

Why No “New Einstein”? - Maro
http://www.math.columbia.edu/~woit/wordpress/archives/000204.html

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10ren
Einstein is famous for being a theoretician.

But the basis of the theory of relativity was an empirical fact: that the
speed of light appeared to be constant in all directions. The theory of light
waves traveling through an ether (like sound waves through air) suggested that
we would be able to find the earth's speed relative to it, by measuring the
speed of light. But that wasn't what people were finding...

A lot of the really smart theoreticians today don't seem to be basing it on
new empirical facts, they're just making clever theories up. Clever people
like to do that. Of course, it's not their fault if there aren't any
mysterious facts that don't fit current theories - but that's the place to
start.

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billswift
What about the total incompatibility between general relativity and quantum
mechanics? Each works incredibly well in its sphere, but the "fact" is that
they both describe the same universe and there is obviously something missing
between them. There have been several attempts to develop a common framework,
superstrings just being the latest, but so far none have been really useful or
convincing.

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richardw
I don't think there's a problem between the two when Cramer's transactional
interpretation is used for quantum mechanics. I seriously think the answer
will come from something derived from his work.

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billswift
I just dug up this reference to Cramer's transactional interpretation.
[http://www.npl.washington.edu/npl/int_rep/ti_over/ti_over.ht...](http://www.npl.washington.edu/npl/int_rep/ti_over/ti_over.html)

I wonder if he's the same physicist John Cramer that has written a couple of
SF novels; John Cramer's novel "Einstein's Bridge" is excellent hard-hard SF.

~~~
richardw
Hey, yes - likely same dude! Google John Cramer brings up
<http://faculty.washington.edu/jcramer/> and
<http://faculty.washington.edu/jcramer/novels.html>

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jacquesm
Garrett Lisi (the E8 guy, aka surferdude) and dare I say Stephen Wolfram (the
mathematica guy) like types would fit the bill nicely, if they are ever proven
right in their outlandish theories (which remains to be seen).

That's exactly the reason why nobody in the field will take them very
seriously, if some outsider would come along with a working theory of the
universe and en-passent come up with a GUT that would pass inspection a lot of
people would look pretty silly.

I think the chances of that happening are very small, but every now and then
one of these guys comes up with something that is not trivial to dispose of.

If there is one thing all great scientific discoveries had in common then it
is that when they were first posited a number of people thought 'rubbish'.

That does not mean that all rubbish will eventually be accepted as the new
established theory.

~~~
Maro
My view on a "New Kind of Science" (NKS): NKS is not a theory (at least not in
the sense physicists used it pre-string theory), it's an idea (with a
misleading, non-informative and sensationalist name). It's also not a
discovery. Nevertheless, I think that it's a very interesting idea (nobody is
saying it's rubbish) and I and many other physicists have, after reading the
book been playing around with and talking about related ideas. I also think
writing 1000+ pages about it was complete overkill, the relevant scientific
result (the Turing-complete CA) could be presented in a 10 page paper while
the more general argument in 100 pages.

I personally think S. Wolfram fits the bill in terms of being a fiercely
independent thinker and being financially independent. I meant to write that
he does not follow through with his ideas, but that would be untrue, as he has
spent large amounts of time simulating his CAs and examining their output. So
I won't say that, but I will say that he seems to prefer publicity and
sensationalism ("New Kind of Science"), ie. short-term success over discourse
with scientific peers and coming up with actual physical theories that
withstand the test of time. (He has written physics paper when he was young,
but not recently).

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zkz
I somewhat agree. For an interesting viewpoint on the NKS discussion, check
this NKS review: [http://www.amazon.com/gp/cdp/member-
reviews/AOUPSNSAAC8DM/re...](http://www.amazon.com/gp/cdp/member-
reviews/AOUPSNSAAC8DM/ref=cm_pdp_rev_title_1?ie=UTF8&sort_by=MostRecentReview#R3BKMWOENGE704)

~~~
jacquesm
<http://www.kurzweilai.net/articles/art0464.html?printable=1>

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tocomment
I've always argued we don't have new einstiens because of computers. They suck
up all the smart people like a disease and make people feel fulfilled working
on trivial problems. Eg writing a tetris clone using x.

I'm not sure what the answer is.

~~~
billswift
I read an essay a few years ago saying that the reason we aren't going into
space or colonizing the oceans or any of that other neat stuff we were
supposed to do, is that it is easier and more remunerative to make movies and
games about doing it than to actually do it.

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billswift
Anyone notice this in the comments to the essay: "I am holding off publication
of my research until I can figure it all out. But I am on a right track to
getting pretty close to solve some of the most puzzling fundamental physics
problems. So close that I no longer even bother to discuss my ideas on my own
BLOG any more.

Quantoken"

He has announced that he is a quack; this is almost a 3 line distillation of
the essays in Martin Gardner's "Fads and Fallacies in the Name of Science".

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yread
Hmm interesting when you try to follow one of the links in the article you get
to [http://lubos.motl.googlepages.com/crackpot-not-even-
wrong.ht...](http://lubos.motl.googlepages.com/crackpot-not-even-wrong.html)

 _Sorry but I really can't afford to share readers with that particular person
who produces so many untrue statements and who parasites on the work of
scientists. I've had huge problems with the people who were being sent from
that website to my weblog. I apologize if you're not one of these aggressive
and extremely ignorant problem-makers but there's no way to distinguish._

~~~
Estragon
The most interesting thing to me is that his ostensible basis for rejecting
Woit is purely authoritarian: Woit's publication record is weak and the
leading physicist Susskind doesn't like him, therefore he must be a crackpot.
Seems likely that the real reason for the rejection is that he finds Woit's
skepticism regarding contemporary theoretical physics personally threatening.

~~~
Maro
I'm somewhat "conflicted" with regards to Susskind. I'm a physicist, but I
don't know much about string theory or LQG. As a bystander to the "Not Even
Wrong" debate, I agree with Smolin's points about falsification and
predictions being an essential feature of a physical theory, thus, on a
personal level, I took Smolin's side (').

Then, couple of months ago I found the Susskind lectures on iTunes, watched
and enjoyed many of them. (They're aimed at a general engineering audience,
but I still found portions such as General Relativity illuminating.) Susskind
is clearly a physicist of the highest caliber, the last time I heard such
first-class lectures was when I listened to the Feynman MP3s during my
freshman year. So on one hand, if Susskind says these ideas have merit,
they're probably worth taking a look at. On the other hand, there are so many
other interesting areas (in physics and elsewhere) where I feel something
tangible could come out of that I am still ignoring string theory for the most
part. I should note that I'm not very representative in this regard, as Smolin
notes, most theoretical physicists at top U.S. universities are string
theorists. It's interesting that here in Hungary, while the graduate school
offers some courses on string theory, I don't know anybody pursuing related
research. Most theoretical/particle people are doing SM/QCD related stuff,
which is clearly a cultural thing here.

(') In reality, falsifications and predictions are a tricky business in
physics with people making implicit assumptions, circular logic, estimated
error bars, etc. --- I think that non-physicists' view of this is similar to
my view about police work based on CSI:NY.

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JabavuAdams
Maybe the next Einstein will be a "silicon physicist". In 50 years I expect to
have computer systems that can program at least as well as I can.

Of course, you should expect any prediction I make about AI to be wildly
enthusiastic.

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known
"You are a product of your environment." --Clement Stone

We do not have similar environment now.

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Ardit20
In physics we are introduced to Galileo, circa 15th century, then Newton circa
17th century, then Einstein, circa 20th century. It has been about five
decades since Einstein lived and perhaps the academical community is still
accommodating to his theories. You have to know first what is, before going
beyond to what else could be.

As for his suggestions and problem, I think society has already found the
solution. Whenever you read of people who are considered to have made a great
contribution to this world, you will notice that their parents are
aristocrats, or business men, or judges, surgeons, rich people basically. The
child of these people is free to spend their time as they wish, outside of the
confinements of the current system and it is perhaps this freedom compounded
with the networking and other means of influencing, which allows them to
contribute so greatly.

The only way to open the door to more people is by paying scientists as much
as footballers are paid. However, while a footballer peaks in his late 20s, a
scientist peaks in his late 30s, so even this approach would perhaps not
address the issue and lead to a world of pop science which seems to be
flourishing somewhat currently.

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TweedHeads
"young theorists should just try and work on speculative ideas"

We need them, thousands of them, 999 can be wrong but just one right would be
enough.

