- #1
mcgucken
- 29
- 0
With so many cranks, hypesters, and con-artists posing as peer-reviewers, why does PF allow string theory to be discussed, and why does it have its own forum?
It has never been experimentally verified, and the theory makes no sense. It has accomplished absolutely nothing. Why is it allowed to displace logic, reason, and physics?
Who's string theory's greatest con-artist? Kaku?
http://www.math.columbia.edu/~woit/blog/
Is String Theory About to Snap?
The August issue of Discover magazine is out, with a cover story entitled "Is String Theory About to Snap?". The editors of the magazine describe how they recently became aware of the controversy over string theory when they organized a celebration of Einstein in Aspen last summer. They quote Lawrence Krauss as telling them "String theory may be in a worse position now regarding being testable than it has been at any time in the past 20 years." To get a response to this, they asked Michio Kaku to write something for them. They refer to him as a "cofounder of string theory", which I suspect some people might object to. Presumably they meant to repeat what is in their profile of him, which calls him a "cofounder of string field theory."
Kaku's article is entitled Testing String Theory, and is a thoroughly intellectually dishonest piece of writing, designed to mislead anyone without expertise in what is at issue here. He succeeded in misleading whoever wrote the blurb for the article which goes: "No experiment has ever allowed us to test whether any of the assumptions of string theory are true. That is about to change." No it's not. None of the experiments Kaku mentions will "allow us to test whether any of the assumptions of string theory are true".
http://www.math.columbia.edu/~woit/blog/
Is Witten the greatest hypster of all time?
http://www.math.columbia.edu/~woit/blog/
Witten on CNN
Via David Goss and Lubos Motl, the news that CNN's Candy Crowley has a piece about Witten. Unlike Lee Smolin's Why No "New Einstein"? piece, CNN more or less identifies Witten as the new Einstein. Witten is quoted as giving the following rather defensive statement about string theory: "I just think too many nice things have happened in string theory for it to be all wrong... Humans do not understand it very well, but I just don't believe there is a big cosmic conspiracy that created this incredible thing that has nothing to do with the real world." He's kind of defending against a straw man, since virtually no one is saying string theory is "all wrong" or "has nothing to do with the real world".
Is Brian Greene the greatest scam artist?
http://www.math.columbia.edu/~woit/blog/archives/000211.html
I am astonished that the self-proclamed ultra-advanced NC string theory (a radical modification of usual string theory in fixed background/cosmologies) used, in the last decade, advanced math developed in other fields of science by Prigogine and the Brussels School in the 60s. The delay of the “ultra advanced” theory is of most than 30 years for a supposed "profound" theory that, in the words of Brian Greene, is providing us the most basic understanding of nature! This is, obviously, false, simply propaganda.
http://www.math.columbia.edu/~woit/blog/archives/000211.html
It has never been experimentally verified, and the theory makes no sense. It has accomplished absolutely nothing. Why is it allowed to displace logic, reason, and physics?
Who's string theory's greatest con-artist? Kaku?
http://www.math.columbia.edu/~woit/blog/
Is String Theory About to Snap?
The August issue of Discover magazine is out, with a cover story entitled "Is String Theory About to Snap?". The editors of the magazine describe how they recently became aware of the controversy over string theory when they organized a celebration of Einstein in Aspen last summer. They quote Lawrence Krauss as telling them "String theory may be in a worse position now regarding being testable than it has been at any time in the past 20 years." To get a response to this, they asked Michio Kaku to write something for them. They refer to him as a "cofounder of string theory", which I suspect some people might object to. Presumably they meant to repeat what is in their profile of him, which calls him a "cofounder of string field theory."
Kaku's article is entitled Testing String Theory, and is a thoroughly intellectually dishonest piece of writing, designed to mislead anyone without expertise in what is at issue here. He succeeded in misleading whoever wrote the blurb for the article which goes: "No experiment has ever allowed us to test whether any of the assumptions of string theory are true. That is about to change." No it's not. None of the experiments Kaku mentions will "allow us to test whether any of the assumptions of string theory are true".
http://www.math.columbia.edu/~woit/blog/
Is Witten the greatest hypster of all time?
http://www.math.columbia.edu/~woit/blog/
Witten on CNN
Via David Goss and Lubos Motl, the news that CNN's Candy Crowley has a piece about Witten. Unlike Lee Smolin's Why No "New Einstein"? piece, CNN more or less identifies Witten as the new Einstein. Witten is quoted as giving the following rather defensive statement about string theory: "I just think too many nice things have happened in string theory for it to be all wrong... Humans do not understand it very well, but I just don't believe there is a big cosmic conspiracy that created this incredible thing that has nothing to do with the real world." He's kind of defending against a straw man, since virtually no one is saying string theory is "all wrong" or "has nothing to do with the real world".
Is Brian Greene the greatest scam artist?
http://www.math.columbia.edu/~woit/blog/archives/000211.html
I am astonished that the self-proclamed ultra-advanced NC string theory (a radical modification of usual string theory in fixed background/cosmologies) used, in the last decade, advanced math developed in other fields of science by Prigogine and the Brussels School in the 60s. The delay of the “ultra advanced” theory is of most than 30 years for a supposed "profound" theory that, in the words of Brian Greene, is providing us the most basic understanding of nature! This is, obviously, false, simply propaganda.
http://www.math.columbia.edu/~woit/blog/archives/000211.html