More Trouble

Bert Schroer has posted a new ten-point critique of string theory (hep-th/0611132). It is more detailed and technical than some of the other critiques we have seen lately. I'm not prepared (or qualified) to address those issues in detail, but at the risk of gross oversimplification I will guess that his points can be reduced to "string theorists are ignoring the centrality of new insights into quantum field theory revealed by AQFT and other developments." I'm not sure how much weight to give such arguments.

Couldn't ST rejoin that "Non stringy physicists are ignoring the centrality of the emergence of a graviton in a term by term finite perturbation series." LQG, on the hand, just says: "those others ignore the centrality of manifest background independence."

I'm a bit uncomfortable with all these kinds of arguments. It's certainly reasonable to pick some fundamental idea or fact as a heuristic guide, but historically physics has needed more. I will borrow the Philip Anderson quote Bert used as an epigraph for a motto here:
...The history concludes with an unexpected and glorious success: the so-called standard model. The way in which this structural classification fell into place, and the great leaps of imagination involved, justifies a degree of hubris among the few dozens truly extraordinary individuals who discovered it. However both this hubris, and the complexity of the result, fed the temptation to go on leaping, and to forget that this earlier leaps, without exception, had taken off from some feature of the solid experimental facts laboriously gathered over the years....

Phil Anderson, in ”Loose ends and Gordian knots of the string cult”

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Anti-Libertarian: re-post

The most pointed critique of social security and liberalism in general is the libertarian critique. The problem with libertarians, for a liberal, is that we have too much in common. We both believe in individual rights, tolerance of individual differences, and dislike government prescription of religion. The basic difference, it seems to me, is the different answers we give to Cain's (with thanks to the Captain - my original version had the corpse asking the question!) famous question: "Am I my brother's keeper?" That's not really my basic bitch against the libertarians though. My real complaint is the same as my complaint against most religion - its premise is a fraud. For those who can't stand to wait for the punchline, I believe that trying to implement libertarian principles leads to tyranny or social disintegration. Demonstrating that takes some historical (and pre-historical) context. For all but the last 15,000 or so of the 100,000 years the human spec
Read more

Uneasy Lies The Head

Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown ........... Shakespeare Henry IV, Part II. So it is with us and our slightly distant primate cousins , so it seems. A 9-year study of wild baboons in Kenya by Princeton University and the Institute of Primate Research may turn conventional assumptions of alphas males upside down. The study found that alpha males have high testosterone levels, which allows them to dominate other baboons, get access to more food, and attract better mates. This is expected. Surprisingly, though, the alpha males also have high levels of stress hormone glucocorticoid, which scientists measured from their feces samples. In fact, the stress of alpha baboons was on par with low-ranking baboons. The convention wisdom is that access to food and females provides life security and thus less stress for dominant males. Conversely, weak males who are constantly threatened by starvation and physical violence from stronger males are thought to be more stressed. The st
Read more

We Call it Soccer

The US played its best, and maybe only good game of World Cup, but lost thanks to brilliant goalkeeping by the Swedish keeper and the bizarre method soccer uses to settle ties when three US stars could not put the ball on frame from the 12 yard spot.  At the end it came down to a blocked shot that spun in by maybe a couple of centimeters. Well, that's football - too much like life.   Which brings me to a modest proposal.  Replace the thirty minute overtimes with as many 7-player 15 minute periods as needed to settle it.  Scoring should be much easier with fewer players.
Read more