19 October 2012

Funny Old Men - Funnier Than Lance Armstrong

Those men over 45 who work as professors of theoretical particle physics are among the most ridiculous groups on the planet. Look at these adorers of supersymmetry, of loop quantum gravity or of strings; look at the lies they told to students and colleagues all along their careers.

Lance Armstrong was a crook who rode bicycles and misled his public. But at least he was hiding what he did - and he still knew that he was lying. And few others knew. Instead, these physics professors who went on lying to the public were never taken seriously by the public. Everybody knew that they were lying. But because nobody complained or told them - after all, who cares about a few old men lying about particle theory - the professors slowly started to believe that they were right. This is not "Lie strong", it is much more extreme and tragic.

Such extreme cases are usually only found in psychiatric wards. The coming years will be fun, when we will see the puzzled looks on the faces of these particle professors. We will witness personal excuses, collective excuses, finger-pointing, attacks against people who did no harm, attacks on those who point out the mistakes, and all other symptoms of denial. At the moment, there is only shock. Collective shock. They are waking up. They cannot avoid accepting that experiment is refuting their theories.

The most ridiculous are those professors whole believe that they are smarter than normal people. Fact is: normal people know exactly as much about unification as the professors do: namely nothing. The professors tried and struggled all their life. They studied physics, got a PhD, published research, went to conferences, exchanged ideas with other smart people. But they achieved nothing. Not even a little bit. All professors together do not know more than the beggar around the corner. 

Such things happen when men do not listen to us women.






14 October 2012

Arxiv Desert: Shocked Old Male Researchers Allow Younger Ones a Fresh Start

Do you follow the papers in arxiv/hep-th? This is the section where the smartest and most driven physicists of the planet publish their efforts for a theory of everything. It is always worth looking at the papers. But what do we learn?

Since years, the hep-th collection has not produced a good idea for unification. Supersymmetry, string theory and loop quantum gravity all failed. But nothing else is coming up. How can this be? How can it be that all these smart people fail? What are these (mostly) men doing?

One commenter explained that they are waiting for data. But the LHC has not provided new data at all. It only has proven almost every past candidate theory wrong. Yes, string theorists are right: loop quantum gravity is wrong. Yes, loop quantum gravity people are right: string theory is also wrong. Yes, most experimentalists were also right: supersymmetry is wrong. Are all these smart theory researchers still waiting for data that will not come? Or are they all still in state of shock?

How long will it take until, among these smart men, finally one or two shake off their state of shock and make a fresh proposal? How long will you men accept that a woman makes fun of your lack of courage and lack of competence?

Most string theorists have changed to loop quantum gravity bashers. Most normal physicists have started making fun of string theory. Guys, what are you waiting for? The challenge of a final theory is still there, and all the smart people are out of the race: In the US, Witten, Seiberg, Maldacena, Arkani-Hamed, Woit, Smolin and all the rest have given up; in France, most have given up, and the same happened in Spain, Germany, Italy and Greece.

The race is open again! Young guys, what are you waiting for? Or do we need to wait for a female Asian physicist to shock all the old white western males? Young guys, get your act together! Make the old theory researchers look what they actually are: a group of ridiculous and grumpy creatures.