>The last few years in this period were a bit of a down time for me. Certainly I had plenty of fun and joy, and some good physics. But also I had extended periods of anxiety. Sometimes these just plagued the early hours of sleep, but other times they took over the day, and my work. One that I remember clearly was my induction into the National Academy of Sciences in 2005. This should have been a time of great celebration, and there was some, but throughout I was filled with an ill-defined anxiety.
>Part of this was still a hangover from finding the anthropic principle in string theory. I feared that most of the routes to the discovery of the fundamental theory were blocked by it. Also, this was the time of the well-publicized anti-string books. I got caught up in this because Rosalind Reid, a KITP visiting journalist who was editor at American Scientist, asked me to review the book by Smolin. I felt that it was a good thing to do: many people, including some of our colleagues from other fields, were taking it uncritically. I tried to use it as an opportunity to present the positive argument for string theory, but I do not think that I was very effective. As Mark Twain said, “A lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes.” Smolin tried to avoid outright lies, but my reaction to reading the book, which I wish I had stated more directly, was “This is not the way a scientist writes.” Facts were twisted to create the impression desired, rather than being a way to reach truth.
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>Part of this was still a hangover from finding the anthropic principle in string theory. I feared that most of the routes to the discovery of the fundamental theory were blocked by it. Also, this was the time of the well-publicized anti-string books. I got caught up in this because Rosalind Reid, a KITP visiting journalist who was editor at American Scientist, asked me to review the book by Smolin. I felt that it was a good thing to do: many people, including some of our colleagues from other fields, were taking it uncritically. I tried to use it as an opportunity to present the positive argument for string theory, but I do not think that I was very effective. As Mark Twain said, “A lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes.” Smolin tried to avoid outright lies, but my reaction to reading the book, which I wish I had stated more directly, was “This is not the way a scientist writes.” Facts were twisted to create the impression desired, rather than being a way to reach truth.
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