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

by Peter Woit

Book Overview

At what point does theory depart the realm of testable hypothesis and come to resemble something like aesthetic speculation, or even theology? The legendary physicist Wolfgang Pauli had a phrase for such ideas: He would describe them as "not even wrong," meaning that they were so incomplete that they could not even be used to make predictions to compare with observations to see whether they were wrong or not. In Peter Woit's view, superstring theory...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0465092764
• ISBN13: 9780465092765
• Release Date: September 2007
• Publisher: Basic Books
• Length: 320 Pages
• Weight: 0.64 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 5.5" x 8.0"

Customer Reviews

Woit dissects "the only game in town"

"The fundamental problem with string theory is that, as far as its central goal of unifying physics goes, over the last nearly 25 years it has not only not made any progress toward explaining anything about particle physics, but, quite the opposite. Everything that has been learned about string theory makes it more and more clear that the original hopes for getting unification this way were just misguided and can't work. The derivative here is the wrong sign." Peter Woit, posted on his weblog September 13, 2007. Some readers may think that this book gets off to a painfully slow start, given the author's long telling of the history of particle physics, particularly as regards work done with particle accelerators/ colliders. But stay with it [it's worth it!]. Woit holds degrees from Harvard and Princeton (PhD, theoretical physics) and has taught both mathematics and physics at Columbia. He happily describes himself as a mathematician, in large part because that is indeed the career he has chosen but also in large part because he is obviously disgusted with the current state of theoretical physics--in so far as the superstring/ M-theory disciples of Witten have abandoned anything resembling orthodox science. Woit shows no hesitation in acknowledging Witten's great genius, but unlike most theorists of recent decades he is not interested in worshiping at Witten's feet, no matter what the cost. And Woit isn't just some disgruntled nay-saying spoilsport (I can't strictly judge the psychological state of someone I don't personally know, but he doesn't strike me in this way at all). His concern is that there are other prospects for a unified theory that have been summarily brushed aside by the popular mantra that "string theory is the only game in town." [Federal] research funding, positions of influence notably including department chairs, academic and research hirings, increasingly all have played what we are told (by string/brane theorists themselves) is "the only game in town." But after three decades of glowing hype, this "game"--superstrings/'M-theory'/'brane-world'--has failed to move forward. It has essentially demonstrated that it cannot move forward in any scientific sense. "Superstring theory is to a large degree thought of by mainstream physicists as mathematics and by mainstream mathematicians as physics, with each group convinced that it makes no sense within their frame of reference but presumably does within someone else's." pg 204 Like so many other armchair theorists, I've read and enjoyed books like Greene's `Elegant Universe' and Hawking's glossy `Universe in a Nutshell'. But any astute reader has to notice that no real connection is made between what we are told are compellingly "beautiful mathematics" and the physical world we can examine, and, given a sound theory, even interrogate, to any degree at all. It is particularly instructive to consider strings/ brane-world from the critical perspective of pure mathematics, i.e., Woit's

Not Even Wrong is right

"Not Even Wrong". This phrase originates with Pauli, who applied it scathingly to any theory that had to be taken on faith because it was not falsifiable by experiment. Peter Woit employs the phrase to describe supersymmetric string theory, which is currently all the rage. Fighting words indeed! I'm a qualified theoretical physicist, no longer practicing. For many years, I heartily supported the efforts of string theorists to achieve either a further illumination of the standard model or a synthesis of general relativity and quantum mechanics. I am sad that they have really achieved neither. Perhaps one day they will achieve something. I still wish them every success. But the string community (or any other scientific group) cannot be allowed to turn their chosen approach into a fad, a cult, a religion or - worst - an inquisition. That might be sociologically amusing if it weren't so pernicious for physics and physicists. The effect is that physics departments become the monopoly of self-perpetuating, self-congratulating clans of homogenous thinkers. (Lee Smolin uses the psychological term "groupthink".) Young physicists are informed that string theory "is the only game in town". Sign up for it or go away. Historically, scientists have countered our natural human hubris to believe whatever we think in two ways. One is by challenges from fellow scientists, who invent new theories, at odds in large or small ways with the standard thinking. The other is by nature, whose measured phenomena often contradict established theories. Of course, in the physical sciences, experimental evidence always holds the trump card over human speculation. String theory is currently in an unfortunate place. There is no imminent experiment that could bring it into contest with nature. And, because of the iron curtain within which the string community seems to have walled itself, there is little contact between the adherents of string theory and their potential human challengers. Woit's book opens a channel of dissent, which can only be healthy for physics, both as a science and as an academic career. In summary then, this book makes strong points about the current "unscientific" state of string theory, ones that need to be publicly and vociferously stated. Woit speaks out firmly and professionally, with specific, well-reasoned arguments and some occasional passion. To point out that an emperor has no clothes takes no courage for a small, innocent child. However, it takes bravery for a professional to point out the same thing, with full knowledge of the impact that his iconoclasm might have. I admire Woit for standing up in print for what he believes. Of course, like any scientist, Woit may be right or wrong. Time will tell. But it is chilling that, because his book challenged the entrenched orthodoxy, Woit had such difficulty in getting it published,. That fact alone, ironically, means that the book's publication is most timely indeed. An

Well Crafted

For anyone with at least a moderate academic background in physics Dr. Woit's book is a much better introduction to the problems with string theory, and the cottage industry that has grown up about it, than the Smolin book which covers similar territory. "Not Even Wrong", unlike "The Trouble With Physics", is meticulously organized, copiously footnoted, contains suggestions for further reading at the end of each chapter, and has a beautiful introduction to the nuts and bolts of the existing and proposed experimentation upon which the verifiability of string theory depends. If you've ever struggled through the texts of Arfken, Bjorken (or Peskin & Schroeder), Goldstein, Jackson, and Messiah at some point in your life, but the likes of Choquet-Bruhat, Baez, Weinberg and Kaku are still somewhat beyond reach, this is the book for you.

A timely and honest critique

I've been following the arguments made by Peter Woit against String Theory for quite some time, and it's a pleasure to be able to have them all in a single volume. His arguments are very persuasive, and his writing clear and to the point. This, however, is not a book that the general audience will find easy to follow. The earlier chapters recount the canonical story of the success of the particle physics in the 20th century, and if you are familiar with that story you can safely skip these chapters. The later chapters are the really interesting ones, but unless you have at least some familiarity with theoretical particle physics and the modern mathematics, you might find yourself lost. Even with that caveat it is still possible to appreciate the central theme of this book: theoretical particle physics took a wrong turn somewhere in the late 70s and the early 80s, and has never been able to recover from this. Woit is appealing in this book to the practitioners in the field to be more honest with their assessments of the direction in which the theoretical particle physics is headed, and the lack of any meaningful progress. Unfortunately, I am very sceptical of the potential impact of this book on the field of particle physics. The Emperor is naked, but he is perceived as irrelevant as well.

A high-strung but interesting and helpful polemic on string theory

String theory is a formidable subject to learn, both from a physical and mathematical standpoint. But it is even a harder subject to teach to an audience of non-experts, not because its ideas are hard to express verbally in front of this audience, but because its practitioners sometimes feel it is beneath them to do so. Those who are not familiar with string theory but are curious as to its conceptual foundations might therefore be left to themselves to pursue an understanding of these foundations. However such an understanding can be obtained, for there are of late a few books that have been written by experts in string theory that are targeted to a readership that have a strong desire to learn the subject. The author of this book recognizes the paucity of expository material on string theory, particularly that dealing with the mathematical formalism, and although this book is a polemic against string theory and its status as a physical and scientific theory, the author introduces (perhaps on purpose) the reader to the theory in a way that is understandable without sacrificing scientific accuracy. But the book could also be of interest to more advanced readers, i.e. those (such as this reviewer) who have a thorough understanding of the physics and mathematics behind string theory but who are not conducting research in it. The author demands rightfully that scientific theory must be testable or at least must have some amount of empirical predictions. He pulls no punches in his critique of string theory, and is very open about what he thinks are the motivations behind those who are actively involved in it. A researcher's motivations of course are not germane to the validity of a theory that he or she proposes, but they are relevant to the understanding of why a particular theory is entrenched in the scientific community, even though there is no experimental evidence for it. This reviewer disagrees with the author in his claim that string theory is not a "beautiful" theory. And it is the mathematical formalism that is used in string theory that gives it its beauty. Indeed, just the algebraic geometry alone that is employed in string theory is an example of this. That combined with the differential geometry, complex manifolds, and algebraic topology makes string theory a beautiful multi-faceted mathematical gem. That being said, there are many ideas in string theory that deserve to be classified as "speculative" mathematics, as the author does in this book. This classification arises because of the presence of the ubiquitous path integral, an object that has resisted rigorous mathematical formulation. So yes, the mathematical formalism behind string theory is beautiful, and intoxicates those who contemplate it. But a physical theory must be more than just "mental masturbation" (a characterization imputed to the physicist Murray Gell-Mann in the book). It must also make predictions that can be measured in the laboratory, and these measurements