An Invitation to Crazyland
Next week I’m going to give a different kind of a seminar at the Santa Fe Institute. Here is the announcement:
David Krakauer & Dave Bacon are delighted to host the first Speaker in
our: “Possible Paths” seminar Series.In this series we ask speakers to imagine the state of a scientific
field 1000 years into the future and to trace a possible path towards
that future, enumerating potential prize winning discoveries along the way.We are positively ecstatic that our first speaker will be none other
than: DR DAVE BACON who will give the Thursday Colloq entitled:
“The Reconciliation of Quantum Theory and General Relativity: No Strings
Attached”Please view the attached pdf file which gives a graphical insight into
the ambitious nature of Dr Bacon’s program & some of the fine minds he
will need to transcend along his path.The first to correctly identify all members of the Baconian Solar System
wins Applause & Admiration at the Event.
Here is the attached photo (note: I didn’t make this photo, David Krakauer did and he thinks it’s very funny.)
Basically the talk will be a crazy conglomeration of different observations I’ve made which lead me to believe the path towards reconciling quantum theory with gravity will look nothing like what we currently invission it to be. I’ll post a copy of the powerpoint once I finish the talk so that everyone can get some good hearty chuckles.
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April 15th, 2005 at 6:06 pm
You clearly have too much time on your hands.
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April 15th, 2005 at 7:14 pm
What’s with the hostility towards string theory? from the outside it looks like nice piece of speculative physics, may or may not be related to the real world, but in the meantime lets you explore deep and interesting fundamental issues. Sounds a lot like quantum information science.
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April 15th, 2005 at 11:31 pm
What’s with the defensiveness? Saying that string theory might not be the only way to solve the problem doesn’t really seem like hostility to me. Sheesh.
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April 16th, 2005 at 2:15 am
Well, scrolling down I can also see some celebration of yet another idiotic remark of Laughlin’s, who incidentally seems to have equal contempt for your field. Not a coincidence.
Not too invested in this, no reason for me being defensive, just observing a pattern, maybe extrapolating a bit, maybe I am wrong, doesn’t matter…moving along…
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April 16th, 2005 at 7:38 am
Heh. Well Laughlin’s attack (below) is pretty much a throw away ad hominem attack, as well a rather sexist remark.
Personally I harbor no hostility toward string theory (I indeed have string theory fiends and have even taught myself a little of it in my copious spare time), but I do think it’s amazing how large the field is for amount of speculation that is going on. If the physics community is like a portfolio, then I don’t particularly like the fact that there is a huge investment in this one risky investment. I’d rather have many risky investments. And there definitely is an attitude, perhaps you weren’t expressing it, but there is an attitude among string theorists that they are truely the only game in town. As John Bell once said, impossibility proofs are for those who lack imagination. The point of Anderson’s remark is similar: string theory puts a stranglehold on too much of theoretical physics. What I’d like to see is more hedging. More brilliant ideas that don’t necesarily follow the beaten path. But maybe this is asking too much. But I think this not just about string theory but about a lot of physics. Science in “established fields” is not my cup of tea, so you can see how science in “established speculative fields” really sends me over the top.
Now is quantum information science really like string theory? They both have a reputation in physics departments as being speculative. On the other hand, experiments are being carried out every day which validate quantum information. Today you can buy (from multiple companies) a cryptographic device whose security is based on quantum theory. Plans to build ten to hundred to thousand qubit quantum computers are being actively pursued by experimental scientists.
Contrast this with string theory. Here there is speculation that future high energy experiments (or perhaps astrophysical observations) will validate the theory. But is there a clear technological path which, if we follow it, we will end up validating string theory? No one knows, not because we don’t know how to build bigger accelerators (though one big enough to reach Planck energies might be a bit crazy
), but because we have no right to say we know what future physics will look like. So it seems to me that there is a big difference. In quantum information, the part we don’t know how to do is technological, but we don’t see any barriers or better yet, if there are barriers they are probably the indication of our lack of understanding of the quantum world. In string theory, we know that we need to build bigger accelerators, but, even if we do this, we don’t know if this will justify string theory.
Oh well. I know you didn’t mean to pick I fight, but I just can’t resist! Of course this should all be taken with a grain of salt, because nature cannot be fooled and in the end only hard empiricism matters.
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April 16th, 2005 at 1:58 pm
Ok, sounds good, sorry I misread you before. I also agree with most of all you wrote above. All the points about stranglehold and hedging etc. sound to me better left for the scientists to decide, I trust they will recognize a good idea when they see one.
Anderson’s only point was retold many times, it just finds new context every decade, so this time it is string theory and not the SSC, big deal.
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April 16th, 2005 at 8:17 pm
Had I been drinking milk when I saw that graphic, it would have come out of my nose. Bravo.
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April 17th, 2005 at 1:00 pm
That picture is hilarious.
Ok, since no one has done it yet: in order from left to right we have,
Roger Penrose, Dave Bacon, Stephen Wolfram, and Stephen Hawking.
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April 18th, 2005 at 6:03 am
Why exactly is there a need for scientists either to pose for freaky pictures or use Photoshop for devious means?
I was going to complain about the freakiness of that picture, but actually it’s no way near as freaky as the ones that adorn the elevator in my building, or grace the pages of the publications of my institution.
In one picture, a balding German guy does his best mad scientist look as he peers with clutching hands over a carved pumpkin which is oozing with liquid nitrogen. That was from last week, so it’s not a Halloween reference.
In another picture, a professor does his best to look like he’s about to kill you for your parts. His eyes bulge nearly out of their sockets, and maybe he even thinks that he can kill you just by looking at you. Maneuvers in Photoshop add hundreds of little floating flasks and helical coils supposedly representing DNA. Someone actually wasted a significant amount of time on that!
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April 18th, 2005 at 11:28 am
I thought the guy third from the left was George Castanza! I am so not a nerd!
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April 19th, 2005 at 4:04 pm
A younger picture of Penrose might have been more flattering!!!
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