24 January 2013

Nicolai leaves the search for a TOE

In his newest summary paper, Nicolai favors a particle "desert", favors the idea of no physics beyond the standard model, favors asymptotic safety, and favors a discrete structure of space-time. Is he a secret fan of the spaghetti model, which is one of the few models making the same claims? No.

Nicolai makes a bizarre move. Even though he shows in his paper that there is no experimental evidence for supersymmetry and string theory, in his conclusion he calls them the "leading contenders".

In politics we describe people doing the opposite of what all arguments and facts imply with a simple epithet: we call them "corrupt". Nicolai is a typical modern theoretical researcher: he bows to money and power, not to truth. As long as he keeps this attitude, Nicolai will not achieve anything in his research.

1 comment:

  1. Clara,

    I am no longer surprised by articles like Nicolai's
    review on Quantum Gravity. It ought to be quite clear by now that many senior people in the theoretical physics establishment refuse to admit that serious mistakes were made at the foundational level. To paraphrase you, "corruption" appears to be the main dish on their menu.

    To his credit, in the last section of the review, Nicolai voices doubts on leading Quantum Gravity programs. It is certainly not enough to convince main researchers in the field and granting agencies that the last decades of investigations have simply failed.

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