Three mathematicians - one famous - make a fool of themselves

Three men, the famous Michael Atiyah, together with Nicholas S. Manton and Bernd J. Schroers, propose "Geometric Models of Matter".

This is modern academic comedy writing. You will note that they do not speak about quarks, nor about W and Z bosons. They also have problems incorporating spin 1/2. Nor do they describe interactions.

In short, they neglect most of modern physics, but still claim to have done something sensible. What is the truth? They just played a little with their favorite mathematical concepts. But they did not do anything sensible.

It seems that Atiyah has completely lost contact with reality. What a pity - he was one of the sharpest minds of mathematics.

A further theoretician prefers prejudice to facts

Just read and enjoy this blog entry by L. Motl. It is incredible how deep a really smart man can fall.

A real smart man, Motl is led into a really primitive trap by the author of the preprint he is discussing. The otherwise unknown author, a certain Archil Kobakhidze, suggests that Verlinde's idea implies a momentum operator for a particle that differs from the usual one. Why? He does not say so - he just refers to another paper of his. (That is already a completely unprofessional attitude in itself. A woman could never write a paper like that.) Read that other paper, and you will find that the author is in need - well, let's say - of soothing care. The argument against gravity being entropic is deeply flawed, and obviously so, but Motl doesn't want to acknowledge this.

Two poor men, and now a woman is telling them all this ...