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13th out of 42 books
—
3 voters
Not Even Wrong: The Failure of String Theory and the Search for Unity in Physical Law
by
Peter Woit
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 t...more
Hardcover, 320 pages
Published
September 4th 2006
by Basic Books
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Just looking at the title gives you a large clue as to what this book is about. Woit is covering a lot of the same ground as Smolin, in
The Trouble with Physics
. Both of them argue convincingly that fundamental physics has lost its way. Superstring theory has been around for over 20 years, and it hasn't delivered on its early promises. Here are what I saw as the main pieces of evidence:
1. Problems with supersymmetry. Every particle is supposed to have a supersymmetric partner. No one has ever o...more
1. Problems with supersymmetry. Every particle is supposed to have a supersymmetric partner. No one has ever o...more
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I’m sorry, I can’t bring myself to finish this one. It is too hard. It has been written about as badly as it is possible to write a book like this. Take this as a case in point:
“Mathematicians were much slower to appreciate the Dirac equation and it had little impact on mathematics at the time of its discovery. Unlike the case with the physicists, the equation did not immediately answer any questions that mathematicians had been thinking about. This began to change in the early 1960s, when the B...more
“Mathematicians were much slower to appreciate the Dirac equation and it had little impact on mathematics at the time of its discovery. Unlike the case with the physicists, the equation did not immediately answer any questions that mathematicians had been thinking about. This began to change in the early 1960s, when the B...more
4 likes · like · see review
A fascinating book criticizing the institution that is String Theory. The central question here is whether string theory deserves the attention and man hours it receives, and moreover, whether elegance and mathematical beauty are necessities of a scientific theory. He makes a convincing case that string theory fails the most basic test of scientific knowledge: can the theory be proven wrong? We never really know if a theory is "true," so the best we can do, as scientists, is to say a theory is "...more
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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 chapt...more
Chiefly interesting as a mathematician's, rather than a physicist's, view of the string theory controversy (has it failed? is it even a science?) The structure is a bit loose—it begins as a fairly detailed history of quantum field theory, then after assessing string theory it ends with a series of random essays—but it's full of intriguing anecdotes throughout. The mathematical detail is very heavy going, but the suggestions for further reading (both heavier and lighter) are excellent.
Overall, no...more
Overall, no...more
This was particularly useful to me, although to be frank I ended up paging past entire sections that were over my head. As physics overviews for the layman go, this is one math and concept intensive tour du force... and yet I felt like it gave me an insight into particle physics that I've never gotten from the many many other books on the subject that I've read - specifically because it gave me even this tiny glimpse into the mathematics of the subject, and how important that has been in the evo...more
Yet another attempt to explain 20th/21st c. physics in a no-math way to a non-technical audience, with the usual less-than-satisfactory results. It's basically an impossible task, but this one seems to do better than most. By which I mean that I was left with the pleasant sensation that I understood....something. At least for a while.
Like Lee Smolin's "The Trouble With Physics" this physicist is a skeptic about String Theory which has become the dominant sub-field in physics in US academia in r...more
Like Lee Smolin's "The Trouble With Physics" this physicist is a skeptic about String Theory which has become the dominant sub-field in physics in US academia in r...more
The first chapters are extremely technical so you are likely to skip them if you are not a specialist. I found the last chapters interesting, which contained the criticism of String Theory.
To be honest, I found these criticisms to be rooted in the lack of imagination that often characterizes experimentalists, though the author is a mathematician. He claims that String Theory is not a science because it makes no predictions, but later goes on to say that mathematics does not make predictions eit...more
To be honest, I found these criticisms to be rooted in the lack of imagination that often characterizes experimentalists, though the author is a mathematician. He claims that String Theory is not a science because it makes no predictions, but later goes on to say that mathematics does not make predictions eit...more
The most powerful and convincing criticism of string theory I've ever seen. Not a good introduction to the subject - as an engineer with several pop physics books under my belt, I was dangling by a finger for most of the time I was reading. But it's rewarding and edifying, and provides an answer to the person who reads The Elegant Universe and then talks about it at parties (I admit this with sadness, being the prime example of that flavor of asininity).
Woit has some issues with the general approach of string theorists, which he's only partially successful in countering. He does raise some compelling arguments relating to the failed science and, surprisingly the elegance of the theory.
The second half is a big payoff, but the first -- focused on the interwoven history of mathematics and physics in the 20th Century -- was a bit of a trial for me. Woit could be clearer in his explanations (although admittedly a novice like me is probably not his...more
The second half is a big payoff, but the first -- focused on the interwoven history of mathematics and physics in the 20th Century -- was a bit of a trial for me. Woit could be clearer in his explanations (although admittedly a novice like me is probably not his...more
good book. Very technical on string theory and alternatives--What's the matter with physics? is easier for a nonscientist to understand. Commentary on current situation in academic physics though is gripping and illuminating. And the two books largely agree with each other about this.
My goodness. Poorly written and mind-numbingly cyclic in description. This is the ultimate example of 'padding' out writing. The whole book could have been condensed into two chapters. The only book I could not finish.
Definitely not for beginners, but if you've got a real interest in the current state of physics, both in its scientific and socio-political atmospheres, this book has exactly the information one needs. It's written in a clear and concise way and one need not understand all the technicalities to understand what the author is saying.
A tour de force against the string theory establishment. For thirty years string theory has been the leading contender for uniting general relativity and quantum mechanics. Woit spells out in detail how string theory has failed to provide a single testable hypothesis (a fundamental requirement of the scientific method), and further how this fact seems unlikely to change at least in the foreseeable future.
Woit goes on to argue convincingly how the dynamics of modern-day academia work to continue...more
Woit goes on to argue convincingly how the dynamics of modern-day academia work to continue...more
This is one of two recent books that challenge the prevailing "string theory" of modern physics. Woit points out in great detail how that in spite of 25 years of concerted effort by some of the greatest minds of our planet, the proponents of string theory still have not provided any crisp, quantifiable, falsifiable prediction that can be tested in real-world physical experiments. He chronicles how the field has come to this very disappointing conclusion, and how they have tried, via anthropic ar...more
It took me a while to get through this. I read a bunch of other popular-physics books from Kaku, Greene, et al, mostly very pro-string theory, and they were much more accessible. There are a few concepts I had trouble with, but it didn't really detract from the overall message of the book.
Woit comes from a math background so he has an outsider's perspective on string theory. I agree with his conclusion that string theory is getting dangerously close to not being science anymore.
I enjoyed the f...more
Woit comes from a math background so he has an outsider's perspective on string theory. I agree with his conclusion that string theory is getting dangerously close to not being science anymore.
I enjoyed the f...more
E bravo Woit ! L'ho preso sperando di scoprire che la teoria delle stringhe non era poi cos�� sbagliata come pare e invece... affossata.
Neanche sbagliata sta a dire che non �� neanche da considerare una teoria, e dire che mi ero innamorato del libro di Greene.
Woit �� stato convincente. Devo dire che non ci ho capito moltissimo in un sacco di punti, la mia ignoranza in matematica moderna e Modello standard della fisica dei quanti �� enorme, ma abbastanza per riporre in un cassetto la teoria dell...more
Neanche sbagliata sta a dire che non �� neanche da considerare una teoria, e dire che mi ero innamorato del libro di Greene.
Woit �� stato convincente. Devo dire che non ci ho capito moltissimo in un sacco di punti, la mia ignoranza in matematica moderna e Modello standard della fisica dei quanti �� enorme, ma abbastanza per riporre in un cassetto la teoria dell...more
A challenging read, but worth it for anyone interested in String Theory.
Very good review of numerous problems of modern theoretical physics.
This is hard going but an interesting read none the less.
After reading Brian Greene's work that strongly supports superstring theory, I was interested in reading an opposite opinion. Although the book's basic premise that there's no way (yet) to actually prove Superstring theory, and there's really no evidence to support the theory (other than a certain intuitive mathematical elegance), I'm kind of disappointed that doesn't yet sufficiently acknowlege the limitations of particle physics theory. I'll update my review once I'm done.
This is actually about Weyl and gauge / symetries, but they needed to market it as ' anti-string theroy ' It's very good, lots of important stuff.
Very intriguing ideas on the failure of string theory and its fundamental breakdowns. I'm loving it!!
a bit dry. but it smashes string theory with facts, if you are interested.
The first part of this book is a very well-written brief history of particle physics in the past century. The second part is a rant about string theory, which is not even wrong, and string theorists, who engage in mental masturbation. Well, Kip Thorne thinks otherwise; now, who is Peter Woit and who is Kip Thorne?
May 23, 2013
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