Just similar the Czech ex-president has said that the Left has definitively won the state of war against the Right for whatever foreseeable future, I intend it's truthful that the haters of modern theoretical physics receive got definitively won the state of war for the newspapers too the volume of the information sources.
The Quanta Magazine is funded past times the Simons Foundation. Among the owners of the media addressing non-experts, Jim Simons is every bit closed to the high-energy theoretical physics enquiry community every bit y'all tin displace get. But the journalists are independent etc. too the atmosphere alongside the physics writers is bad thus no i could foreclose the creation of an unfortunate text
The Strange Second Life of String Theoryby Ms K.C. Cole. The text is a mixed, too I would say mostly negative, bundle of diverse sentiments concerning the state of string theory. Using diverse words, the study nearly an alleged "failure of string theory" is repeated nearly xxx times inward that article. It has move nearly mandatory for journalists to write this spectacular prevarication to basically every novel pop text nearly string theory. Only journalists who receive got some morality avoid this prevarication – too in that location aren't likewise many.
With an omnipresent negative accent, the article describes the richness or complexity of string theory every bit people receive got understood it inward recent years too its penetration to diverse next scientific disciplines. What I regain genuinely annoying is that some real powerful string theorists – David Gross too Robbert Dijkgraaf – receive got basically joined this enterprise.
They are withal exceptions – I am pretty for certain that Edward Witten, Cumrun Vafa, too many others couldn't hold out abused to write similar anti-string rants – but voices such every bit Gross' too Dijkgraaf's are the privileged exceptions alongside the corrupt storey of journalist hyenas because they are willing to say something that fits the journalists' pre-determined "narrative".
OK, allow me cite a few dozens of problems I receive got with that article.
The Strange Second Life of String TheoryIt's the title. Well, it's nonsense. One could verbalize nearly a 2nd life if either string theory had died at some minute inward the past times too was resuscitated; or if i could class its aspects to 2 isolated categories, "lives".
It's spectacularly obvious that none of these weather holds. String theory has never "died" thus it couldn't receive got been resuscitated for a 2nd life. And the applications hither too in that location are continuously connected with all other, including the most formal, aspects of string theory.
So there's just just i life too the claim nearly a "second life" is a large prevarication past times itself. The subtitle is written downward to emphasize the half-terrible, half-successful caricature of string theory that this item writer, K.C. Cole, decided to advocate:
String theory has thus far failed to alive upwards to its hope every bit a agency to unite gravity too quantum mechanics. At the same time, it has blossomed into i of the most useful sets of tools inward science.Well, string theory has been known to consistently unify gravity too quantum mechanics from the 1970s, too inside fully realistic supersymmetric models, since the 1980s. Already inward the 1970s, it was understood why string theory avoids the ultraviolet divergences that spoil the to a greater extent than straightforward attempts to quantize Einstein's gravity. In the 1980s, it was shown that (super)string theory has solutions that attain this consistency; but they also comprise forces, fields, particles, too processes of all qualitative types that are needed to explicate all the observations that receive got ever been made. Whether or non nosotros know a compactification that just matches Nature around us, nosotros already know that string theory has proven that gravity too quantum mechanics are reconcilable.
So already decades ago, string theory has successfully unified gravity too quantum mechanics. No evidence whatsoever has ever emerged that something was incorrect nearly these proofs of the consistency. So the claim nearly the "failure" to unify gravity too quantum mechanics is just a lie.
You may run into that Cole's basic message is simple. She wants to claim that string theory is separate to 2 parts, a failed i too a good for y'all one. Moreover, the failed i is all the center of string theory – all the conceptual too unification themes. The reality is that the separate doesn't exist; too the formal, conceptual, unification theme inward string theory is the essential too priceless one.
This deceitful theme is repeated many, many times past times K.C. Cole inward her text. There are lots of other deceptions, too:
To hold out sure, the theory came with unsettling implications. The strings were likewise modest to hold out probed past times experiment too lived inward every bit many every bit eleven dimensions of space.Both of these "unsettling implications of string theory" are just rubbish. It's real probable that strings are real modest too the size is closed to the substitution Planck scale, \(10^{-35}\) meters. But this wasn't a novel insight, every bit y'all powerfulness approximate if y'all were capable of noticing the shout "Planck" inward the previous sentence. Max Planck determined that the substitution processes of Nature in all probability bring house at the distance of the Planck length to a greater extent than than 100 years ago.
It follows straight from dimensional analysis. There may hold out loopholes or not. The loopholes were imaginable without string theory too they are fifty-fifty to a greater extent than clearly imaginable too specific with string theory (old too large extra dimensions etc.). But string theory has alone made the older ideas nearly the scale to a greater extent than specific. The ultrashort magnitude of the Planck length was inward no agency a novel implication of string theory.
The existence of extra dimensions of infinite may hold out said to hold out string theory's implication. Older theories were trying to unify electricity too magnetism already inward 1919 but string theory has indeed made those extra dimensions unavoidable. But what's incorrect is that this implication is "unsettling". The existence of extra dimensions of some size – which may hold out every bit brusk every bit a "few Planck lengths" but may also hold out much longer – is a wonderful prediction of string theory that is celebrated every bit a groovy discovery.
Although it is non "experimentally proven every bit a must" at this point, it is compatible with all observations nosotros know too people who empathize the logic know real good that the extra dimensions wonderfully grip with the demand for a construction that explains the – seemingly complicated – listing of particles too interactions that has been discovered experimentally. This listing too its complexity are inward one-to-one correspondence with the shape too construction of the extra dimensions. This identification – the particle too fields spectrum is explained past times the shape – sounds wonderful at the qualitative level. But calculations exhibit that it genuinely works.
So when individual assigns negative sentiments to this groundbreaking advance, she is alone exposing her idiocy.
It's to a greater extent than frustrating to run into what David Gross is maxim these days:
For a time, many physicists believed that string theory would yield a unique agency to combine quantum mechanics too gravity. “There was a hope. H5N1 moment,” said David Gross, an master copy actor inward the so-called Princeton String Quartet, a Nobel Prize winner too permanent fellow member of the Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics at the University of California, Santa Barbara. “We fifty-fifty thought for a piece inward the mid-’80s that it was a unique theory.”What people believed for a few months inward the mid 1980s was that in that location was a unique realistic compactified string theory to \(d=4\). It was understood early that in that location existed compactified string theories that don't jibe the particle spectrum nosotros receive got observed. But it was understood that in that location could hold out i that matches it perfectly. And it's withal every bit truthful every bit it was xxx years ago. The theoretically acceptable listing of solutions is non unique but the solution that describes Nature is unique.
Moreover, inward the duality revolution of mid 1990s, people realized that all the seemingly inequivalent "string theories", every bit they would telephone phone them inward the previous decades, are genuinely connected past times dualities or adjustments of the moduli. So they're genuinely non class theories but mutually connected solutions of i theory. That's why all competent experts stopped using the term "string theories" inward the plural after the duality revolution.
David Gross likes to say that "string theory is a framework" – inward the feel that it has many "specific models", just similar quantum land theories may come upwards inward the shape of "many inequivalent models", too these models part some mathematical methods too principles piece nosotros also demand to regain out which of them is relevant if nosotros desire to brand a item prediction.
So far thus good. But there's also a difference betwixt quantum land theory too string theory. Two dissimilar QFTs are really distinct, inequivalent, dissimilar theories – encoded inward a dissimilar Lagrangian, for example, too there's no agency to acquire the objects from i theory with i Lagrangian inward the QFT of some other theory with a dissimilar Lagrangian. But inward string theory, i tin displace e'er acquire objects of i sort past times doing some (possibly extreme, but finite) alter of the infinite or vacuum that starts inward some other solution. All the dissimilar vacua too physical objects too phenomena inward them create follow from some exactly identical, consummate laws – it's just the effective laws for an expansion around a (vacuum or another) state that may come upwards inward many forms.
String theory is i theory. No legitimate "counter-evidence" that would revert this insight of the 1990s has been flora ever since. Gross adds some "slightly less annoying" comments every bit well. However, he also escalates the negative ones. "There was a hope," Gross said, afterward suggesting that there's no "hope" anymore. But there's i fifty-fifty bigger shocker from Gross:
After a for certain betoken inward the early ’90s, people gave upwards on trying to connect to the existent world.WTF!? Did Gross say that string phenomenology hasn't existed "from the early 1990s"?
Maybe y'all completely stopped doing too fifty-fifty next string phenomenology but that's just likewise bad. The progress has been substantial. Just i subdirection that was basically born inward the in conclusion decade. Vafa's too pals' "F-theory with localized physics on singularities" models of particle physics. Let me alternative e.g. Vafa-Heckman-Beasley 2008 every bit the starting point. 350 too 400 followups, respectively. Recent advances derive quite some interesting flavour too similar things – e.g. neutrino oscillations including the of late observed nonzero \(\theta_{13}\) angle – out of F-theory.
And this is just a fraction of string phenomenology. One could pass hours past times descriptions how heterotic or M-theory phenomenology advanced e.g. from 2000. Did y'all genuinely say that "people gave upwards on trying to connect to the existent world" over xx years ago, David? It sounds absolutely incredible to me. Maybe, piece y'all were criticizing Joe too others for their inclinations to the anthropic regulation too "giving up", y'all accepted this defeatist materials yourself, too maybe fifty-fifty to a greater extent than thus than Joe did, at to the lowest degree when it comes to your thinking or non thinking nearly everything else.
Maybe y'all – too Dijkgraaf – directly intend that y'all may completely ignore physicists similar Vafa because you're directors too he isn't. But he's successfully worked on many things including the connections of string theory to the experimental information which is arguably much to a greater extent than of import than your administrative jobs. This quote of Gross' sheds novel lite e.g. on his exchanges with Gordon Kane. Indeed, Gross looks similar a guy who stopped thinking nearly some matters – string phenomenology, inward this instance – to a greater extent than than xx years agone but who withal wants to continue the illusion that he's at to the lowest degree every bit goodness every bit the most of import contemporary researchers inward the discipline. Sorry but if that's closed to true, too then Gross is behaving basically similar Peter W*it. There may hold out incorrect statements too guesses inward many string phenomenology papers but they're doing real existent piece of work too the progress inward the agreement of the predictions of those string compactifications has been highly non-trivial.
Vafa too Kane were just 2 names I mentioned. The whole M-theory on \(G_2\) manifolds phenomenology was alone started around 2000 – past times Witten too others. Is this whole enquiry sub-industry also non-existent according to Gross? What nearly the braneworlds? Old large too warped dimensions? Detailed stringy models of inflation too cosmology inward general? Most of the enquiry on all these topics too others took after the mid 1990s. Are y'all serious that people stopped thinking nearly the connections betwixt strings too experiments?
But Robbert Dijkgraaf contributes to this production of toxic nonsense, too:
“We’ve been trying to aim for the successes of the past times where nosotros had a real uncomplicated equation that captured everything,” said Robbert Dijkgraaf, the manager of the Institute for Advanced Study inward Princeton, New Jersey. “But directly nosotros receive got this large mess.”Speak for yourself, Robbert. The substitution laws of a theory of everything – of string theory – may hold out given past times a "very uncomplicated equation". And I've been attracted to this possibility, too, particularly every bit a modest kid. But every bit an adult, I've never believed it was realistic – too I am confident that the same holds for most of the currently active string theorists. In practice, the equations nosotros had to job to study QFT or string theory were "never likewise simple". Well, when I liked string land theory too didn't appreciate its perturbative express character, I liked the equations of motion of the background-independent version of string land theory,\[
H5N1 * H5N1 = 0.
\] That was a real attractive equation. The string land \(A\) acquires a vacuum condensate \(A_0\), i.e. \(A=A_0+a\), composed of some "nearly min strings" such that \(A_0 * \Phi\) or an (anti)commutator is related to \(Q \Phi\) acting on a string too encodes the BRST operator \(Q\). The terms \(Qa\) impose the BRST-closedness of the string states. The equation higher upwards also contains the residuum term \(a*a\) which is responsible for interactions. The business office \(A_0*A_0=0\) of the equation is equivalent to the status for the nilpotency of the BRST operator, \(Q^2=0\).
It's fun too (at to the lowest degree open, perturbative) string theory may hold out derived from this starting point. At the same moment, this starting betoken doesn't seem to allow us to calculate effects inward string theory beyond perturbative expansions – at least, it doesn't seem to a greater extent than strong inward this agency than other perturbative approaches to string theory.
OK, I desire to say that a vast bulk of what string theorists receive got been doing since the real kickoff of quantitative string theory, inward 1968, had zilch to create with \(A*A=0\) or similar "very uncomplicated equations". Maybe Robbert Dijkgraaf was obsessed with this thought of "very uncomplicated equations" when he began to study things similar that but I never was too I intend that most string theorists haven't. Already when I was a kid, it was rather clear to me that i needs to bargain with some "rather hard equations" if he wants to address the most substitution laws of physics. "Próstoj prostóty něbudět," ("There won't hold out whatever uncomplicated simplicity whatever longer") was a favorite quote I picked from Lev Okun's pop volume on particle physics when I was sixteen or thus too since that moment, I was almost never believing something different.
There's withal some sort of amazing "conceptual simplicity" inward string theory but it's non a simplicity of the type that a real brusk equation could completely define everything nearly physics that nosotros demand too would hold out comprehensible to the people with some basic math training. H5N1 real uncomplicated equation similar that could finally hold out flora but the advances inward string theory receive got never led to whatever meaning evidence that a "very uncomplicated equation" similar that should hold out behind everything. At to the lowest degree thus far.
Nothing has changed nearly these basic qualitative matters since 1968. So Dijkgraaf's claim that string theorists receive got been doing enquiry past times looking for some "very uncomplicated equation" too alone recently, they flora reasons that this is silly, is just a lie. This "very uncomplicated research" was never whatever substantial business office of the string theory enquiry too nothing has changed nearly these full general matters inward recent years or decades.
And what nearly the words "big mess"? What create y'all exactly count every bit parts of the "big mess"? Are the rules nearly the Calabi-Yau compactifications of heterotic string theory a business office of the "big mess"? What nearly matrix string theory? AdS/CFT too its portions? Sorry, I would never job the term "big mess" for these concepts too dozens or hundreds of others. They're just parts of the paramount noesis that was uncovered inward recent decades.
Maybe, Robbert, y'all savage thus much inward dearest with your well-paid project of the manager that y'all directly consider the people inward the IAS too elsewhere doing serious enquiry to hold out inferior muddied animals that should hold out spitted upon. If that's the case, they should piece of work hard to withdraw you. Or create it similar the tribe inward Papua-New Guinea.
To brand things worse:
Its tentacles receive got reached thus deeply into thus many areas inward theoretical physics, it’s move almost unrecognizable, fifty-fifty to string theorists. “Things receive got gotten almost postmodern,” said Dijkgraaf, who is a painter every bit good every bit mathematical physicist."Tentacles" don't exactly audio beautiful or friendly – well, they're withal friendlier than when individual calls all these insights "tumors". But the claim that string theory has move "unrecognizable to string theorists" is just rubbish, too. Applications of string theory inward some other disciplines – e.g. inward condensed affair physics – may hold out hard for a pure string theorist. But that's because these applications are not just string theory. They are either "modified string theory" or "string theory mixed with other topics" etc.
Nothing has move "less recognizable" allow lonely "postmodern" nearly pure string theory itself. It's a theory including all physics that may hold out continuously connected to the full general perturbative formula for S-matrix amplitudes that uses a conformal-invariant, modular-invariant theory on a two-dimensional globe sheet. Period. The actual "idea" nearly the laid of all these possible phenomena remains clear enough. There are vi maximally decompactified vacua of string theory too a large number of compactified solutions that increases with the number of compactified dimensions.
The number of all such solutions too fifty-fifty of the elements of some subsets may hold out real large but in that location is zilch "postmodern" nearly large numbers. Mathematics plant for modest numbers every bit good every bit large numbers. Postmodernism never works. These – richness of a infinite of solution too postmodernism – are completely dissimilar concepts.
Now, boundaries betwixt string too non-string theory.
“It’s hard to say genuinely where y'all should pull the boundary around too say: This is string theory; this is non string theory,” said Douglas Stanford, a physicist at the IAS. “Nobody knows whether to say they’re a string theorist anymore,” said Chris Beem, a mathematical physicist at the University of Oxford. “It’s move real confusing.”One interpretation of Beem's words is a worrisome one: He is a rat who wants to maximally lick the rectums of the powerful ones too because dishonest too to a greater extent than oft than non f*cked-up string theory bashers became omnipresent too powerful, he is tempted to lick their rectums every bit well. So he may desire to say he isn't a string theorist.
But fifty-fifty with the to a greater extent than innocent interpretation of the paragraph above, it's mostly nonsense. Just await at the listing of Chris Beem's item papers. It's real clear that he is mostly a quantum land theorist. Even though he co-authored papers with many string theorists – I know many of his co-authors – it isn't fifty-fifty clear from the papers whether all the authors had to hold out given the basic instruction inward the subject.
It's non clear whether Chris Beem is a string theorist but it's non because string theory is ill-defined. It's because it's non clear what Chris Beem is genuinely interested in, what he knows, too what he plant on.
There is piece of work on the boundary of "being pure string theory" too "having no string theory at all". But there's zilch "pathological" nearly it. The province of affairs is completely analogous to the questions inward the 1930s whether some papers too physicists' piece of work were on quantum mechanics every bit understood inward the 1920s, or quantum land theory. Well, quantum land theory is just a to a greater extent than complete, specific, sophisticated layer of noesis built on exceed of quantum mechanics – just similar string theory is a to a greater extent than complete, specific, sophisticated layer of noesis built on exceed of quantum land theory.
In the slowly 1920s too the 1930s, people would start to study many issues such every bit the corrections to magnetic moments, hydrogen release energy levels from the Lamb shift (virtual photons) etc. They could receive got "complained" inward exactly the same way: We don't know whether we're working on quantum mechanics or quantum land theory. Well, both. It's clear that y'all tin displace acquire far plenty if y'all intend of your enquiry every bit some "cleverly directed" enquiry on some heuristic generalization of the former quantum mechanics. But y'all may also watch it every bit a to a greater extent than rigorous derivation from the newer, to a greater extent than consummate theory. Once the to a greater extent than complete, newer theory is sufficiently understood, people who empathize it know exactly what they're doing. Some people don't know it every bit well.
Exactly the analogous statements may hold out made nearly the enquiry on topics where the "usual QFT methods aren't enough" yet the goals await to a greater extent than QFT-like too less string-like than the goals of the most "purely stringy" papers. So why the hell are y'all trying to pigment all niggling things negatively? There are many papers that receive got to employ many insights too many methods from diverse "subfields". And they oft demand to know many of these things just superficially. What's incorrect nearly it? It's unsurprising that such papers can't hold out unambiguously categorized. Examples similar that be inward (and inward between) most disciplines of science.
What's genuinely incorrect is that the number of people who create full-fledged string enquiry has been reduced. I intend that it has been reduced partly if non mostly due to the watch I previously attributed to Chris Beem – many people desire to lick the aßes of the string-bashing scum that has penetrated many environments surrounding the enquiry institutions. And the string-theory-bashing scum has tangibly reduced the funding etc.
David Simmons-Duffin, Eva Silverstein, too Juan Maldacena didn't say anything that could hold out interpreted every bit string-bashing inward isolation. They explicate that much of string theory is nearly interpolations of known theories or results; string theory has behaviour on on cosmology too other fields; nosotros don't know the operate of the landscape inward Nature around us (Maldacena also defines string theory every bit "solid theoretical enquiry on natural geometric structures"). Nevertheless, K.C. Cole made their statements await similar a business office of the same string-bashing story.
There are lots of quotes too assertions inward the article that are borderline too much less oft completely right but their "emotional presentation" is e'er bizarre inward some way. But in that location are many additional statements that aren't right:
Toy models are measure tools inward most kinds of research. But there’s e'er the fearfulness that what i learns from a simplified scenario does non apply to the existent world. “It’s a chip of a bargain with the devil,” Beem said. “String theory is a much less rigorously constructed laid of ideas than quantum land theory, thus y'all receive got to hold out willing to relax your standards a bit,” he said. “But you’re rewarded for that. It gives y'all a nice, bigger context inward which to work.”Why does Mr Beem intend that "string theory is a much less rigorously constructed laid of ideas than QFT"? It's an atlas composed of "patches" that are every bit rigorously constructed every bit QFTs – because the patches are QFTs. So perturbative string theory is all nearly a proper analysis of two-dimensional conformal land theory. Everything nearly perturbative string theory is encoded inward this subset of QFTs. Similarly, Matrix theory allow us to fully define physics of string/M-theory using some "world volume" QFTs too AdS/CFT allows us to define the gravitational physics inward an AdS volume using a boundary CFT which is, i time again, exactly every bit rigorous every bit a QFT because it is a QFT. (Later inward Cole's text, Dijkgraaf mentions that the right "picture" for a string theory could hold out an atlas, too.)
So what the hell is Beem talking about? And additional aßholes are beingness added to the article:
“Answering deep questions nearly quantum gravity has non genuinely happened,” [Sean Carroll] said.What? Does he say such a thing after the dark hole thermodynamics was microscopically understood, non to cite lots of insights nearly topology change, mirror symmetry, tachyons on orbifold fixed points etc., too fifty-fifty after the people flora the equivalence betwixt quantum entanglement too non-traversable wormholes too many other things? Nothing of this sort has happened?
At the end, Nima Arkani-Hamed says:
If you’re excited nearly responsibly attacking the real biggest existential physics questions ever, too then y'all should hold out excited. But if y'all desire a ticket to Stockholm for for certain inward the next fifteen years, too then in all probability not.I would grip with both sentences including the in conclusion i because it contains the give-and-take "probably". This prize is far to a greater extent than experimentally oriented too of course, many pieces of piece of work (with lasers too other things) that are vastly less of import than those inward stringy too string-like theoretical physics receive got already been awarded past times the Nobel prize. The Nobel prizes withal await credible plenty to me but I haven't been the tiddler who's been parroting clichés that "it's groovy to acquire one" for over 25 years. It's just non a finish of a mature physicist. On the other hand, I am non genuinely certain that no i volition acquire a Nobel prize for string theory inward the next decade or two.
But I intend it's no coincidence that just similar the title, the in conclusion judgement of Cole's article is negative nearly string theory. Negativity nearly string theory is genuinely "her principal story". Too bad that numerous well-known people bring together this propaganda every bit if they were either deluded cranks or opportunity-seeking rats.