The String Theory Wars and What Happened Next

String theory was a beautiful idea, the best contender for a theory of everything that we have seen so far. Thousands of physicists spend decades trying to work it out. But it didn’t quite go according to plan. String theory became extremely controversial during what's been dubbed the “String Wars” about 20 years ago. Then it kind of disappeared. What happened? What were the string wars? And what are string theorists doing now? That’s what we’ll talk about today.

At 13:41 the guy on the bottom right is Peter Woit, not a second Lee Smolin, sorry about that.

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#science #physics

00:00 Intro
00:49 A dream come true
03:45 The trouble begins
09:39 The string wars
15:06 AdS/CFT
20:19 Up to today
22:54 Summary
23:20 Stay safe with NordVPN

[josefopeda]

To note on the fact that many physicists aren't trained in philosophy of science: When I got my undergrad degree in physics (class of 2019), we were required to take philosophy of science as a core requirement for our physics program. I found out recently that they removed that requirement after much complaint from physics students (apparently mostly because the course required students to write a lot of essays... something i found my colleagues weren't too fond of). It's a shame because philosophy of science is such an important aspect in checking scientists on their claims and their work.

[KenS]

I was a PhD student and postdoc in mathematics in the early 00's. My specialty was more computer oriented than physics. I still got caught up in this. At some point I said that a theory that could not make predictions about the real world wasn't actually science. This resulted in me not being offered a tenure track position at the end of my postdoc and I got no other interviews for tenure track positions.

[allank]

I kind of had a feeling that string theory was wrong when I’d watch machio kaku and Brian Greene talk about it and only ever talk about how beautiful it is and never about how it explains experimental results

[marius]

Smolin and Voigt's pictures are both labeled Lee Smolin ≈ @13:30

[Juraj_H.]

12:00 reminded me how some PhD students were telling me that if you want to be quoted, make a mistake. everyone will want to correct you, but that does not matter, because the counter goes up

[alieninmybeverage]

I thought that opposite String Wars was going to be String Trek. That's where String Theory went wrong.

[Scalettadom]

Peter Woit was my undergraduate thesis advisor at Columbia. I feel so fortunate to have had that opportunity, and I learned so much! He has an excellent blog called Not Even Wrong.

[dialectic]

I love it that "String Theory" is written in Papyrus font. String theory really seems like a relic from the era in which Papyrus font seemed cool.

[waterfallhunter]

I have a lot of respect for you for getting out when you realized that the theory wasn't panning out.

[-by-_Publishing_LLC]

Ironically, the future of String Theory is hanging by a thread.

[pappaflammyboi]

The One String:
One string to rule them all,
one string to find them,
One string to bring them all
and in the darkness bind them.

[dewayneblue]

Full credit to Lee Smolin and Peter Voit, for shouting out loudly that the String Theory emperor had no clothes. It takes courage to lead a charge against firmly entrenched powers.

[michaelmoorrees]

String theory involved a lot of complex math to make everything fit. It just made me think of epicycle theory of planetary motion, back when the natural philosophers (pre-scientist) thought the Earth was the center of the universe.

[arctic_haze]

If someone constantly thinks about AdS/CFT, everything looks like AdS/CFT.

[worawatli]

I finally understand why string theory isn't talk about as much anymore, I thought I was living under a rock to not hear about it. lol

[thykappa]

String Theory is an example of a theory so nice, so elegant, so absolutely beautiful, that it could only be bullshit, and yet so many people still hold it in high regard despite its failings. Truly a tragic tale.

[semidemiurge]

This is the best synopsis of String Theory I have come across in the last 10 years.

[WaltC]

Sabine is so enjoyable. I love how she envisions the entire picture and doesn't ramble off into esoteric minutiae guaranteed to confuse instead of inform...;) As always, her sense of humor permeates "everything" and makes the inscrutable so easy to understand!

[Bertrand]

Thank you Sabine for this excellent video again !
One of my very close friends is a well known french astrophysicist, he spent 20+ years of his life working on the string theory and he recently gave up. He can't officially talk much about his demise since he's still being paid by the CERN (and the pressure of his colleagues, his students...) but he's definitely against the project of the next "super collider". He doesn't believe that making the protons any faster will give us any satisfactory observations and doesn't believe anymore in the idea of super symetry.
I'm not part of the the "scientific community" so it's easier for him to "confess" about his mistakes as a young professor and it takes a lot of courage to admit he's probably been wrong all those years...
A bientôt.

[SorFig]

Sabine throwing shade at Susskind was the icing on the cake for me. And she just keeps going in. Max Planck is now my second favorite scientist. Hossenfelder renewed my faith in honest, rational evaluation. That's what I feel the sciences _should_ be about. For that, she will always be best girl.