Well, now that laserboy at ArsTechnica has weighed in, I think we can consider the matter settled. Let's all close the book on this one and head over to Fox News for some insight on foreign policy, then to Slashdot for a nice explanation of copyright law, and finally hit up Penthouse forum for some solid relationship advice.

It's pretty silly that people keep making a big deal about this guy being a "surfer"...

He has a PhD in theoretical physics... and also happens to be a surfer. So what?

But he doesn't claim to have a theory of everything! He claims that the E8 polytope is significant to physics, and I have a feeling it is.

Yes, he claims. Or at least his paper is titled: "An Exceptionally Simple Theory of Everything".

The title is a pun actually, as the E8 group is technically both "exceptional" and "simple", in the mathematical sense of those terms, if i recall correctly.

so the title is a joke of sorts.

I didn't bookmark it and can't immediately find it, but I saw him say that he would be very surprised if his theory was universal truth and that the probability of him being correct was low -- but he thought he had a better shot at it than string theory.

if i were a physicist, i'd be very skeptical of any single person claiming to have a definitive solution to a challenging open problem.

also, i'd be keen to prevent social science people from pulling a reverse Sokal hoax.

then again, i don't know diddly squat about physics.

Very interesting!! Read also: http://motls.blogspot.com/2007/11/exceptionally-simple-theor... (linked in the article)

Lubos Motl's a string theorist. String theory is not really a science anymore... it's approaching religion: it's not falsifiable and you can "prove" anything using string theory... literally anything you want. I wouldn't trust his review of any opposing theory. You're better off reading what Lee Smolin or Peter Woit have to say. At least they're objective.

I don't know Lubos Motl, but I'm sure you can be a good scientist working in string theory; ie: trying to make it falsifiable. I'm sure if the argument is "Motl works in string theory => Motl is not a scientist", then it's not a valid argument.

That's not what I said at all. Your second post is more in line with what I said.

Lee Smolin was/is a string theorist too but at least he's objective and is not religious about ST like Motl and some others.

This is a good link: http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/14.09/stringtheory.html

I know about the case "not even wrong" and all that, and I agree. My point is: you can be a good string theorist, as well as you keep objective, as you say. I agree with that. Otherwise, we risk repeating the history: Schwartz was being believed to be nuts, until his team found some new interesting stuff. We don't know if that can happen again...

Thanks a lot for the article, too.

But now I know better about the specific case of Motl: http://backreaction.blogspot.com/2007/08/lubo-motl.html

Reality makes perfect sense if you consider that we're a simulation. Then the fact that solids really aren't is no more surprising than characters in a 3D game finding the same thing -- they aren't solid, they are composed of electrical signals, wtf?!?

I admit this doesn't help explain what's "up a level", other than "some sort of computer".