The current crop of String Theory Backlash books has a lot of people wondering about what will replace string theory as the top fad in theoretical physics. Other people (well, ok, me) are worried about a more important question: What will replace string theory as the most over-hyped area in theoretical physics?<\/p>\n
Dave Bacon selflessly offers up his own field of quantum information<\/a>, noting that Lee Smolin praises quantum computing theorists as “young” and “smart.” As Dave notes, this is the physics equivalent of “hip” or “hot” in more general pop culture.<\/p>\n And Scott Aaronson offers further evidence of the coming dominance of quantum information, pre-empting skeptics with a list of reasons to believe in quantum computation<\/a>. Is there any surer sign of scientific overreach than making dubious lists of accomplishments to justify your field? I don’t think so…<\/p>\n It may take a while to arrive, but twenty years from now, when the science world is all abuzz about the publication of Peter Shor Is a Big Fat Idiot<\/cite>, remember, you heard it here first: Quantum Computing is the next String Theory.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n (Just in case it isn’t obvious, this is not a serious post– quantum computing is on more solid ground than string theory, and in no real danger of overhype…)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The current crop of String Theory Backlash books has a lot of people wondering about what will replace string theory as the top fad in theoretical physics. Other people (well, ok, me) are worried about a more important question: What will replace string theory as the most over-hyped area in theoretical physics? Dave Bacon selflessly… Continue reading The Next String Theory<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"1","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-596","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-physics","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/596","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=596"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/596\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=596"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=596"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=596"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}