The String Theory Wars and What Happened Next

Stay safe with NordVPN. Sign up for a 2 year plan, and get 4 months free here ➼ Risk-free with Nord’s 30-day money-back guarantee ✌ String theory was a beautiful idea, the best contender for a theory of everything that we have seen so far. Thousands of physicists spend decades trying to work it out. But it didn’t quite go according to plan. String theory became extremely controversial during what’s been dubbed the “String Wars” about 20 years ago. Then it kind of disappeared. What happened? What were the string wars? And what are string theorists doing now? That’s what we’ll talk about today. This video comes with a quiz: At 13:41 the guy on the bottom right is Peter Woit, not a second Lee Smolin, sorry about that. 🤓 Check out our new quiz app ➜ 💌 Support us on Donatebox ➜ 📝 Transcripts and written news on Substack ➜ 👉 Transcript with links to references on Patreon ➜ 📩 Free weekly science newsletter ➜ 👂 Audio only podcast ➜ 🔗 Join this channel to get access to perks ➜ 🖼️ On instagram ➜ #science #physics 00:00 Intro 00:49 A dream come true 03:45 The trouble begins 09:39 The string wars 15:06 AdS/CFT 20:19 Up to today 22:54 Summary 23:20 Stay safe with NordVPN