, and there is no need for any middle man called phenomenologist.
It remains that even phenomenologists are so far unable to provide any predictions so far. Time to create yet one another middle ground field between experiment and phenomenology, to bridge the wide gap between theoretical fantacy and reality, I guess? 🙂
Quantoken
OTOH if you are a young theoretical HEP researcher the choice now is virtually to either work on string theory or get out altogether.
This is completely absurd. There are more jobs in phenomenology than in strings right now. Plenty of string theorists are moving in that direction (and towards astrophysics) to better position themselves for the upcoming job market. By my quick count on the rumor mill, there are 5 new string people and 15 or 16 new phenomenologists or astro-types. As we get closer and closer to the LHC turning on, most people expect this ration to tilt even more towards phenomenolgy.
I’m really not sure where this skewed view of the field comes from, but it certainly has little bearing on reality.
“Any bets on what people will be talking about at the Strings 2006 conference?”
Shoe-laces?
Not that it means anything, but the chronology of Enron’s rise is rather similar to that of string theory:
If you are a hobby fisher, then you fish to see if there are fish. If you are professional, you have ways of determining whether there are fish before you fish, and you don’t sit around a fishing hole that doesn’t produce.
So are these hobby theorists we’re discussing, or professionals?
Sorry, but the whole attempt to claim that cosmology will solve the problems of string theory just looks to me like another attempt to evade the undeniable fact that string theory unification has failed. It’s only “common sense” that cosmology must be the answer if you start from the idea the string theory must be correct. The Hartle-Hawking stuff of Tye and others shows not the slightest sign at all of leading to anything that looks like the standard model.
If a small number of people want to base their research program on an extremely unpromising speculative idea, that wouldn’t be objectionable, but this is being used to support a failed enterprise that dominates particle theory and keeps people from being able to work on other things. When work on a speculative idea is driven by sound scientific considerations, you’re right that even if the idea doesn’t work out, it may lead to something that does. When it is being driven by sociological reasons, it is very unlikely to lead anywhere interesting.
“You can put your faith in cosmology or some unknown non-perturbative effects, but this is purely wishful thinking and there isn’t a shred of evidence for either hope.”
Sure it’s wishful thinking. That is what always happens when you embark on a research project and you can’t see how it’s going to pan out: you hope that something will work, it turns out that it fails in some interesting way, and that leads you in another direction, etc etc etc. This latest Kachru et al paper just shows that the uniform distribution cannot be the right one, something that many people, most loudly Lubos Motl, have suspected for a long time. That just means that we have to work on some kind of Hartle-Hawking gadget to tell us how points in the landscape are selected. Henry Tye and co have done some beautiful work on this, see
http://arxiv.org/abs/hep-th/0505104
Of course one works on such a thing hoping that it will lead somewhere — what’s wrong with that? And the idea that cosmology will be relevant to this problem is not “faith”, it’s just common sense.
You can argue that a lot of people who should know better are working on silly stuff like [insert recent technical work of several famous people *here*] when they should be working on cosmology, and I would agree with that. But to say that there’s no evidence that studying cosmology will get us anywhere is like saying that nobody should go fishing unless they have evidence that sufficient numbers of fish exist in the pond. You settle that question by proceeding to fish, not by waiting for somebody else to furnish “evidence”.
Bottom line: string theory doesn’t work without cosmology, and people are belatedly realizing that. Not very apocalyptic really.
For as long as there is money, there will continue to be super string theory and super string theoretists. Just as astrology has been in exist for thousands of years and will continue to be for some more thousands of years, although it’s been long proven none-predictive. There continue to be a market for astrology and some people continue to believe they can predict something in astrology. It’s all driven by money and people’s fear of the unknowns.
Do you believe those super string researchers have actually been honest to themselves, and actually believed they wer doing scientific research, and never realizes they are researching crackpot theories? I actually don’t think they have been honest to themselves in rejecting the notion that string theory is none-predictive.
It’s all about money and survival within the circle.
Quantoken
Meanwhile, back in the real world, there are plenty of string theorists who don’t work on the landscape. And in fact don’t believe in any of the statistical stuff.
Sure, but, as landscape advocates will point out, you still have to deal with the fact the the theory appears to have an infinite number of vacuum states, and is probably utterly non-predictive. You can put your faith in cosmology or some unknown non-perturbative effects, but this is purely wishful thinking and there isn’t a shred of evidence for either hope.
Any bets on what people will be talking about at the Strings 2006 conference?
I don’t know about 2006, but I’m betting a lot of talks at Strings 2005 will start off (OK, after the initial “string theory is the most promising idea for unification”) like Dine’s, saying something like “We’re going to ignore the problem of an infinite number of vacuum states, because that makes everything we’re going to talk about useless”.
On the Enron analogy: That’s great, I’ve been fascinated by the Enron story, read the recent book and did see the film down at Lincoln Plaza. But I hadn’t made the connection to string theory. I have been trying to figure out for years how to sell string theory short. One thing I’ve done is to try and get string theorists to put their money where their mouth is and enter into a bet with me. For some reason, none of them have taken me up on it.
I’ve witnessed such phases in theoretical high energy physics before.
I’ve never seen anything quite like this one, with people from the top institutions in the field embracing outright pseudo-science. And even those leaders of the field who aren’t engaging in pseudo-science haven’t been willing to step up and criticize what is going on (the only exception I can think of is David Gross).
I’ve witnessed such phases in theoretical high energy physics before.
Are you old enough to have witnessed the demise of aether theory? Otherwise, exactly which phases are you referring to?
One of their main characteristics is that respectable people don’t take part in them at all. Unfortunately, this time, one really good scientist is taking part in this, namely M Douglas, however, everyone that I have regard for is totally silent.
So you have no regard for Susskind, Dimopoulous, Arkani-Hamed, or Kachru?
Btw, Witten has not been totally silent. He has repeatedly been saying that he hopes that current discussion of the string landscape isn’t on the right track, but has no convincing counter-arguments. Cf e.g. Peter’s post about the recent New Scientist article from April 28:
Witten is referred to as a “string grandee”, and quoted as saying about string theory “More work has always given more possibilities – far more than anyone wanted… I hope that current discussion of the string landscape isn’t on the right track, but I have no convincing counter-arguments.”
I’ve witnessed such phases in theoretical high energy physics before. One of their main characteristics is that respectable people don’t take part in them at all. Unfortunately, this time, one really good scientist is taking part in this, namely M Douglas, however, everyone that I have regard for is totally silent.
The only correct ST equation
String theory = Faith