I'm pretty thoroughly disgusted with the string theory arguments at the moment, so I told myself I wasn't going to say more about the subject. And then, they post a detailed explanation of what strings have to do with RHIC over at Backreaction....
Given my preference for layman-level science blogging over dense technical science blogging, I can't not link to it. If you've wondered what that particular argument is about, but can't make heads or tails of the ArXiV preprints usually offered as explanation, take a look at this post. The English is shaky at points, but that's because the authors aren't native speakers, not because they're not trying.
And that's really the last thing I'm going to say about string theory for the next month or so.
More like this
Sorry for the missed weeks of friday pathological programming language columns. To be honest, I'm running out of languages. I'm sure there must be more, but my usual sources (dealers?) are running out - so send links!
If you regularly follow comments on this blog, you'll know that I've been
having a back-and-forth with a guy who doesn't know much about information
theory, and who's been using his ignorance to try to assemble arguments against the
Bret Underwood, a friend of mine from my time in Madison, WI, saw my post on String Theory, and took issue with my statement that it wasn't testable. I'm still standing behind what I said, but let's address what Bret has to say.
Sharon Begley has an interesting column today in the WSJ on the growing chorus of voices aiming to discredit string theory.