For those interested in keeping abreast of the latest stuff on string theory and its discontents, some links:
- Jonathan Shock is based in Beijing, and blogging about the Strings 2006 meeting. He’s got a first-day recap including descriptions of several of the talks, and incident events.
- Victor Rivelles is also blogging from Beijing, and has recaps of day one and day two.
- The Paper of Record loves Stephen Hawking, and writes about his visit to China for the conference.
- Christine Dantas has re-posted her top ten lists (which were taken down in part due to some unpleasant comment behavior). The re-posted articles have comments closed, but she invites comments in new posts linking them, so I’ll link those, and you can click through to the full lists: Top Ten String Theory Results, Top Ten Loop Quantum Gravity Results.
- Not a link, but a comment from John Baez in the highly technical comment-thread dispute over the LQG list, that sort of sums the whole thing up: “It’s quite clear that this ‘listing of accomplishments’ is occuring not because theorists are proud of what they’ve achieved, but because people are wondering if they’ve achieved anything at all.” You can decide for yourself based on the lists.
Hi Chad, I think John made over the years many more interesting comments, including of course his wonderful “this week’s finds”. I may not be appreciating the subtelty, but that quote looks to be just mud throwing, made in the grand tradition of “fair and balanced” reporting by being equally dismissive of everyone…
To me the most significant part of that comment thread is the latest highly detailed and technical question posted by Aaron and Jacques regarding one of the claims of LQG. Once again it is left unanswered, you draw your own conclusions.
Hello Chad: The “comment behavior” directed at Christine Dantas also addressed this writer (with photo, no less). You will see that not one electron of my output has been affected. China is a great place to visit, as my photos will show.