Eric Weinstein may have found the answer to physics' biggest problems

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2013/may/23/eric-weinstein-answer-physics-problems

by misiti3780 • 6 years ago

32 14 6 years ago

java-man• 6 years ago

This looks rather interesting. Could someone working in this field comment on this theory?

Article was published in 2013. I haven't heard much about this since, so I'm going to guess that it didn't turn out to be the answer. (Or at least, it has not yet shown itself to be superior to mainstream theories.)

kingkongjaffa• 6 years ago

Joseph Conlon of the University of Oxford stated that some of these particles, if they existed, would already have been detected in existing accelerators such as the Large Hadron Collider.[12]

sounds like a hack to me.

Few physicists attended and no preprint, paper, or equations were published.[13] Weinstein's ideas were not widely debated. The few that did engage expressed skepticism.[12][14] They were unable to debate more intensely due to the fact that there was no published paper.[15] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eric_Weinstein

loceng2• 6 years ago

Eric Weinstein on April 2nd posted the lecture to his YouTube channel + at the end of video he goes over to clarify some details: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z7rd04KzLcg

samizdis• 6 years ago

Aw, at least mention that this is an article from 2013. I'd been looking to a follow-up from something recent re the Wolfram stuff, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22866284

AnimalMuppet3• 6 years ago

This says that the "first generation" of particles includes the quarks. That is, just as the electron has the muon and the tau as related but heavier particles, the quarks also have such particles.

Do such particles exist? I had thought that the six (plus their antiparticles) were all there are.

wnoise• 6 years ago

I thought the six were three generations of two (well, four with antiparticles).

mikelyons• 6 years ago

He just recently explained this on Lex Fridman's podcast and JRE

leepowers• 6 years ago

About that:

Hosting a lecture in a university physics department [Oxford] without inviting any physicists is, at best, an unforgivable oversight. As my colleague Subir Sarkar put it, “It’s surprising that the organisers did not invite the particle physicists to attend – if indeed the intention was to have a discussion.”[1]

If the theory is to be anything but a dalliance he really needs to engage in conversation. Weinstein may be right, or his ideas may very well stimulate other ideas in the field. But the hard work of debate and discovery comes first, afterwards the headlines.

[1] https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn23595-weinsteins-theo...

noetic_techy2• 6 years ago

The article hints to a correction that was ommitted and the letter it links to is a dead link. I highly doubt he didn't "invite anyone from the physics dept".

Listen to Eric's podcast and you will come to realize that his relationship with mainstream physics dept is much more complex and nuanced.

atombender• 6 years ago

(2013)

loceng2• 6 years ago

Eric Weinstein on April 2nd posted the lecture to his YouTube channel + at the end of video he goes over to clarify some details: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z7rd04KzLcg

I'd recommend his The Portal video podcast series as well: https://www.youtube.com/user/nobani88/videos

Two other recent interviews he did with Lex Fridman https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rIAZJNe7YtE and Joe Rogan https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wf0_nMaQ6tA

noetic_techy2• 6 years ago

As a physics major myself, I'm a huge fan or Eric's work and his new podcast. I think his critic of mainstream string theory and the general malaise of theoretical physics dept globally is spot on. String theory is a dead theory in denial of its failings and lack of experimental evidence for 30 years now. The podcast he did with his "arch nemesis" who had a similar but competing theory was excellent. It shows he is not living in bubble.

Eric Weinstein may have found the answer to physics' biggest problems

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