Steven Weinberg has died
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Steven Weinberg made his career as an accomplished disciple of orthodox quantum theoretical physics, making it to the top of the physics/social food chain via hard work developing quantum field theory and getting acknowledged as one of the fathers of Standard Model. But all this without really "rocking the boat" of quantum theory. For a long time he believed quantum theory is fine and was not interested in the deeper questions about it.
He eventually came around and realized and acknowledged that quantum theory has serious systemic problems of arbitrariness/internal consistency related to dichotomy unitary evolution/measurement, to dismay of some self-assured fanboys of QT orthodoxy. This gets him to the Feynman/Schwinger level, as in "did lots of great work, inspired lots of people, and realized the standard narratives have serious problems and wasn't afraid to say it and go his own way".
His last textbook Lectures on Quantum Mechanics is one of the few extraordinarily notable textbooks on quantum theory that came out in last decades. If you want to get deeper into QT after you get through the standard superficial and hand-wavy college course, this is a very good and concise book.
As I was digging into the literature during my research, I noticed an interesting pattern to his work over the decades. There would erupt a “hot” area in applying quantum field theory, and have lots of back and forth and papers making claims, correcting each other, and being corrected. And then a few months/years later would come a Weinberg paper, handling the matter so systematically & thoroughly that there likely won’t be any more low-hanging fruit in the area!
The whole thing was really impressive given that he worked largely by himself (most of his papers are single-author), and had among the highest average citation count I’ve seen for a theoretical physicist. There is a reason his quantum field theory textbook series is highly respected — he wrought the field piece by piece with his own hands.
Finally, he was an extremely articulate writer, and I have a huge soft spot for his “Dreams of a final theory” — especially his comments on the relationship between theory & experiment, and the scientific method more generally. I really wish more people read that and got influenced by its depth and nuance.
Steve Weinberg returning from Texas
Brings dimensions galore to perplex us
But the extra ones all
Are rolled up in a ball
So tiny they barely affect us
Steven Weinberg, The First Three Minutes
Someone says "Steven, what do you think?"
He replied "Swan Lake it's not".
If we lived to 200, no doubt many would be saying how sad it is that we average out to around 200 years. To me, that we have what we have against all odds is anything but sad.
I take Richard Dawkins' view on this.
"We are going to die, and that makes us the lucky ones. Most people are never going to die because they are never going to be born. The potential people who could have been here in my place but who will in fact never see the light of day outnumber the sand grains of Arabia."