OK, this one is just for the physicists among my readers. I just came upon this blog about Lee Smolin's response to a recent paper criticizing QLG. (I'd blogged about that paper a few weeks back) It's basically a cat fight between the String theorists and the Quantum Loop Gravity theorists. And for those who've ever had a comment deleted from a blog, apparently Sheldon Glashow actually got deleted.
What's interesting outside of seeing physicists as humans is that both superstring theory and QLG do appear to be running into problems. A few years ago it honestly seemed at times like a "theory of everything" was around the corner. Now quantum gravity at times seems in the same place that fusion is in. It's always "just around the corner" but frequently one hears of researchers who are fairly burnt out and demoralized. Compare the progress on quantum gravity to the progress on say quantum mechanics back in the 1920's and 1930's. Big difference. Of course one was being pushed primarily by empirical evidence while quantum gravity is primarily theoretical first. But one can't help but wonder at times if perhaps physics isn't on the wrong track somehow.
To be fair, here is a more even handed discussion of things. However I found all the rants in the other rather funny.
I've closed comments in order to avoid spam since I don't check this older blog as much anymore.
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Blogged by Clark Goble