>>10890381i mean, comparing anyone against Witten is pretty unfair. and in this case it's somewhat apples to oranges. Nima really isn't a string theorist.... he started out as a phenomenologist and has branched out a lot to cool theoretical stuff like polytopes and the amplituhedron. which is impressive.
i mean, Witten is doing the toughest string theory and AdS/CFT stuff and a lot of his work deals with super cutting-edge math. and early in his career he made very important contributions to general QFT and particle physics.
Nima, with his phenomenology background, if you compare him against Witten, has always been closer to experiment and hops from thing to thing based on what looks like it might turn into real experimental results. and he has done a good job connecting ideas from all different theories to give experimentalists a good idea of what to aim for. Witten hardly ever says anything even remotely related to experiments aside from broad generalities -- he is more on the math side and is much more into trying to spur on mathematicians rather than physics experimentalists
