Freedom of Science

Not Even Wrong points to a paper by the string theorist Moataz Emam that asks the question So what will you do if string theory is wrong? As an answer he suggests that physics may divest itself from string theory and create a new academic department equidistant from physics and mathematics. I believe that my […]

Very interesting work by Dmitri Tymoczko. This site says Tymoczko borrowed
some of the mathematics that string theorists invented to plumb the secrets of the physical universe and found a way to represent the universe of all possible musical chords in graphic form.
I don’t know if the reference to string theory is justified but in Dualism and […]

After writing to Perimeter Institute and Templeton Foundation here’s my proposal to National Science Foundation. In this case I am emphasizing experimental focus of Freedom of Science. Ninety per cent1 of Doctors of Philosophy licensed to practice research physics2 are paid by NSF. For instance, NSF paid Ed Witten to write about Magic, Mystery and […]

I decided to draft proposals that I may or may not send to institutions that may or may not fund Freedom of Science blog. Here’s the first one written to Perimeter Institute. Since Perimeter Institute is interested in foundational issues I have emphasized a foundational slant in this proposal.
Perimeter Institute was founded by Mike Lazaridis […]

After a slow start US/LHC bloggers are finally starting to write about physics rather than their weekend trips to Lake Leman. Here’s a post full of physics where Peter Steinberg asks if Branes Has A Flavor? The post is about a workshop called AdS Strings Intersect with Nuclear Beams at Columbia. 
Strings live in Anti de […]

In a paper just posted to the arxiv a well-known string theorist claims that String Theory has finally made a hard scientific prediction and that this prediction is now confirmed by experiments. This incredible claim is causing quite a buzz in the scientific community. The claim is that String Theory predicts two new solutions as […]

Is String Theory physics? For physicists physics is a synonym for science therefore the question Is String Theory physics is same as the question Is String Theory science?
But if String Theory is not science as the majority of physicists believe can physics still be considered science? Not really. String Theory is physics. And String Theory […]

Flip tomato presents this as a joke:
 
But this is not a joke. It is a visual representation of the state of academic physics.
I would make one change on the plot. The plot is not Contributions v. Talent. In physics talent has no value. The currency of physics is authority. Therefore, the plot must be Publication […]

At Theorema Egregium nc quoted Imre Lakatos:
Scientists … do not abandon a theory merely because facts contradict it. They normally either invent some rescue hypothesis to explain what they then call a mere anomaly or, if they cannot explain the anomaly, they ignore it….
I would change “scientists” to “physicists” because this is a trick physicists, […]

After reading a summary of Witten’s upcoming paper at Not Even Wrong I posted Witten’s Pyramid of Authority and also wrote about Witten’s toy fiefdom.
People who actually read the paper could not control their sarcasm either: gunpowder&noodles commenting on Not Even Wrong wrote:
For all my admiration for EW, and gratitude to him for the way he […]