When
I was reading Bankrupting Physics, I thought that’s
that last, golden, nail into the coffin of string theory.
But I was wrong - the Oscar goes to The Trouble with
Physics by Lee Smolin. There is one true Antistring
Divine, and Lee Smolin is Her messenger.
Lee
Smolin’s understanding of science and theoretical
physics in particular, astonishingly broad and deep, makes
him a devastating critic even when he announces something
promising. His claim that string theory is responsible for
the derailing of fundamental physics for the last thirty
years comes with considerable respectability.
Smolin
is respectful to other scientist, whether on his side or
not, but he has no problem to state, for instance, on the
subject of the weak anthropic principle:
"I’m
talking here about some of the people I most admire ... It
then pains me to conclude that in every case I’ve looked
into the claims have proved erroneous."
Or,
on the subject of merging of supersymmetry with a theory
of space and time:
"My
friends told me this, and the equations said the same
thing. But neither friends nor equations told me what it
meant.. I was missing the idea, the conception of the
thing."
He
is restraining his own ambitions in his current research:
"It
would be wonderful to get a real prediction out of a
quantum theory of gravity and then have it shown to be
false by an unambiguous observation. The only thing better
would be if experiment confirmed the prediction. Either
way, we would be doing real science."
His
most optimistic statement:
"Science
done the old fashioned way is moving ahead."
Here
follows the abstract of Smolin’s string theory critique: