I was inspired to write thing after seeing a clip of Eric Weinstein (who in general, I would describe to be hit or miss in my agreement with him. To briefly go down this rabbit hole, I'd like to say that Eric Weinstein seems too cautious of mainstream ideas, or ideas he doesn't understand, but that isn't always a bad thing). The clip is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O76fjTNGbtI.
He puts into words something I've been thinking about for probably 10 - 12 years. I've been into theoretical physics long before high school. I believe it started with a Nova documentary on Einstein, although even before then I believe I was curious about how everything worked. String theory of course quickly became known to me as something I needed to know about, and known to the world as the leading theory that attempted to merge general relativitiy with quantum mechanics. Well guess what - theoretical physics has more or less been at a stand still ever since. And not just ever since I first heard about it - but apparently it's been more or less in the same state since the 1970s. I was never a huge Brian Greene fan, although I admired his ability to explain concepts and bring charisma to the field. My favorite physicist that's still alive is probably Leonard Susskind. Susskind himself seems more grounded in reality than most of the people following String theory. He wrote a book called the Cosmic Landscape that changed my life forever. But more on that later. In terms of Brian Greene, it was obvious in hindsight, listening to him as a young adult that very little of what he was explaining was known for sure, despite being interesting and possible, and it points in the direction of a severe weakness in the foundations of what many believe is leading the entire field of theoretical physics, String theory.
String theory has literally been at a stand still for over 50 years and no one seems to be talking about it. Content creators are still finding ways to blow people's minds, and people are still writing books about the nature of the universe, rehashing the same kinds of things over and over. Some people add a twist to it, for instance claiming that the universe literally is made of mathematical language (instead of figuratively). The same mysteries exist regarding dark matter and black holes. I have the same feelings towards String theory as dark matter, but feel more validated in writing this after the prominent media figure in Eric Weinstein came on one of the world's biggest podcasts in Joe Rogan and put my thoughts into words. This quackery needs to stop. The egos of physicists have been inflated for far too long on the back of non-falsifiable junk that does little more than bring to our imagination poorly rendered loops of energy, smaller than every other particle, and thus unobserved to this day.
One thing I'll add about Eric Weinstein, is that it feels like he targets Ed Witten out of anger for a lack of answers rather than anything Ed Witten said in particular that proved to be false. It's very possible he's not just taking shots in the dark, but at face value, he's lashing out against the most prominent String theorist because he's the most prominent String theorist and not because he's any more wrong than anyone else. Ed Witten might be wrong, but if he is, it's not as of now something that anyone can prove. I do believe that String theory is the wrong way forward for theoretical physics, because it itself feels like a shot in the dark. What I would love to see happen, is the building of theories based around what we know for sure, without making any assumptions. Dark matter also feels like an assumption. It feels like it's based off a miscalculation of the mass of the universe, rather than a special kind of mass we just can't detect yet. Instead of calling it dark matter, I would love to see physicists refer to the evidence of its existence more often.
In conclusion, theoretical physics has been at a stand still for the last 50 years and the leading theory has not progressed, nor become any closer to being proven. We are well overdue to question it, and were overdue to do this 10 years ago. The ego of content creators, authors, and physicists that rehash the same information is rage inducing for the physics lover. A more honest conversation needs to be had.