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0 pointsttctciyf2y ago0 comments

Carroll's episode is worth listening to, not least for it's exceptionally clear exposition of the current physics consensus around QM, qft, standard model, etc., and how they are related, but the point you specifically mention is a weak spot for me.

For one thing he hardly mentions the epic failure of string theory to make good on its initial promises nor the murky waters of anthropic claims and metaphysical notions of beauty, etc., used to keep it suspended like Wile E Coyote after running off the cliff of empirical support.

As non-crackpot physics profs and postgrads (e.g. [1], [2]) have pointed out, this has not engendered public trust and is a key ingredient in whatever "crisis" the discipline is undergoing.

Not that Carroll doesn't make plenty of good arguments to support his views, but his seeming equation of any criticism of the field with crackpotist heresies is a cheap trick for a philosophy prof.

1: https://www.math.columbia.edu/~woit/wordpress/?cat=8

2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kya_LXa_y1E

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javajosh2y ago· 1 in thread

>he hardly mentions the epic failure of string theory

I'd argue that implies you don't know where string theory fits in the "pantheon" of physics. It applies to the realm well below the radius of the proton, required to explain only the most exotic times and places (like the moments after the big bang, or the boundaries/interiors of black holes). Carroll's point is that basically ALL of "everyday physics" is known - everything above the radius of a proton, which governs all the stuff and signals we are and deal with in our solar system and local chunk of galaxy. String theory is an example of a "weak" theory because it's not unique, but it also applies only to exotic things and it's haziness does not affect our understanding of the larger regimes.

ttctciyfOP2y ago

"Failure" in terms of producing any empirical support, that is, while its proponents have been predicting confirmation any time now for literally decades. See the example links I provided on this. It has now largely retreated these claims into an inscrutable and non-falsifiable "landscape" of possible theories, such that the question of whether it any longer qualifies as a scientific (rather than mathematical) endeavour has become legitimate to ask.

The residual feeling that academic recruitment and budgets have been dominated by what essentially turned out to be physics vaporware is a large part of the perceived crisis that Caroll doesn't appear to want to fully acknowledge.