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Peter Woit

Not even wrong

Peter Woit has a blog with the same title as this book, which has a popular following, and from the advanced sales it looks like the book's performance may be equally impressive. Woit's arguments against string theory are certainly very persuasive. One reads how initial hopes that the theory would lead to a unique explanation of quantum gravity were disappointed, and how the predictions of eventual success of the theory are being pushed ever further into the future.Woit also expresses his frustrations at some of the failings of the academic establishment, which will make the book useful reading for anyone considering a scientific career.

The trouble is all that is in the last third of the book. Woit clearly feels that he has to give some background to the subject, and the first two-thirds are taken up with a history of theoretical particle physics. Now I appreciate that Woit is trying to make the book into a consistent whole, which is not possible for a blog which relies on external links. However I think he is facing an impossible task trying to explain gauge theory and group representations to his intended audience and I feel that many readers will struggle and give up with this material and the rest of the book will remain 'not even read'. That's not to say it isn't well written - I found that it helped to link together various parts of the subject - but I didn't think it was needed in order to appreciate the rest of the book.

Amazon.com info

Hardcover 320 pages
ISBN: 0465092756
Salesrank: 415075
Weight:1.25 lbs

Published: 2006 Basic Books

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Hardcover 256 pages
ISBN: 0224076051
Salesrank: 215119
Weight:1.28 lbs

Published: 2006 Jonathan Cape

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Amazon.ca info

Hardcover 320 pages
ISBN: 0465092756
Salesrank: 90147
Weight:1.25 lbs

Published: 2006 Basic Books

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Product Description
At what point does theory depart the realm of testable hypothesis and come to resemble something like aesthetic speculation, or even theology? The legendary physicist Wolfgang Pauli had a phrase for such ideas: He would describe them as "not even wrong," meaning that they were so incomplete that they could not even be used to make predictions to compare with observations to see whether they were wrong or not. In Peter Woit's view, superstring theory is just such an idea. In Not Even Wrong, he shows that what many physicists call superstring "theory" is not a theory at all. It makes no predictions, even wrong ones, and this very lack of falsifiability is what has allowed the subject to survive and flourish. Not Even Wrong explains why the mathematical conditions for progress in physics are entirely absent from superstring theory today and shows that judgments about scientific statements, which should be based on the logical consistency of argument and experimental evidence, are instead based on the eminence of those claiming to know the truth. In the face of many books from enthusiasts for string theory, this book presents the other side of the story.

Product Description

At what point does theory depart the realm of testable hypothesis and come to resemble something like aesthetic speculation, or even theology? The legendary physicist Wolfgang Pauli had a phrase for such ideas: He would describe them as "not even wrong," meaning that they were so incomplete that they could not even be used to make predictions to compare with observations to see whether they were wrong or not. In Peter Woit's view, superstring theory is just such an idea. In Not Even Wrong, he shows that what many physicists call superstring "theory" is not a theory at all. It makes no predictions, even wrong ones, and this very lack of falsifiability is what has allowed the subject to survive and flourish. Not Even Wrong explains why the mathematical conditions for progress in physics are entirely absent from superstring theory today and shows that judgments about scientific statements, which should be based on the logical consistency of argument and experimental evidence, are instead based on the eminence of those claiming to know the truth. In the face of many books from enthusiasts for string theory, this book presents the other side of the story.

be warned, this is a history book. *
First, some reviews say this is not a book for laymen. They're reading it wrong. I don't get the impression that even those with degrees in physics will be familiar with everything term this book, ... and much of it isn't explained. It isn't "not explained" because he expects you to already know, .. it's not explained because it doesn't matter. "In 1937 someone-or-ruther discovered the xyz theory and it was very important." Doesn't mean you should be able to derive a proof for xyz theory. You don't even really have to understand what exactly it says, .. and you won't unless you read another book. I'm not physicist. I just read over the names and keep going. but when it comes down to it,.... a hundred of pages of dates and theory names are BORING. To me. I don't care about history. Maybe someone else wants to read about what particle accelerators cost how much money. Next, ... from the reviews I read here on amazon I expected to be getting a book that would tell me a little bit about the history of string theory, give me some idea of where it was lacking, and maybe some kind of picture of where physics is going. I feel like, so far, this is not what I got. Maybe I should have read "the trouble with Physics" ? I'm at page 140. I might give up. I just finally now hit the first chapter that relates at all to string theory. It is also a history chapter. Maybe I should have started at page 140? I didn't want to read a pure history book. Finally: Early on he describes his decision to study mathematics. He says that if he were to keep studying physics, he would have to work on string theory to get funding, and he didn't want to. I thought that was an interesting predicament for him to be in, and it starts to hint at some kind of a political situation in academia. That little story was about all I got so far that interested me. He goes on to describe how math is important to physics, and, undervalued. Since then, there's been some reference to how undervalued math (his field) is in physics (the field he's complaining about) in every chapter since. Maybe more than once a chapter. Maybe once a paragraph. Maybe once a sentence. ok, maybe I'm exaggerating. I'm bored of it. I really don't care. I just want to hear what the argument is about string theory. I don't even know anything about string theory,... I was curious, and so far I still don't have any idea what it is. I know it involves lots of dimensions and some kind of strings. I knew that much before I started reading! It makes me feel pretty frustrated that I had this book mailed all the way to china, and carried it around for half a year thinking it was going to interest me when I finally got some free time to read it. I'm going back and reading the reviews again. It looks like those who did read both books say the other one is better. I was going to give this book two stars... but since another book exists saying the exact same thing but better, It's only getting one. It might be a good book for someone. It just wasn't what I was looking for, and I feel like the existing reviews are sort of mis-leading in terms of what this book is about. If you want to read a history of math/physics then fine, go for it... or... well, ... maybe still you should read "the trouble with physics" instead?

be warned, this is a history book. *

First, some reviews say this is not a book for laymen. They're reading it wrong. I don't get the impression that even those with degrees in physics will be familiar with everything term this book, ... and much of it isn't explained.

It isn't "not explained" because he expects you to already know, .. it's not explained because it doesn't matter.

"In 1937 someone-or-ruther discovered the xyz theory and it was very important." Doesn't mean you should be able to derive a proof for xyz theory. You don't even really have to understand what exactly it says, .. and you won't unless you read another book. I'm not physicist. I just read over the names and keep going.

but when it comes down to it,.... a hundred of pages of dates and theory names are BORING.

To me. I don't care about history. Maybe someone else wants to read about what particle accelerators cost how much money.

Next, ... from the reviews I read here on amazon I expected to be getting a book that would tell me a *little* bit about the history of string theory, give me some idea of where it was lacking, and maybe some kind of picture of where physics is going.

I feel like, so far, this is not what I got. Maybe I should have read "the trouble with Physics" ?

I'm at page 140. I might give up. I just finally now hit the first chapter that relates at all to string theory. It is also a history chapter. Maybe I should have started at page 140?

I didn't want to read a pure history book.

Finally:

Early on he describes his decision to study mathematics. He says that if he were to keep studying physics, he would have to work on string theory to get funding, and he didn't want to. I thought that was an interesting predicament for him to be in, and it starts to hint at some kind of a political situation in academia. That little story was about all I got so far that interested me.

He goes on to describe how math is important to physics, and, undervalued.

Since then, there's been some reference to how undervalued math (his field) is in physics (the field he's complaining about) in every chapter since. Maybe more than once a chapter. Maybe once a paragraph. Maybe once a sentence. ok, maybe I'm exaggerating.

I'm bored of it. I really don't care. I just want to hear what the argument is about string theory. I don't even know anything about string theory,... I was curious, and so far I still don't have any idea what it is. I know it involves lots of dimensions and some kind of strings. I knew that much before I started reading!

It makes me feel pretty frustrated that I had this book mailed all the way to china, and carried it around for half a year thinking it was going to interest me when I finally got some free time to read it.

I'm going back and reading the reviews again. It looks like those who did read both books say the other one is better. I was going to give this book two stars... but since another book exists saying the exact same thing but better, It's only getting one.

It might be a good book for someone. It just wasn't what I was looking for, and I feel like the existing reviews are sort of mis-leading in terms of what this book is about. If you want to read a history of math/physics then fine, go for it... or... well, ... maybe still you should read "the trouble with physics" instead?

The emperor has no clothes *****
I am writing this blurb in reply to Lubos Motl's (you guess it, another String practitioner whose livelihood is being threatened by this book) comment. The fact that Peter Woit runs a blog critical of String only shows that he is consistent with his opinions. It should shock any impartial observer that in the eye of String practitioners--Lubos Motl being by no means exceptional among String people--this somehow automatically qualifies Woit and his readers as "crackpots". But what is even more shocking is the comparison to William Dembski's ID (Intelligent Design) blog, because String itself actually provides the perfect analogy to ID. Let me elaborate. At the height of the recent Pennsylvania ID trial, many education experts came forward to defend the theory of Evolution. One of the hotly debated issues was the definition of a "theory" in science. The ID people, including Mr. George W the Decider, have argued repeatedly that, since Evolution is just a theory, other theories such as ID deserve at least some mention in the classrooms. The defenders of Evolution rely on the rebuttal that a theory in science actually means something that provides the best framework to explain a multitude of independent observations or experimental results and therefore has been accepted by scientific community at large. This, of course, is a lie. String has been paraded as a "theory" in every physics department for over two decades, and yet not only has it produced no testable prediction but it will almost certainly never be able to do so. This puts String squarely in the company of ID. Furthermore, just like ID has morphed constantly, free of the constraint of experimental confirmation, String has changed constantly ever since its inception. In other words, not only does String produce untestable predictions, but these predictions also change from year to year, often dramatically and in a mutually contradictive way. (Have they settled on the dimensionality of space-time yet? Is it 26, 10, 11, or all of the above?) Other similarities exist, chief among them the religious ferver driving both groups to influence popular opinions and police dissenting thoughts, as exemplified by Lubos Motl's criticism of this book. But there is one big difference between String and ID. The String practitioners are insiders of the science community. They hire their own and make sure String-related papers get published. When a group dominates the peer-review process, it controls the career of every physicist in related fields. It then gains the power to influence, bribe, coerce and intimidate. Of the five purported String supporters in general physics cited by Motl, I have not worked with Gell-Mann or Hawking, so I don't know what their excuses are (or if they actually need one, since String people tend to misrepresent general enthusiasm for high-energy theories as specific support for String). Prof. Weinberg is the head of a large String group even though he did not publish many real String papers himself. I would certainly count him in the String camp. Dr. Randall and Dr. Arkani-Hamid both took advantage of String referee's eagerness to find supporting work and padded their publication counts with a series of well-publicized "String-Phenomenology" (an oxymoron) papers, thus can hardly be called disinterested third parties either. The rest of Motl's criticism can be condensed into two simple arguments. The first is that the author does not know details in String as well as he does. This is probably correct technically, particularly in light of the freely changing nature of String's "conclusions". But the core message (as well as the title) of the book is not that String gets the details wrong but that String has no details that can be proven wrong (or right). In this sense, Motl's straw-man argument is irrelevant. The second point Motl made is, "The problematic statement that string theory makes no prediction is repeated hundreds of times, and in many particular contexts, such a statement becomes not only boring but also patently false." But Motl did not offer any justification why that statement is false. He simply proceeded to throw out more buzzwords and correct more details. One has to conclude that these buzzwords are nothing more than smoke screens meant to obscure the fact no justification could possibly be offered for his claim. String is a unique phenomenon. It is the most "successful" pseudo science in modern history. Its catalyst is the unprecedented absence of real experimental input in high-energy physics during the past 30 years. Like a cancer, it turns otherwise worthy members of a formerly proud body into the self-promoting endlessly-propagating automatons sucking all resources dry. Later generations of historians of science will surely make their careers studying this bizarre event. Yet it has not begun. This book is not perfect, but as the first formal effort to recognize and document this historical phenomenon, it is a must read.

The emperor has no clothes *****

I am writing this blurb in reply to Lubos Motl's (you guess it, another String practitioner whose livelihood is being threatened by this book) comment.

The fact that Peter Woit runs a blog critical of String only shows that he is consistent with his opinions. It should shock any impartial observer that in the eye of String practitioners--Lubos Motl being by no means exceptional among String people--this somehow automatically qualifies Woit and his readers as "crackpots". But what is even more shocking is the comparison to William Dembski's ID (Intelligent Design) blog, because String itself actually provides the perfect analogy to ID.

Let me elaborate. At the height of the recent Pennsylvania ID trial, many education experts came forward to defend the theory of Evolution. One of the hotly debated issues was the definition of a "theory" in science. The ID people, including Mr. George W the Decider, have argued repeatedly that, since Evolution is just a theory, other theories such as ID deserve at least some mention in the classrooms. The defenders of Evolution rely on the rebuttal that a theory in science actually means something that provides the best framework to explain a multitude of independent observations or experimental results and therefore has been accepted by scientific community at large. This, of course, is a lie. String has been paraded as a "theory" in every physics department for over two decades, and yet not only has it produced no testable prediction but it will almost certainly never be able to do so. This puts String squarely in the company of ID. Furthermore, just like ID has morphed constantly, free of the constraint of experimental confirmation, String has changed constantly ever since its inception. In other words, not only does String produce untestable predictions, but these predictions also change from year to year, often dramatically and in a mutually contradictive way. (Have they settled on the dimensionality of space-time yet? Is it 26, 10, 11, or all of the above?)

Other similarities exist, chief among them the religious ferver driving both groups to influence popular opinions and police dissenting thoughts, as exemplified by Lubos Motl's criticism of this book. But there is one big difference between String and ID. The String practitioners are insiders of the science community. They hire their own and make sure String-related papers get published. When a group dominates the peer-review process, it controls the career of every physicist in related fields. It then gains the power to influence, bribe, coerce and intimidate.

Of the five purported String supporters in general physics cited by Motl, I have not worked with Gell-Mann or Hawking, so I don't know what their excuses are (or if they actually need one, since String people tend to misrepresent general enthusiasm for high-energy theories as specific support for String). Prof. Weinberg is the head of a large String group even though he did not publish many real String papers himself. I would certainly count him in the String camp. Dr. Randall and Dr. Arkani-Hamid both took advantage of String referee's eagerness to find supporting work and padded their publication counts with a series of well-publicized "String-Phenomenology" (an oxymoron) papers, thus can hardly be called disinterested third parties either.

The rest of Motl's criticism can be condensed into two simple arguments. The first is that the author does not know details in String as well as he does. This is probably correct technically, particularly in light of the freely changing nature of String's "conclusions". But the core message (as well as the title) of the book is not that String gets the details wrong but that String has no details that can be proven wrong (or right). In this sense, Motl's straw-man argument is irrelevant.

The second point Motl made is, "The problematic statement that string theory makes no prediction is repeated hundreds of times, and in many particular contexts, such a statement becomes not only boring but also patently false." But Motl did not offer any justification why that statement is false. He simply proceeded to throw out more buzzwords and correct more details. One has to conclude that these buzzwords are nothing more than smoke screens meant to obscure the fact no justification could possibly be offered for his claim.

String is a unique phenomenon. It is the most "successful" pseudo science in modern history. Its catalyst is the unprecedented absence of real experimental input in high-energy physics during the past 30 years. Like a cancer, it turns otherwise worthy members of a formerly proud body into the self-promoting endlessly-propagating automatons sucking all resources dry. Later generations of historians of science will surely make their careers studying this bizarre event. Yet it has not begun. This book is not perfect, but as the first formal effort to recognize and document this historical phenomenon, it is a must read.

Deep, deep Thoughts ***
I picked up "Not Even Wrong" after working my way through "The Trouble with Physics" by Lee Smolin. Both books attack the problems of string theory from much the same direction - string theory shows none of the results necessary to be classified as anything more than a new type of math. In other words, if you can't use it to predict any new results and it only confirms old results by presetting all your variables to already known values, it's not science. And the opposite of science is religion, which is exactly how a lot of string theory adherents view this new math. "The Trouble with Physics" is an easier read, with lots of background, history and characters. "Not Even Wrong" assumes you are already up to speed on the theory, because Peter Wolfe spends very little time spoonfeeding the precepts and gets down to foundation level problems immediately. I have no background past high school level math and physics but can usually hold my own with popular science texts. I would not recommend "Not Even Wrong" as a beginning text or even intermediate - this is for people who understand the concepts already.

Deep, deep Thoughts ***

I picked up "Not Even Wrong" after working my way through "The Trouble with Physics" by Lee Smolin. Both books attack the problems of string theory from much the same direction - string theory shows none of the results necessary to be classified as anything more than a new type of math. In other words, if you can't use it to predict any new results and it only confirms old results by presetting all your variables to already known values, it's not science. And the opposite of science is religion, which is exactly how a lot of string theory adherents view this new math. "The Trouble with Physics" is an easier read, with lots of background, history and characters. "Not Even Wrong" assumes you are already up to speed on the theory, because Peter Wolfe spends very little time spoonfeeding the precepts and gets down to foundation level problems immediately. I have no background past high school level math and physics but can usually hold my own with popular science texts. I would not recommend "Not Even Wrong" as a beginning text or even intermediate - this is for people who understand the concepts already.

The religion of string theory ****
In the 90's, I started hearing about this wonderful leap in our understanding of physics, called "string theory". From the brief clips that I had read, I thought. "Wow, I want to know more." So when, "The Elegant Universe" came out, I immediately bought it and read it. The book was very well written, and everything was presented in such an exuberant, upbeat manner. The illustrations were entertaining, but really all of the things that he covered scientifically, I knew had already been discovered previous to string theory. There were no new discoveries in the book, but everything in the book was being mixed with string theory, and then it was given a wonderful send off, with how string theory could solve everything. I'm sorry, but I couldn't at that point help but feel, that I had just been given a heaping helping dose of complete BS. He did add a lot of sugar to it though. No new discoveries. No real predictions. But lots of hopeful innuendoes, and future promises, if only the universe was in 10 dimensions. If, if, if, and then, wouldn't it all be grand. I thought that I was all alone in feeling that the wool was being pulled down over my eyes. I thought that maybe there was something wrong with me. I read the book a second time, a few years later, and I bought Greene's second book, "The Fabric of the Cosmos", and yet still, my BS meter kept going off. It was kind of like those commercials that say things like. "This product works five times better than the leading brand." ...leading brand of what? Finally some other books started coming out that explained that I was not the only one who felt this way. I read Lawrence Krauss' book, "Hiding in the Mirror". It was nice and polite in saying that "string theory" may not be the answer after all. Lee Smolin came out with, "The Trouble with Physics". That book was even better at showing "string theory" for the mistake that it is, and how the physics academia have shamelessly promoted it. It made me feel sorry for those that were trying to pursue a higher education in physics. Finally this book, "Not Even Wrong" written by Peter Woit. I've gotta admit that most of what he says in the first half of his book is over my head. I have never studied the math that is involved with particle physics or "string theory", but Woit has. He can point out all of the flaws in detail with "String Theory". From about chapter 12 on, I understood the ideas represented and discussed. String theorists use phrases like, "It's the only game in town.", and "It's so elegant and beautiful, that there must be some truth to it." This book shows that some games just aren't worth playing, especially if you can never win. He also points out that the math involved is not really elegant or beautiful at all. Can "String Theory" be proven wrong? No. But that's because it makes no predictions about anything. It's like an incomplete sentence. "The sky is ....". String theorists have been saying for over 20 years that they are just that close to solving everything. Woit can tell you that that's complete and total BS. No amount of math can complete the sentence and solve everything. "Not Even Wrong" is also good at showing the scary situation that the physics community is in right now. Their self glorifying promotion, the greed, and pride have all attributed to this terrible situation in which they have created a belief system that is completely false. It is no longer science anymore, but they have gone so far down that road into falsehood that they are too embarrassed to say that they were mistaken. They have become a false religion of physics. Scientists are not better people like they want you to believe. They are just people. They are prone to the same mistakes that everyone else is. Just as there are some good people, there are also some good scientists, but the opposite is also true. Don't be mislead. If you are a student of physics in college, "Not Even Wrong" really should be read by you. "The Trouble with Physics" was an easier read, and so if you are a layman with a basic knowledge of physics, this book would be for you. If you are just beginning your adventure in science and physics, but are wondering about "string theory", "Hiding in the Mirror" would be the easiest book to understand.

The religion of string theory ****

In the 90's, I started hearing about this wonderful leap in our understanding of physics, called "string theory". From the brief clips that I had read, I thought. "Wow, I want to know more." So when, "The Elegant Universe" came out, I immediately bought it and read it.
The book was very well written, and everything was presented in such an exuberant, upbeat manner. The illustrations were entertaining, but really all of the things that he covered scientifically, I knew had already been discovered previous to string theory. There were no new discoveries in the book, but everything in the book was being mixed with string theory, and then it was given a wonderful send off, with how string theory could solve everything. I'm sorry, but I couldn't at that point help but feel, that I had just been given a heaping helping dose of complete BS. He did add a lot of sugar to it though. No new discoveries. No real predictions. But lots of hopeful innuendoes, and future promises, if only the universe was in 10 dimensions. If, if, if, and then, wouldn't it all be grand.
I thought that I was all alone in feeling that the wool was being pulled down over my eyes. I thought that maybe there was something wrong with me. I read the book a second time, a few years later, and I bought Greene's second book, "The Fabric of the Cosmos", and yet still, my BS meter kept going off. It was kind of like those commercials that say things like. "This product works five times better than the leading brand." ...leading brand of what?
Finally some other books started coming out that explained that I was not the only one who felt this way. I read Lawrence Krauss' book, "Hiding in the Mirror". It was nice and polite in saying that "string theory" may not be the answer after all.
Lee Smolin came out with, "The Trouble with Physics". That book was even better at showing "string theory" for the mistake that it is, and how the physics academia have shamelessly promoted it. It made me feel sorry for those that were trying to pursue a higher education in physics.
Finally this book, "Not Even Wrong" written by Peter Woit. I've gotta admit that most of what he says in the first half of his book is over my head. I have never studied the math that is involved with particle physics or "string theory", but Woit has. He can point out all of the flaws in detail with "String Theory". From about chapter 12 on, I understood the ideas represented and discussed.
String theorists use phrases like, "It's the only game in town.", and "It's so elegant and beautiful, that there must be some truth to it." This book shows that some games just aren't worth playing, especially if you can never win. He also points out that the math involved is not really elegant or beautiful at all.
Can "String Theory" be proven wrong? No. But that's because it makes no predictions about anything. It's like an incomplete sentence. "The sky is ....". String theorists have been saying for over 20 years that they are just that close to solving everything. Woit can tell you that that's complete and total BS. No amount of math can complete the sentence and solve everything.
"Not Even Wrong" is also good at showing the scary situation that the physics community is in right now. Their self glorifying promotion, the greed, and pride have all attributed to this terrible situation in which they have created a belief system that is completely false. It is no longer science anymore, but they have gone so far down that road into falsehood that they are too embarrassed to say that they were mistaken. They have become a false religion of physics.
Scientists are not better people like they want you to believe. They are just people. They are prone to the same mistakes that everyone else is. Just as there are some good people, there are also some good scientists, but the opposite is also true. Don't be mislead.
If you are a student of physics in college, "Not Even Wrong" really should be read by you. "The Trouble with Physics" was an easier read, and so if you are a layman with a basic knowledge of physics, this book would be for you. If you are just beginning your adventure in science and physics, but are wondering about "string theory", "Hiding in the Mirror" would be the easiest book to understand.

Not Even Wrong *****
My hope is - also after the book of Lee Smolin / Trouble with Physics - to pursue the search of truth and reduce strings. Maybe pursue overall understanding of the Universe and reduce the only today's physical view.

Not Even Wrong *****

My hope is - also after the book of Lee Smolin / Trouble with Physics - to pursue the search of truth and reduce strings. Maybe pursue overall understanding of the Universe and reduce the only today's physical view.

Very helpful introduction to the the general ideas behind gauge groups and the Standard Model of particle physics *****
From a marketing standpoint, it's probably a pity that Dr Woit has targeted this fairly technical book at a non-technical audience, and that he has included discussion about the failure of string theory. The first section is focussed on explaining mainstream solid particle physics, and this gets fairly abstract in places, but it contains some deep physical insights about the handedness of the weak force, the problems of the Standard Model, and so on that you won't easily understand from any other book. The second half is focussed on the failure of string theory, which is very upsetting because those guys keep hyping abject speculation based on wishful thinking and "groupthink must be right" arrogance. However, no real harm is done. You can easily skip over the quotations from Richard Feynman, Sheldon Glashow, Gerard 't Hooft and many others attacking string theory for being non-falsifiable religion, and learn about the basic concepts behind the maths of quantum field theory. Then you can easily find more technical material as you need it. The author has some more mathematical stuff on his university home page, and the book has extensive references for further reading. The book makes you familiar with the basic way in which gauge symmetry works and how it connects to particle interactions. A Lagrangian equation is written to describe a field, a path integral is then used to evaluate the action of that Lagrangrian. In practice the path integral, which sums over all possible ways an interaction can occur in spacetime, is expanded into a series of terms each being a power of the strength or coupling constant of the force determining the interaction. Each term in the expansion then represents one member of a set of increasingly complicated types of interaction, which can be pictorially illustrated by a Feynman diagram. Evaluating the sum of the series of terms enables you to work out reaction cross-sections, corrections to the magnetic moments of leptons, or whatever you have set up the Lagrangrian to achieve. After reading this book, if you have also had some exposure to the kind of maths used in quantum mechanics and general relativity, you are ready to begin studying books like Ryder's "Quantum Field Theory".

Very helpful introduction to the the general ideas behind gauge groups and the Standard Model of particle physics *****

From a marketing standpoint, it's probably a pity that Dr Woit has targeted this fairly technical book at a non-technical audience, and that he has included discussion about the failure of string theory. The first section is focussed on explaining mainstream solid particle physics, and this gets fairly abstract in places, but it contains some deep physical insights about the handedness of the weak force, the problems of the Standard Model, and so on that you won't easily understand from any other book. The second half is focussed on the failure of string theory, which is very upsetting because those guys keep hyping abject speculation based on wishful thinking and "groupthink must be right" arrogance.

However, no real harm is done. You can easily skip over the quotations from Richard Feynman, Sheldon Glashow, Gerard 't Hooft and many others attacking string theory for being non-falsifiable religion, and learn about the basic concepts behind the maths of quantum field theory.

Then you can easily find more technical material as you need it. The author has some more mathematical stuff on his university home page, and the book has extensive references for further reading.

The book makes you familiar with the basic way in which gauge symmetry works and how it connects to particle interactions. A Lagrangian equation is written to describe a field, a path integral is then used to evaluate the action of that Lagrangrian. In practice the path integral, which sums over all possible ways an interaction can occur in spacetime, is expanded into a series of terms each being a power of the strength or coupling constant of the force determining the interaction. Each term in the expansion then represents one member of a set of increasingly complicated types of interaction, which can be pictorially illustrated by a Feynman diagram. Evaluating the sum of the series of terms enables you to work out reaction cross-sections, corrections to the magnetic moments of leptons, or whatever you have set up the Lagrangrian to achieve.

After reading this book, if you have also had some exposure to the kind of maths used in quantum mechanics and general relativity, you are ready to begin studying books like Ryder's "Quantum Field Theory".

Interesting but hard going ***
I chose to read this after enjoying the excellent Fabric of the Cosmos by sting theorist Greene, and some interesting critiques of ST by Smolin. Unfortunately I found this book to be something of a disappointment - a lot of the background is covered in Fabric of the Cosmos, but in a far less lucid and engaging manner, and that which is new (such as gauger symmetries and Hilbert spaces) is targeted more at undergraduate and graduate physicists rather than the interested casual reader. I've given this 3 stars, because I am sure that those who really know their subject will get a good deal out of it - but for the interested lay-reader, there are in my opinion much better books out there (Smolin, Greene, Kaku).

Interesting but hard going ***

I chose to read this after enjoying the excellent Fabric of the Cosmos by sting theorist Greene, and some interesting critiques of ST by Smolin. Unfortunately I found this book to be something of a disappointment - a lot of the background is covered in Fabric of the Cosmos, but in a far less lucid and engaging manner, and that which is new (such as gauger symmetries and Hilbert spaces) is targeted more at undergraduate and graduate physicists rather than the interested casual reader. I've given this 3 stars, because I am sure that those who really know their subject will get a good deal out of it - but for the interested lay-reader, there are in my opinion much better books out there (Smolin, Greene, Kaku).

Anti-string theorists: be aware of C.T.U. *****
Firstly I want to give my congratulations to Prof. Woit for his courage in publishing this book, which I presume to be the first one that dismantles superstring theory (SST), like the man in the famous tale saying that "the king is naked". I say courage taking in account the fact that a Harvard faculty member slandered critics of SSM as terrorists and claimed for an intervention of U.S. military. The title of this comment is a joke, taking into account that it is the Counter Terrorists Unity (C.T.U.) that "take care" of terrorists and not the Army. I am sure the Harvard professor doesn't consider really Prof. Woit a terrorist, but I think that his statement unveil the preponderance of the superstring theorists in the universities physics departments. Anyway I believe that "the pen is mightier then the sword". I am a layman, so I can't say anything about SST, but I think there are some features of the theory that need to be considered in the light of Knowledge Theory. In Arthur Jaffe's paper "Ordering the Universe: The Role of Mathematics", SIAM Review, Vol.76, No 4, October 1984, there is a diagram showing the interaction or feedback between Mathematics and Nature. That diagram may be generalised as: THOUGHT--elaborate--> KNOWLEDGE--guides--> THOUGHT--directs--> ACTIVITY--conditions--> THOUGHT This feedback between knowledge (or theory) and activity (or experiments) is emphasized several times in the book, but it seems that the superstring theorists ignore it; needing a spacetime of 10 dimensions to explain their theory, they are committing the same error (generally speaking) as Hipparcus, the Greek mathematician and astronomer who needed an epicycle to describe the trajectory of the planets. However, there is a difference in that the Hipparcus's method could give approximated results, while SST can't get experimental evidence. Superstring theorists seem to ignore also the fact that Kepler discovered the laws bearing his name using the data about planets compiled by the astronomer Tycho Brahe. As another example of a concept created by the mind of the physicists without any evidence and projected in the Nature as a real entity, I can cite the "ether", the medium through which the physicists thought that the electromagnetic waves propagate. Another point I would like to focus is that some physicists are not humble persons, when they hail the SST as a "Theory of Everything". They forget that, at the end of 19th century, the physicists thought that physics was almost complete, remaining to solve only "little" problems as the ultra-violet catastrophe and the problem of the speed of light. We know the great revolution in physics that happened next to the works of Planck and of Einstein about that problems. To conclude, I would like to refer an analogy between the development of particle physics and the evolution of mathematics. Since the birth of Quantum Mechanics until to the Standard Model the particle physics has undergone several "up-grading", each phase of the theory backing up on the previous one. This evolution is somewhat similar to the evolution of mathematics, where we see subjects of high level appearing founded on subjects of lower level.

Anti-string theorists: be aware of C.T.U. *****

Firstly I want to give my congratulations to Prof. Woit for his courage in publishing this book, which I presume to be the first one that dismantles superstring theory (SST), like the man in the famous tale saying that "the king is naked". I say courage taking in account the fact that a Harvard faculty member slandered critics of SSM as terrorists and claimed for an intervention of U.S. military. The title of this comment is a joke, taking into account that it is the Counter Terrorists Unity (C.T.U.) that "take care" of terrorists and not the Army. I am sure the Harvard professor doesn't consider really Prof. Woit a terrorist, but I think that his statement unveil the preponderance of the superstring theorists in the universities physics departments. Anyway I believe that "the pen is mightier then the sword".
I am a layman, so I can't say anything about SST, but I think there are some features of the theory that need to be considered in the light of Knowledge Theory.
In Arthur Jaffe's paper "Ordering the Universe: The Role of Mathematics", SIAM Review, Vol.76, No 4, October 1984, there is a diagram showing the interaction or feedback between Mathematics and Nature. That diagram may be generalised as:
THOUGHT--elaborate--> KNOWLEDGE--guides--> THOUGHT--directs--> ACTIVITY--conditions--> THOUGHT
This feedback between knowledge (or theory) and activity (or experiments) is emphasized several times in the book, but it seems that the superstring theorists ignore it; needing a spacetime of 10 dimensions to explain their theory, they are committing the same error (generally speaking) as Hipparcus, the Greek mathematician and astronomer who needed an epicycle to describe the trajectory of the planets. However, there is a difference in that the Hipparcus's method could give approximated results, while SST can't get experimental evidence. Superstring theorists seem to ignore also the fact that Kepler discovered the laws bearing his name using the data about planets compiled by the astronomer Tycho Brahe. As another example of a concept created by the mind of the physicists without any evidence and projected in the Nature as a real entity, I can cite the "ether", the medium through which the physicists thought that the electromagnetic waves propagate.
Another point I would like to focus is that some physicists are not humble persons, when they hail the SST as a "Theory of Everything". They forget that, at the end of 19th century, the physicists thought that physics was almost complete, remaining to solve only "little" problems as the ultra-violet catastrophe and the problem of the speed of light. We know the great revolution in physics that happened next to the works of Planck and of Einstein about that problems.
To conclude, I would like to refer an analogy between the development of particle physics and the evolution of mathematics. Since the birth of Quantum Mechanics until to the Standard Model the particle physics has undergone several "up-grading", each phase of the theory backing up on the previous one. This evolution is somewhat similar to the evolution of mathematics, where we see subjects of high level appearing founded on subjects of lower level.

Thinking about a career as a string-theorist? Read this first *****
A technically savvy but readable overview of the current state of string-theory. These are tough times for anyone contemplating a career in physics research, go with string theory and risk being out of a job when the LHC finds no evidence of super-symmetry, or don't do string theory and not get a job in the first place? Get informed, read this book and Lee Smolin's "The Trouble with Physics" then decide.

Thinking about a career as a string-theorist? Read this first *****

A technically savvy but readable overview of the current state of string-theory. These are tough times for anyone contemplating a career in physics research, go with string theory and risk being out of a job when the LHC finds no evidence of super-symmetry, or don't do string theory and not get a job in the first place? Get informed, read this book and Lee Smolin's "The Trouble with Physics" then decide.

Might Just Be Right ***
String theory: grand unification, theory of everything or just bad science? For Woit it's devoid of predictive capability, falsifiability or experimental result - a daydream of academics all too enraptured by the `beauty' of its (possibly) self-referential mathematics. Woit feels aggrieved at string theory's domination, and therefore hindrance, of progress in particle physics - with much research funding funnelled into `string physics' at the expense of other lines of investigation. Throughout, Woit painstakingly champions quantum field theory as authentic science and the route forward. He also takes laudable pains to demonstrate the (mostly unsung) significance of mathematicians and mathematics to the progress of all physics. This is a considerable strength of the book. This is cold, dry, but worthwhile read, addressing deep mathematics using words (succeeding here only partially) but it is surely a refreshing counter to the stacks of popular science books peddling p-branes and other such might-just-actually-be examples of `fantasy physics' (`phantom physics'?). All around us are people who might just be hollering the truth while most ignore them: whether noble atheists calling religious belief for the cultural fantasy it is, or possibly those such as Woit - who's one among the crowd raising his hand to declare that strings, superstrings, M-theory and p-branes are actually not wearing any clothes at all ...

Might Just Be Right ***

String theory: grand unification, theory of everything or just bad science? For Woit it's devoid of predictive capability, falsifiability or experimental result - a daydream of academics all too enraptured by the `beauty' of its (possibly) self-referential mathematics. Woit feels aggrieved at string theory's domination, and therefore hindrance, of progress in particle physics - with much research funding funnelled into `string physics' at the expense of other lines of investigation. Throughout, Woit painstakingly champions quantum field theory as authentic science and the route forward.

He also takes laudable pains to demonstrate the (mostly unsung) significance of mathematicians and mathematics to the progress of all physics. This is a considerable strength of the book.

This is cold, dry, but worthwhile read, addressing deep mathematics using words (succeeding here only partially) but it is surely a refreshing counter to the stacks of popular science books peddling p-branes and other such might-just-actually-be examples of `fantasy physics' (`phantom physics'?).

All around us are people who might just be hollering the truth while most ignore them: whether noble atheists calling religious belief for the cultural fantasy it is, or possibly those such as Woit - who's one among the crowd raising his hand to declare that strings, superstrings, M-theory and p-branes are actually not wearing any clothes at all ...

Bitter emotions and obsolete understanding of high-energy physics **
Peter Woit is the owner of a well-known blog that provides high-energy theoretical physics with the same service as William Dembski's ID blog offers to evolutionary biology: it is designed to misinterpret and obscure virtually every event in physics and transform it into poison - and to invent his own fantasies to hurt science. This makes Woit's blog highly popular among the crackpots, for example most of those who give me unhelpful votes. The book is not identical to the author's blog but it is not too different either. I have read a different edition of the book than one offered here, and I apologize in advance for any inaccuracies in my review that this fact could cause. In fact, if any errors from the list below have been corrected, it was because of my feedback, so I think it is fair to list them anyway. Parts of this book are fun to read, but the text is definitely not a trustworthy source of knowledge about physics. The book can basically be divided into two parts. The first part of the book describes physics from the early 20th century to the 1970s or so. This part covers some standard material as well as some points that have not yet appeared in the popular literature. The early chapters also honestly explain that the author has not done any important work in high-energy physics himself and that he has been isolated from research (and researchers) for the last 20 years. Because of these reasons, I rated the book by two stars. As the focus of the presentation shifts to modern physics since the 1970s or so, an expert recognizes that the author misunderstands some very elementary questions. The book contains a lot of very embarassing errors. Let me mention a few examples. Woit writes that the center-of-mass energy of the LHC beams will be 14 GeV, instead of 14 TeV. He incorrectly argues that the neutrinos with electroweak energies interact very weakly. He thinks that higher-dimensional rotations are associated with one-dimensional "axes". He misunderstands how SU(2) can be embedded to SO(4). In his description of the history of supersymmetry, he forgets Pierre Ramond. He writes that the supersymmetric vacua predict a higher vacuum energy than the non-supersymmetric ones. Also, Woit seems to misunderstand that all of our experimentally verified knowledge of theories such as QED comes from perturbative expansions when he attacks the perturbative method as such. He also misunderstands what "background independence" means. At one point, the author also claims that the primary evidence supporting scientific theories is an authority (Edward Witten in his case). Even more seriously, he builds his case upon e-mail messages from undetermined sources that supported Woit's viewpoint. Most of these e-mails were obviously written by crackpots. Authorities play an important role in the book and the author quotes many outsiders in high-energy physics who have criticized string theory. But he never mentions names like Weinberg, Gell-Mann, Hawking, Randall, Arkani-Hamed - famous and active physicists who are not string theorists but who believe that it is the right direction. Books by Brian Greene, Lisa Randall, and others were much more balanced in this respect. The book is a gigantic spin zone. Woit conjectures the existence of singularities in some integrals that appear in string theory and that are known to be non-singular. Woit does not distinguish a family of theories from one theory with a massless scalar field (a modulus). He does not mention Andrew Strominger and Cumrun Vafa when the black hole entropy is discussed. Woit incorrectly believes that the "beauty" of a theory is the same thing as an experimental verification. The author repeats poisoned remarks about string theory too many times. The second part of the book could be reduced by 60 percent or so. Moreover, most of the statements in the second part of the book are supported by no technical arguments, neither in the book nor in scientific literature. The problematic statement that string theory makes no prediction is repeated hundreds of times, and in many particular contexts, such a statement becomes not only boring but also patently false. The author is not aware (or denies) the actual mechanisms that are considered to be solutions of various puzzles - for example the doublet-triplet splitting problem. The book is also full of inconsistencies. In one chapter, he argues that the alternatives to string theory in the field of quantum gravity should be supported. In the following chapter, he argues that they should be suppressed - the work of the Bogdanoff brothers is one of his examples. Woit's knowledge of the history of the subjects he discusses is extremely superficial, too. For example, Leonard Susskind is painted as the discoverer of the large number of vacua in string theory. Quite obviously, Peter Woit has no idea about the "discretuum" described by Bousso and Polchinski and many other concepts that have been discussed for years. Peter Woit also offers a highly obsolete view on many concepts in theoretical physics such as the gauge symmetry; he is obsessed with the old-fashioned idea that all of physics follows from a gauge symmetry principle. He thinks that the gauge symmetry is uniquely determined by physics because he is apparently unaware of dualities and all other phenomena discovered in the last 20 years that show that his preconceptions are wrong and that gauge symmetries are only associated with a particular description of physics that does not have to be unique. The book is called "Not Even Wrong" but the readers should know that most of the book is wrong after all. I can only recommend the book to the people who dislike theoretical physics - or at least theoretical physics of the last 20 years - and who want their opinion to be confirmed by a semi-serious source. The readers who want to learn what physics is all about may want to avoid the book because it could make them very confused. As far as modern physics goes, the author is a layman. Even in the hypothetical case in which supersymmetry and string theory are irrelevant for the real world, as the author apparently believes, you can't deny that most of the statements in this book are wrong even at the mathematical level. Have a look at his blog and save your money.

Bitter emotions and obsolete understanding of high-energy physics **

Peter Woit is the owner of a well-known blog that provides high-energy theoretical physics with the same service as William Dembski's ID blog offers to evolutionary biology: it is designed to misinterpret and obscure virtually every event in physics and transform it into poison - and to invent his own fantasies to hurt science. This makes Woit's blog highly popular among the crackpots, for example most of those who give me unhelpful votes. The book is not identical to the author's blog but it is not too different either.

I have read a different edition of the book than one offered here, and I apologize in advance for any inaccuracies in my review that this fact could cause. In fact, if any errors from the list below have been corrected, it was because of my feedback, so I think it is fair to list them anyway.

Parts of this book are fun to read, but the text is definitely not a trustworthy source of knowledge about physics. The book can basically be divided into two parts. The first part of the book describes physics from the early 20th century to the 1970s or so. This part covers some standard material as well as some points that have not yet appeared in the popular literature. The early chapters also honestly explain that the author has not done any important work in high-energy physics himself and that he has been isolated from research (and researchers) for the last 20 years. Because of these reasons, I rated the book by two stars.

As the focus of the presentation shifts to modern physics since the 1970s or so, an expert recognizes that the author misunderstands some very elementary questions.

The book contains a lot of very embarassing errors. Let me mention a few examples. Woit writes that the center-of-mass energy of the LHC beams will be 14 GeV, instead of 14 TeV. He incorrectly argues that the neutrinos with electroweak energies interact very weakly. He thinks that higher-dimensional rotations are associated with one-dimensional "axes". He misunderstands how SU(2) can be embedded to SO(4). In his description of the history of supersymmetry, he forgets Pierre Ramond. He writes that the supersymmetric vacua predict a higher vacuum energy than the non-supersymmetric ones.

Also, Woit seems to misunderstand that all of our experimentally verified knowledge of theories such as QED comes from perturbative expansions when he attacks the perturbative method as such. He also misunderstands what "background independence" means. At one point, the author also claims that the primary evidence supporting scientific theories is an authority (Edward Witten in his case). Even more seriously, he builds his case upon e-mail messages from undetermined sources that supported Woit's viewpoint. Most of these e-mails were obviously written by crackpots.

Authorities play an important role in the book and the author quotes many outsiders in high-energy physics who have criticized string theory. But he never mentions names like Weinberg, Gell-Mann, Hawking, Randall, Arkani-Hamed - famous and active physicists who are not string theorists but who believe that it is the right direction. Books by Brian Greene, Lisa Randall, and others were much more balanced in this respect. The book is a gigantic spin zone.

Woit conjectures the existence of singularities in some integrals that appear in string theory and that are known to be non-singular. Woit does not distinguish a family of theories from one theory with a massless scalar field (a modulus). He does not mention Andrew Strominger and Cumrun Vafa when the black hole entropy is discussed. Woit incorrectly believes that the "beauty" of a theory is the same thing as an experimental verification.

The author repeats poisoned remarks about string theory too many times. The second part of the book could be reduced by 60 percent or so. Moreover, most of the statements in the second part of the book are supported by no technical arguments, neither in the book nor in scientific literature. The problematic statement that string theory makes no prediction is repeated hundreds of times, and in many particular contexts, such a statement becomes not only boring but also patently false. The author is not aware (or denies) the actual mechanisms that are considered to be solutions of various puzzles - for example the doublet-triplet splitting problem.

The book is also full of inconsistencies. In one chapter, he argues that the alternatives to string theory in the field of quantum gravity should be supported. In the following chapter, he argues that they should be suppressed - the work of the Bogdanoff brothers is one of his examples. Woit's knowledge of the history of the subjects he discusses is extremely superficial, too. For example, Leonard Susskind is painted as the discoverer of the large number of vacua in string theory. Quite obviously, Peter Woit has no idea about the "discretuum" described by Bousso and Polchinski and many other concepts that have been discussed for years.

Peter Woit also offers a highly obsolete view on many concepts in theoretical physics such as the gauge symmetry; he is obsessed with the old-fashioned idea that all of physics follows from a gauge symmetry principle. He thinks that the gauge symmetry is uniquely determined by physics because he is apparently unaware of dualities and all other phenomena discovered in the last 20 years that show that his preconceptions are wrong and that gauge symmetries are only associated with a particular description of physics that does not have to be unique.

The book is called "Not Even Wrong" but the readers should know that most of the book is wrong after all. I can only recommend the book to the people who dislike theoretical physics - or at least theoretical physics of the last 20 years - and who want their opinion to be confirmed by a semi-serious source. The readers who want to learn what physics is all about may want to avoid the book because it could make them very confused. As far as modern physics goes, the author is a layman.

Even in the hypothetical case in which supersymmetry and string theory are irrelevant for the real world, as the author apparently believes, you can't deny that most of the statements in this book are wrong even at the mathematical level. Have a look at his blog and save your money.