As usual I think that Woit's blog post is unnecessarily polarizing. If you decide to read his post then I would recommend you also read the excellent comment by Marty Tysanner on the same page.
Also, sigh. If you dig deep into the dark corners of the internets then I am sure that you can find fake anything. Focus on the beauty and the truth, people. For example:
> also read the excellent comment by Marty Tysanner on the same page.
also read Woit's sensible reply to that comment and MT's re-reply. I agree Woit is polarizing but maybe not unnecessarily.
because the problems he points out are not hidden in the dark corners of the internets but all over the mainstream media - and arxiv too, and backed with millions of dollars.
- The detection of gravitational waves has been expected for decades based on the orbital decay of binary neutron star systems
- There have been dozens of 'bumps' in the data that went away over the past several years. The Standard Model still stands and there's no BSM physics that we've found. I'd bet the bump goes away just like the recent 750 GeV bump.
- The magnetic moment of the proton and antiproton being the same is also not BSM physics at all.
The problem is that fundamental elementary physics continues to boringly grind along and validate the standard model and things that we already knew had to be found (Higgs, LIGO).
The result in the popular press, though, is that multiverse mania has taken over, which is a non-solution to the problem. You'll actually find arguments that we stop thinking about alternatives to string theory and just assume it works because its beautiful, but it can never be measured--which is not a scientific argument.
500 years from now if we haven't made any progress we might wind up going "meh, probably string theory, but we'll never know", but its too soon to throw in the towel yet.
> very accessible overview of particle physics in 2016
In general, Symmetry is an excellent site; they describe themselves as "An online magazine about particle physics" and are funded by the US Department of Energy, via Fermilab and SLAC. Recommend having a closer look http://www.symmetrymagazine.org/
We need to make sure we're not ignoring motives we don't understand. That happened in the Republican primary, the general election, and perhaps now, too.
also read Woit's sensible reply to that comment and MT's re-reply. I agree Woit is polarizing but maybe not unnecessarily.
because the problems he points out are not hidden in the dark corners of the internets but all over the mainstream media - and arxiv too, and backed with millions of dollars.