Word: smolin
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...doubters are becoming more vocal. Skeptical bloggers have become increasingly critical of the theory, and next month two books will be hitting the shelves to make the point in greater detail. Not Even Wrong, by Columbia University mathematician Peter Woit, and The Trouble with Physics, by Lee Smolin at the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics in Waterloo, Ont., both argue that string theory (or superstring theory, as it is also known) is largely a fad propped up by practitioners who tend to be arrogantly dismissive of anyone who dare suggest that the emperor has no clothes...
...seemed, this scheme appeared on first blush to explain why particles have the characteristics they do. As a side benefit, it also included a quantum version of gravity and thus of relativity. Just as important, nobody had a better idea. So lots of physicists, including Woit and Smolin, began working...
Most scientists are wary of abandoning time, but Barbour's idea is taken quite seriously by such respected physicists as Penn State's Lee Smolin and the University of Alberta's Don Page. There may even be a way to test it experimentally; a consequence of Barbour's theory is that the universe would be filled with more black holes and neutron stars than experts believe. If so, we could know within a decade whether his theory is supported by astronomical observations--and whether the ideas of time we've clung to for most of human history will...