Wilczek Weblogs

Posted on October 10, 2004 by woit

This weblog thing is getting out of control. It seems that Frank Wilczek’s wife has one, as well as his daughter. What about you, Frank?

This entry was posted in Uncategorized. Bookmark the permalink.

14 Responses to Wilczek Weblogs

  1. Lubos Motl says:
    October 13, 2004 at 9:36 am

    Hi Sol, nope ;-). If you follow sci.physics.research, you of course know who is it.

  2. sol says:
    October 13, 2004 at 1:12 am

    Lubos

    But what would you think if you met someone else, someone nice, someone who is around, namely someone who can be described as a leader of quantum computation, who argues that there is really no difference between renormalizable and non-renormalizable theories as far as predictivity goes (he immediately and explicitly gives you the Standard Model and quantized General Relativity with all counterterms up to five loops as examples) – and he even states that drawing a graph of a function (which is a part of the input of a theory) is giving you a more predictive theory than if you know the function analytically, as long as the analytical function looks too complicated to you?

    Who were you talking about here? Smolin and the Perimeter Institute?

  3. Lubos Motl says:
    October 11, 2004 at 1:28 pm

    Haha, sol, that’s entertaining. The article explaining the problems of loop quantum gravity – the article that you presented to those guys on the other forum – was, of course, written by me as well. 😉

    A newer version of this article is today at

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Objections_to_the_theory_of_loop_quantum_gravity

    I am not surprised that those guys who want to promote loop quantum gravity dislike Wikipedia for having such articles. But fortunately it is impossible for them to hide knowledge from the internet users.

    All the best
    Lubos

  4. sol says:
    October 11, 2004 at 11:54 am

    lubos

    Also, I link Wikipedia because Wikipedia is free and relatively good. Most Wikipedia articles about string theory (and a nonzero part about adjacent fields of physics) were more or less written by me ;-), and your comments about “defaming them” sound very puzzling. Who was defaming Wikipedia?

    http://www.physicsforums.com/archive/t-42996_Strings_or_LQG_and_why???.html

    I hope that is the right thread(its been archived), but I went on to defend, encouraging others of expertise to add their’s, for a truly wonderful reference point for consideration.

    http://superstringtheory.org:8080/forum/edonline/discussion.jsp?thread=16

    I hope you don’t mind I added this post to the links in defence?:)

  5. Luboš Motl says:
    October 11, 2004 at 9:00 am

    Hype and propaganda? Come on.

    There is no hype and propaganda about string theory. People just try to explain why it is a fascinating and unique theory. In the mid 1980s or mid 1990s, people were more excited and the progress was faster, and therefore the comments about string theory were more optimistic. Today it’s closer to the opposite. As Witten pointed out on the KITP conference, even string theory *enthusiasts* underestimate how rich and powerful string theory is – so speaking about hype and propaganda is not a reasonable or fair description of reality.

  6. Luboš Motl says:
    October 11, 2004 at 8:51 am

    Dear sol,

    it is not clear whether I understand you. But my blog, http://motls.blogspot.com/ , definitely allows replies of anyone, including anonymous users.

    Also, I link Wikipedia because Wikipedia is free and relatively good. Most Wikipedia articles about string theory (and a nonzero part about adjacent fields of physics) were more or less written by me ;-), and your comments about “defaming them” sound very puzzling. Who was defaming Wikipedia?

    Best
    Lubos

  7. Thomas Larsson says:
    October 11, 2004 at 3:06 am

    This weblog thing is getting out of control.

    This seems literally true for the program powering this weblog. It seems like Movable Type 2.661 cannot handle the number of replies to the entry “KITP Conference on “The Future of Physics””. Thus let me respond to JC here instead.

    I get the sense most of the criticisms of string theory on this weblog is largely about the hype and propaganda surrounding string theory over the last 20 years. The discussions about specific technical details about string theory and field theory seem to be more neutral and less controversial.

    My main criticism is quite technical. String theory failed as a theory of quantum gravity because particle physicists didn’t understand that diffeomorphism anomalies exist in 4D – you need to go slightly beyond field theory to see them.

    If you miss the relevant anomalies, you will fail.

  8. sol says:
    October 11, 2004 at 12:59 am

    Well this is fine Lubos, but you have no place in which to respond?

    Plus, I had been criticized greatly for using wikipedia in the physics forum for reference, so the authors of the sited revisons on those selective topics you have linked, would they have been inspected by yourself, so that this maybe referenced, quieting those whose comments defame the wikipedia references?

    I assume because you had linked them it would be yes. Just reaffirming would help greatly.

    Then we will have to see if Peter logs your site, on his.

    Lubos

    Emergent space and emergent time

    In string theory, we now have overwhelming evidence that space is an emergent phenomenon. It is not just one of Witten’s progressive ideas. Instead, it is an idea that even Brian Greene often explains to his popular audience. The statement means that we should not think about the objects and events to take place on a well-defined background geometry; we should not think about space and time as basic assumptions whose existence is guaranteed before we consider anything else.

  9. Matthew Nobes says:
    October 10, 2004 at 11:52 pm

    http://www.livejournal.com/~manobes

    While we’re advertising. Nothing exciting though, unless you like perturbation theory, or lattice QCD.

  10. Lubos Motl says:
    October 10, 2004 at 6:21 pm

    OK, you convinced me, my new English blog is at

    http://motls.blogspot.com/

    Best wishes,
    Lubos

  11. Lubos Motl says:
    October 10, 2004 at 6:01 pm

    Hi!
    Last year, I experimentally started a blog

    http://lumo.blogspot.com/

    in Czech, but I was disappointed by the small number of visits of that blog, so I have not contributed anything for a year or so…

    But maybe, I will revive that 🙂 and add English stuff.

    All the best
    Lubos

  12. sol says:
    October 10, 2004 at 5:19 pm

    To tell you the truth I like this bloggery format, as to why Frank hasn’t, who knows?

    Maybe Lubos needs one.?:)So we can hurl mud and stuff at him figurtively speaking.:)

    I like getting the up to date stuff here with Peter’s. Plus, we get the negative side psychologiclaly speaking, to balance ourselves if we assume to far ahead.

  13. Lubos Motl says:
    October 10, 2004 at 3:01 pm

    The wife seems as a left-wing activist while the daughter is a kewl writer about nature. 😉

  14. Alejandro Rivero says:
    October 10, 2004 at 2:46 pm

    The most delicate weblog thing, as fas as I now, is the string coffee and it is not working after all. Why should Wilczek risk his weblife?

Comments are closed.