The String Theory Diet

Are you unhappy with the way you look? Feel like you’re carrying around some large extra dimensions? Want to compactify your manifold before the summer conference season gets here?

If you answered “Yes!” to any of those questions, then you’re ready for the String Theory Diet!

Each rich, satisfying meals of eleven-dimensional noodles, and watch the pounds melt away! You’ll lose weight so fast, your friends will think that gravity is leaking off your brane and affecting them more than you! You’ll be your own walking hierarchy problem!

You can lose as much as one Planck mass per Planck time (individual loss rates may vary; past results do not guarantee future performance) using our simple three-step plan. The tenured research job and New York Times best-selling pop science book of your dreams are within your reach!

(Click “Read On” for the diet that wil change your life!)

Actually, I’ve got nothing for you. I just noticed two recurring patterns in blog traffic:

  1. Posts dealing with string theory, even in passing, get a minimum of ten comments.
  2. Posts dealing with weight loss issues, even in passing, get a minimum of ten comments.

I figured a post titled “The String Theory Diet” ought to get into the triple digits… I just wish I had a halfway serious diet plan to go with it– it’d be like a licence to print money.

25 comments

  1. First Post!

    I was hoping you were going to say that you had found a diet that made no observational predictions that were going to be tested any time soon, and as such you could claim as much weight loss as you wanted….

    (OK, nine to go.) (Or is it nineteen? Are weight loss comments orthogonal to string theory comments?)

    -Rob

  3. Yes, he did… but what’s the reasoning behind multiplying the two quantities instead of adding them? I think the correct theoretical prediction is 20+ comments.

  4. I was hoping you were going to say that you had found a diet that made no observational predictions that were going to be tested any time soon, and as such you could claim as much weight loss as you wanted….

    That’s a good one– I wish I’d thought of that angle.

    Yes, he did… but what’s the reasoning behind multiplying the two quantities instead of adding them? I think the correct theoretical prediction is 20+ comments.

    Well, that’s model-dependent…
    I multiplied thm on the theory that the weight-loss commenters and the string-theory commenters might start sniping at one another, generating a much larger number of comments.

    Other models would call for either twenty+ comments, or fewer then ten, as both groups get offended by the frivolity.

  5. Did you ever tried the cold fusion diet? It seems that only a couple of guys at A&M observed any results.

  8. >one Planck mass per Planck time

    Yowza. That’s a loss of about 3 x 10^35 kg/second, if I did the division right in my head! I don’t advise this diet for an extended time. Say, as long as a femtosecond. Even more unhealthy than low-carb dieting…

  10. I like the quantum diet where you’ve both lost and not lost weight until you step on the scale. But if you keep weighing yourself, there’s a very good chance you’ll never lose any weight.

  11. If this is a ploy to get the lurkers to comment, I just wanted to say here that I’m not falling for it. I wouldn’t post just to help you reach your projected total.

    But seriously…it’s kind of interesting how talking about what posts tend to generate more comments, generates more comments. Another case of the measurement changing what is observed?

  12. Ooooff! Snorked coffee all over my keyboard with, “Are weight loss comments orthogonal to string theory comments?” Does that mean we could get to a unique solution?

  16. I don’t have much training in physics, but I think if you eat enough noodles that are shorter than the Planck length you will get nutrition from them without gaining any detectable weight.

  18. Yowza. That’s a loss of about 3 x 10^35 kg/second, if I did the division right in my head! I don’t advise this diet for an extended time.

    Well, individual results may vary…

    Is that extra mass radiated away via the hawking method?

    Yes, but the information content remains, so it’s possible to reconstruct how much you used to weigh, and what you ate to get that way.

  20. Good god, I think you are on to something big here, let me know if you have an opening for a consultant (also, to get to triple digits you’d need to mention the A-word or at the very least the L-word, but then you’ll get triple digit comments on *all* your posts…the same comments in fact…).

  22. to get to triple digits you’d need to mention the A-word or at the very least the L-word, but then you’ll get triple digit comments on *all* your posts…the same comments in fact…

    True.
    I could probably also manage triple-digit comments by posting what I really think about PZ’s Easter post, but I’ve already got stomach problems, so I won’t bother.

    There’s a limit to what I’ll do for comment traffic.

    Here’s my contribution to the “Race to Beat Jim Henley” (881 comments and counting …).

    I have no delusions of catching Jim. I’d like to at least match a slow day on Making Light, though…

  23. I am suspicious of diets, especially those that may be symmetry breaking. The effects relaxes back eventually.

    The best recommendation for a lasting lifestyle I got is to pick nutritious items from different parts of physics, and to do exercises as often as possible.

  24. i really think that if you will just find an endorser for this theory – some sort of god or government think tank, you’ll get even more posts.

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