Eric Weinstein: string theory was created to distract from the true hidden Physics programs

Do you think that there is some community subgroup set of assets, set of projects that are happening somewhere on earth that are making advances in physics, and have been for the last 50 years? Do you ask that question? That would be crazy, wouldn't it, David? Can you imagine if there was like a secret place that was making advances in an important field of physics? And people who were studying physics outside of that place were being stymied? I would find it hard that it would be kept secret. You have a theory? If it's happening, I've said that the leading candidate would be Renaissance Technologies on Long Island. The cover story would be, you know, we are so good at trading that we don't even allow people who know markets into our firm. We only hire people in directly relevant subjects of physics, like particle theorists, like differential geometers, like machine learning experts. And we have a very strange thing that we have a very close relationship with the Brookhaven National Laboratory and, by the way, there's a middling university right next door who happens to be absolutely world class historically in the exact subjects of physics that would be relevant doing next level physics. You know, you know, multiple fields, metallists, and US News and World Report never ranks this as like one of our great facilities, even though if you look at the people who have passed their state university of New York at Stony Brook, it's unbelievable. Yeah. It looks like Fort Meade when it was still no such agency collecting way too many number theorists. In 1983, physics made sense. In 1984, it did not. It was very stark. More or less three people, Leonard Susskind, David Gross, and Edward Witten, drove the field in a totally different direction. You take the field in which Edward Teller and J. Robert Oppenheimer and Richard Feynman created the most terrifying weapons from SU3 cross U1 gauge theory. And you've made it safe. It is now safe to do physics with your geopolitical rivals. You can invite your friends from China to come and become graduate students in your department and you will fill their heads with things about ADS, CFT that couldn't hurt a fly because there's no physics in it. In 1983, physics made sense. In 1984, it did not. It was very stark. More or less three people, Leonard Susskind, David Gross, and Edward Witten, drove the field in a totally different direction. You take the field in which Edward Teller and J. Robert Oppenheimer and Richard Feynman created the most terrifying weapons from SU3 cross U1 gauge theory. And you've made it safe. It is now safe to do physics with your geopolitical rivals. You can invite your friends from China to come and become graduate students in your department and you will fill their heads with things about ADS, CFT that couldn't hurt a fly because there's no physics in it.