Peter Woit

Peter Woit ( born September 11, 1957) is an American physicist, well known as a critic of string theory.

Woit studied physics at Harvard University with a Master 's degree in 1979 and received his doctorate in 1985 at Curtis Callan at Princeton University. As a post - graduate student he was at SUNY and at MSRI. He was from 1989 four years Ritt Assistant Professor at Columbia University where he is now a computer administrator and a senior lecturer in the mathematics department.

He is known by his bestseller Not even wrong as a critic of string theory, which he considers speculative and hardly verifiable, but still a large number theorists and research funding attracts that would be better spent in his opinion in other areas. Woit holds the string theory is not even from a mathematical point of aesthetically appealing. The title is derived from a derogatory remark for theories of Wolfgang Pauli, who are not even wrong ( because not verifiable ). Around the same time Lee Smolin published a book similar Tenors ( The Trouble with Physics ). Woit also has a blog with the same name ( Not even wrong ).

As a theoretical physicist, he deals with quantum field theories.

In addition to the U.S. citizenship he has a Latvian passport, since his parents fled after the Second World War from Riga.

Writings

• Not Even Wrong: The Failure of String Theory & the Continuing Challenge to Unify the Laws of Physics, Basic Books 2006