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PHVSICS OF THE IMPOSSIBLE
lumbia University. Niels Bohr was in the audience, and he was not impressed. Bohr stood up and said, "We in the back are convinced that
your theory is crazy. But what divides us is whether your theory is
crazy enough." The criticism was crushing. Since all the obvious theories had been considered and rejected, the true unified field theory
must be a dazzling departure from the past. The Heisenberg-Pauli theory was simply too conventional, too ordinary, too sane to be the true
theory. (That year Pauli was disturbed when Heisenberg commented
on a radio broadcast that only a few technical details were left in their
theory. Pauli sent his friends a letter with a blank rectangle, with the
caption, "This is to show the world I can paint like Titian. Only technical details are missing.")
CRITICISMS OF STRING THEORY
Today the leading (and only) candidate for a theory of everything is
string theory. But, again, a backlash has arisen. Opponents claim that
to get a tenured position at a top university you have to work on string
theory. If you don't you will be unemployed. It's the fad of the moment,
and it's not good for physics.
I smile when I hear this criticism, because physics, like all human
endeavors, is subject to fads and fashions. The fortunes of great theories, especially on the cutting edge of human knowledge, can rise and
fall like hemlines. In fact, years ago the tables were turned; string theory was historically an outcast, a renegade theory, the victim of the
bandwagon effect.
String theory was born in 1968, when two young postdocs, Gabriel
Veneziano and Mahiko Suzuki, stumbled on a formula that seemed to
describe the collisions of subatomic particles. Quickly it was discovered that this marvelous formula could be derived by the collision of
vibrating strings. But by 1974 the theory was dead in its tracks. A new
theory, quantum chromodynamics (QCD), or the theory of quarks and
the strong interaction, was a juggernaut flattening all other theories
PHVSICS OF THE IMPOSSIBLE
lumbia University. Niels Bohr was in the audience, and he was not impressed. Bohr stood up and said, "We in the back are convinced that
your theory is crazy. But what divides us is whether your theory is
crazy enough." The criticism was crushing. Since all the obvious theories had been considered and rejected, the true unified field theory
must be a dazzling departure from the past. The Heisenberg-Pauli theory was simply too conventional, too ordinary, too sane to be the true
theory. (That year Pauli was disturbed when Heisenberg commented
on a radio broadcast that only a few technical details were left in their
theory. Pauli sent his friends a letter with a blank rectangle, with the
caption, "This is to show the world I can paint like Titian. Only technical details are missing.")
CRITICISMS OF STRING THEORY
Today the leading (and only) candidate for a theory of everything is
string theory. But, again, a backlash has arisen. Opponents claim that
to get a tenured position at a top university you have to work on string
theory. If you don't you will be unemployed. It's the fad of the moment,
and it's not good for physics.
I smile when I hear this criticism, because physics, like all human
endeavors, is subject to fads and fashions. The fortunes of great theories, especially on the cutting edge of human knowledge, can rise and
fall like hemlines. In fact, years ago the tables were turned; string theory was historically an outcast, a renegade theory, the victim of the
bandwagon effect.
String theory was born in 1968, when two young postdocs, Gabriel
Veneziano and Mahiko Suzuki, stumbled on a formula that seemed to
describe the collisions of subatomic particles. Quickly it was discovered that this marvelous formula could be derived by the collision of
vibrating strings. But by 1974 the theory was dead in its tracks. A new
theory, quantum chromodynamics (QCD), or the theory of quarks and
the strong interaction, was a juggernaut flattening all other theories