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String Theory a Disaster for Physics?
BlueCup writes "Mathematician Peter Woit of Columbia University describes string theory in his book Not Even Wrong,. He calls the theory 'a disaster for physics.' Which would have been a fringe opinion a few years ago, but now, after years of string theory books reaching the best sellers list, he has company."
Adrian Wapcaplet: Aah, come in, come in, Mr....Simpson. Aaah, welcome to Mousebat, Follicle, Goosecreature, Ampersand, Spong, Wapcaplet, Looseliver, Vendetta and Prang!
Mr. Simpson: Thank you.
Wapcaplet: Do sit down--my name's Wapcaplet, Adrian Wapcaplet...
Mr. Simpson: how'd'y'do.
Wapcaplet: Now, Mr. Simpson... Simpson, Simpson... French, is it?
Mr. Simpson: No.
Wapcaplet: Aah. Now, I understand you want us to advertise your washing powder.
Mr. Simpson: String.
Wapcaplet: String, washing powder, what's the difference. We can sell *anything*.
Mr. Simpson: Good. Well I have this large quantity of string, a hundred and twenty-two thousand *miles* of it to be exact, which I inherited, and I thought if I advertised it--
Wapcaplet: Of course! A national campaign. Useful stuff, string, no trouble there.
Mr. Simpson: Ah, but there's a snag, you see. Due to bad planning, the hundred and twenty-two thousand miles is in three inch lengths. So it's not very useful.
Wapcaplet: Well, that's our selling point!
"SIMPSON'S INDIVIDUAL STRINGETTES!"
Mr. Simpson:What?
Wapcaplet: "THE NOW STRING! READY CUT, EASY TO HANDLE, SIMPSON'S INDIVIDUAL EMPEROR STRINGETTES - JUST THE RIGHT LENGTH!"
Mr. Simpson: For what?
Wapcaplet: "A MILLION HOUSEHOLD USES!"
Mr. Simpson: Such as?
Wapcaplet: Uhmm...Tying up very small parcels, attatching notes to pigeons' legs, uh, destroying household pests...
Mr. Simpson: Destroying household pests?! How?
Wapcaplet: Well, if they're bigger than a mouse, you can strangle them with it, and if they're smaller than, you flog them to death with it!
Mr. Simpson: Well *surely*!....
Wapcaplet: "DESTROY NINETY-NINE PERCENT OF KNOWN HOUSEHOLD PESTS WITH PRE-SLICED, RUSTPROOF, EASY-TO-HANDLE, LOW CALORIE SIMPSON'S INDIVIDUAL EMPEROR STRINGETTES, FREE FROM ARTIFICIAL COLORING, AS USED IN HOSPITALS!"
Mr. Simpson: 'Ospitals!?
Wapcaplet: Have you ever in a Hospital where they didn't have string?
Mr. Simpson:No, but it's only *string*!
Wapcaplet: ONLY STRING?! It's everything! It's...it's waterproof!
Mr. Simpson:No it isn't!
Wapcaplet: All right, it's water resistant then!
Mr. Simpson: It isn't!
Wapcaplet: All right, it's water absorbent! It's...Super Absorbent String!
"ABSORB WATER TODAY WITH SIMPSON'S INDIVIDUAL WATER ABSORB-A-TEX STRINGETTES! AWAY WITH FLOODS!"
Mr. Simpson: You just said it was waterproof!
Wapcaplet: "AWAY WITH THE DULL DRUDGERY OF WORKADAY TIDAL WAVES! USE SIMPSON'S INDIVIDUAL FLOOD PREVENTERS!"
Mr. Simpson:You're mad!
Wapcaplet: Shut up, shut up, shut up! Sex, sex, sex, must get sex into it. Wait, I see a television commercial: There's this nude woman in a bath holding a bit of your string. That's great, great, but we need a doctor, got to have a medical opinion. There's a nude woman in a bath with a doctor--that's too sexy. Put an archbishop there watching them, that'll take the curse off it. Now, we need children and animals. There's two kids admiring the string, and a dog admiring the archbishop who's blessing the string. Uhh...international flavor's missing...make the archbishop Greek Orthodox. Why not Archbishop Macarios? No, no, he's dead... never mind, we'll get his brother, it'll be cheaper... So, there's this nude woman....
lolz!
Politics is Treachery, Religion is Brainwashing
http://physicsmathforums.com/showthread.php?t=56
Tied Up & Strung Out: Hollywood String Theory Movie!!! Looking For Extras!!!
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
ALL TIED UP & STRUNG ALONG, a movie about String Theorists and their expansive theories which extend human ignorance, pomposity, and frailty into higher dimensions, is set to start filming this fall. Jessica Alba, John Cleese, Eugene Levie, Jackie Chan, and David Duchovney of X-files fame have all signed on to the $700 million Hollywood project, which is still cheaper than String Theory itself, and will likely displace less physicists from the academy.
"As contemporary physics is about money, hype, mythology, and chicks," Ed Witten explained from his offices at the Princeton Institute for Advanced Study, "The next logical step was Hollywood, although I thought Burt Reynolds should play me instead of Eugene Levy."
Brian Greene, the famous String Theorist who will be played by David "the truth is out there" Duchovney, explained the plot: "String theory's muddled, contorted theories that lack postulates, laws, and experimentally-verified equations have Einstein spinning so fast in his grave that it creates a black hole. In order to save the world, we String Theorists have to stop reformulating String Theory faster than the speed of light. We are called upon to stop violating the conservation of energy by mining higher dimensions to publish more BS than can accounted for with the Big Bang alone, and I win the Nobel prize for showing that M-Theory is in fact the dark matter it has been searching for."
Greene continues: "At first my character is reluctant to stop theorizing and start postulating, but when my love interest Jessica Alba is sucked into the black hole, I search my soul and find Paul Davies there, played by John Cleese. I ask him what he's doing in my soul, and he explains that the answer is contained in the mind of God, which only he is privy too, but for a small fee, some tax and tuition dollars, a couple grants here and there, and an all-expense-paid book tour with stops in Zurich and Honolulu, he can let me in on it. And he shows me God in all her greater glory, as he points out that we can make more money in Hollywood than writing coffee-table books that recycle Einstein, Bohr, Dirac, Feynman, and Wheeler. I am quickly converted, and I agree to turn my back on String Theory's hoax and save Jessica Alba."
But it's not that easy, as standing in Greene's way is Michio "king of pop-theory-hipster-irony-the-theory-of-everything- or-anything-made-
you-read-this" Kaku, played by Jackie Chan. Kaku beats the crap out of Greene for alomst blowing the "ironic" pretense his salary, benefits, and all-expense paid trips depend on. "WE MUST HOLD BACK THE YOUNG SCIENTISTS WITH OUR NON-THEORIES!! WE MUST FILL THE ACADEMY WITH THE POMO DARK MATTER THAT IS STRING THEORY TO KEEP OUR UNIVERSE FROM FLYING APART, OUR PYRAMID SCHEMES FROM TOPPLING, AND OUR PERPETUAL-MOTION NSF MONEY MACHINE FROM STOPPING!!" Kaku argues as he delivers a flying back-kick, "There can be ony ONE! I WILL be String Theory's GODFATHER as referenced on my web page!! I have better hair!"
But Greene fights back as he signs his seventeenth book deal to make the hand-waving incoherence of String Theory accessible to the South Park generation, senior citizens, and starving chirldren around the world. "Kaku! Kaku! (pronounced Ka-Kaw! Ka-Kaw! like Owen Wilson did in Bottle Rocket)," Greene shouts. "It is theoretically impossible to build a coffee tables strong enough to support any more coffee-table physics books!!!"
"Time travel is also theoretically impossible, but there's a helluva lot more money for us in flushing physics down a wormhole. Nobody knows what the #&#%&$ M stands for in M theory ya hand-waving, TV-hogging crank!!! Get it?? Ha Ha Ha! We're laughing at the public! We're the insider pomo hipsters! Get with the gangsta-wanksta-pranksta CRANKSTER
You are hurting my brain
Too goddamned long...
string theory was a diaster for someone's career.
Is that a SCSI connector or are you just glad to see me?
On the other hand, quantum mechanics explains gravity about as well as epicycles did.
Quantum Mechanics doesn't even try to explain gravity. (And ordinary Quantum Mechanics can couple with gravity via the Wheeler-De-Witt equation, though that isn't fundamental like the Standard Model. Quantum Field Theory can work with classical GR. It is GR that can't be made into a renormalizable Quantum Field Theory.)
How else were you planning on merging relativety with quantum mechanics? Until there is anything else resembling relativistic QCD, it would probably be wise to study string theory if for no other reason than to know which mistakes to avoid should it prove unworkable.
I have no idea, but I'd like to see a broader spectrum of guess research. I don't like the sense of idea fads and idea marketing in physics.