Reddit reviews Not Even Wrong: The Failure of String Theory and the Search for Unity in Physical Law

The many-worlds-interpretation and string "theory" are completely un-related (and note where I put the quotes)

Not exactly. For an incredibly long time, string theory has dominated the field of physics over a small minority of objections that it cannot be tested - that it wasn't even a theory, it was "not even wrong" as Peter Woit has written; Lee Smolin wrote a similar book around the same time. Smolin and Woit were mocked by hordes of theorists who just knew the evidence for string theory was going to show up any day now. But every time it didn't show up at the LHC, all these same theorists had to do was tweak their work a bit and move the goal post to a new energy level - this gimmick has been repeated, ad nauseam, for years. Only recently have some people finally started to come around to the possibility that string theory might not be the solution to figuring out the last pieces of the Standard Model.

So the analogy goes something like this:

Woit and Smolin:Scholze and Stix :: string theorists:Mochizuki and his inner circle.

I think you meant:

not even wrong

So it doesn't violate the quick-reject sniff tests. Now what?

I'll let someone smarter than me make the arguments. If you're really interested, go check this out: http://www.amazon.com/Not-Even-Wrong-Failure-Physical/dp/0465092764

I think Hawking and Green both are string theorists? I just started reading Peter Woit's book about theory of everything/quantum mechanics. He argues that string theory is not able to be proved right or wrong scientifically, and is basically not valid science.

The opposition to String Theory boils down to it being "not even wrong" on the basis that it cannot be falsified by experiment. Pretty well summed up in the book of the same title.

Scientists have been successful in ruling out some forms of a String theory (there are almost boundless forms), but the most "successful" forms don't really yield any unique predictions that can be tested (in the real world).

edit: I also found the book I linked to be a very approachable way to understand the mathematics of the Standard Model (irrespective of String Theory).

>Hossenfelder’s argument, in brief: There’s no reason to think nature cares what we find beautiful

I'm not string theory supporter anyway and I pointed to its conceptual problems in the time, when Dr. Hossenfelder posted on article about extradimensions after another (see bellow) - but a bit more sanity and less ideology would be useful even when judging the string theory fiasco:

Reality check 1: Dr. Hossenfelder pursuits “ugly” bottom-up phenomenological approach to physics rather than up-bottom “pretty math based” stringy/susy theories – but even uglier fact is, that this (her?) phenomenological approach failed as well. There is no beautiful but failed and ugly but successful approach to theoretical physics: only failed theoretical physics of all kinds thinkable during last four decades.


Reality check 2: At least Lee Smolin or Peter Woit wrote their insightful books well before string theory fiasco – but where Dr. Hossenfelder was, when they pointed to its problems? After battle everyone is general, after wit is everyone’s wit… ;-)

Reality check 3: Her hypocrisy and opportunism goes even deeper: When string theory was still hyped, Dr. Hossenfelder also jumped into its bandwagon for example by many studies involving extradimensions – but now she bravely pretends, she was never involved into this hype.


Dr. Hossenfelder popularity solely depends on short memory of laymen public i.e. that people forgot, she was herself a great promoter of extra dimensional stuffs and black holes and that she made money and scientific "credit" with writing about them (Observables from Large Extra_Dimensions, Signatures_of_Large_Extra_Dimensions, Black hole relics in large extra dimensions, Black Hole Production in Large Extra Dimensions at the Tevatron, Observables of Extra Dimensions Approaching the Planck Scale, [Suppression of High-P_T Jets as a Signal for Large Extra Dimensions](https://www.researchgate.net/publication/2001593_Suppression_of_High-P_T_Jets_as_a_Signal_for_Large_Extra_Dimensions and New_Estimates_of_Lifetimes_for_Meta_stable_Micro_BlackHoles-From_the_Early_Universe_to_Future_Colliders), Schwarze Löcher in Extra-Dimensionen, Black hole production in large extra dimensions at the Tevatron) just before ten years.

I read The Trouble With Physics about when it came out, so quite a while ago. In trying to find that reference I stumbled on the Not Even Wrong book / blog, which seems a slightly more up to date version of the same thing.

My understanding of the point of the criticism - and this isn't at all my field, so take all of this with that in mind - is stronger than we don't currently have a way to test string theory. The argument from the Trouble With Physics was, if I recall it correctly, that string theory was not so much a theory as a class of theories, and a sufficiently broad class of theories that with the right constants inserted, they could be made to model any result and consequently were unfalsifiable, regardless of any improvements that may come in experimental physics. How much truth do you see in that criticism?

I might suggest the references & bibliography from: http://www.amazon.com/Not-Even-Wrong-Failure-Physical/dp/0465092764/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1320808955&sr=8-1

That was the premise of "Not Even Wrong", that string theory remains outside the scope of science due to its complete lack of testability.

So that leaves the string theorist with "ad hominem" attacks like this post essentially calling everyone who disagrees with them "stupid" i.e. "non-specialist".

Well, I am a Physics undergraduate at one of the finest universities in the world, and I have had opportunities to meet and discuss with one the finest scientists of the age. I have been told by them, loud and clear, that String Theory is just meant to publish papers and earn money. It's all corporate style business now.

Read this book, if you're in doubt: Not even Wrong by your supposed arch enemy Peter Woit.

EDIT : This is not my personal claim. I'm just telling you what I know.