When I qouted Witten here it is understood that the levels of integration that had gone on historically, with model application called “strings?” It is important to me, that such a model be understood in that context. As having foundational perspective(not religion based ideologies applied, philosphical based without reason) in our approaches to reductionsism and the “finest states” of existance possible. While in turn, recognizing the energy valuations arising, as we move down.

Witten by recognizing the “condense matter theorist” it is understood that perspective is changed in a way to encourage, investigation of new ways in which to continue with perception. It’s applicabilites.

This predates, “existing calls” for a jihad against scientific valuation?

With that historical background included, such irresponsibility heaped on those who wish to continue, is “very insulting” to the adventourous.

Clifford said: “Meanwhile, research continues….”
Question: does it?

Answer: Yes.

The research activity in a field is not measured entirely in terms of the number of citations each new paper gets. I don’t understand exactly how the average number of citations of new papers correlates with the research activity going on at a particular time. If what you and Peter are asking is whether or not there is a new fashion in town, then that’s a different matter. There’s no fashoin that everyone is working on. Actually, that’s rather healthy to have for periods. People think harder about what they’re really up to, consilidate results, take stock, etc. (And have useful discussions such as this and others….)

I’ve not paid any attention to the issue, frankly, so cannot really comment extensively. All I know is that people are doing work on answering interesting questions, just as they always were. That’s research.

So…. Yes.

Cheers,

-cvj

(a) Sadly, from your comments you don’t seem to know much about the history of scientific research. Or you’ve forgotten temporarily, since I like to give the benefit of the doubt. Don’t forget:- The unexpected is a large part of the point of research, actually! Just as one example, take non-abelian gauge theory, the structure upon which so much of the Standard Model of particle physics is based…… how directed an approach was it at the outset? Who knew for sure what it was going to lead to when the first steps were made along that road? There are so many other examples like that, which are key to what we take for granted right now.

(b) I did not say that the entire research progress is based on leaving “room for surprises”. That’s an overstatement. Please read carefully what I did write, without overlaying your own bias onto it first. Peter does not believe this either, by the way (see his comment #27). He is focusing his criticisms on the Landscape approach, which is a small part of the research program into string theory. I happen not to agree with his dismissal of that sub-program of research, but that’s immaterial right now. The point is that it is part of a much larger program, and should be viewd in that light. There is nothing wrong with purely exploratory research.

(c) How about having the guts to take part in the discussion using a real name, if you’re going to make such broad and inaccurate statements?

Cheers,

-cvj

If one has to base entire research progress on the “room for surprises” argument, it much tells you what the state of the area is.

Cheers,

-cvj

Well, string theory is very complicated. It may well be that all we’ve worked out about it so far, over quite a few years, is just a tiny fraction of the whole story. [emphasis added]
Maybe when we have the story worked out, we’ll have a big party in celebration of all that we learn about Nature from it. Or, we’ll see that it’s just the wrong story. Nobody knows whether or not this is the case. We need to work it out in order to know.

How much does the complexity of string theory worry people in the field? Is there any sense that this is itself an indication that we don’t understand the problem? It seems to me that as a mathematician* or mathematical physicist one can happily explore this territory more or less indefinitely, without worrying about whether it’s the “wrong story” (as physics) or whether it has been “worked out”, as long as the specific mathematical assertions being made are reasonably well posed and interesting and the arguments are reasonably rigorous. All this requires considerable skill and mastery of a great deal of formalism, and the acquisition of these skills can effectively become the main point of the effort—something that is demanded of anyone working in fundamental physics regardless of their misgivings about the basis and direction of the enterprise.

(* Indeed, at least one mathematician who has been generally supportive of string theory, Michael Atiyah, has expressed such concerns.)

“The Hills are Alive with the Sound of Music?” Peter did not like this response?

Sylvester, delivered in an 1869 address [45, vol. 2, p. 654]. We are told that “mathematics is that study which knows nothing of observation…” I think no statement could have been more opposite to the undoubted facts of the case; that mathematical analysis is constantly invoking the aid of new principles, new ideas and new methods, not capable of being defined by any form of words, but springing direct from the inherent powers and activity of the human mind, and from continually renewed introspection of that inner world of thought of which the phenomena are as varied and require as close attention to discern as those of the outer physical world, …that it is unceasingly calling forth the faculties of observation and comparison, that one of its principal weapons is induction, that it has frequent recourse to experimental trial and verification, and that it affords a boundless scope for the exercise of the highest efforts of imagination and invention. …Were it not unbecoming to dilate on one’s personal experience, I could tell a story of almost romantic interest about my own latest researches in a field where Geometry, Algebra, and the Theory of Numbers melt in a surprising manner into one another.

-cvj

Just saying “maybe something will turn up, even though we have no evidence for this” is not a viable justification for a scientific research program.

I’m in no way condemning the entire program of research in string theory here, but am objecting to something very specific. If you want to claim to be doing science, you need to be able to point to some plausible scenario in which what you are doing will lead to testable predictions about the real world. I think most string theorists can do this: it’s perfectly reasonable to believe that if you ever really understood what non-perturbative string theory is, you’d be able to make predictions about the strong interactions, or see if a viable, predictive theory of quantum gravity unified with other interactions emerges. But those working on the landscape really seem to me to have crossed a line. I’ve looked very carefully in landscape papers and Susskind’s book for any sort of plausible idea about how this stuff will ever lead to a prediction of anything and I can’t find it. All I continually see is the argument that the thing to do is to keep investigating the details of the landscape, and hope for a miracle. You really need to do better than that if you want to claim that this particular research program is science.

What that data might be or what constraints it might reveal, I honestly cannot say but the history of science is to probe deeper for more data until patterns emerge which fit theoretical models more closely.

I could be completely wrong here and am coming from the position of a semi-naive layperson but I am eternally optimistic about the ingenuity and continual progress of scientific inquiry.

I agree with that. But I still don’t agree with favoring QM on these grounds. The Planck scale is so far away from what is experimentally accessible that we have to be open about explanations that violate some of our basic intuitions about the properties of physical laws.

In the early 1900s physicists had to abandon their intuitions based on classical physics. The problems with QM such as the measurement problem etc. could be fundamental problems similar those when you apply classical physics applied to the atom.

Going to the many-worlds interpretation could offer an explanation of the computational speed-up of quantum mechanics over classical mechanics. There is no way we can implement this kind of parallelism in classical physics: Classically, there is only one universe (and in my opinion, quantum mechanically too). So the difference remains.

Thanks. I think that the programs of research you’re talking about are far from complete pieces of a part of the story, so I don’t feel inclined to condemn the entire program of research on string theory based on those partial results. You’re also not leaving any room for surprises, which if history of the subject is anything to go by (not to mention our lack of understanding of the overall structure of the theory) could well have us looking at everything quite differently (for better or worse) all of a sudden. Continuing work in the area, using several approaches, is the best way to ensure such progress will happen. [Update: so I don't offend anyone with too much optimism that might get interpreted as string-theorist-arrogance, please change that to "ensure that such progress will happen, if indeed it can happen", or better: "ensure that such progress has its best chance of happening".]

Cheers,

-cvj

I don’t think the possibility that you can fit some parameters from experiment and then make predictions is getting forgotten here, it’s the main motivation of those who advocate the study of the landscape. But there are two big problems with this:

1. The numbers of vacua are so large that, generically, you expect to be able to fit all standard model parameters (as well as any others you’re likely to be able to measure i.e. those of the MSSM). The only hope is that there is some structure on the landscape so that things are very non-generic, and thus predictions are possible. Problem is, no one seems to have a plausible argument for what such a structure might be. Absent such an argument, it appears to me that people are advocating the detailed study of the landscape based on nothing more than wishful thinking that some predictivity will magically appear here.

2. Denef and Douglas have recently shown that even in simplified models of the problem, identifying vacua with small enough CC is computationally completely intractable. So one can’t even get off the ground, trying to fit the single parameter that most people believe is the most likely one to be environmental.

That’s certainly true. But then, is it fair to consider only the computational resources to calculate our own universe if there exists a landscape of 10^(many hundreds) of other universes?

Why not consider a ”landscape” of classical algorithms?

Witten:

One thing I can tell you, though, is that most string theorist’s suspect that spacetime is a emergent Phenomena in the language of condensed matter physics.

As a non-expert, I have several questions about various readings and observations. If these are not appropriate for your blog, could you kindly inform me of the proper website to make such inquiries?

1 - Your use of the word - landscape - reminds me of the ‘The String Theory Landscape‘ by Raphael Bousso and Joseph Polchinski in Scientific American p 78-87, September 2004 [although Lee Smolin apparently first used the term].

A - Is the concept of nested bubbles discussed within their article related to embedded Riemannian manifolds in the theorem proved by John Nash?

B - When the Earth and the Magnetosphere are visualized as one entity does this remind anyone of a Calabi-Yau manifold - with the Earth on real and the Magnetosphere on imaginary axes - with three complex dimensions rather than six total dimensions?

C - Is the concept of energy tunneling applicable to neutrinos passing through Earth, especially the core that generates the Magnetosphere - this is a potentially tremendous external source of kinetic energy that may interact in some manner with the core?

D - Can the equations of the late astrophysicist John Bahcall which were used to calculate the statistical interaction of neutrinos transforming chlorine to argon atoms be adapted to possibly account for some of the missing neutrinos in the Super-Kamiokande experiment by Masatoshi Koshiba?

2 - The helical mechanics emphasized in twistor theory [Penrose et al] and embraced by twistor string theory [Witten et al] seem applicable to both quantum mechanics and relativity.

E - Are the Schrodinger equation of quantum mechanics and the phasor equation of Charles Steinmetz in electrical engineering examples of helical mechanics?

F - The Earth orbit, described as a nearly circular ellipse, is accurate only when the sun is considered stationary and the helical angle is zero. Since the sun is in motion and the helical angle is greater than zero, is the Earth orbit more accurately described as a helix - or even double helix when the Earth-Moon system is considered - consistent with helical mechanics in relativity?

G - Is the complex-3D, time-D space-time of twistor string theory related to the work of Richard Borcherds when he proved the ’monstrous moonshine’ with complex-24D, string-D, time-D?

3 - I do not know how reliable this resource is -
http://universe-reviewDOTca/R15-18-stringDOThtm.
However it discusses U Duality and 11 Dimensions “with IIA [string theory] case the eleventh dimension is a tube, whereas in the HE [string theory] case it is a cylinder”.

H - The Earth relative to the sun forms a cylinder in the Solar Gauge while the Earth relative to the black hole Sagittarius A [at our Galaxy's center] forms a tube in the Galactic Gauge. Could HE correspond to Solar Gauge and IIA correspond to Galactic Gauge?

Thank you.