astro
11-20-2007, 03:37 PM
Congrats to Woit and Smolin--you guys have built a hype machine beyond your wildest dreams. "Poor, poor Surfer Dude who lives in Hawaii and Lake Tahoe (preferred windsurfing/snowboarding locales of the poor and homeless) revolutionizes physics with FABULOUS (Smolin's word) not even wrong theory" headlines abound. You must feel like Darth Vader in Star Wars, when he demonstrated the vast power of the Death Star's laser by blowing up Princess Leah's planet. You have acheived your place in the history of physics. When they start selling Garrett Lisi Action Figures with surfboards and snowboards, one will also be able to purchase Smolin and Woit action figures, complete with t-shirts that read "The Trouble With Physics--Some Theories are Not Even Wronger Than Others."
How is it that Lee Smolin, even thorugh funded by millions upon millions, thinks he has the right to add fermions and bosons, and that doing so constitutes a "fabulous" theory?
http://scienceblogs.com/catdynamics/2007/11/overly_simple_theory_of_someth.php reports:One is that Lisi cheerfully adds fermions and bosons as needed it.
I mean he sums them - which is generally frowned upon, since they are different.
The whole apples and lightning thing (because you can add apples and oranges, but you can not add an apple and a bolt of lightning).
Now, there is an intriguing issue, which is that this is what you do in super theories, where you introduce an additional operator to generate a symmetry between the fermions and bosons.
Lisi asserts that the BRST quantization scheme enables us to naturally add fermionic and bosonic fields under E8. Essentially they live in different subgroups of E8 and he chooses a representation where you can add them piecewise (what happen if change representation and mix these is not addressed and is a serious issue). from--http://scienceblogs.com/catdynamics/2007/11/overly_simple_theory_of_someth.php
"Congrats to Woit and Smolin--you guys have built a hype machine beyond your wildest dreams. "Poor Surfer Dude who lives in Hawaai and Lake Taho revolutionizes physics with FABULOUS (Smolin's word) not even wrong theory" headlines abound. You must feel like Darth Vader in Star Wars, when he demonstrated the vast power of the Death Star's laser by blowing up Princess Leah's planet. You have acheived your place in the history of physics. When they start selling Garrett Lisi Action Figures with surfboards and snowboards, one will also be able to purchase Smolin and Woit action figures, complete with t-shirts that read "The Trouble With Physics--Some Theories are Not Even Wronger Than Others."
Check out the hundreds of pages with patently false headlines the well-funded Smolin/Woit media machine have created:
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=Surfer+dude+stuns+physicists+with+theory+of+ever ything+&btnG=Search
Surfer Dude Stuns Physicists With Theory of Everything
Surfer dude comes up with 'fabulous' unified theory of everything ... (http://www.scienceblog.com/cms/surfer-dude-comes-fabulous-unified-theory-everything-14793.html)
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=Surfer+dude+fabulous
"Fabulous" is Smolin's word for a non-theory that makes no predictions, has no concrete equations, add fermions and bosons, and predicts that it might someday predict something, just like String Theory has been doing for the last thirty years.
Here're some hilarious, and telling, excerpts from Peter Woit's blog--Not Even Wrong. Now Peter can write a book about Lisi's theory called Not Even Wronger.
Peter Woit thinks that some "Not Even Wrong" theories, such as Garrett Lisi's, are Not Even Wronger than others, and thus deserve extensive media hype and funding.
Below please find some excerpts from Peter's blog that more accurately characterize the Not Even Wrongishness of Lisi's tehory, which Lee Smolin & Peter Woit hyped to the media as "fabulous" via their powerful and influential, well-funded positions. It's good to see Woit back-tracking a tiny bit, but it's sad to see that Peter first hyped the paper without really spending time on it--whence he would have notcied that the paper's title is a lie:
http://www.math.columbia.edu/~woit/wordpress/?p=617#commentsUpdate: Garrett is making the news here. (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/main.jhtml?xml=/earth/2007/11/14/scisurf114.xml) Whether this is a good thing is yet another question for debate on the next thread, I guess. A lot of the attraction for the media seems to be his personal story. Maybe it’s a good thing for physics for people to see that one can be a theoretical physicist while surfing in Hawaii… -- PETER "NOT EVEN WRONG" WOIT
Triality at the moment is just a bit of hand-waving hope.
I really would have to say that this model is a prime example of a theory that is “not even wrong.” As the old joke goes, this paper contains new and correct results, but what is correct is not new, and what is new is not correct. What part of this do you find interesting and worthy of encouragement?
Sincerely,
Not the real P.W.H. FRS
You might also notice that I explictly make the point you’re trying to make, explaining why I’m dubious about this kind of “unification” since it doesn’t solve the problem of how to break the larger symmetry in a way that makes the setup predictive. In principle fitting SM symmetries together into a simple exceptional group like E8 could be constraining enough to be predictive, even after symmetry breaking, but lots of people have tried this kind of thing without success.
It is a lazy author that can’t be bothered to work out the simple consequences of his theory and explain them simply. And it is a lazy blogger (who is supposed to be an expert in representation theory after all) who blogs about a paper and adds to the hype without putting in a modest amount of effort to understand what is going on.
As for the media hype, “surfer dude stuns physics” makes for a cool story but it wouldn’t have happened without the backing of some big-name physicist. Smolin was most obliging in this role, but I’m sure it was for the purest of motives (let’s not be getting cynical here ;)). I share very much Bee’s concern about episodes like this leading to an atmosphere where people feel pressured to be working on media-appealing, hypeable topics rather than solid, conservative ones.
The current hype sounds to me like Pons-Fleischman cold fusion, or more charitably, Taleyerkhan’s acoustic cavitation bubble fusion.
There’s a constant stream of overhyped articles in the press about specific speculative ideas in physics being promoted by one person or a small group. New Scientist has such an article almost every week. Commenting on all such articles would take a lot of time, and get them more attention than they deserve, so mostly I think it’s best to just ignore them
The media Lisi-mania is a much more unusual phenomenon. It has gotten a much wider distribution than usual, so it’s a good idea for physicists to put out some more realistic points of view.
From: http://www.math.columbia.edu/~woit/wordpress/?p=617#comments
The good thing about the well-orchestrated Smolin/Woit/Baez hype machine is that it probably will kill Lisi's Not Even Wrong Crackpot "theory of everything" in the long run--Lisi writes:
http://www.math.columbia.edu/~woit/wordpress/?p=617#comments
The thing worrying me is… this E8 Theory was playing out very well in academia before the media hype. I gave four talks on it, in quick succession, and each one went better than the last, with a very good reception from physicists. And the paper generated a great deal of interest. Then what I thought would be a nice explanation for a lay audience in New Scientist spawned a media frenzy. I just hope the hype didn’t obliterate serious consideration of the paper.
But look at what Smolin/Woit/Baez machine has accomplished--I bet they are feeling great about their newfound power to hype, hype, hype and inspire mass hysteria for Not Even Wrong Theories--tehy have beat Brian Green at his own game!!! Smolin/Woit/Baez created literally hundreds upon hundreds of pages of complete and hollow hype:
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=surfer+dude+fabulous
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=Surfer+dude+physics
It is interesting to note that Smolin/Woit/Baez rarely if ever contribute in an original fashion to the realm of equations, math, and physics--indeed, what is the Woit equation or the Baez postulate or the Smolin conjecture? What original physics have they contributed? Nothing. Nada. Zero. So what makes them so certain they are best suited to recognize "fabulous" tehories. Would not the opposite hold true? They are a new breed of well-funded, vocal professional politicians/gossipers who manipulate the media to raise funds and feel cool, while castigating and impugning logic, reason, and physics from their bully blogs, aided and abetted by their bully blogger groupthink fanboy buddies. We need more disclosure on all their interconnectedness--who pays for the plane tickets to conferences? What back-cover blurbs are they planning for Lisi's future book?
Hundreds of places state--
"Smolin describes Lisi's work as "fabulous."--http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=smolin++fabulous
Congrats to Woit and Smolin--you guys have built a hype machine beyond your wildest dreams. You must feel like Darth Vader in Star Wars, when he deomonstrated the power of the Death Star by blowing up Princess Leah's planet.
Just one question--what are the masses of the particles that Lisi's theory predicts?
I would like to interview Lee or Peter regarding this "FABULOUS" theory for my upcoming documentary. They can contact me at rangermccoy@gmail.com
And one more--how is Lisi's theory any different from the Bogdonavs' whom Peter enjoys lampooning to no end?
Moving Dimensions Theory: The fourth dimension is expanding realtive to the three spatial dimensions. dx4/dt = ic
"Congrats to Woit and Smolin--you guys have built a hype machine beyond your wildest dreams. "Poor, poor Surfer Dude who lives in Hawaii and Lake Taho revolutionizes physics with not even wrong theory" headlines abound. You must feel like Darth Vader in Star Wars, when he demonstrated the vast power of the Death Star's laser by blowing up Princess Leah's planet. You have acheived your place in the history of physics. When they start selling Garrett Lisi Action Figures with surfboards and snowboards, one will also be able to purchase Smolin and Woit action figures, complete with t-shirts that read "The Trouble With Physics--Some Theories are Not Even Wronger Than Others."
How is it that Lee Smolin, even thorugh funded by millions upon millions, thinks he has the right to add fermions and bosons, and that doing so constitutes a "fabulous" theory?
http://scienceblogs.com/catdynamics/2007/11/overly_simple_theory_of_someth.php reports:One is that Lisi cheerfully adds fermions and bosons as needed it.
I mean he sums them - which is generally frowned upon, since they are different.
The whole apples and lightning thing (because you can add apples and oranges, but you can not add an apple and a bolt of lightning).
Now, there is an intriguing issue, which is that this is what you do in super theories, where you introduce an additional operator to generate a symmetry between the fermions and bosons.
Lisi asserts that the BRST quantization scheme enables us to naturally add fermionic and bosonic fields under E8. Essentially they live in different subgroups of E8 and he chooses a representation where you can add them piecewise (what happen if change representation and mix these is not addressed and is a serious issue). from--http://scienceblogs.com/catdynamics/2007/11/overly_simple_theory_of_someth.php
"Congrats to Woit and Smolin--you guys have built a hype machine beyond your wildest dreams. "Poor Surfer Dude who lives in Hawaai and Lake Taho revolutionizes physics with FABULOUS (Smolin's word) not even wrong theory" headlines abound. You must feel like Darth Vader in Star Wars, when he demonstrated the vast power of the Death Star's laser by blowing up Princess Leah's planet. You have acheived your place in the history of physics. When they start selling Garrett Lisi Action Figures with surfboards and snowboards, one will also be able to purchase Smolin and Woit action figures, complete with t-shirts that read "The Trouble With Physics--Some Theories are Not Even Wronger Than Others."
Check out the hundreds of pages with patently false headlines the well-funded Smolin/Woit media machine have created:
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=Surfer+dude+stuns+physicists+with+theory+of+ever ything+&btnG=Search
Surfer Dude Stuns Physicists With Theory of Everything
Surfer dude comes up with 'fabulous' unified theory of everything ... (http://www.scienceblog.com/cms/surfer-dude-comes-fabulous-unified-theory-everything-14793.html)
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=Surfer+dude+fabulous
"Fabulous" is Smolin's word for a non-theory that makes no predictions, has no concrete equations, add fermions and bosons, and predicts that it might someday predict something, just like String Theory has been doing for the last thirty years.
Here're some hilarious, and telling, excerpts from Peter Woit's blog--Not Even Wrong. Now Peter can write a book about Lisi's theory called Not Even Wronger.
Peter Woit thinks that some "Not Even Wrong" theories, such as Garrett Lisi's, are Not Even Wronger than others, and thus deserve extensive media hype and funding.
Below please find some excerpts from Peter's blog that more accurately characterize the Not Even Wrongishness of Lisi's tehory, which Lee Smolin & Peter Woit hyped to the media as "fabulous" via their powerful and influential, well-funded positions. It's good to see Woit back-tracking a tiny bit, but it's sad to see that Peter first hyped the paper without really spending time on it--whence he would have notcied that the paper's title is a lie:
http://www.math.columbia.edu/~woit/wordpress/?p=617#commentsUpdate: Garrett is making the news here. (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/main.jhtml?xml=/earth/2007/11/14/scisurf114.xml) Whether this is a good thing is yet another question for debate on the next thread, I guess. A lot of the attraction for the media seems to be his personal story. Maybe it’s a good thing for physics for people to see that one can be a theoretical physicist while surfing in Hawaii… -- PETER "NOT EVEN WRONG" WOIT
Triality at the moment is just a bit of hand-waving hope.
I really would have to say that this model is a prime example of a theory that is “not even wrong.” As the old joke goes, this paper contains new and correct results, but what is correct is not new, and what is new is not correct. What part of this do you find interesting and worthy of encouragement?
Sincerely,
Not the real P.W.H. FRS
You might also notice that I explictly make the point you’re trying to make, explaining why I’m dubious about this kind of “unification” since it doesn’t solve the problem of how to break the larger symmetry in a way that makes the setup predictive. In principle fitting SM symmetries together into a simple exceptional group like E8 could be constraining enough to be predictive, even after symmetry breaking, but lots of people have tried this kind of thing without success.
It is a lazy author that can’t be bothered to work out the simple consequences of his theory and explain them simply. And it is a lazy blogger (who is supposed to be an expert in representation theory after all) who blogs about a paper and adds to the hype without putting in a modest amount of effort to understand what is going on.
As for the media hype, “surfer dude stuns physics” makes for a cool story but it wouldn’t have happened without the backing of some big-name physicist. Smolin was most obliging in this role, but I’m sure it was for the purest of motives (let’s not be getting cynical here ;)). I share very much Bee’s concern about episodes like this leading to an atmosphere where people feel pressured to be working on media-appealing, hypeable topics rather than solid, conservative ones.
The current hype sounds to me like Pons-Fleischman cold fusion, or more charitably, Taleyerkhan’s acoustic cavitation bubble fusion.
There’s a constant stream of overhyped articles in the press about specific speculative ideas in physics being promoted by one person or a small group. New Scientist has such an article almost every week. Commenting on all such articles would take a lot of time, and get them more attention than they deserve, so mostly I think it’s best to just ignore them
The media Lisi-mania is a much more unusual phenomenon. It has gotten a much wider distribution than usual, so it’s a good idea for physicists to put out some more realistic points of view.
From: http://www.math.columbia.edu/~woit/wordpress/?p=617#comments
The good thing about the well-orchestrated Smolin/Woit/Baez hype machine is that it probably will kill Lisi's Not Even Wrong Crackpot "theory of everything" in the long run--Lisi writes:
http://www.math.columbia.edu/~woit/wordpress/?p=617#comments
The thing worrying me is… this E8 Theory was playing out very well in academia before the media hype. I gave four talks on it, in quick succession, and each one went better than the last, with a very good reception from physicists. And the paper generated a great deal of interest. Then what I thought would be a nice explanation for a lay audience in New Scientist spawned a media frenzy. I just hope the hype didn’t obliterate serious consideration of the paper.
But look at what Smolin/Woit/Baez machine has accomplished--I bet they are feeling great about their newfound power to hype, hype, hype and inspire mass hysteria for Not Even Wrong Theories--tehy have beat Brian Green at his own game!!! Smolin/Woit/Baez created literally hundreds upon hundreds of pages of complete and hollow hype:
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=surfer+dude+fabulous
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=Surfer+dude+physics
It is interesting to note that Smolin/Woit/Baez rarely if ever contribute in an original fashion to the realm of equations, math, and physics--indeed, what is the Woit equation or the Baez postulate or the Smolin conjecture? What original physics have they contributed? Nothing. Nada. Zero. So what makes them so certain they are best suited to recognize "fabulous" tehories. Would not the opposite hold true? They are a new breed of well-funded, vocal professional politicians/gossipers who manipulate the media to raise funds and feel cool, while castigating and impugning logic, reason, and physics from their bully blogs, aided and abetted by their bully blogger groupthink fanboy buddies. We need more disclosure on all their interconnectedness--who pays for the plane tickets to conferences? What back-cover blurbs are they planning for Lisi's future book?
Hundreds of places state--
"Smolin describes Lisi's work as "fabulous."--http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=smolin++fabulous
Congrats to Woit and Smolin--you guys have built a hype machine beyond your wildest dreams. You must feel like Darth Vader in Star Wars, when he deomonstrated the power of the Death Star by blowing up Princess Leah's planet.
Just one question--what are the masses of the particles that Lisi's theory predicts?
I would like to interview Lee or Peter regarding this "FABULOUS" theory for my upcoming documentary. They can contact me at rangermccoy@gmail.com
And one more--how is Lisi's theory any different from the Bogdonavs' whom Peter enjoys lampooning to no end?
Moving Dimensions Theory: The fourth dimension is expanding realtive to the three spatial dimensions. dx4/dt = ic
"Congrats to Woit and Smolin--you guys have built a hype machine beyond your wildest dreams. "Poor, poor Surfer Dude who lives in Hawaii and Lake Taho revolutionizes physics with not even wrong theory" headlines abound. You must feel like Darth Vader in Star Wars, when he demonstrated the vast power of the Death Star's laser by blowing up Princess Leah's planet. You have acheived your place in the history of physics. When they start selling Garrett Lisi Action Figures with surfboards and snowboards, one will also be able to purchase Smolin and Woit action figures, complete with t-shirts that read "The Trouble With Physics--Some Theories are Not Even Wronger Than Others."