From Clara Moskowitz at Scientific American:
Hundreds of researchers in a collaborative project called “It from Qubit” say space and time may spring up from the quantum entanglement of tiny bits of information
…
Some skeptics have questioned how productive IfQ can ever be if it is based on an unrealistic foundation. “That certainly is one very valid criticism: Why are we focusing on this toy model?” Engelhardt says. “All of this depends on the validity of the toy model, and the idea that in the end the toy model is representative of our universe. I would like to make sure that if we understand the toy model, we understand the real deal.”
Why does it sound like an effort to rehabilitate string theory?
The project is reminding some physicists of the heady days in the past when other big ideas were just getting started. “I became a grad student in 1984 when the so-called ‘first string theory revolution’ took place,” says Hirosi Ooguri, a physicist at the California Institute of Technology who has been working on IfQ. “That was a very exciting time when string theory emerged as a leading candidate for a unified theory of all the forces in nature. I do see the current explosion of excitement around this similarly. This is clearly an exciting time for young people in the field as well as those of us who received our PhDs decades ago.” More.
Okay, but string theory never really went anywhere.
There is something going on here and it often sounds like a lot of people are determined not to find it.
See also: In search of a road to reality
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