Not Even Wrong: The Failure of String Theory & the Continuing Challenge to Unify the Laws of Physics [Hardcover]

Peter Woit (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 25, 2006

How does the world work and what is mathematics’ role in its description? An authoritative and well-reasoned account of string theory’s fashionable status among today’s theoretical physicists, and promising new directions, including the role of beauty in mathematics and physics.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"'Peter Woit's book Not even Wrong is an authoritative and well reasoned account of string theory's extremely fashionable status among today's theoretical physicists...I regard it as an important book.' Professor Sir Roger Penrose, author of The Road to Reality."

About the Author

Peter Woit is a physicist and mathematician who is currently a Lecturer in the Mathematics Department at Columbia University. He graduated in 1979 from Harvard University with bachelor's and master's degrees in physics, then went on to get a Ph.D. in theoretical physics from Princeton University. He has been a postdoc at the Institute for Theoretical Physics at Stony Brook and at the Mathematical Sciences Research Institute at Berkeley. Since 1989 he has been teaching at Columbia where in recent years he has taught graduate courses in quantum field theory, representation theory and differential geometry.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 256 pages
• Publisher: Jonathan Cape (April 25, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0224076051
• ISBN-13: 978-0224076050
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.3 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (17 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,556,996 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

22 of 26 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Crackpots? Or just a challenge?, July 13, 2006

By 

Paulo C. Rios Jr. (Europe) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Not Even Wrong: The Failure of String Theory & the Continuing Challenge to Unify the Laws of Physics (Hardcover)

After I read Lubos Motl's review below, I became interested in this book. After I saw that Lubos called Woit and his collegues crackpots in Woit's blog, I became even more interested. As Lubos is a String Theory researcher, one could expect a reaction. But not of this dimension and depth. I have a background in Physics and still love Physics. If this book makes an active Hardvard physics professor spend time on it and call its author a crackpot and the author is an active Columbia physics professor, then it must have something worth it. As the only game in town, String Theory should be challenged. This book does it.

18 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Perfect antidote, July 24, 2006

By 

Couder "JC" (Belgium) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Not Even Wrong: The Failure of String Theory & the Continuing Challenge to Unify the Laws of Physics (Hardcover)

I've been reading popular accounts of physics, esp. cosmology and quantum physics, for the past 30 years. Inevitably, the past 10 - 15 years or so a lot of these books contained many pages extolling the virtues of the new miracle theory (perpetually) on the horizon aka "string theory".
I was always led to believe this theory would finally merge quantum field theory and general relativity, and soon the very first moments of the Big Bang would be a mystery no more.

I should have known something was amiss. Whereas one (a non-physicist I mean) can at least understand the gist of quantum physics and general relativity with at least a minimal understanding of calculus or topology, no such luck with string theory. The message always seemed to be: "string theory involves very, very complicated mathematics, and except for a very few lucky people everyone is just too much of a moron to understand any of it".

After reading Peter Woit's book, I understand why none of the popular books on string theory seem to make much sense. String theory is a dream that someday the magical formula that explains everything will pop out of the vacuum (sorry, infinite number of vacua).

I will continue reading popular science books, including those of the string lovers. But this book is certainly a must read for everyone interested in the frontier of physics.

35 of 45 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An important contribution., June 15, 2006

By 

LEJ Brouwer - See all my reviews

This review is from: Not Even Wrong: The Failure of String Theory & the Continuing Challenge to Unify the Laws of Physics (Hardcover)

Before I begin, let me just mention that my PhD supervisor was (and is) a leading string theorist and author of the recently published 'A First Course in String Theory'.

It is interesting to read the review by Lubos Motl, who is a somewhat extreme example of an outstanding young 'establishment' theoretical physicist who like so many others has been lured onto the string theory bandwagon, which for him has now become an obsession. While attacking Woit's blog, he fails to mention that he himself also has a well-known blog which panders to the cravings of fellow string theory devotees.

His review of Woit's book, like many of his writings, is an exercise in intellectual nit-picking, where the underlying argument can be summarised as, "my (our) mathematical ability and knowledge of theoretical physics is far superior to yours, therefore I (we) are right, and you are (not even) wrong". Motl is the kind of person who would have considered Einstein to be a mathematical lightweight who most likely stumbled upon his theory of relativity more by chance than skill. Indeed, Motl would certainly have been amongst those who poo-pooed Einstein and his ideas until his death. While it is probably true that Motl and many other string theorists like him are technically more sophisticated than Einstein ever was (or could even hope to be back in those days), in terms of originality, creativity and raw insight, Einstein really would put Motl and his ilk to shame. That is why Einstein will always be 'Einstein', and Motl will always be plain 'Motl'. Motl is nothing but a sheep in wolf's clothing.

Putting such things aside, it is certainly true that string theory is by far the most beautiful and complex physical theory that man has ever contemplated, so that it is hardly surprising to find so many young researchers drawn to it. It is also one of the very few theories currently under serious investigation as a possible 'theory of everything', with the potential to unify gravity and the standard model. There was a time long ago when string theory was thought (or rather, hoped) to be a single unique theory, but the proliferation of string vacua (the 'landscape') and the consequent complete lack of predictiveness should, for any reasonable-minded person, dash any hope of it being the 'theory of everything'. Rather, the huge number of manually tunable parameters make it a 'theory of almost anything'. Given any particular universe you can imagine, the chances are that there is a string theory (or more likely, lots of them), which describe it. To still hold on to the vain and distant hope that maybe, just maybe, there is some deep, as yet unknown, underlying symmetry principle which will somehow manage to pick out our particular universe as the only possible one out of the infinite number of possible stringy universes, is beyond wishful thinking - it is an exercise in pure self-delusion. Unfortunately, "all that glitters is not gold" - mathematical beauty in and of itself simply does not imply correctness.

Of course string theory should continue to be studied, but the physics establishment is in a state of crisis when an extraordinarily disproportionate number of people are investigating a model which potentially has nothing useful to say about the real world. Time, money and effort are surely better spent elsewhere.

Even though it may leave a bitter taste in the mouths of the more fanatical string theory advocates, Woit's book remains an important contribution, and for the sake of scientific advancement we would do well to take note of the issues he raises.