Thursday, September 15, 2016

Jason Smith — Macro is not like string theory, part II (my personal take)


Jason Smith follows up on string theory.

Information Transfer Economics
Macro is not like string theory, part II (my personal take)
Jason Smith

2 comments:

Ignacio said...

I think he is partially right, like everywhere, you can find all sort of personalities, but is true that there was a co-optation is the most prestigious universities by strign theory of HEP.

It has been self-correcting. Also results from the LHC have set HEP in schambles (in case you were not aware, the Higg's boson presence was not verified, it was an statistical artefact they got ahead of themselves, and now everybody is confused; this is why empiricism is so important).

For a view 'from the other side', I recommend following Peter Woit blog: http://www.math.columbia.edu/~woit/wordpress/

Who is also on the HEP community and been following on the influence of string theory for years. Jason is right though, that the string community has contributed a lot to advanced maths, and influenced the field through QFT, that's way more than macro economists can say about anything.

Still, what cannot be proven, cannot be proven.

John said...

Ignacio, over at Not Even Wrong Peter Woit reminds us of Juan Maldacena's funny acronym for string theory: "Solid Theoretical Research in Natural Geometric Structures". A theory that has zero relevance to the physical world (120 orders of magnitude out for the only testable prediction it has made), although it's been extraordinary useful for certain areas in pure mathematics and, as you say, QFT, although QFT is ripe for demolition and revolution. The great work on quantum foundations will ensure QFT has to be developed in another way.

The string theorists should just cross the road and join mathematics department, and leave physics for those who live in the real world and don't make up absurdities like multiple universes bumping into each other! Isn't it hilarious to see the stringers mental acrobatics and wild contortions having witnessed the non-appearance of supersymmetry! It's absolutely wonderful to watch these insufferably arrogant monomaniacs having nervous breakdowns!

When string theorists start mocking their own subject, the end of its absolute monarchical dominance is thankfully over.
See: http://www.math.columbia.edu/~woit/wordpress/?p=8778

The Higgs is confusing though. It'd also be great to have to tear up the standard model, along with supersymmetry, extra dimensions and strings.