Peter Woit
Peter Woit (born September 11, 1957 ) is an American physicist, known as a critic of string theory .
Woit studied physics at Harvard University with a master's degree in 1979 and received his doctorate in 1985 with Curtis Callan at Princeton University . As a post-doctoral student he was at SUNY and MSRI . From 1989 he was Ritt Assistant Professor at Columbia University for four years , where he is now a computer administrator and senior lecturer in the mathematics faculty.
He is known through his bestseller Not even wrong as a critic of string theory, which he considers speculative and hardly verifiable, but still attracts a large number of theorists and research funds who, in his opinion, would be better spent in other areas. Woit doesn't even find string theory aesthetically pleasing from a mathematical standpoint. The title is borrowed from a disparaging remark by Wolfgang Pauli for theories that are not even wrong (since they cannot be checked). Around the same time, Lee Smolin published a book of similar tenor ( The Trouble with Physics ). Woit also has a blog of the same name (Not even wrong).
As a theoretical physicist, he deals with quantum field theories.
In addition to being a US citizen, he has a Latvian passport because his parents fled Riga after World War II.
Fonts
- Not Even Wrong: The Failure of String Theory & the Continuing Challenge to Unify the Laws of Physics , Basic Books 2006
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ For example Woit: String theory, an evaluation, 2008
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Woit, Peter |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | American physicist |
| DATE OF BIRTH | September 11, 1957 |