PRACTICAL fusion device by Princeton physicist suppressed

[BeAChooser]

Let's not even talk about 1 million dead Iraqis

Yeah, let's not since that's a completely bogus claim.

 

[BenBurch]

Yeah, let's not since that's a completely bogus claim.

Oh, that's right, the real number is zero.

 

[Cuddles]

HOWEVER, I do not expect we can deploy any significant number of these plants before 2050 or so, and so I believe we need to plan for ITER not working, and invest in about 10,000 conventional 500 MW PWR fission power plants. Even with fusion coming on line, these plants will still be economically viable to run to their design lifetimes; Fusion will NOT be cheap, especially at first.

This is a good point, and it's not just the cost that is the problem. Even the most optimistic predictions, assuming ITER works perfectly, allow around 10 years for work on ITER and other research, one or more prototype power plants after that with the first comercial plants only being built around 2050 or later. We're going to need a lot more power before then. Even in the best case scenario, fusion is a long term solution, not an immediate one.

In a subsequent post, you refer to the power vs. radius function, stated by Bussard, as an "assumption". I say baloney. As long as we're not quibbling about whether or not it's the 7.00 power dependence of 6.86 power dependence, the impression that I got is that these were sound theoretical calculations, based on accepted theory.

I could be completely wrong, but I wouldn't take some anonymous poster's word on a message board for it, any more than you should take Bussard's claim as gospel. The people who are qualified to evaluate these claims are physicists who have actually studied the matter.

Like me. Try the Wiki article for some basic information. The fact is, Bussard made a lot of assumptions, and many of them just aren't supported by the evidence. Some of them may turn out to be true, but most people don't think so. Try this:
http://dspace.mit.edu/bitstream/1721.1/11412/1/33227017.pdf

Bussard said otherwise (wrt predicting a reliable decision point; this doesn't mean he gave a specific date, but he did give a specific dollar figure, and you can extrapolate a reasonable guess for a time upper bound from that). Again, who is fit to determine whether he or you are correct? Answer: physicists who have studied the matter, and who have whatever other requisite background knowledge may be required.

Yes, Bussard said otherwise. Very few people agree with him, for the reasons I have give. If (big if) all his assumptions are correct, then building a reactor the size he said would work. If any of his assumptions fail, especially with respect to bremmstralung and thermalisation of ions, then it won't. Even in the best case, it is still not much different than other approaches since they all know what they need to do to reach break even, they just haven't got there yet. And again, I am a physicist who has studied the matter.

Nobody has definitively answered the chicken or egg question (of course, it's ill-posed), and neither can anybody definitively make a statement such as you have. You completely ignored the difference in funding level, not to mention the years of research.

What statement can't I make? That tokamaks are currently the most advanced? Sure I can. They have achieved the highest fusion rates out of any approach. There is no question about that. Whether they are the best approach remains to be seen, but there's no point trying to argue that they're not the most advanced. I'll ignore your "years of research" comment since other approaches were being researched before tokamaks were invented.

As for funding, the reason they have more funding is exactly as I have said - they are the most advanced. When the Russians first invented the tokamak they achieved temperatures orders of magnitude higher than had been managed before. They were focussed on because of that and have stayed ahead of everything else ever since. No conspiracy, just common sense. It's exactly the same as silicon chips. Silicon may not be the best approach, but it was the best when it was invented and has stayed ahead because of that.

Solving our energy problems is so important, I am all for funding all approaches, full tilt. It's not just a question of how much oil is left, but of what military action is required to have access to that oil, and the threat that poses to world peace. Just recently, Hugo Chavez threatened to cut off Venezuelan oil to the US...

Sure, but you have to bear in mind that there just isn't enough time or money to research everything equally. On the one hand, you have fairly established technology that will almost certainly give results, even though it might not be the best. On the other hand, you have an unproven technology that has had various exaggerated claims made about it that aren't supported by the fusion and plasma physics community. Research is being done on both, and on many other approaches as well, but it would be foolish to waste money on the one with the least promise.

BTW, I heard a talk by a guy form the Princeton Plasma Lab a few years ago. He claimed that the tokamak R&D is hitting milestones as a function of dollars pretty well. The reason it's taking so long is because of cuts to funding, going back to (I think) President Reagan's administration.

The main reason it's taking so long is that there's a lot of complex physics and engineering. Building and testing things takes time. As I said in my reply to BenBurch above, even if we have everything right, it will still take something like 30 years to get comercial power, and up until now we certainly didn't have everything right. Bear in mind that America isn't everything. Tokamaks were invented in Russia, they've been built and tested all over the world and ITER is being built in Europe. Sure, American funding would be nice as well, but we seem to manage fairly well without it.

 

[Cuddles]

1) the tokamak at the Princeton lab hit and passed the break-even point long ago

No it didn't. TFTR achieved Q = 0.3 and the best. Several proposed upgrades should theoretically have managed to get Q >= 1, but were never implemented. http://www.iop.org/EJ/article/0741-3335/39/12B/008/p71b07.pdf?request-id=oocq2Qnb3BGS__bw2wi7Kg

Edit: As I noted earlier, the JT-60 reactor in Japan is the only reactor that has even achieved the conditions necessary for break-even, but they did so using a D-H fuel mix, which is harder to fuse than D-T.

 

[sol invictus]

No it didn't. TFTR achieved Q = 0.3 and the best. Several proposed upgrades should theoretically have managed to get Q >= 1, but were never implemented. http://www.iop.org/EJ/article/0741-3335/39/12B/008/p71b07.pdf?request-id=oocq2Qnb3BGS__bw2wi7Kg

Not according to a senior staff physicist there I spent several hours talking to recently. I was quite surprised to hear that, so I made him repeat it twice to be sure I understood him correctly: "Can you get more energy out than you put in? - Yes, but not for long.". He emphasized that the problem is not achieving break-even, but rather stabilizing the plasma.

Do you know how Q is defined? Maybe it's an average over some amount of time?

 

[RecoveringYuppy]

That question sounds like it would be prone to miscommunication to me. If you initiate any fusion at all you're going to get out more energy than you put in. Not necessarily recoverable energy though.

 

[BeAChooser]

Oh, that's right, the real number is zero.

Now, of course, I've never suggested any such thing. That would be just as ridiculous as claiming a million have died since our invasion.

 

[Aepervius]

I think what metamars means is that the spacecraft accelerates at 1g (that is, 32 ft/s²) for half the journey, then turns around and decelerates at 1g for the other half of the journey. This means for the duration of the trip the crew would feel as if it was under normal Earth gravity.

I assume he meant the ship would depart from orbit, not the Earth's surface.

56,000,000 km is the shortest distance from earth to mars. Using only newtonian mechanic :
An acceleration of 1g, is an acceleration of 10 m.s-2.
After a time t, starting at speed=0 t=0 distance=0 you reach the speed v=g*t and the distance d=0.5*g*t^2. So assuming we accelerate 1/2 of the way, we will reach the 28,000,000 km after t=(d*2/g)^0,5~75000 seconds or roughly 21 hours. At that point we would have a speed of v=750,000 ms-1 or v=750 km s-1 or 1/400 of c light speed.

So we have now 21 h of constant acceleration and 21 h of deceleration.

The force needed to accelerate a 1 Kg of ship at g would be 10 N. The same Kg of ship accelerated then decelerated would then expand an an energy of force*distance=10 N*56,000,000,000 (1/2 accelerate + 1/2 decelerate)=5,6 E 11 N.m or Joule.
Admiting you come back, that is roughly 1E12 Joule.

Knowing that 1 joule = 6.1e18 eV and knowing fusion occurs at roughly from 2 to 20 MeV, that means using a ballpark of 10 MeV per fusion you would need at least 3,4.E+23 fusions. Or nearly 1 Mole. Going back to our numbers , we would need sustained fusion for 42 hours at a rate of 1/250000 mole per seconds (~.1E18 per second) and generate an energy of 3,8 million joule per seconds.

I hope I did not commit an error anywhere. And that is only for 1 Kg of material...

 

[metamars]

Yeah, let's not since that's a completely bogus claim.

Oh, really?

A fifth of Iraqi households lost at least one family member between March 2003 and August 2007 due to the conflict, said data compiled by London-based Opinion Research Business (ORB) and its research partner in Iraq, the Independent Institute for Administration and Civil Society Studies (IIACSS).

The study based its findings on survey work involving the face-to-face questioning of 2414 Iraqi adults aged 18 or above, and the last complete census in Iraq in 1997, which indicated a total of 4.05 million households.

 

[BeAChooser]

A fifth of Iraqi households lost at least one family member between March 2003 and August 2007 due to the conflict,

Oh really? Where are the mass graves? Where are the death certificates? Where are the images or videos of this slaughter? Do you honestly think those who want us out of Iraq have no cameras and no motivation to use such images? Do you honestly think every journalist in Iraq has simply missed such a carnage?

 

[sol invictus]

Oh, really?

Yeah, sounds about right. The best estimates are that 2-4 million Vietnamese were killed during five or so years of that war. Many - probably most - of those casualties resulted directly or indirectly from the American air war. Seymour Hirsch did an analysis of the air war in Iraq, and the amount of bombs the Americans have been dropping is really staggering. It's not reported much in the media for some reason, but he pieced the numbers together from publicly available information supplied by the military. It's are comparable to Vietnam, and the Iraq war has been going on for nearly five years now.

And then of course there are all the sectarian killings... not to mention all the children that died or were stunted before the war even started by all those years of sanctions.

 

[metamars]

Like me. Try the Wiki article for some basic information. The fact is, Bussard made a lot of assumptions, and many of them just aren't supported by the evidence. Some of them may turn out to be true, but most people don't think so. Try this:
http://dspace.mit.edu/bitstream/1721.1/11412/1/33227017.pdf

Thanks, that dissertation looks very interesting. Unfortunately, at 300 pp., and given how I am "over the hill" in my physics knowledge, it'll take a long time to get to this. (Years, I mean.)

Yes, Bussard said otherwise. Very few people agree with him, for the reasons I have give. If (big if) all his assumptions are correct, then building a reactor the size he said would work. If any of his assumptions fail, especially with respect to bremmstralung and thermalisation of ions, then it won't. Even in the best case, it is still not much different than other approaches since they all know what they need to do to reach break even, they just haven't got there yet. And again, I am a physicist who has studied the matter.

Would you briefly explain what Bussard's assumptions are wrt bremmstralung, and why must fusion physicists wouldn't agree with him? Also, does this explain most of the difference (in Bussard's estimation) between the 7th and 5th power dependencies? I would assume that a large part of going from 7th power -> 5th power has to do with cooling the (superconducting?) magnets. Is this correct?

What statement can't I make? That tokamaks are currently the most advanced? Sure I can. They have achieved the highest fusion rates out of any approach. There is no question about that. Whether they are the best approach remains to be seen, but there's no point trying to argue that they're not the most advanced.

No. What I tried to say is that, relative to the amount of money spent, Bussard seems to have made far, far more progress than tokamaks. Furthermore, he seems closer to a viable demo scale project than tokamaks. (If not true today, it still seems like it was true when the Navy shut him down.)

Of course, I am using his own opinion, I haven't been following tokamaks closely, and even if I had, I'm not a fusion physicist, and thus scrutinizing their claims would be a problem.

I'll ignore your "years of research" comment since other approaches were being researched before tokamaks were invented.

Yes, but the polyhedral device came after tokamaks, and what sort of progress did they make? Hasn't the polyhedral device left the Farnsworth type devices in the dust?

As for funding, the reason they have more funding is exactly as I have said - they are the most advanced. When the Russians first invented the tokamak they achieved temperatures orders of magnitude higher than had been managed before. They were focussed on because of that and have stayed ahead of everything else ever since.

And you don't think that the reason that they are the most advanced is because they have the most funding? Aren't both these statements, in fact, true?

From http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3622/is_199707/ai_n8762556

After peaking at about $600 million (in 1995 dollars) in the late 1970s, the annual U.S. fusion budget has declined to $232 million this year. As a result, fusion researchers had to abandon many worthwhile efforts. Concentrating on the tokamak configuration has paid off in terms of scientific advancement, but it has substantially narrowed the scientific and institutional bases of the U.S. fusion program. Several experimental facilities intended to explore alternative magnetic-confinement concepts were shut down prematurely. The fusion technology program was reduced drastically. The broader objectives and the schedule associated with the former goal of practical fusion energy have recently been delayed, replaced by the more limited objective of exploring the underlying science.

In 1995, alone, the total fusion budget in the US was $600 million. I don't know what percentage was for tokamak, but probably most of it was. Clearly, tokamaks have been vastly better supported than the polyhedral devices.

No conspiracy, just common sense. It's exactly the same as silicon chips. Silicon may not be the best approach, but it was the best when it was invented and has stayed ahead because of that.

There are more options here than conspiracy and common sense. There's groupthink and bureaucratic inertia, e.g. I've read both Not Even Wrong and The Trouble with Physics, and know only too well how even presumably rational people behave quite tribally.



Some interesting info I ran into just now:

http://www.geocities.com/jim_bowery/BussardsLetter.html

The following links are to scanned images of a legislative proposal sent by Robert W. Bussard, one of the founders of the US fusion energy program, to Congress suggesting that the fusion energy program be replaced by a system of prize awards for timely achievement of specific technical milestones.

Dr. Bussard's cover letter contains some historically very important disclosures concerning the founding of the United States government's fusion energy program - in particular this excerpt:

The DoE committment to very large fusion concepts (the giant magnetic tokamak) ensures only the need for very large budgets; and that is what the program has been about for the past 15 years - a defense-of-budget program - not a fusion-achievement program. As one of three people who created this program in the early 1970's (when I was an Asst. Dir. of the AEC's Controlled Thermonuclear Reaction Division) I know this to be true; we raised the budget in order to take 20% off the top of the larger funding, to try all of the hopeful new things that the mainline labs would not try.

Each of us left soon thereafter, and the second generation management thought the big program was real; it was not. Ever since then, the ERDA/DoE has rolled Congress to increase and/or continue big-budget support. This worked so long as various Democratic Senators and Congressmen could see the funding as helpful in their districts. But fear of undermining their budget position also made DoE bureaucrats very autocratic and resistant to any kind of new approach, whether inside DoE or out in industry. This led DoE to fight industry wherever a non-DoE hopful new idea appeared.

From

http://episteme.arstechnica.com/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/28609695/m/134001733831

To answer your questions posed under the Hawking topic ...

I worked for Dr. Bussard for about 5 and a half years.

Dr. Nicholas A. Krall has been working with Dr. Bussard on this essentially from the start. His reputation as a theoretical plasma physicist is on par with Bussard's as a designer.

If I had 200 million and enough left over to live on comfortably, this thing would be funded already.

Bussard's approach is essentially a "perfect Hirsch/Farnsworth Fusor". It is a spherical convergent focus electrodynamic particle accelerator. It doesn't work on maxwellianized heat, it works by raising ions to fusion velocity and focussing them on a central convergence point. Ions not making fusion collisions recirculate, and those making elastic non-fusion collisions have their energy re-equalized by a collisional phenomenon that occurs near the outside of the potential well. The result is long ion lifetime at high kinetic energy.

I have a little Hirsch/Farnsworth fusor that puts out 3000 fusions per second at 18 kV on DD. At 12.5 kV, the highest drive voltage WB-6 was run at, most fusors put out so little you have to beat the counting statistics to death to even detect the output, but WB-6 actually put out (for about a quarter of a millisecond at a time) a screaming load of neutrons. Yesterday I read a report that noted that one of the tests was actually run at 5 kV and produced a neutron count (26000 fusions per count) in the 1/4 millisecond or so that the deep potential well existed. Realizing that the statistical significance of one count is +/- 100%, it still floored me. NOBODY does DD fusion at detectable levels at 5 keV. The reason it could happen is that the machine naturally produces head-on collisions at fusion energies in the region around the central convergence point.

I'm not at all worried by the fact WB-6 was a pulsed machine. I built and ran the smaller WB-3, which was perfectly capable of running essentially continuously at about 1/2 of the WB-6 parameters. Correctly built, larger machines should be able to run continuously.

The scaling formulas for output tend to go up as B^4R^3, and gain goes up at B^4R. Bussard expects B to scale with R, which is probably a gross under-estimate once you get into the superconductingmagnets he intends to use. WB-6 ran most of its successful tests below 0.1 T. The scaleup he wants to do for p-B11 is from R of 0.15 meters (WB-6) to R of 2 meters. ITER recently tested one of their magnets at 13 T, and I think 25-30 T is achievable. If his output scaling is correct, even scaling up WB-6 to the larger sizes and fields suggests the thing is going to run, and WB-6 was almost certainly not running in an optimal fashion.

Unless he is missing something really important, the thing should work. Most technical criticisms people have mounted of this thing wind up referencing a master's thesis by Todd Rider, and to the best of my knowledge, the points Rider raised have all been addressed. Some were were wrong or not applicable to this machine, one important one the machine itself corrects via a collision mechanism of the ions near the MaGrid, one is insignificant with proper design. The electron loss problem in cusps was essentially correct, but applies only to the HEPS-style machines. The MaGrids (which WB-6 is) are immune to it because they recirculate electrons lost to the cusps. And Rider never said it wouldn't work, he just hoped a way could be found to overcome the problems he felt he had detected.

(emphasis mine)

 

[Cuddles]

Not according to a senior staff physicist there I spent several hours talking to recently. I was quite surprised to hear that, so I made him repeat it twice to be sure I understood him correctly: "Can you get more energy out than you put in? - Yes, but not for long.". He emphasized that the problem is not achieving break-even, but rather stabilizing the plasma.

Do you know how Q is defined? Maybe it's an average over some amount of time?

Q should be simply ratio of fusion power to total input power. I suspect that the figures quoted in the paper I linked to are actually the ratio of fusion power to external beam heating, which will give a higher Q than reality since it discounts various other power requirements such as magnets. I really can't comment on what you've been told, but according to every single official notice, no reactor has ever reached break-even.

Would you briefly explain what Bussard's assumptions are wrt bremmstralung, and why must fusion physicists wouldn't agree with him? Also, does this explain most of the difference (in Bussard's estimation) between the 7th and 5th power dependencies? I would assume that a large part of going from 7th power -> 5th power has to do with cooling the (superconducting?) magnets. Is this correct?

The 7th and 5th powers are different things. Bussard claims a 7th power dependence of fusion power with size and a 5th power dependence on excess energy with size. They are essentially just different ways of saying the same thing.

The bremmstrahlung calculations seem to rest on several assumptions about the distribution of ion and electron energies in the reactor. This is also related to the thermalisation problems, where Bussard said that this would not occur, but I can't find any actual calculations to justify this, he seems to have just asserted it. If this is not true, then any assumptions about energy distributions based on it will also not be true.

One problem that has really struck me on having a closer look is that it seems a common theme in Bussard's work to use almost only himself as a reference. While a certain amount of self-referential work is expected in new, non-mainstream work, this seems to be much worse than normal. Of course, this doesn't necessarily mean he was wrong, but it is one more thing that makes it look suspicious.

No. What I tried to say is that, relative to the amount of money spent, Bussard seems to have made far, far more progress than tokamaks. Furthermore, he seems closer to a viable demo scale project than tokamaks. (If not true today, it still seems like it was true when the Navy shut him down.)

It's really hard to say. Certainly less money has been spent on the polywell. However, it doesn't actually have any solid results. Until it gest results you really can't say he made more progress. Maybe in a couple of decades we will be able to say that he had a much better approach. On the other hand, maybe in a couple of decades we will know that it was a complete waste of money. It's just not possible to say without hindsight.

Yes, but the polyhedral device came after tokamaks, and what sort of progress did they make? Hasn't the polyhedral device left the Farnsworth type devices in the dust?

Well, this all starts brining up semantics about when did research on something actually start. Sure, the polywell is an advance over the Farnsworth fusor, but it is still really just an improvement rather than something new, just as stellerators are a variation of tokamaks. I would say that research on both the polywell and stellerators started in the 60s, even though those particular variations have only been around for a decade or so. In that case, neither has really made any more progress than any other approach.

And you don't think that the reason that they are the most advanced is because they have the most funding? Aren't both these statements, in fact, true?

From http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3622/is_199707/ai_n8762556

In 1995, alone, the total fusion budget in the US was $600 million. I don't know what percentage was for tokamak, but probably most of it was. Clearly, tokamaks have been vastly better supported than the polyhedral devices.

I'm not denying that. However, the reason they have been better supported is because they have had better results. Sure, it's a bit of a vicious circle, but what else could be a sensible way to handle it? Something seems to be the best approach, so you give it more money. Since it has more money, it remains the better approach. That's basically what I said in my last post. The reasons why tokamaks are currently the best approach is really of less interest than the fact that they are currently the best approach.

Another point is that I don't believe Bussard's estimates of cost can be realistic. For example, the TFTR was one of the biggest and most successful reactors so far, and ran at around 30MW maximum. Bussard said the machine he wanted to build would run at over 100MW. He also wanted it to be superconducting, which his previous designs weren't. This sort of thing really doesn't come cheap. $1-200 million just doesn't sound anywhere near enough. I'm no finance expert, so I could be wrong, but I suspect this is just another example of exaggeration.

This is, as I have said, what seems to be the main problem with the polywell. It looks like a very interesting idea with definite potential, but the claims made about it and the actual potential just don't seem to match up.

There are more options here than conspiracy and common sense. There's groupthink and bureaucratic inertia, e.g. I've read both Not Even Wrong and The Trouble with Physics, and know only too well how even presumably rational people behave quite tribally.

The reason I've particularly nonsensed (it's a reall word, honest) conspiracies is because that's what the OP was saying, and the thread was initially in the Conspiracy forum. Again, it comes down to limited resources. Governments can't just pump money into everything, they have to pick and choose. Unfortunately, at the moment it seems like the most popular choice for physics funding is nothing at all. However, one particularly telling things about the polywell is that it has not just failed to get the funding it wants from the government, it has also failed to get it from private sources.

Some interesting info I ran into just now:

http://www.geocities.com/jim_bowery/BussardsLetter.html

From

http://episteme.arstechnica.com/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/28609695/m/134001733831

(emphasis mine)

I'd be more convined if he could actually say where the criticisms have been answered, rather than just stating that they have been.

 

[metamars]

Don't forget Focus Fusion. http://focusfusion.org/log/index.php

Indeed.

I just saw the video of Eric Lerner's talk at Google. Very interesting - he compares various fusion technologies, including tokamaks. He's actually beaten out the Princeton tokamak (see 49:00 into the Google video), which has gotten 10,000x as much money.

He also compares his approach to other non-tokamak approaches, including Bussard's. He's beaten ALL of them, even though they've gotten much more money than he ever got.

 

[sol invictus]

There's groupthink and bureaucratic inertia, e.g. I've read both Not Even Wrong and The Trouble with Physics, and know only too well how even presumably rational people behave quite tribally.

You're referring to the authors of those books?

 

[sol invictus]

Q should be simply ratio of fusion power to total input power. I suspect that the figures quoted in the paper I linked to are actually the ratio of fusion power to external beam heating, which will give a higher Q than reality since it discounts various other power requirements such as magnets. I really can't comment on what you've been told, but according to every single official notice, no reactor has ever reached break-even.

Yeah, you're quite right. So I don't understand what he was saying - I'll ask again next time I'm over there, if ever.

 

[metamars]

You're referring to the authors of those books?

No, I'm referring to the string theory community, which was part of the subject of those books. Both authors were critical not only of string theory, but also string theorists.

 

[sol invictus]

No, I'm referring to the string theory community, which was part of the subject of those books. Both authors were critical not only of string theory, but also string theorists.

I'm not a string theorist, but I know several and I'm very familiar with the state of modern theoretical physics. I'm also acquainted with the authors of both of those books. Woit is a failed physicist that seems to have been embittered by that experience. He criticizes what he is incapable of contributing to. Smolin I have even less regard for - he has his own peculiar brand of quantum gravity, more or less indistinguishable from string theory to the layman, but which has not succeeded in attracting much attention or many students (largely because, unlike string theory, it has failed to make any contributions to anything). His agenda is to attack string theory so as to gain more resources for his sub-field. Both of these authors badly misrepresent the state of the field. For example they pretend that string theorists dominate the establishment. I recall Smolin making some ridiculous claim about the percentage of jobs that go to string theorists. All you have to do is look here to see the truth - there is not a single string theory candidate on any shortlist for any faculty job anywhere in the United States this year. The situation was similar last year, and in previous years there were at most a few. Furthermore both make the absurd claim that students are pressured to study string theory. Nothing could be further from the truth - on the contrary, string theory students have more trouble getting into Ph.D. programs, generally struggle to find funding and advisors, difficulty finding postdocs, and cannot get faculty positions (because there aren't any). Grad students are generally quite tuned in and know all of that, and are explicitly discouraged by their departments from going into theory - and yet many make the choice to study it anyway. Why? Because they think it's the most interesting subject to work on. These are people who could easily go work in finance and earn 5-10 times the salary they make as Ph.D. students and postdocs. Are you really going to second guess them? Isn't it a bit condescending of Smolin and Woit to think they know what's best for the field - better than the people actually doing the work?[\rant] EDIT - sorry, I take it back. There is ONE string theorist on ONE shortlist - a guy that's been bouncing from postdoc to postdoc for maybe 7 years. Groupthink in action? Hmm... And a choice quote from Smolin, just to show you how even-handed and unbiased he is: Smolin adds a moral dimension to his plaint, linking string theory to the physics profession’s “blatant prejudice” against women and blacks. Pondering the cult of empty mathematical virtuosity, he asks, “How many leading theoretical physicists were once insecure, small, pimply boys who got their revenge besting the jocks (who got the girls) in the one place they could—math class?” Do they abuse their pets too?

 

[balrog666]

I'd like to comment more on this, but don't have the time right now.

See http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=1996321846673788606 for a talk given at Google.

According to a very bright, Princeton educated physicist Robert Bussard, who has successfully created fusion in small, magnetically confined polyhedral devices, all of the physics problems have been solved, and all that is required to solve are engineering problems.

To find out what the benefits are, and why they had to be underfunded to get any government funding, at all, you can just watch the last part starting at 1:00.

Unfortunately, I have to agree with Bussard that China or possibly India are likely to develop this before the US. This is tragic, in that Bussard is an American, the patents are owned by an American company, and there's no good reason why the US couldn't lead the way to a very benign ecological future.

Of the two, it is China that is working on "very interesting" tokamak fusion devices, apart from the huge (and, according to Bussard, likely futile) international ITER fusion project, and that "will beat ITER to the punch".

Developing these power plants would allow very rapid space travel. Going to Mars should only take about 4 weeks, and 76 days to Titan, a Saturnian moon.

So, don't be surprised when China not only leaves the US in the dust economically, but furthermore leaves the US still piddling with kerosene fueled rockets while they zoom throughout the solar system on fusion powered systems.

Maybe if we ask them nicely, they will let us hitch a ride.

Finally, Bussard's project got completely defunded a few years ago. He was getting funding from the Navy, "under the radar", but even the chump change he was getting was cut when the Navy's R&D budget got cut by 26%. The money was needed for George Bush's Iraq fiasco.

To find out why he's given up on the US government, including and especially DOE, watch the video. There is definitely a 'conspiracy' of careerism and bureaucracy (if you can call it that - Bussard certainly didn't).

Is there more to it than that?


edited to correct spelling of Bussard's name

How did I miss this thread?

BWAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHA! We know how fusion works in the sun too - we just have to work out the "engineering problems" to put it to use.


What a load of dog poop!

 

[BeAChooser]

Both of these authors badly misrepresent the state of the field.

Really? Can you name a product we use in our daily lives that has resulted from string theory? Just one product. Can you name one prediction that string theory has successfully made? Has it even made a falsifiable prediction? Can you name any data proving string theory is real? Or is this just another one of your gnomes, sol?

 

[metamars]

I'm not a string theorist, but I know several and I'm very familiar with the state of modern theoretical physics. I'm also acquainted with the authors of both of those books. Woit is a failed physicist that seems to have been embittered by that experience. He criticizes what he is incapable of contributing to.

This is an ad hominem attack. It was in his book where we find out that only 1 out of 8 physics Ph.D.'s who go into particle physics theory end up with tenured jobs, at an average age > 60 years old. Are the 7 who didn't make it failed physicists? If so, isn't Woit in good company? The "embittered" remark sounds like nothing more than a smear. Smolin I have even less regard for - he has his own peculiar brand of quantum gravity, more or less indistinguishable from string theory to the layman, but which has not succeeded in attracting much attention or many students (largely because, unlike string theory, it has failed to make any contributions to anything). I believe that this is blatantly false. Do I really need to go to arxiv.org to pull up a list of his publications? His agenda is to attack string theory so as to gain more resources for his sub-field. Ad hominem. Slanderous, really. What exactly is his sub-field, these days, anyway? I'm pretty sure that he's stated that LQG has deep problems, like string theory. He is trying various approaches, and encouraging others to do so, also. Thus, I don't think your claim as to "sub-field" makes any sense. I don't think he has a consistent sub-field. E.g., he's spoken highly of Garret Lisi's paper. That's certainly not a paper in LQG, correct? Both of these authors badly misrepresent the state of the field. For example they pretend that string theorists dominate the establishment. I recall Smolin making some ridiculous claim about the percentage of jobs that go to string theorists. All you have to do is look here to see the truth - there is not a single string theory candidate on any shortlist for any faculty job anywhere in the United States this year. The situation was similar last year, and in previous years there were at most a few. You got me, here. What was the situation at the time they wrote their books, and in the few years preceeding? Isn't it indisputable that the field is considered at a low ebb, if not declining, because of disillusionment? Furthermore both make the absurd claim that students are pressured to study string theory. Nothing could be further from the truth - on the contrary, string theory students have more trouble getting into Ph.D. programs, generally struggle to find funding and advisors, difficulty finding postdocs, and cannot get faculty positions (because there aren't any). If the overwhelming majority of particle theorists at your university are string theorists, and you are interested in particle theory, you won't have many options, now, will you? In order for me to make sense of your criticism, you'd have to make a more specific comparison. Grad students are generally quite tuned in and know all of that, and are explicitly discouraged by their departments from going into theory - and yet many make the choice to study it anyway. Why? Ha! I read a book, probably 30 years ago, about the making of physicists. IIRC, it said something like this: "When they first get here (which was Harvard), everbody wants to be a theorist". At the risk of offending some people, the impression I got is that you generally needed to be brighter to make it as a theorist, so the less-bright ones got encouraged to go into experiment. Also, departments will naturally try and match students to professors in sub-fields that can actually support them. If string theory, or anything else, is unusually popular amongst students, of course departments will try and get some of them to choose other sub-fields. Because they think it's the most interesting subject to work on. These are people who could easily go work in finance and earn 5-10 times the salary they make as Ph.D. students and postdocs. Straw man. Smolin and Woit never said that string theory is un-interesting, though Woit (at least) has argued that it's not particularly beautiful. Are you really going to second guess them? Isn't it a bit condescending of Smolin and Woit to think they know what's best for the field - better than the people actually doing the work? Both Smolin and Woit went to a lot of trouble to write their books, both of which seem rational and fair. The fact that string theorists as a whole duck their arguments doesn't impress me. Woit is still open to finding a string theorist for a serious debate, and not having luck. And since they both consider string theory a failed idea, don't they have a duty to open their mouths and say so? It's not just them, either. See, e.g., http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/physics/pdf/0603/0603112v4.pdf edited mostly to correct figure of no. of particle theorists who get tenured jobs, from 1/15 to 1/8

 

[sol invictus]

This is an ad hominem attack.

Yes - much like the arguments throughout those two books. Don't believe me? See the quote from Smolin I gave above. Now that's REAL ad hominem - no messing around. String theorists are sexist, racists, pimpled geeks that couldn't get any in high school. It's unbelievable.

In order to understand why those two wrote such political and vitriolic books, it's necessary to know something about them. Sorry about that.

It was in his book where we find out that only 1 out of 8 physics Ph.D.'s who go into particle physics theory end up with tenured jobs, at an average age > 60 years old. Are the 7 who didn't make it failed physicists? If so, isn't Woit in good company? The "embittered" remark sounds like nothing more than a smear.

Take it as you will. I know him (slightly) personally, I know his writings, and my judgment is that he is bitter about the way he was treated, and that is the source of much of his motivation.

I believe that this is blatantly false. Do I really need to go to arxiv.org to pull up a list of his publications?

Which part do you think is false?

Ad hominem. Slanderous, really. What exactly is his sub-field, these days, anyway? I'm pretty sure that he's stated that LQG has deep problems, like string theory. He is trying various approaches, and encouraging others to do so, also. Thus, I don't think your claim as to "sub-field" makes any sense. I don't think he has a consistent sub-field.

He does. Take a look at the citations to and from his papers and those he cites, and to and from string theory papers. You will find two very well-defined clusters, with his much smaller.

E.g., he's spoken highly of Garret Lisi's paper. That's certainly not a paper in LQG, correct?

It's total garbage. The part of it that has something to do with gravity uses (wrongly) techniques from Smolin's camp.

You got me, here. What was the situation at the time they wrote their books, and in the few years preceeding? Isn't it indisputable that the field is considered at a low ebb, if not declining, because of disillusionment?

No, it's at a low ebb because the LHC is about to start, and most departments want to hire more particle-oriented theorists.

If the overwhelming majority of particle theorists at your university are string theorists, and you are interested in particle theory, you won't have many options, now, will you?

There are no such universities.

Ha! I read a book, probably 30 years ago, about the making of physicists. IIRC, it said something like this: "When they first get here (which was Harvard), everbody wants to be a theorist". At the risk of offending some people, the impression I got is that you generally needed to be brighter to make it as a theorist, so the less-bright ones got encouraged to go into experiment.
Also, departments will naturally try and match students to professors in sub-fields that can actually support them. If string theory, or anything else, is unusually popular amongst students, of course departments will try and get some of them to choose other sub-fields.

Yes, that's more or less correct. Although a big part of the discouragement is due to the difficulty in getting jobs.

Straw man. Smolin and Woit never said that string theory is un-interesting, though Woit (at least) has argued that it's not particularly beautiful.

How is it a straw man that the people with the most to lose (or gain), and with the most knowledge, choose to study something?

Both Smolin and Woit went to a lot of trouble to write their books, both of which seem rational and fair. The fact that string theorists as a whole duck their arguments doesn't impress me. Woit is still open to finding a string theorist for a serious debate, and not having luck.

Sure.

And since they both consider string theory a failed idea, don't they have a duty to open their mouths and say so?

They can say what they like about the theory - it's what they say about the people and the institutions that angers people.

 

[BenBurch]

Cuddles,

I've working in the field of superconducting magnets for physics machines; You are right; NOT cheap at all. And there is almost a magic recipe for really high field strength magnets; Two groups can attempt the same design and one can produce it with good yield and the other cannot, and it is not immediately obvious why. Or, at least, that was the state of things 20 years ago when I left the field.

-Ben

 

[BeAChooser]

No, it's at a low ebb because the LHC is about to start

I'm curious what you will do when the LHC finds no evidence to substantiate the existence of strings or dark matter?

 

[Cuddles]

Ha! I read a book, probably 30 years ago, about the making of physicists. IIRC, it said something like this: "When they first get here (which was Harvard), everbody wants to be a theorist". At the risk of offending some people, the impression I got is that you generally needed to be brighter to make it as a theorist, so the less-bright ones got encouraged to go into experiment.

In my year at university there were about 200 physicists. I think there were about 10 theoretical physicists. Almost no-one wants to be a theorist. Even most of the theoretical physicists didn't want to be theorists once they graduated.

The fact that string theorists as a whole duck their arguments doesn't impress me.

The arguments are in published articles. I'm sure people who don't have jobs as physicists would love to have public debates and exchanges in books, but that is not where the real science takes place. I haven't read Smolin or Woit, but the way you present them, even when you're trying to support them, makes them sound more like creationists than anything else.

 

[Cuddles]

I'm curious what you will do when the LHC finds no evidence to substantiate the existence of strings or dark matter?

Since the LHC isn't looking for evidence of either strings or dark matter, I doubt anyone will do anything different when it doesn't find any.

 

[ben m]

Really? Can you name a product we use in our daily lives that has resulted from string theory? Just one product.

Can you name one product that has resulted from:

a) studying the Earth's core/mantle interface?
b) discovering fossils of the Australopithecines?
c) landing a space probe on the surface of Titan?
d) proving Fermat's Last Theorem?
e) measuring the electron g-factor to one part in 10^15?
f) translating the Oxyrhyncus Manuscripts?
g) understanding intercellular signalling in slime molds?
h) photographing the Hubble Ultra-Deep Field?
i) reconstructing proto-Indo-European?
j) discovering the coelocanth?
etc ...

None of these things will make your XBox run faster. Calling them useless will make you look like a moron, but it will also get people to reply to your posts on discussion boards! Keep it up.

(also: an insult to string theory's lack of an engineering application is pretty funny, coming, as it does, from someone with a monomaniacal devotion to arcane models of comets, galaxies, and cosmology.)

 

[BeAChooser]

Since the LHC isn't looking for evidence of either strings or dark matter, I doubt anyone will do anything different when it doesn't find any.

Really? That's going to come as a surprise to those who put together the LHC's official website (http://public.web.cern.ch/public/en/LHC/WhyLHC-en.html ) ... where they state the 5 primary reasons for building the LHC.

One of the questions they seek to answer is "What is 96% of the universe made of?" They are talking about dark matter and dark energy, Cuddles. They state that "The ATLAS and CMS experiments will look for supersymmetric particles to test a likely hypothesis for the make-up of dark matter."

Another question they seek to answer is "Do extra dimensions of space really exist?" They are talking about strings, Cuddles. They state that "string theory implies that there are additional spatial dimensions yet to be observed. These may become detectable at very high energies, so data from all the detectors will be carefully analysed to look for signs of extra dimensions."

So I'll ask again, what will you do if they find no evidence for either?

 

[sol invictus]

None of these things will make your XBox run faster. Calling them useless will make you look like a moron, but it will also get people to reply to your posts on discussion boards! Keep it up.

It's worth pointing out that string theory was first considered in the mid-70's, and wasn't taken seriously by any significant group of physicists until the anomaly cancellation paper in 1984. So we're talking about 25-35 years, depending on how you count, and perhaps 1,000 people across the world at its peak. The total financial resources expended on it in its entire history are the salaries of those people (mostly supported by teaching at universities anyway), and a fair amount of paper, ink, and lots of chalk.

The best date for the birth of quantum mechanics is probably 1900 with Planck. It wasn't until around 25 years later that the theory was fully formulated (which hasn't happened yet with string theory, although it may be getting closer). The question of the first practical applications is kind of an interesting one. Atomic bombs (1945) are an obvious candidate, but perhaps there were some inventions in the 30's. In any case, there was a lag of at least 35 years, and probably longer, before there was any tangible payoff.

And yet essentially none of the technology we have in 2008 would be possible without the understanding of quantum mechanics. No modern physical or organic chemistry, no molecular biology, no transistors and hence no modern electronics or computers or electronic storage, no modern materials, etc.

All I can say is, thank god the woos on this forum are not in charge of anything.

 

[BeAChooser]

Can you name one product that has resulted from:

Ignoring the fact that I was talking about fundamental physical principles and none of the examples you've listed is one of those, let's look at a few in your list:

a) studying the Earth's core/mantle interface?

Perhaps better prediction of earthquakes.

d) proving Fermat's Last Theorem?

http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Fermat's_last_theorem/Cover "the theorem has profound implications for many branches of mathematics". And those branches of math affect products we use in many different ways.

e) measuring the electron g-factor to one part in 10^15?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G-factor#Measured_g-factor_Values "As of November 2006, the experimentally measured value is 2.0023318416 with an uncertainy of 0.0000000013, compared to the theoretical prediction of 2.0023318361 with an uncertainty of 0.0000000010[4]. This is a difference of 3.4 standard deviations, suggesting beyond-the-Standard-Model physics may be having an effect." Oooo ... something new?

g) understanding intercellular signalling in slime molds?

Cancer research. See link at this website: http://www.biology.missouri.edu/research/genetic.lasso ... "Cellular slime molds may seem small targets for big science, but the potential benefits are enormous. by Alan Bavley"

But I think you missed the point anyway.

 

[Dilb]

Really? Can you name a product we use in our daily lives that has resulted from string theory? Just one product. Can you name one prediction that string theory has successfully made? Has it even made a falsifiable prediction? Can you name any data proving string theory is real? Or is this just another one of your gnomes, sol?

String theory has been around since the 80's, and is concerned with making unique predictions in high energy physics. Why would you expect it to have applications? Before GPS, I don't think general relativity had any daily applications either, and that's been around for nearly a century, in addition to being common enough that real predictions could be made fairly easily.

And yes, I can give you some actual predictions, which were shown to be true in experiments.

 

[BenBurch]

As I understand it, string theory does not even seem to be a proper theory. At best it is a conjecture. Almost nothing testable about it, and some people argue over whether the recently-proposed tests are that at all.

Wolfgang Pauli's possibly apocryphal quote "That's not right. It's not even wrong." has been applied in the past to String Theory, and likely still applies to it.

 

[sol invictus]

As I understand it, string theory does not even seem to be a proper theory. At best it is a conjecture. Almost nothing testable about it, and some people argue over whether the recently-proposed tests are that at all.

Wolfgang Pauli's possibly apocryphal quote "That's not right. It's not even wrong." has been applied in the past to String Theory, and likely still applies to it.

I don't agree with that at all. It sounds like you've been reading Woit, who is just about the least reliable guide on this topic you could imagine. A lot of the backlash against string theory comes from a period when certain arrogant individuals declared it was the theory of everything, and they were about to decode the universe with it. That was overoptimistic to put it mildly, but human conceits don't alter the underlying consistency or validity of the theory itself.

String theory is pretty much the only candidate for a theory of quantum gravity. But because it's a theory of quantum gravity it's extremely hard to test directly (gravity is very weak as it is, so tiny quantum corrections to it are very hard to measure). That just comes with the territory.

The hope is that something unexpected will come out that makes it possible to test, and that's quite possible (there are a number of very interesting possibilities along those lines, especially using cosmology). But until it's tested it's certainly speculative, and might be completely wrong.

You should realize that what got people interested in it in the first place is that it really is an honest quantum gravity theory, and it's the only one we have. If there was another one people would jump on it - two is much better than one. But unfortunately there isn't. Furthermore it's got an incredibly tight and rigid mathematical structure that makes it rather unique and very difficult to modify, and yields really spectacular computational results (like the anomaly cancellation which essentially kicked it off as a serious theory).

Research in string theory has lead to major advances across an entire area of mathematics, leading to multiple Fields medals (the equivalent of the Nobel prize but for math, and given only once every four years) including one to Edward Witten, a leading string theorist. It has also profoundly influenced just about every other area of theoretical physics, from condensed matter to nuclear physics to cosmology to particle physics.

So even if it turns out to be a siren song that lead theorists astray, its side benefits have been enormous. I have little doubt that some major advance will emerge from all of that, so at worst it was a detour. And ultimately, the people best suited to judge what theory to study are those that know the most about them - from the outside, it's rather arrogant to think you can tell a Ph.D. student what topic to pick. Let them sort it out for themselves - if it fails as a theory, people will stop working on it.

It may not be apparent to most laypeople that in order to be successful in theoretical physics these days, you have to have a very broad base of knowledge. Far from being narrowly specialized, a good theorist knows five different techniques to solve a given problem, and that means the top people all know some string theory, particle physics, cosmology, some condensed matter. There aren't many researchers these days you can really call string theorists and leave it at that - most people work on a variety of topics, and string theory is one tool among many.

 

[BeAChooser]

It has also profoundly influenced just about every other area of theoretical physics, from condensed matter to nuclear physics to cosmology to particle physics.

Perhaps detrimentally, if Smolin is correct. For all that you said ... it is still nothing but a unproven theory. Perhaps it is even untestable ... in fact, I remember a very recent NOVA program on string theory were the expert on string theory being interviewed admitted that might be the case. That's seems to me the true state of string theory.

So even if it turns out to be a siren song that lead theorists astray, its side benefits have been enormous.

Or perhaps the overwhelming focus on it (like the focus on dark matter, dark energy, black holes and magnetic reconnection in astrophysics) has kept science from advancing far farther than it would have done by going down some other road to reality.

I have little doubt that some major advance will emerge from all of that, so at worst it was a detour.

Perhaps we'd already have matter transporters were it not for the detour of string theory? If it was a detour, it will have turned out to be an expensive one. And perhaps we don't have all the time and resources in the world to try again?

There aren't many researchers these days you can really call string theorists and leave it at that - most people work on a variety of topics, and string theory is one tool among many.

Another way to look at that is string theory has perhaps corrupted many areas of research. Who knows what damage it may have done if it turns out to be nothing but wishful thinking ... which it looks like even you might be admitting is a distinct possibility.

 

[sol invictus]

OK, this is an almost reasonable post for once, and worthy of a response.

Perhaps detrimentally, if Smolin is correct. For all that you said ... it is still nothing but a unproven theory. Perhaps it is even untestable ...

String theory is a set of mathematical techniques, essentially. Together those techniques might or might not be a good way to model the world, but regardless of that, they are valid and consistent in and of themselves. That's why string theory has stimulated such tremendous progress in mathematics. I find it difficult to see how having such techniques available could possibly be detrimental, and recent history has certainly not born that out as a possibility. Just have a look at the sudden resurgence of interest and excitement in the nuclear physics community, which had been moribund for decades, because of AdS/QCD and the recent RHIC results.

Or perhaps the overwhelming focus on it <nonsense pruned> has kept science from advancing far farther than it would have done by going down some other road to reality.

That's an undecidable question. Science, like life, rarely follows a linear path.

Perhaps we'd already have matter transporters were it not for the detour of string theory? If it was a detour, it will have turned out to be an expensive one. And perhaps we don't have all the time and resources in the world to try again?

Expensive? Resources?

As I pointed out above, the total financial investment in string theory throughout its history has been tiny. Most of its practitioners are either graduate students or professors, both of whom typically support their own salaries by teaching. There are no other costs, no labs, no equipment necessary aside from chalk, pens, and paper. And these are people who could easily double their academic salaries working in finance or industry, but remain because of their love for the subject.

Stop and think for a moment, please - do you, from your position of admitted ignorance, really want to judge these people and their life's work based on the word of a biased and hateful academic rival?

Another way to look at that is string theory has perhaps corrupted many areas of research. Who knows what damage it may have done if it turns out to be nothing but wishful thinking ... which it looks like even you might be admitting is a distinct possibility.

Corrupted? Damage? What do you think it is, immoral? A disease? Is it contagious?

You've obviously been reading Smolin, who I can't resist quoting again here, just to show how vicious and petty he is:

Smolin adds a moral dimension to his plaint, linking string theory to the physics profession’s “blatant prejudice” against women and blacks. Pondering the cult of empty mathematical virtuosity, he asks, “How many leading theoretical physicists were once insecure, small, pimply boys who got their revenge besting the jocks (who got the girls) in the one place they could—math class?”

 

[BeAChooser]

String theory is a set of mathematical techniques, essentially.

Oh ... is that what it's been reduced to? And to think it once was going to be a Theory Of Everything.

Together those techniques might or might not be a good way to model the world

You could say that of just about anything.

but regardless of that, they are valid and consistent in and of themselves.

But then why are there so many different kinds of string theory ... and physics possibilities within those string theories?

I find it difficult to see how having such techniques available could possibly be detrimental

Did epicycles help or hinder?

Expensive? Resources? What are you talking about?

Here we go again. Weren't you the poster who recently said the search for dark matter has been "cheap"?

As I pointed out above, the total financial investment in string theory throughout its history has been tiny. Most of its practitioners are either graduate students or professors, both of whom support their own salaries primarily by teaching.

But they could be researching something else ... perhaps more productively. And who do you think pays for those salaries? And don't forget the conferences. Lot's of conferences.

There are no other costs, no labs, no equipment necessary aside from chalk, pens, and paper.

A mind is too precious to waste. And some of our very best minds have devoted themselves to this to the exclusion of something else.

And there are experiments being done to find evidence of strings. Look at the LHC at about 8 billion dollars. One of it's five stated goals is to look for evidence of strings.

Stop and think for a moment, please - do you, from your position of admitted ignorance, really want to judge these people and their life's work based on the word of a biased and hateful academic rival?

After some of the things said about Alfven, Peratt and Lerner? Hmmmm...

just to show how vicious and petty he is

Is this guy vicious and petty too?

http://www.slate.com/id/2131014/ "Theory of Anything? Physicist Lawrence Krauss turns on his own. By Paul Boutin Posted Wednesday, Nov. 23, 2005 Lawrence Krauss, a professor of physics and astronomy at Case Western Reserve University, has a reputation for shooting down pseudoscience. ... snip ... in his latest book, Hiding in the Mirror, Krauss turns on his own—by taking on string theory, the leading edge of theoretical physics. Krauss is probably right that string theory is a threat to science, but his book proves he's too late to stop it."

How about this guy?

"A Different Universe, Reinventing Physics From The Bottom Down", 2005, by Robert B. Laughlin, Winner of the Nobel Prize in physics. “[String Theory] has no practical utility, however, other than to sustain the myth of the ultimate theory. There is no experimental evidence for the existence of strings in nature, nor does the special mathematics of string theory enable known experimental behavior to be calculated or predicted more easily. ... snip ... String theory is, in fact, a textbook case of Deceitful Turkey, a beautiful set of ideas that will always remain just barely out of reach. Far from a wonderful technological hope for a greater tomorrow, it is instead the tragic consequence of an obsolete belief system—in which emergence plays no role and dark law does not exist.”

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2005/03/14/MNGRMBOURE1.DTL ""The physics department at Stanford effectively fissioned over this issue," said Laughlin, now on sabbatical in South Korea. "I think string theory is textbook 'post-modernism' (and) fueled by irresponsible expenditures of money."

And from the same above source

"Superstringers have now created a culture in physics departments that is openly disdainful of experiments. ... There is an intellectual struggle going on for the very soul of theoretical physics, and for the hearts and minds of young scientists entering our field," says physicist Zlatko Tesanovic of Johns Hopkins University."


"I agree entirely with Larry Krauss," says Nobel Prize-winning physicist Philip Anderson of Princeton University. In academia, "we from outside the (string) field are disturbed by our colleagues' insistence that every new semi-adolescent who has done something in string theory is the greatest genius since Einstein and therefore must occupy yet another tenure track. ... Our sciences are becoming increasingly infected with quasi-theology, a tendency which needs to be openly debated."

 

[sol invictus]

Oh ... is that what it's been reduced to? And to think it once was going to be a Theory Of Everything.

Re-read what I wrote. Apparently you didn't understand it.

But then why are there so many different kinds of string theory ... and physics possibilities within those string theories?

There is only one consistent theory known. One can take different limits of its parameters, and those limits are sometimes referred to as different theories.

Did epicycles help or hinder?

They helped. They provided a decent theory, which eventually was replaced when it became clear there was a more accurate and simple one available. That's how science works.

Here we go again. Weren't you the poster who recently said the search for dark matter has been "cheap"?

String theory has been far cheaper even than that.

But they could be researching something else ... perhaps more productively. And who do you think pays for those salaries? And don't forget the conferences. Lot's of conferences.

They teach, and students pay tuition, and that pays their salaries. Is that so hard to understand? As for conferences, how would you know?

A mind is too precious to waste. And some of our very best minds have devoted themselves to this to the exclusion of something else.

And they should be listening to you instead?

And there are experiments being done to find evidence of strings. Look at the LHC at about 8 billion dollars. One of it's five stated goals is to look for evidence of strings.

So the LHC is string theory too? There's not much left of physics - you think all of astrophysics is wrong, now it's string theory and all of particle physics too?

Is this guy vicious and petty too?

No, just another media whore.

How about this guy?

Laughlin is actually insane. Notice how it says he was on "sabbatical" in South Korea? He was actually serving as the president of KAIST, the best technical university there. Go read up on what happened with that (if you can find an account of it), then decide how much attention to pay what he says.

I suppose you realize that I know all these people? Quoting them at me is not particularly fruitful, if you're trying to convince me of something. I already know what they think.

Anyway, what's your point? There are many people that dislike string theory, that's true. And there are also many people that dislike evolution, and climate change research, and that don't believe HIV causes AIDS, and that believe in idiotic nonsense like the electric universe. The one thing I've noticed is that you have a true genius for digging up quotes from them all...

 

[BeAChooser]

Quote:
Did epicycles help or hinder?

They helped.

I suppose you could claim they helped the local priests keep track of the movement of the planets for astrology purposes (to foretell the fortunes of rulers and paupers). And string theory? Who is it helping?

They teach, and students pay tuition, and that pays their salaries.

So the burden of supporting string theory has fallen on the poor students?

As for conferences, how would you know?

Here's about 150 that have taken place in the last 2 years and will take place this year: http://www.stringwiki.org/wiki/Conferences

So the LHC is string theory too?

It says so right on their website. One of the 5 reasons given for building the thing in the first place.

Is this guy vicious and petty too?

No, just another media whore.

What a vicious and petty thing to say ... or are you just jealous that your relegated to this little obscure forum.

Laughlin is actually insane.

What a vicious and petty thing to say ...

He was actually serving as the president of KAIST, the best technical university there. Go read up on what happened with that (if you can find an account of it), then decide how much attention to pay what he says.

http://209.85.173.104/search?q=cach...lin+KAIST+fired+2007&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=2&gl=us

Looks like he's just upset some folks because he wanted to see some changes needed to fix KAIST's future financial viability and technical standing. He tried to modernize the school and make it more like MIT. As he noted in his proposal "The current model is to contract with the government to supply highly intelligent, well-trained workers to industry at low cost. The new model is to contract with parents and students to create an excellent, general-purpose educational environment weighted toward science and engineering." He ruffled some feathers. Maybe one reason they didn't agree is that he proposed students pay tuition instead of tuition being fully subsidized by the government. And it looks like he wanted to axe some of the school's deadwood (probably a bunch of string theorists ). I don't see any of that as being suggestive he's wrong about string physics or insane. I guess time will tell whether KAIST needed an overhaul or not.

And there are also many people that dislike evolution, and climate change research, and that don't believe HIV causes AIDS, and that believe in idiotic nonsense like the electric universe.

Nice try, but unlike strings and your zoo of gnomes ... evolution and AIDS are all phenomena that can be easily studied here on earth with a vast amount of supporting data. So those who challenge are by and large kooks. And no one denies climage change is real ... there's just a legitimate dispute about the cause. Not so with strings and your zoo of astrophysical gnomes. They apparently can't be studied in the lab. And there is no real proof that they are real. And questions about them are indeed legitimate and coming from scientists and engineers with good credentials.

 

[sol invictus]

I suppose you could claim they helped the local priests keep track of the movement of the planets for astrology purposes (to foretell the fortunes of rulers and paupers). And string theory? Who is it helping?

Internet trolls, apparently.

So the burden of supporting string theory has fallen on the poor students?

Yes, students in the United States pay tuition (using money, which can be exchanged for goods and services). Funds from the tuition go (in part) to pay the salaries of the university's faculty.

Here's about 150 that have taken place in the last 2 years and will take place this year: http://www.stringwiki.org/wiki/Conferences

Most of those are small workshops, typically involving 15-20 participants, mostly from nearby institutions. As far as I know there is only one big conference per year (which is just called "Strings", as in Strings 2008).

It says so right on their website. One of the 5 reasons given for building the thing in the first place.

OK, so LHC is string theory. My particle physicist friends will be surprised to hear about that.

I guess time will tell whether KAIST needed an overhaul or not.

I'm almost going to miss you when you're back on ignore... it's amazing how you manage to be completely wrong about absolutely everything. It's kind of useful, actually - kind of like a film critic you always disagree with.

Anyway, back to the ignore list you go.

 

[robinson]

At least nobody brought up dark matter.