Talk:An Exceptionally Simple Theory of Everything/Archive 6

Let's summarize
71, let's drop the discussion about whether or not Scientryst is Lisi, I think it's sufficient to show his edits to realize that he's rather POV, and that's more than enough, we don't need to check if his IP is from Hawaii or Tahoe and so on to see that Scientryst shows to be POV and upset when defending Lisi's POV.

Let's do even more than that, let's just focus on how to improve the article.

The lede and the chronology are too long, we don't need a detailed back and forth of everything Lisi said around, and we don't need to report every time that he was mentioned by somebody else. Let's stick to the main publications and scientific results and conferences. We can briefly mention that there was a bunch of discussions in blogs but it makes no sense to mention all the blogs and websites and everything.

The non-technical overview should be changed or re-phrased, it's not really understandable for the non-physics people and it doesn't make the article more readable.

The technical overview has to be shortened. We should show the general innovations proposed and the group structure proposed. It's absurd that this theory has more details than the theories that it's based on. In case we should write this parts in those pages and here just to say that it uses some of those results.

All the new mathematical conventions have to go. It makes no sense to use a novel convention. It would be readable by the 0.001% of wikipedia users anyways. Those users can freely download the article to read those details. This article can't be a shorter version of the paper. Seriously, not even the Pati–Salam model has a page as long. And that model is not only viable and used in a lot of more complicated models, but it has no formal problems. Lisi's model is not viable yet, has formal models, and uses, explicitly, results typical of models like the Pati-Salam model. It is then absurd to have more on wikipedia on Lisi's model than on the Pati-Salam model.

I want this article to be NPOV, simply stating the great attention that the paper has received from the media, the usual physics used, the innovations proposed, and the current problems and limitations that make it, at least for now, a not working model.

70.136.253.158 (talk) 00:25, 30 November 2011 (UTC)


 * Sounds like an excellent idea; hopefully you are volunteering to make some of these changes. My only qualm is with the reasoning implied in your comparison to the Pati-Salem entry -- how do we know that page isn't too short? beefman (talk) 08:06, 30 November 2011 (UTC)


 * Yes, I can make those changes, but when I tried in the past a very present editor here tried to revert all my changes, and this huge discussion started. 70.136.253.158 (talk) 22:18, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

Yes, Scientryst's close relationship to Lisi and/or Smolin violates the Wikipedia Code of Honor on many levels: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:AVOIDCOI#How_to_avoid_COI_edits They violate multiple Wikipedia rules: Avoid editing or exercise great caution when editing articles related to you, your organization, or its competitors, as well as projects and products they are involved with. Avoid breaching relevant policies and guidelines, especially neutral point of view, verifiability, and autobiography.

Multiple red flags are showing supporting the deletion of this article. As the "theory" and article offer purely personal, speculative and now debunked research, unaccepted by the academic and scientific community (strongly violating http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:No_original_research), and as the primary wikipedia author/editor of this article Scientryst has outed themselves as having a direct relationship with Garrett Lisi and/or Lee Smolin, and as they are the article's strongest proponent and most constant editor and greatest author and contributor, the article is strongly violating Wikipedia's COI (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:AVOIDCOI#How_to_avoid_COI_edits ) and No Original Research rules (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:No_original_research), and ought be deleted. Wikipedia is about truth as determined by a community of researchers. Wikipedia is not about people promoting personal, failed "research" by editing their own page or a page of their friends'/business partners. These are not my rules--these are wikipedia's rules. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.106.167.55 (talk) 15:55, 1 December 2011 (UTC)


 * I may be ignorant but I see zero evidence of COI here. I see an article that needs improvement and a bunch of folks who aren't qualified for the job beating their gums (myself included). beefman (talk) 18:10, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

Dear Beefman, the COI here is flagrant and massive. Please read the Wikipedia rules on COI: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Conflict_of_interest "Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, not a vanity press or a forum for advertising and promoting yourself or your ideas." When the proponent of a failed theory and/or their close friends are the primary ones editing a wikipedia page, it becomes a vanity page advertising their failed ideas with a non-neutral POV. This is a flagrant COI. "COI situations are usually revealed when the editor themself discloses a relationship to the subject that they are editing." Above, Scientryst, the primary editor of this article, outed themselves as having a close, personal relationship with Garrett Lisi and/or Lee Smolin. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.106.167.55 (talk) 18:27, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

Let's please stop inferring Scientryst's close relationship with Lisi and/or Smolin. It won't go anywhere. Everybody can see easily the POV in those edits (and also in some other edits from other editors against Lisi). The important thing is to agree with a shorter version that gives less details and states clearly that the theory, as theory of everything, is considered wrong. As toy model, it's still work in progress. That's all I think it's important to say. The page should be decreased of at least 50%. 70.136.253.158 (talk) 22:18, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

New Version
I'm making some changes following the (at least partial) agreement that the article is to long. I'm trying to be as careful as possible to remain NPOV, yet it's possible that some sentences seem POV to some editors given the controversial nature of the article.

I have separated the edits so that we can discuss what changes people like or don't like separately. I'm trying to change the lede at the very end so that eventual edit wars of people trying to revert that won't necessarily revert all the other changes. 70.136.253.158 (talk) 23:44, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

I have reinserted the symmetry breaking in a way that is understandable for people with some knowledge of group theory in physics, but in a much shorter way and without including all the names for fields and the novel notations that Lisi chose. This way there is enough information to understand roughly what the theory is about. Which is the purpose that such a page should have when somebody looks it up instead of downloading the paper. Most readers won't even understand this, but that's normal for all such pages in wikipedia. But the people who understand, if interested, can just go ahead and read the paper. There is no need to have the whole lagrangian with all those names on wikipedia, especially because it would just be almost a reproduction of the paper. I have also put back in the last tiny part about the predictions because I think that's not technical and gives a decent review of the results of the model. 70.136.253.158 (talk) 01:13, 2 December 2011 (UTC)
 * I am really liking the changes, btw. I definitely think it's important that we have this article, and that we explain the theory in general. I also think it's important that we don't give the theory any more prominence than it deserves by explaining it in excessive details.  Thanks for the hard work. Qwyrxian (talk) 06:08, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

Article Strongly Violates http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:No_original_research No Original Research
This theory has never been published in scientific journals, and its wikipedia page was even using a non-standard mathematical framework/jargon which only confused and confounded. Wikipedia is not the place for nonstandard, orginal, unvetted, and rejected scientific research, even if it was once upon a time hyped to the popular press as "Fabulous" by a well-funded hypester. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.106.167.55 (talk) 17:15, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

Now that time has shone the light on the Lisi-Smolin hoax, refuted the non-theory in peer-reviewed journals, shown how the theory fails to predict anything new nor even match up to the standard model, and been thoroughly rejected by the academic community, it is time to remove this article from wikipedia for violating numerous rules including, but not limited to, WP:No Original Research and WP:Conflict of Interest, now that Scientryst, the principle editor and contributor of this article, has outed themselves by admitting close ties to Garrett Lisi and/or Lee Smolin. This is not how science works, this is not how the world works, and it ought not be how wikipedia--an encyclopedia deidcated to truth and knowledge--works. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.106.167.55 (talk) 17:10, 2 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Where is the Original Research? Remember, just because a theory or idea is controversial (or even entirely refuted) doesn't mean that work done studying that theory is not encyclopedic. If there is actually a concern of OR, point it out, but all the sources seem Verifiable -Achowat (talk) 17:14, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

All what sources? Are you talking about the popular-culture sources that hyped the article upon the command of Lee Smolin who hyped the theory to the press as "Fabulous?" These are not scientific sources. Lisi's theory is not at all accepted by the scientific community, but only by Lee Smolin and the trusting media contacts he took advantage of. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.106.167.55 (talk) 17:18, 2 December 2011 (UTC)
 * No, I'm referring to the references at the bottom of the page. All 62 of them. A theory doesn't need to be right to be encyclopedic, and in fact the article points out that the work is not widely held. See: Young Earth Creationism, Geosyncline, Humorism, Hollow Earth. Essentially, just because it's believed to be wrong, doesn't make it unfit for inclusion -Achowat (talk) 17:22, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

Oh, OK--so Lisi/Smolin is a humorist/crackpot along the lines of Young Earth Creationism, Geosyncline, Humorism, Hollow Earth. Should not this be added to the description? In fact, we should delete the present article which tries to pass off Lisi's Original Research as science, and rewrite it in a way more true to what Lisi/Smolin is really trying to accomplish--humor and performance art. Can you please do this? Thanks! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.106.167.55 (talk) 17:31, 2 December 2011 (UTC)


 * HURRAY! I think I figured it out! 71.106.167.55 is actually Lisi and he's getting tired of getting badgered by idiots, so he's hoping to shut down this article so he can get back to being ignored by people who don't like him. WELL, Mr. Lisi, it's too late! You're famous whether you like it or not, so deal with it! Very sneaky, trying to convince us you're just a humorist or crackpot by pretending to be your own opposition! ha!
 * 71, you've been told repeatedly why your position is wrong and not supported by policy. Continuing to bring up the same issue over and over again in WP:IDIDNTHEARTHAT fashion is disruptive.  Per WP policies, there's basically no circumstances under which this article will be deleted, as it is clearly a notable topic.  If reliable sources state the theory is wrong, we'll add those.  If you don't stop with the wild accusations, we may have to block your IP to stop the disruption to this talk page.  Qwyrxian (talk) 05:45, 3 December 2011 (UTC)


 * Let's just ignore 71.106.167.55 if they keep going with this kind of comments. Clearly 71 doesn't understand the policies of wikipedia even if people pointed out what to read. They seem to just want to offend Smolin and Lisi. Anyhow, during the weekend I'll start editing and shortening the chronology and the lede. I think I've been using a pretty good NPOV but I might need your help to make sure that others agree with my cuts and avoid nervous users (pro or against Lisi) from starting an edit war, risking to lose all the good modifications made so far. 98.244.54.152 (talk) 05:58, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

The Lisi/Smolin Affair Redux
This professionally-published (by a renown working physicist holding a respected position in academia), peer-reviewed paper's contents should be added to the article, as it shows how Lee Smolin leveraged his trusted media contacts to fan the flames of the media firestorm: http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/arxiv/pdf/1112/1112.0788v1.pdf

Dr. M.J. Duff (of The Blackett Laboratory, Imperial College London,) writes, "Lisi holds no university position and his paper has not been published in a peer-reviewed journal. So when Lee Smolin described him as the next Einstein, the publicity juggernaut moved into overdrive: .. . Even respectable journals such as Physics World, the oﬃcial publication of The Institute of Physics here in the UK, devoted its July 2008 front cover to Lisi’s paper together with an accompanying article and editorial. There was just one small problem: Lisi’s paper was incorrect. By incorrect, I don’t just mean it did not ﬁt in with current thinking; I mean it had mathematical errors concerning the group E8 that rendered the claim in his opening sentence to unify “all ﬁelds of the standard model and gravity” just plain wrong. Nature (and the standard model of particle physics) has three chiral families of quarks and leptons.“Chiral” means they distinguish between left and right, as they must to account for such asymmetry in the weak nuclear force. But as rigourously proved by Jacques Distler and Skip Garibaldi, Lisi’s construction permits only one non-chiral family. Their paper, unlike Lisi’s, appeared in a highly-respected peer-reviewed journal [5]. How cool is that? So did Lisi withdraw or modify his paper? Did the Daily Telegraph, the Economist, New Scientist, Physics World apologise for misleading their readers? Did Lee Smolin have second thoughts about the next Einstein? On the contrary, the juggernaut just kept rolling along!. Physics World, for example, never mentioned the Distler-Garibaldi paper, but in yet another (ﬁfth?) article on Lisi, this one devoted to his (presumably not-peer-reviewed) T-shirt, stated. . ."

Yes folks. It appears it all comes down to smolin/lisi-hyped & smolin/lisi-funded t-shirts.

The article continues, shedding more light on how E8 is nothing new, " Physics World failed to say that the E8 eﬀect reported by the experimentalists was ﬁrst predicted in 1988 by Alexander Zamolodchikov (who is, by the way, a string theorist). The discoveries of E8 in eleven-dimensional supergravity in 1979, of E8 xE8 in string theory in 1984 and more recent (peer-reviewed) papers on E8, E9, E10, E11 also go unmentioned."

So, long story short, those things that are right in Lisi's paper are nothing new. Those things that are new are wrong.

Discover Magazine Reports: http://discovermagazine.com/2008/mar/13-e-nste-n : "With Smolin’s aid, DISCOVER has scoured the landscape and found six top candidates who show intriguing signs of that Einsteinian spark. 1. Garrett Lisi: Age 40, holds no faculty position but earned a Ph.D. at UCLA; lives off grants and software consulting." http://discovermagazine.com/2008/mar/13-e-nste-n

The Telegraph Reports: "The ideas were described as "fabulous" by Lee Smolin, of the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics in Ontario, Canada." --http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/6532614/Surfer-dudes-theory-of-everything-the-magic-of-Garrett-Lisi.html

Smolin also sat on the FQXI funding committee which financed the Lisi hype numerous times. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.106.167.55 (talk) 15:50, 10 December 2011 (UTC)
 * While I think your point is a little overstated, I think that, in principle, information from the arxiv paper you provided the long quote from should be in the article. I'm a bit short on time today, but when I have time I'll look into some way to get it in that meets WP:NPOV (including WP:DUE).  Of course, anyone else can feel free to do it; IP, if nobody acts on this is a couple of days, feel free to leave a note on my talk page reminding me in case I forget.  Qwyrxian (talk) 11:42, 11 December 2011 (UTC)

Dear Scientryst and Wikipedia editors. The above excerpt and article are being published in a prestigious, peer-reviewed scientific journal--an A-list source: "Foundations of Physics." It was penned by a prestigious physicist at a prestigious academic institution. The information must be added to the main page by Scientryst et al., so as to better wikipedia. Thank you everyone. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.106.167.55 (talk) 15:57, 20 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Ugh...apologies. I keep adding to my list of "things to do" rather than crossing any off. I'll do it right now. I need to read the original source first, then I'll see what I can add.  Qwyrxian (talk) 06:29, 21 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Double ugh. Even that section of the article is a mess. It's wayyyyy too excessive...but I don't have the time or patience right now to fix it (not sure I ever will, to be honest). One thing--I'm not sure I got the "cite arXiv" template right--can someone else check and fix it for me if needed? Qwyrxian (talk) 07:16, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

Dear Qwyrxian|, You write, "Duff states that Lisi's paper was incorrect, citing Distler and Garibaldi's proof, and criticizes the press for giving too much positive attention to an "outsider" scientist and theory." This is not true. Duff does not call Lisi an outsider. Rather, Duff points out that Lisi's paper is incorrect, adding that it was hyped to the press by Lee Smolin as "fabulous." Duff also points out that because Lisi's paper is incorrect, it was never published in a peer-reviewed journal. Please do not put words in Duff's mouth, and please update the section to reflect the truth. Thank you for your time. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.106.167.55 (talk) 21:05, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

55 says "Duff does not call Lisi an outsider." On page 12 of his paper, Duff says "Unfortunately, journalists (and, it seems, philosophers) love them! Their favourite story line is that of the outsider [...] A recent cause celebre along these lines was provided by Garrett Lisi [...]" 55 then says "Duff also points out that because Lisi's paper is incorrect, it was never published in a peer-reviewed journal." Duff does state the paper is incorrect, and that it was not published, but does not causally connect these two statements, as 55 is claiming, as far as I can tell.-Scientryst (talk) 05:13, 22 December 2011 (UTC)


 * who is 55? did you mean 71? Anyhow, it's not important what 55, or 71 says (who is clearly too POV and a Smolin-hater), it's important what Duff says: "By incorrect, I don’t just mean it did not ﬁt in with current thinking; I mean it had mathematical errors concerning the group E8 that rendered the claim in his opening sentence to unify “all ﬁelds of the standard model and gravity” just plain wrong. [...] But as rigorously proved by Jacques Distler and Skip Garibaldi, Lisi’s construction permits only one non-chiral family. Their paper, unlike Lisi’s, appeared in a highly-respected peer-reviewed journal." And then: "Now a mathematical theorem is, or should be, the least controversial thing in the world. It is not merely uncontroversial; it is incontrovertible. But in the land of science journalism, opinions trump theorems." Yet, here we are discussing whether or not the implication is causal, and we are hiding behind policies like original research or literal quotation, where it's obvious to everybody that the page doesn't really represent the scientific results of the theory, but more like the journalistic side and approach where, like Duff egregiously defines, "opinions trump theorems." 70.136.253.158 (talk) 01:28, 23 December 2011 (UTC)
 * To be explicit, when Lisi states that D-G make unnecessary assumptions on fermionic embedding, that's Lisi's opinion, with no details ever explained anywhere on why that would be the case and without even saying that that fermionic embedding is intrinsic to the definition of fermionic fields. If Lisi finds a different way, he'd better publish that one just by itself, because hundreds of physicists working on GUTs would be happy to have an alternative way to generate fermions. For now, the only mathematical truth we have is what D-G proved. Presenting Lisi's vague response on this like if it was a matter of taste and assumptions is not only wrong, but laughable. It's like if I say that I have a theory that says Einstein's general relativity equations are making unnecessary assumptions. It might be true, but if I don't show what theory I have and why there is any unnecessary assumption and how my solution is implemented then my theory is as worth as any other random opinion about science from anybody, not something worth including in a encyclopedia. Again, this page is not a place where we have to include every single response given by Lisi, we have to explain what the theory says, and what the scientific contributions are, not what Lisi says in any article he writes defending his point of view, especially if those articles just contain vague words, personal opinions and no theory details. 70.136.253.158 (talk) 01:39, 23 December 2011 (UTC)

OK, let's tackle the lede and the chronology section.
I'm also the editor above listed as 70.136.253.158.

I'm trying to be as NPOV as possible. As I often stated above, I believe that Lisi is a physicist with interesting ideas, and that part of his theory might turn out to be useful even if the theory is wrong, at the least for bringing up the attention of physicists to some interesting topics. If anything, at least we now have the D-G theorem. Which is a very neat result. No one can escape that result, unless you invent a different definition of fields that so far seem to be working quite well. So, they don't have unnecessary assumptions on fermionic fields, they have only the "definition" of fermionic fields.

Anyhow, I'm removing some of the extra long information in the lede and I'm putting it in the chronology, then I'll start cutting a little the chronology itself, about which Qwyrxian is right, it's a mess.

I am no admin, but I will not tolerate long discussion here anymore. I spent way too much time on this. If any strange edit war starts, I'll report everything to a request for arbitration.

I will not include any offensive comment about Smolin or Lisi being a hoax, first, because they are not, second, because there is no reliable source that states so. Smolin can be very strange, at time, imho, and Lisi hardly admits the problems of his theory in an honest way, he always tries to respond so that the non-physicists can believe he's got a solution to his problems figured out but still working on it. While there isn't much you can say about those problems until you actually present a solution, instead of saying, there is a solution. But this is very different from saying that they are an enterprise blah blah blah.

So please, let's just stick with the facts. I hope I won't regret start editing this section. 24.7.128.58 (talk) 15:57, 23 December 2011 (UTC)

Dear 70.136.253.158, Happy Holidays!

Yes let's stick with the facts in 2012. :)

We need to add more facts to the page, such as that Lisi's Theory has never been published in a mainstream physics journal. This speaks volumes regarding the failure of Lisi's work, while alos showing that this article Strongly Violates the Wikipedia No Original Research rule.

Also, it is important to add facts to the article such as the fact that Smolin funded the theory and hyped the theory to the popular press numerous times. This is a fact:

So, long story short, those things that are right in Lisi's paper are nothing new. Those things that are new are wrong. Discover Magazine Reports: http://discovermagazine.com/2008/mar/13-e-nste-n : "With Smolin’s aid, DISCOVER has scoured the landscape and found six top candidates who show intriguing signs of that Einsteinian spark. 1. Garrett Lisi: Age 40, holds no faculty position but earned a Ph.D. at UCLA; lives off grants and software consulting." http://discovermagazine.com/2008/mar/13-e-nste-n

The Telegraph Reports: "The ideas were described as "fabulous" by Lee Smolin, of the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics in Ontario, Canada." --http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/6532614/Surfer-dudes-theory-of-everything-the-magic-of-Garrett-Lisi.html

These facts *need* to be added.

It is also a fact that Lisi adds nothing new, as E8 was previously developed by others: " Physics World failed to say that the E8 eﬀect reported by the experimentalists was ﬁrst predicted in 1988 by Alexander Zamolodchikov (who is, by the way, a string theorist). The discoveries of E8 in eleven-dimensional supergravity in 1979, of E8 xE8 in string theory in 1984 and more recent (peer-reviewed) papers on E8, E9, E10, E11 also go unmentioned."

These papers/research need to be referenced and saluted, as they were all professionally published in prestigious physics journals and publications. Perhaps Lisi missed their existence (Which is really no excuse in academia), but as they pre-dated his peer-rejected "theory" by twenty years, Lisi/Scientryst needs to add them to the article, as they can no longer deny them.

If one views his wikipedia page, one can see how Garrett Lisi collected all the popular media articles generated by the hype funded and flamed by Lee Smolin, in their tag-team faux-physics-fest.

These are all facts, 70.136.253.158. There are many more "facts" to be added, but let us start with these.

Thank you for your time, 70.136.253.158.

Best wishes for 2012! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.106.167.55 (talk) 17:16, 23 December 2011 (UTC)

71, to respond to your comments, I don't think this page is the place to say that Smolin said things like fabulous or Einstein, otherwise every time a person is compared to Einstein we should start writing in the WP pages. If anything something like that can be added in the chronology, but it seems to me maybe more adapt in the Lisi page than here, given that the chronology part is already too long.

That the paper is no published is stated in the very first paragraph, so I'm not sure what you mean.

About the original research, you are wrong, and somebody here have told you already. This page is not original research as in an author that posts his research in WP. It's a real physics paper, and even if some ideas might be wrong and some other ideas are controversial, there is a lot of physicists who have wrong ideas, wrong papers, and controversial stands. This doesn't mean that the article shouldn't have a page. Period.

Even assuming that Lisi is out there talking about E8 *only* because of Smolin, this wouldn't be our problem. By the way I don't think it's Somlin's creation or responsibility. Other physicists, included the famous and great John Baez, talked about Lisi and his ideas without mentioning any hoax effect. Being wrong or having an incomplete theory is not a crime. And it's not a crime if people or magazines talk about you, ok, maybe Smolin was just the most *journalistic* one and used big words without realizing the impact he was having, but so what? The purpose of this page is not to prove or to show that the Lisi deal was a hype just mounted by Smolin, the purpose of this page is to explain what a famous paper is saying, to maybe mention how it became famous, but most importantly to say whether or not it's considered correct or not by mathematicians and physicists, and in the future by experiments. And to say if the theory can, at the current status, reproduce the experimentally known physics, which it can't at the moment.

The fact that E8 wasn't discovered by Lisi is obvious by the article itself, which states so clearly. It is also clear, maybe to who understands physics, what the innovations are. And it's also clear that these innovations are the part of the theory that have problems. Lisi never said that he discovered E8, he actually stated clearly, and it's easy to check reading his previous papers, that he was already working on unifications, and that he just included E8 into his previous work once he heard about it, and he was amazed on how everything was fitting and got *fund* to use Voigt's words, but this E8 deal.

Personally I believe that Lisi didn't have enough experience dealing with large groups and unification to really be impartial. He was so in love with this poetical idea of E8 that he didn't even see that some of the features he's surprised and amazed are pretty common in any GUT. And he wasn't very proficient in using fundamental representations either, although he did use them in the past, to really see that a lot of what is happening with the quantum numbers of E8 is pretty natural, it's not *exceptional*. For example saying that a family becomes another family under triality, is a pretty neutral statement, it's not very amazing. In fact, in these kind of theories, there is several dimensions in the Cartan subalgebra of the theories, and it's easy to have rotations that change families of fields in other fields. The problem is to have all the fields at the same time. Which one doesn't with E8.

Now I could take off and say that one could take a certain triality rotation, take the one family one gets with the right quantum numbers, consider that as a linear combination of the three families, and find a different way to generate fermions out of the other two families that are rotated in the "non-correct-quantum-number* states, and try to see if that produces some strange mixing that is equivalent to the CKM mixing and to explain it's origin. BUT, there is a big BUT, everything I said above is complete trash. It's complete trash unless I actually explicitly say how that is done, because there is one way known to treat fermions, and it is with fermionic chiral fields. And I can't just say that I'm trying unconventional ways without saying which ways. This is my biggest criticism to Lisi, he never gives details on all these gray areas of his theory, he always just says there are alternative ways or unconventional ways, but never writes them down or gives an explicit working (even toy-)model. Instead he uses these responses for the press, so that the person that can't judge by looking at the physics, will remain with the idea that he must have something boiling... and here we go he gets tv shows and so on, because, like Sean Carrol says, it's too good of a story to talk about the surfer dude that does physics in a volkswagen van in Maui, Hawaii or Tahoe, Nevada and that enjoys life and balance in life instead of boring professors sitting in universities. You just have to write about it, because you get readers and then you're happy. Easy. And there is nothing wrong with it, except when they try to make a non-working theory look like something special and amazing. Even though I don't like a lot os aspects of string theory, for example, it would be ridiculous to compare string theory to Lisi's theory. String theory has accomplished a huge number of useful results, while Lisi so far has none. And string theory has been using E8 for years. Even loop quantum gravity hasn't produced a lot compared to sting theory. We can like it or not for sociological reasons, but the physics and the math are in front of everybody, incontrovertibly. 24.7.128.58 (talk) 18:02, 23 December 2011 (UTC) —

Modifications explained:

· added physics before a preprint because it should be immediately clear that the article is about physics.

· although talking immediately about lie algebra, simple groups, exceptional groups and E8 seems a bit excessive, it is an explanation of the title, so it's fine with me.

· it is, though, not important to mention the use of representation theory (which is a mathematical tool, not a physics concept), it can be mentioned in the explanation of the theory (and it is already there).

· the fact that the paper was the most downloaded of the arXiv.org was a tough one, but I decided that it belongs to the chronology more than the lede. in fact, although an important piece of information, it's no information you need to know about the general idea of the theory, and it's not per se something that important to be in the lede. the number of downloads on the arXiv is usually pretty low, so it's normal that a paper that ends up in the news with titles like "surf dude stuns physicists" will be downloaded more than other papers. the lede should rather focus on the general attention received by the media, but not on this detail.

· I think that Duff's statement might be moved up in the lede to show how sometimes popular magazines give much attention to something but don't follow up giving enough attention to criticism and scientific results. But for now I think it's not necessary, and I left it in the chronology and reaction section. His words reinforce the D-G theorem, but I think I'll think about it before moving it up, I need to be sure it wouldn't sound POV.

· I removed the other things written by Lisi because this is not Lisi's page, and they aren't important towards the development of the theory from the lede point of view. I left the D-G because that's about the theory, and I left Lisi's response to it because it needs to be presented NPOV and I think this does it.

· Although NPOV doesn't mean to report everything that Lisi states about this theory, it is a good compromise when we report his own words both on accomplishments or limitations or work in progress status of the theory.

· Same reason why I removed the other papers, I had to insert Smolin's first paper, because that is a direct follow-up paper to Lisi's paper, although Smolin's paper doesn't necessarily need E8 and it doesn't say much about fermions. I am not sure why this paper wasn't in the lede. I suspect that it wasn't because maybe not very relevant, but when D-G proved their theorem and somebody inserted that part, then somebody else pro-Lisi started to insert all the other following papers or articles written by Lisi. But Smolin's paper stayed out of that list, strange. Let's see how it goes and in case we can think of shorten the section again.

24.7.128.58 (talk) 17:27, 23 December 2011 (UTC)

58, the lede should include the facts that there was a peer-reviewed and published paper by Lisi describing the theory and disputing Distler and Garibaldi's argument, and that there was a conference inspired by the theory, and a paper by Lisi published with collaborators, and a feature article on the theory in Scientific American. These facts are as important as Distler and Garibaldi's criticism. If you want to move the description of Distler and Garibaldi's criticism to the chronology as well, that might work, but it's extremely unbalanced to not move it and move the others.-Scientryst (talk) 18:13, 23 December 2011 (UTC)


 * Scientryst, I'm trying to do my best. I disagree that the paper with Smolin and Speziale needs to be in the lede. It is only partially related to Lisi's theory, and it doesn't develop the E8 theory of everything itself. It is OK to mention in the chronology and in Lisi's page. But this article is about the theory, not about everything that Lisi did.


 * I'll try to see if there is any common ground here asking also Qwyrxian but it is undeniable that D-G is different from Sci-Am and the other papers written by Lisi. We talked about it enough. D-G are showing a proof that E8 cannot contain the standard model, the 3 generations and gravity. It is ontologically different from another paper partially written by Lisi and from a feature article. It's not a matter of importance. It's that the feature article is ok in the section that explains the developments, the chronology and the reaction. It does not need to be in the lede. A paper that states that the whole implant is wrong needs to be in the lede, because it's crucial information. And so is Lisi's response, in a minor fashion, given that those problems are actually present in the theory. The theory currently doesn't work and doesn't reproduce the experimental results. This HAS to be clear. I won't keep discussing this. I'm gonna revert part of the changes, accomodate others, but any other step here will just make me report this to wp:COI and to wp:requests for arbitration, asking for banning if it's the case. 24.7.128.58 (talk) 19:38, 23 December 2011 (UTC)


 * Reverted and accommodated some of the modifications made by Scientryst but not all of them. Because it's ridiculous to require all the papers to be in the lede. If this was the case then in a page on, I don't know, little Higgs or unparticles then we should write all the papers partially related written by Nima Arkani-Hamed or Georgi, which of course, it's not even conceivable. Just because this theory is mainly supported by Lisi, it doesn't mean that everything that Lisi says is golden and that we should include it all. Very different is a paper that proves that a certain embedding is not possible, especially if those difficulties are also acknowledged by Lisi himself. Please let's not start the edit war. The lede is NPOV. It's not showing or supporting any particular version. While it should at least mention that the general idea from the physics community is that the theory is wrong. 24.7.128.58 (talk) 19:59, 23 December 2011 (UTC)


 * I agree that the conference inspired by Lisi's work reported by SciAm is notable, I forgot to replace it in a better position after I moved it in the chronology section. But I don't see the reason why it should be in the lede. It's part of the chronology and the reaction. In theory, the conference could have found that the theory is wrong, or the best theory ever written. But the fact itself that the conference existed doesn't mean that it should be mentioned in the lede. It's not an accomplishment or a development. It is noticeable that a paper inspires a conference, sure, but not to the point of having it in the lede, imho.


 * About the other changes, I just tried to cut things when they were repeated twice. But I will do a much more complete job later today. Please Qwyrxian, if you have 5 minutes, give me a little feedback. 24.7.128.58 (talk) 20:27, 23 December 2011 (UTC)

Actually, there was never a peer-reviewed and published paper by Lisi describing the theory and disputing Distler and Garibaldi's arguments as Lisi keeps insisting. This is simply not true. The "theory" has been roundly and thoroughly rejected by the scientific community, even though Lee Smolin keeps hyping Lisi as the next Einstein and using his trusted media contacts to perpetuate the media storm. Were it not for the Lee Smolin funded/hyped media storm, there would be nothing. (this was 71, please try to sign your entries, otherwise it gets confusing).


 * I agree that there was no such a paper. Like many times I insisted here, Lisi's comments on the peer-reviewed paper in the conference proceedings don't find any error in D-G's arguments. He finds an explicit embedding of the one generation standard model, but D-G also say that that is possible. The point is that there is also an antigeneration that makes the theory non-chiral (and it's not a minor point). And there is no way in which you can get three generation of fermions. Lisi about it says that we don't have the mass mechanism so we can't exclude per se that we will find a way to deal with these kind of fermions and make the antigeneration heavier. Now, even though he doesn't even indicate what such mechanism would be, nobody can really say that it will never exist (as far as I know at least there isn't a theorem that proves the opposite). But the main problem is that there is nothing you can do to have three generations. And about that nothing has been said by Lisi in a paper. There is no detail on it, no example, no toy model, nothing. But I think that the page at the moment shows these points in a quite detailed way.


 * Even if it's true that the theory in general is perceived as rejected, I don't understand what you would want us to write about it. A rejected theory still would need to be in WP. And even if we assume that Smolin uses a lot of politics to keep his position of *power* (just to exaggerate), I still don't understand what you want. The page would still need to be in WP. And it doesn't seem to me that there is any reliable source that incontrovertibly states how Smolin is such a bad scientist. I think that's your opinion. Let's keep our expectations on a different level. Let's just explain what the theory is and what the reactions have been. 24.7.128.58 (talk) 20:44, 23 December 2011 (UTC)

Actually, all of Smolin's ideas, from Loop Quantum Gravity, to Double Special Relativity (which tries to deny Einstein's Relativity), to "The Universe is an Octopus," to Lisi's media-storm, have failed. This is a simple fact. As pointed out at Cosmic Variance, professional physicists are well-aware of Smolin's track-record of hype & failure, hype & failure:

"As a case study, let’s consider the Sunday Times article. From the article: “Could Lisi have cracked a problem that has defied some of the finest minds in history? While it has in no way embraced this lofty claim, the scientific community has given it a surprising amount of respect. Lee Smolin, founder of the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics in Canada, is full of praise: “It is one of the most compelling unification models I’ve seen in many, many years.” ” The journalist assumes that the views of someone of Smolin’s stature surely signify respect from the scientific community at large — a completely understandable and excusable mistake. (Normally the views of someone in Smolin’s position would signify that, and the journalist can’t be expected to know that there is an anomaly in this case.)" --http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/cosmicvariance/2007/11/16/garrett-lisis-theory-of-everything/

Dr. Sean Carroll concludes, "Saying “there are still some issues to be ironed out” is a cop-out. In addition to the mentioned problem with mixing gravity and internal symmetries, the original theory was not unified, not quantized, and somewhat ad hoc. Jacques pointed out in his first post that you couldn’t embed all three fermion generations in E_8, which Lisi admitted was true, and in a new post he shows that you can’t even embed one generation. If anyone does not agree, it would make sense to point out why over there. And “new proposals sometimes don’t fully work at first” doesn’t count; if the Standard Model can’t be fit inside E_8, there is nothing even conjecturally interesting about the proposal. This is a sad case where media attention gave an utterly incorrect view of the scientific process."

In the comments section, one can easily see that Lee Smolin has no command of the math nor physics, but only of hype, politics, and media firestorms, which define his very existence: http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/cosmicvariance/2007/11/16/garrett-lisis-theory-of-everything/

This is a simple fact, and this current article needs to reflect that all the Garret Lisi hype is not physics, but rather it is a Smolin funded/financed/hyped media storm.

Wikipedia must publish facts. It is not a mere vanity page for Smolin hype/media firestorms. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.106.167.55 (talk) 21:32, 23 December 2011 (UTC)

71, while your idea on Smolin and Lisi is clear. Wikipedia is not a newspaper, a magazine or a journal. We don't do scoops here. We don't try to show whether or not a physicist is a crackpot or not. This page is about the theory, the theory is certainly no more wrong than another million of wrong theories. Does it deserve all the attention that it got? Obviously no, but it doesn't meant that it has to be presented in a derogatory way. If you want, go and edit Lisi and Smolin's pages, that are quite ridiculously positive and POV. The effort done here will never, NEVER, say "Lisi is a hoax sponsord by Smolin". Unless, of course, all the major magazines or physics journal will start saying that. And even in that case, a brief description of the theory will stay. Consider that instead, in Lisi's page, there is even a list of all the interviews he has given, something ridiculous and certainly incompatible with the policies WP:FRINGE and WP:UNDUE, instead of maybe having a more appropriate to list of scientific results, which, so far, would be near to empty. Somebody will have to touch those pages too. Not even very important physicists or even physicists who WON THE NOBEL PRIZE have a list of interviews, and they have shorter pages. Lisi's page and Smolin's page are a complete mess. It would be more appropriate to list of scientific results, which, so far, would be empty. 24.7.128.58 (talk) 23:07, 24 December 2011 (UTC)

71.106.167.55 (and also 98.244.55.28?), who are you anyway?
Terry Bollinger (talk) here, I'm one of those folks who likes using my name if I state my opinions strongly. Doesn't mean I'm right, but just seems a more sporting way to criticize others. That's especially if you seem to be undertaking some sort of effort that is more focused more on erasing history than on documenting it.

So, Mr or Ms Verizon 71.106.167.55, who are you, and why exactly are you wrapped around an issue that should be mostly past and gone history by now? The overall level of accusation in your edits and discussion would be downright amusing if you intended them as a good, solid satire on how mean-spirited science and math discussion can get at times. Maybe I'm misreading you... you really could just be trying by example to show how both science and Wikipedia never, ever should be done. That would be cool pretty cool if it is your real intent, and if so I must give you credit for having a superbly subtle and refined sense of absurdity!

Speaking of amusing, your comments about others not knowing math really do come over as a bit hilarious, and I just have to assume you really are trying to be funny there. If you are by chance a strong advocate of string theory -- are you? uh, what was you name again, I think I missed it? -- I cannot as a computer person think of a more delightfully bad excuse for claiming math expertise than claiming it by being an expert in string theory. In computers we just call that kind of decades-long, layer-by-layer accumulation of poorly verified micro-logic "assembly code," and try hard to wean newbies away from falling into such bad habits of obscuration and noise generation. In retrospect, over the last couple of decades computer science has seem a big decline in assembly-language level thinking, so I'm beginning to suspect that all the folks with that inclination went over to string theory instead, where such exercises in accretion are better appreciated... :) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Terry Bollinger (talk • contribs) 07:57, 25 December 2011 (UTC)

Dear Terry Bollinger,

When Scientryst (Smolin/Lisi) reveals their true identity, I will reveal mine. Above you are trying to out us--both 71.106.167.55 and 98.244.55.28. It is against wikipedia policy to out editors, so we must ask why are you trying to intimidate us into revealing our true identities? Have you not seen the way Smolin/Lisi/Sientryst snark/attack those who laugh at their pump-and-dump media-storm physics-free failures. Do you really want us, innocent wikipedia editors, to fall victim to their well-funded (Goldman Sachs funds P.I. & Smolin's failed mathematical models/media storms), tyrannical media wrath? Is that why you are outing us, because that is both wrong and dangerous! Also, why are you not trying to intimidate Scientryst into revealing their true identity? Please, on behalf of wikipedia, do not try to out editors, nor try to intimidate editors, as this is wikipedia policy. If you continue in this vein, we will report you.

Smolin also published dozens of papers in String Theory, and I agree with you that Smolin's papers were but "obscuration and noise generation," much like his double special relativity and his Loop Quantum Grvaity and his latest Lisimania media storm affair. So we agree on this.

But please, I must remind you, do not try to out wikipedia editors, nor intimidate them to do so themselves. Do not violate Wikipedia policy, or we will have to report you, as is our duty. It is one thing if an editor outs themselves, like Scientryst did above, revealing that he was Lisi/Smolin, but it is against the rules to out other editors. Did you not know this? Well, now you do, and this is your last warning. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.106.167.55 (talk) 16:10, 25 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Um...Scientryst never said that he was Lisi or Smolin. Never. In any event, 71, it's not outing to ask, but Terry, there's really no reason to ask, as no one is ever under any obligation to reveal anything about their real life identity (though we prefer it when people identify if they have a conflict of interest. Furthermore, using a real name like you do, a fake name like I do, or an IP has no bearing on one's right to comment or criticize here.  Qwyrxian (talk) 09:08, 26 December 2011 (UTC)

Dear Qwyrxian, so you are finally stating that you would like Scientryst and the associated sockpuppets to reveal their conflict of interest. Paging Scientryst! Please reveal your conflict of interest, as is Wikipedia policy. Thanks! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.106.167.55 (talk) 16:48, 26 December 2011 (UTC)

I don't understand why writing my name would change the substance of what I'm saying. I'm not criticizing Lisi, in fact, often I defend him. What I'm criticizing is the fact that there is a user here, and a user on Lisi's personal page, and they want to hide a lot of information just because it's not supportive of Lisi. I understand very well all the physics here, and I can see that these users very often play with words, phrasing and policies just to try to make the page look more favorable to Lisi than it would be if it was honestly presented with a NPOV. I always motivate with lots of reasons my edit. These users just revert, change phrasings and barely respond here. And why do you think that Scientryst is doing a better job than us. Showing a nickname is not very different from an IP. I don't want my other edits in wikipedia to be related to this page. And because I often write from different places I have many different IPs (I'm not 71, tho). Is there anything wrong with this? If I were sock puppeting to help my edits this wouldn't be allowed, but I'm not. Unlike Scientryst, that I believe is sock puppeting with SherryNugil in Lisi's page and that isn't using the same nickname to avoid being to obvious that xe's trying to present Lisi in a POV way in both pages.. And I'm about to write a long review to ask for banning these editors for conflict of interests, POV, sock puppeting and, in case, autobiography. 98.244.54.152 (talk) 11:36, 26 December 2011 (UTC)

Propose title change
I propose that we change the title of this article from its current title to E8 Model, because this article isn't about just the one preprint, but rather the overall theory, the various articles/preprints that have discussed it, and the responses/criticisms of that theory. Qwyrxian (talk) 09:10, 26 December 2011 (UTC)

I disagree, because the title of the preprint is the most famous title. There is no such recognition in physics to justify this model to be called E8 model, otherwise even E8xE8 heterotic string theory should be called E8 model, being used for many more years than Lisi's model. 98.244.54.152 (talk) 10:53, 26 December 2011 (UTC)

Qwyrxian, please understand that E8 is nothing new, nor is its application to physics, nor gravity, anything new. What is new is Lisi's erroneous applications of it and Smolin's media firestorm. What happened is that Lisi said some incorrect things about E8 and Lee Smolin hyped the errors to the press as "fabulous." Lisi's errors were subsequently completely revealed and rejected by professional scientists in peer-reviewed, published papers. 98.244.54.152 is correct that this article is famous in no way for any accepted physics it promotes, but rather it only exists because of Lee Smolin's unprecedented media hype/media storm, funded in part by FQXI and Goldman Sachs. Because this article has nothing to do with any successful physical E8 model, and everything to do with Lee Smolin's media firestorm, this article is only notable in that it represents Smolin's unprecedented media hype married to Garrett Lisi et. al.'s unprecedented sock puppetry, anonymous snark, and intimidation. Physics hype/crackpottery is a very lucrative field for those who do not do physics, and thus Smolin/Lisi et al. have great incentive to edit this page with their personal POVs, instead of scientific rigor. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.106.167.55 (talk) 16:07, 26 December 2011 (UTC)

I have reported user Scientryst for sock puppetry but I would like to ask if it is correctly defined as sock puppetry as opposed to other things. User Scientryst here always has edits pro Lisi and very often POV (we can see that a lot of them had to be fought for a long time before having a stable version). In Lisi's personal page, user SherryNugil has just broken the 3RR policy and I'm trying to revert following the BLD exception, which they are also claiming to be using, with few comments on the discussion page that never prove and bias or unreliable references. SherryNugil has a very similar style as Scientryst and similar edit habits, always pro Lisi and very often POV. Both users just edit respectively on this page and on Lisi's page. If they are the same user I believe this is sock puppetry because they are trying to hide being the same person to hide their conflict of interests and tendentious edits. Qwyrxian, once you mentioned the possibility that this page could be edited by Lisi himself or by somebody close to his group/fans. I believe this is not only true here but also on Lisi's personal page. This page has become very stressful for every body, and we still don't have a version that *clearly* states what the general impression about the theory is from the point of view of the mainstream science. It violates wp:undue weight policies and wp:fringe. Showing Lisi's words almost as much as other physicists, like if he always had the right to make his statements look as reliable as other physicists, even when other physicists write a peer reviewed paper and he responds in a blog entri on SciAm. 98.244.54.152 (talk) 10:53, 26 December 2011 (UTC)

Dear 98.244.54.152, thank you for reporting Garrett Lisi for sock puppetry. I too have noticed this but have been afraid to speak out, as Qwyrxian has repeatedly threatened me for pointing out Lisi's violations of wikipedia's rules, from behind his anonymous mask Qwyrxian. It seems that some here are hell-bent on letting Lisi/Smolin violate wikipedia on multiple levels, including NO ORIGINAL RESEARCH, UNDUE WEIGHT, FRINGE, AUTOBIOGRAPHY, POV, 3RR policy, SELF-EDITING, CONFLICT OF INTEREST (COI), and more. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.106.167.55 (talk) 16:14, 26 December 2011 (UTC)

I did not report Garrett Lisi, I reported users Scientryst and SherryNugil. I don't care if they are Lisi or Lisi's friends or collegues or collaborators of if they have no relation to Lisi himself. What I care is that I believe they are the same person, and are sock puppeting to try avoid being spotted being the same user modifying both Lisi's page and Lisi's theory page. It also pretty easy to spot their POV. They violate many policies in undeniable fashion. I hope this gets to an end soon. I will try to ask for a permanent ban if things don't improve. It is impossible to constructively edit this page. It's always almost uniquely one editor that resists to calm and unbiased modifications. And this editor seems to be editing only one page, and with the same style. I hope that some of you, on both sides in case, will be available in reporting honestly what is happening here in the arbitration page. 24.7.128.58 (talk) 16:30, 26 December 2011 (UTC)

From Garrett Lisi's google plus public profile: "Merry xmas, someone's furiously messing with long-standing wikipedia pages on me and E8 Theory. I must have angered a wiki elf."

Again in a comment Lisi states: "The weirdest thing to me about the wikipedia drama has been how it has connected back and forth to outside forces. Jacques Distler complained early on about the E8 Theory wiki page on his blog, and a wiki editor (the same one responsible for recent edits?) commented there with a call to action. I guess they didn't have good sources backing up Distler's criticism of the theory though, so now appears Michael Duff's hit piece on me and E8 Theory in an editorial paper that is ostensibly a defense of string theory. You know, until now, I've tried to be nice to string theorists, attempting to largely steer clear of the string controversy, but the political maneuvering of this particular string contingent is reprehensible."

Almost to laugh, if it wasn't so similar what Scientryst, SherryNugil and Lisi say, and the words they all choose. BTW, this to me looks like a lot more a call to action than the one on Distler blog, where it was explicitly asked to be NPOV and not offensive. 24.7.128.58 (talk) 17:15, 26 December 2011 (UTC)

Yup. Garrett Lisi/Scientryst updated his facebook page with this "CALL TO ACTION" too. Boy, does he monitor these pages or what? It is hilarious how Garret Lisi tries to accuse anyone who points out his massive violations of wikipedia policy as a "String Theorist," trying to fan the flames of the aging Smolin media storm, which even Smolin is now trying to distance himself from, as Smolin doesn't want his legacy to be married to the Lisi sockpuppetry. Smolin was also a String Theorist, and Lisi has a lot in common with the String Theorists, as he is bascially profiting off the pumping and dumping of a failed theory. If anything, this is turning into a case study of the underhanded social media machinations/abuse of the Goldman-Sachs funded Lee Smolin and Garrett Lisi. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.106.167.55 (talk) 17:22, 26 December 2011 (UTC)

It's cool how Scientryst and SherryNugil are taking the day off here, as Lisi focuses his hype energies on his google + and facebook pages for the day, realizing that he needs other unsuspecting "fans" to come eidt his pages, now that everyone sees that Scientryst, SherryNugil and Lisi are one and the same, following in their mentor Lee Smolin's pump'n'dump media-firestorm tradition of hype. Hey Garrett/Scientryst/SherryNugil, we are not String Theorists. While Lee Smolin published dozens of failed string theory papers, before turning his attention to his failed DSR (Double Special Relativity which denies Einstein), his failed Loopy Quantum Gravity, and his failing Garrett Lisi hype media firestorm, we have not published any String Theory papers. And the fact that you call us String Theorists, equating us with your mentor Lee Smolin who publishes failed pump'n'dump stringy papers, is reprehensible. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.106.167.55 (talk) 18:15, 26 December 2011 (UTC)

I agree with a name change, for the reason described by Qwyrxian. But the name of the theory, coined by John Baez, used by Lisi, and used by many other sources, including Scientific American, is E8 Theory. There is currently a redirect from that page. The name E8 Theory is unambiguous, as a Google search shows, and would not be confused with the use of E8xE8 in heterotic string theory. -Scientryst (talk) 05:19, 27 December 2011 (UTC)

The name change makes absolutely no sense, as Garrett Lisi's failed/unpublished/refuted paper, in addition to being proven wrong in peer-reviewed journals, also completely ignores the prior art of E8 Theory and the E8 model, "" Physics World failed to say that the E8 eﬀect reported by the experimentalists was ﬁrst predicted in 1988 by Alexander Zamolodchikov (who is, by the way, a string theorist). The discoveries of E8 in eleven-dimensional supergravity in 1979, of E8 xE8 in string theory in 1984 and more recent (peer-reviewed) papers on E8, E9, E10, E11 also go unmentioned." So, long story short, those things that are right in Lisi's paper are nothing new. Those things that are new are wrong."

Garret Lisi's/Scientryst's failed theory does not deserve a Wikipedia page nor title. And as it ignores the true forms of E8 while bastardizing it and breaking it and using it in ways that do not work, Lisi's work does not deserve the E8 Theory title, as Lisi but bastardizes what others have done correctly, and because Smolin hyped the bastardization to his professional media contacts, and because Lisi built a career out of Smolin's hyping of Lisi's bastardization, Scientryst/Lisi now wants to save the broken, failed theory by renaming it with that which he bastardized--E8 Theory. This would be like renaming Smolin's failed Double Special Relativity as "Relativity," or renaming LQG as "physics."

Dear Qwyrxian, please do not let Lisi/Scientryst/Smolin take advantage of you, as they do the general public. Smolin's media firestorms are not science, nor is it how science works. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.106.167.55 (talk) 16:12, 27 December 2011 (UTC)

Fringe Theories noticeboard
A notice: I've opened a discussion about this article (and, by extension, Antony Garrett Lisi) at the Fringe noticeboard). You can see and comment on the discussion at WP:Fringe theories/Noticeboard.  12:58, 27 December 2011 (UTC)

Lisi using Smolin-funded Social Media Network to Harass/Out/Namecall Wikipedia Editors
Does Wikipedia support the use of social media campaigns to harass, internet bully, and out wikipedia editors and slander them via namecalling?

Realizing that he was beginning to look pretty silly sockpuppetting as Scientryst--the virtually lone supporter/editor of these pages supporting his irrelevant surfing biography and failed/unpublished/rejected "theory"--Garrett sought help by posting to his google + and facebook accounts: "https://plus.google.com/108405429084641270297/posts," calling upon his Smolin-funded network to come here and harass and out us, with "Merry xmas, someone's furiously messing with long-standing wikipedia (Smolin-funded/hyped) pages on me and E8 Theory. I must have angered a wiki elf (the Truth/Science)."

One Terry Bollinger answered Garrett's call to come here and harass us and try and out us. David Andrews bullies/namecalls and calls us "schmucks" at Garrett's Google page. So you can see how Team Smolin operates with a scorched-earth policy, burning and destroying anyone who questions the Smolin-funded media hype/classic Smolin media firestorms. Is it no wonder that we must remain anonymous, with the Smolin/Lisi hype moneystream at stake here? These people will stop at nothing to save their bread-and-butter--hype centered around failed, unpublished, refuted, disproved, unaccepted, and rejected pump'n'dump hype which bastardizes the subject of E8. This is how Smolin has destroyed modern physics, by creating a politicized atmosphere where either you support Smolin's failed DSR, failed LQG, or failed/unpublished/rejected/disproved Lisi, or you are a "Schmuck" String Theorist and Crackpot. They are getting desperate as their entire media empire and money stream depends upon hype and lies, pump'n'dump failed theories, and more hype and lies centered about unpublished, failed-theories which are widely rejected by real scientists and the scientific community.

Note how Terry Bollinger (from team Smolin/Lisi/Scientryst), while trying to out us and the various IPs who are different people, never tries to out the Scientryst editor, as he knows that Scientryst is Lisi/Smolin/Associate. So you see that anonymity is fine when used by Lisi/Smolin/Sockpuppet/Associates to snark, intimidate, attack, and peddle false, unpublished, unaccepted, completely-refuted theories, but whenever anyone else uses anonimity out of fear of the Smolin scorched-earth-policy machine of destruction, they are called a "Schmuck" on a Lisi hosted media platform.

Scientryst, a Lisi/Smolin/Sockpuppet/Associate with a POV and COI, has made far, far more contributions to this page (erroneous ones based on Smolin-funded hype and lies) than all the other IP editors combined. And yet Terry Bollinger, when called by Lisi to attack those who question the Smolin hype, attacks the anonimity of the IP Editors, while giving Scientryst/Lisi/Sockpuppet/Smolin a free pass.

Is there some way to communicate to Lisi/Scientryst/Sockpuppet that using Smolin-funded social media networks to out, namecall (calling wikipedia editors schmucks), and harass Wikipedia Editors is against Wikipedia Policy? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.106.167.55 (talk) 15:54, 27 December 2011 (UTC)

Delightful!
58, after I stopped rolling on the floor laughing, I still could not help but savor the delicious irony of what you just posted! Thank you, just just made my day.

I ask for something as simple as "could you please put in a 4-tilde or use a meaningless name for tracking?," and suddenly you honor me unjustly by calling me, a poor, bewildered computer scientist, part of "team Lisi"? I bow humbly in your direction for bestowing upon me an honor I have not earned! Physics for me is a delightful but slow process, with many a textbook cracked just to get the right basics down.

"Smolin-funded Social Media Network?" Dr Smolin, if you are by any chance reading this, wow... You must have boo-coo more bucks and computer savvy than I ever imagined! Effective social networks are hard to design and expensive to fund; see the movie "The Social Network" for details.

And anonymous request, etiquette-violating (no 4-tilde again) request to the Powers that Be to support your right to drop as many ad hominems as you like, and to edit out as much real history as you like, all for a web page that was probably best just left alone as history?? Wow!

Ever hear the Shakespeare line about protesting too loudly? My last requests to you (paraphrased) included, let's see: "Please use 4-tildes"... "If your register a nonsense name it would make it easier for others to find your analysis" and I think "please take pride in your own work." I think I also encouraged you to develop your own theory if you have some strong interests in specific approaches. And to that you post a long reply worrying about people trying to find out your real name? You're not reading carefully: I was suggesting ways by which you could "play fair" on Wikipedia pages *without* revealing your name.

Again, thanks. This was a kind of boring day, and now I'm feeling downright energized! — Preceding unsigned comment added by Terry Bollinger (talk • contribs) 17:18, 27 December 2011 (UTC)

Dear Terry Bollinger, I agree with you that Scientryst MUST reveal their true identity and COI. And yes, as Lisi's fame for a failed, disproved, rejected, non-theory that has never been published in a peer-reviewed physics journal, was bought and paid-for by Lee Smolin, so was Lisi's social network and contacts funded by Lee Smolin, who hyped Garret Lisi's failed, faulty, unpublished "theory" to the press numerous times as "fabulous" science, causing the media firestorm which Lisi leveraged into creating this wikipedia (lisipedia) page by harvesting the Smolin-funded/financed/furthered, unscientific media hype:

Discover Magazine Reports: http://discovermagazine.com/2008/mar/13-e-nste-n : "With Smolin’s aid, DISCOVER has scoured the landscape and found six top candidates who show intriguing signs of that Einsteinian spark. 1. Garrett Lisi: Age 40, holds no faculty position but earned a Ph.D. at UCLA; lives off grants and software consulting." http://discovermagazine.com/2008/mar/13-e-nste-n The Telegraph Reports: "The ideas were described as "fabulous" by Lee Smolin, of the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics in Ontario, Canada." --http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/6532614/Surfer-dudes-theory-of-everything-the-magic-of-Garrett-Lisi.html Smolin also sat on the FQXI funding committee which financed the Lisi hype numerous times.

"As a case study, let’s consider the Sunday Times article. From the article: “Could Lisi have cracked a problem that has defied some of the finest minds in history? While it has in no way embraced this lofty claim, the scientific community has given it a surprising amount of respect. Lee Smolin, founder of the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics in Canada, is full of praise: “It is one of the most compelling unification models I’ve seen in many, many years.” ” The journalist assumes that the views of someone of Smolin’s stature surely signify respect from the scientific community at large — a completely understandable and excusable mistake. (Normally the views of someone in Smolin’s position would signify that, and the journalist can’t be expected to know that there is an anomaly in this case.)" --http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/cosmicvariance/2007/11/16/garrett-lisis-theory-of-everything/ Dr. Sean Carroll concludes, "Saying “there are still some issues to be ironed out” is a cop-out. In addition to the mentioned problem with mixing gravity and internal symmetries, the original theory was not unified, not quantized, and somewhat ad hoc. Jacques pointed out in his first post that you couldn’t embed all three fermion generations in E_8, which Lisi admitted was true, and in a new post he shows that you can’t even embed one generation. If anyone does not agree, it would make sense to point out why over there. And “new proposals sometimes don’t fully work at first” doesn’t count; if the Standard Model can’t be fit inside E_8, there is nothing even conjecturally interesting about the proposal. This is a sad case where media attention gave an utterly incorrect view of the scientific process."

As to why we are wary of using our true names? Well, the Goldman-Sachs-funded Smolin/Lisi team actively supports internet bullying and calling people "Schmucks" upon the social networks they host. Why should we allow the money/fame/hype-hungry Smolin/Lisi team to denigrate us with vicious namecalling? Espcially when the Smolin/Lisi/Scientryst camp hides behind anonymous sockpuppetry. But you will note, we do not call them names, nor descend to using derogatory terms such as "Schmuck," while the Lisi/Smolin camp delights in such behavior. Again and again, we see how Smolin's media machinations and ambitions hath destroyed the once exalted field of physics, as the Smolin/Lisi team destroys the hopes for civil debate with a dire combination of anonymity (Scientryst), sockpuppetry (Scientryst/Lisi/Smolin/SherryNugil) and slanderous namecalling and internet bullying (hosted on Lisi's google+ account where Team Smolin et al. call wikipedia editors "Schmucks.")

— Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.106.167.55 (talk) 17:25, 27 December 2011 (UTC)

Time for Scientryst/Lisi/Smolin/SherryNugil/Sockpuppet to Share their massive COIs
It is a wikipedia rule that editors must share any Conflict Of Interest. It has been noted by multiple editors here that Scientryst/Lisi/Smolin/SherryNugil/Sockpuppet are and have been violating numerous wikipedia rules including NO ORIGINAL RESEARCH, UNDUE WEIGHT, FRINGE, AUTOBIOGRAPHY, POV, 3RR policy, SELF-EDITING, CONFLICT OF INTEREST (COI), and more, and as this has been going on for years with Scientryst/Lisi/Smolin/SherryNugil/Sockpuppet running wild and being the sole contributors/editors supporting the Lisi/Lisi Theory pages, Scientryst/Lisi/Smolin/SherryNugil/Sockpuppet has also been flagrantly violating the wikipedia rules by failing to share their massive COI. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.106.167.55 (talk) 16:26, 27 December 2011 (UTC)

More Erroneous Garrett Lisi Attempts at Outing Wikipedia Editors Garrett's Google + Network
Does wikipedia support the use of social media to try and out wikipedia editors? How come Garrett is not trying to out the anonymous Scientryst/Lisi/Smolin/SherryNugil Sockpuppets? Why is Lisi exempt from wikipedia rues? Why is Lisi and his well-funded Smolin fanbase allowed to flout dozens of wikipedia rules for several years? While engaging in anonymous sockpuppetry, hosting a social media forum supporting internet bullying of wikipedia editors and Jacques Distler, and promoting namecalling and using the word "Schmuck" to attack wikipedia editors, the Garrett Lisi/Smolin camp is further fanning the flames of the outing of wikipedia editors, now WRONGLY attacking Jacques Distler and slandering UC Davis students at Garret's google + page, as Garret Lisi announces at his google + page, "Terry Bollinger, you will of course form your own opinion, but anonymous attacks of people which whom he disagrees is very much Distler's style, as is back-room dealing, deception, and extortion (DOES Garrett Lisi have PROOF of Distler EXTORTING someone?  If not, this is slander and libel). There was such an incident on Peter Woit's blog, where he outed him. I suppose I shouldn't let it bother me, but the main material that's been cut from the wikipedia page on the theory (a week or so ago I think) was the mathematical description and the graphical description. Interested people can read my papers for that, but that description seemed like an OK mathematical summary. The IP's (mainly one person as far as I can tell) vigorously editing the theory page, since April or so, I don't think is Jens Koeplinger. I think it was the same physicist or physics student from UC Davis who posted the last comment to Distler's blog as "Dan" back in July: http://golem.ph.utexas.edu/~distler/blog/archives/002233.html" Dear Garrett, I am not Jacques Distler.  I am not a UC Davis Student.  I am not Jes Koeplinger.  I choose to remain anonymous while speaking the truth here, rather than suffer the Goldman-Sachs-funded Lisi/Smolin camp's branded internet bullying, outing, and slanderous namecalling, whcih is how they treat the speakers of truth and all those who threaten the Lisi/Smolin empire of lies and false media-firestorm money machines built upon a neverending-deluge of faux/failed crackpottery hyped as science, propped up by bullying, intimidation, anonymous wikipedia editing, backroom, underhanded dealing, and namecalling. 'Tis the complete and utter Smolinification of once noble physics, folks.

Above it is revealed that Garrett Lisi is sockpuppeting as Scientryst/SherryNugil who both display an extreme COI in editing and maintaining your pages supporting a failed, disproven, never-published, non-scientific, Lee-Smolin-funded media firestorm. It is time for you to be forthright, drop the anonymous wikiedpia editing and internet attacks and bullying at your google + page, and stop violating dozens of wikipedia rules, including your trying to out wikipedia editors, NO ORIGINAL RESEARCH, UNDUE WEIGHT, FRINGE, AUTOBIOGRAPHY, POV, 3RR policy, SELF-EDITING, CONFLICT OF INTEREST (COI), and other violations of wikipedia policy. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.106.167.55 (talk) 19:02, 27 December 2011 (UTC)

Dear Garrett Lisi, Wikipedia is not the place where to directly describe your own theory or your own person.
Dear Lisi, dear user:Scientryst, dear user:SherryNugil, being clear that you all follow very closely Lisi's pages on wikipedia (and for the latter two, you edit almost only those), it's probably time to start thinking about policies.

Instead of trying with ridiculous and laughable bullying methods to out editors, you should try to see how you see the world. Was yours a threat by the way? In your google plus blog, dear Lisi, you wrote material that can easily end up in a lawsuit. You should watch your mouth when accusing people of "back-room dealing, deception, and extortion". Do you really think that there is a conspiracy here against you instead of just editors loving physics and trying to simply write the truth about your theory (both good aspects and bad aspects). Why do you think that a NPOV necessarily coincides with your POV?

Specifically, it doesn't matter if the mathematical summary "seemed OK to you". It matters whether or not the material is WP:UNDUE and the weight in presenting it is unbalanced towards your personal POV instead of a N(eutral)POV. Also, given that you amusingly follows all the IPs around here and all their actions, you should probably also recognize that I'm the one that re-included the graphical representation of the algebraic breakdown. Proving you wrong about my intents, other than proving you obsessed about your own page.

You should look into the wikipedia policies about writing your own page, wikipedia is not your personal server or webpage, conflict of interest and all that. There is a lot written that you might find useful. About it, I would like to copy and paste a few sentences from Autobiography:

Just because you honestly believe you are being neutral doesn't mean you are. Unconscious biases can and do exist, and are a very common cause of the problems with autobiographies—which is why we discourage autobiographies themselves and not just active, deliberate self-promotion. Not only does this affect neutrality but it also affects the verifiability and unoriginal research of the autobiography. One may inadvertently slip things in that one may not think need to be attributable even though they do, due to those very same biases. Even if you can synthesize an autobiography based on only verifiable material that is not original research you may still not be able to synthesize it in a neutral manner.

It is difficult to write neutrally and objectively about oneself (see above about unconscious biases). You should generally let others do the writing. Contributing material or making suggestions on the article's talk page is considered proper—let independent editors write it into the article itself or approve it if you still want to make the changes yourself.

In clear-cut cases, it is permissible to edit pages connected to yourself. So, you can revert vandalism; but of course it has to be simple, obvious vandalism and not a content dispute [...] Be prepared that if the fact has different interpretations, others will edit it.

So, Garrett, trust a little more the intent of others that aren't necessarily evil just because don't share your vision about yourself or your theory. 24.7.128.58 (talk) 22:43, 27 December 2011 (UTC)

Warning
The next person who calls for this article (or the article on Lisi) to be deleted will be brought to WP:ANI, and I will request that you/your IP/an IP range be blocked. The next person who accuses someone else of sockpuppetry here (instead of at WP:SPI with evidence in the form of diffs) will be taken to ANI and I will request you be blocked. The next person who accuses someone else of being a principle in the dispute (i.e., of being Lisi, or Smolin, or Distler, or a part of an off-wiki campaign) here (instead of at WP:COIN or at WP:DRN) will be taken to ANI and I will request that you be blocked.

There is no policy based reason to delete this article. The paper/htheory has received more than enough discussion in reliable sources to meet WP:N, and thus an article on it is appropriate. We don't say "Oh, this theory is completely wrong/disproven, so it shouldn't have an article." All we do is ask, "Has this theory/paper been discussed in detail in multiple, independent, reliable sources?" Since the answer is yes, an article (so long as it is neutral, well-sourced, etc.) will be here. Even if tomorrow an international panel of physics experts got together and wrote a formal paper that said that E8 is worthless and has absolutely no scientific validity, we'd still have an article on it. Yes, the article needs to accurately reflect both the theory and responses to it; i.e., it may well be that the article is mostly negative points about E8, if that matches the prevailing scientific opinion, though of course we'll include the positive comments from the non-scientific sources as well, along with any positive sources within the scientific community.

But all of the accusations are disruptive, and making it impossible to actually discuss what to do with the article. If anyone has serious accusations backed up by appropriate evidence, take it to the appropriate noticeboard for administrative action (if you don't know what that is, ask me on my talk page). Qwyrxian (talk) 23:07, 27 December 2011 (UTC)

Precedent
There is precedent in Wikipedia for dealing with articles on scientific papers. For example, the article on the RKKY interaction in condensed matter physics is based on four theoretical papers. A search for the first paper by "Ruderman" on Google Scholar gives a minimum of 1800 cites. This indicates the amount of impact needed for notability. A search for "A G Lisi" on Google Scholar gives a little over 100 cites in total with 46 for the paper on which the article is based. This is not remotely enough to establish notability on the basis of the impact on mainstream science. Wikipedia does not have an article on every paper with over 45 cites. However, there may be a case for notability on the basis of the wide publicity generated by the proponents of the paper. Xxanthippe (talk) 02:21, 28 December 2011 (UTC).


 * Correct. The notability here doesn't depend on the scientific impact, which is very little, although not inexistent. The notability is based on how many independent articles and interviews Lisi has received on his paper. The media covered the topic quite a bit. That is enough to be in wikipedia, although it should be clear what the status of the theory is, what the scientific community's position is on it, and what kind of scientific impact it has had. 24.7.128.58 (talk) 02:42, 28 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Agreed as well. And since it seems like the theory/paper are not widely accepted--that it isn't notable for it's scientific qualities--the article should focus more on the non-science stuff, and less on the actual science.  Thus the reason for the earlier trimming of the content section.  Qwyrxian (talk) 15:52, 28 December 2011 (UTC)
 * I'm far over my head, but sure this sounds wrong. non-science stuff?! If I were a reader I'd want to know what's being proposed (what's complete and what's ongoing), what are the criticisms against this unification, and why Lisi (and others?) still consider further work as promising. However I admit Duff's using it as a case study is valuable perspective, more than just saying Distler&Garibaldi said the embedding into E8 can't work. Tom Ruen (talk) 20:26, 28 December 2011 (UTC)


 * I would like to write such section, and I have even mentioned it in the past, but I'm hesitant at doing that because I'm afraid it would be considered original research. There is no really any comprehensive reliable source that states clearly what's new in Lisi's theory, what Lisi is building on, and what the problematic aspects are. The current version of the page includes as much of this information as we could agree on, using just reliable sources and quotations. I think, although, that the page does a decent job at explaining what the theory was proposing and what was criticized and what is considered incomplete even from the author. I admit that it could be better and with a less messy "blog"-like chronology section. 24.7.128.58 (talk) 22:18, 28 December 2011 (UTC)


 * The long Scientific American article and description of criticism appear to be reliable sources for this, having undergone the scrutiny of Scientific American's editorial board. Although these sources are light on equations, those can be pulled from blogs, articles, and papers without constituting OR.-Scientryst (talk) 23:00, 28 December 2011 (UTC)


 * No, those are biased sources, because they are both written by Lisi and they are the source of an already very long and problematic discussion here. The scrutiny of the board let's leave it out, given the poor job that they have often done in other fields. In fact, they certainly don't check equations or original work or whether or not something is an innovation or not. This is exactly what I meant when I said that "there is no really any comprehensive reliable source". Tom, I don't know how much of the discussions above you have read. But if you try reading above or in the last archived page you will be surprised on how hard it's been to come up with any form of consensus. 24.7.128.58 (talk) 01:02, 29 December 2011 (UTC)


 * Agreed, hard to synthesize a summary without risking OR or needing extensive quotes! I don't know if video can be a source (without a transcript), but I found this interview helpful, a background on his TedTalks presentation . In the interview he talked about the value of visualization in relation to conveying science. His Ted Talk focused on using proojections of high dimensional "charge space" into 2 dimensions to isolate different subatomic particles, noting some particles overlapped in the charge spaces, and using unknown charge dimensions to distinguish known particles, within a framework of the Lie group root systems, progressing upwards until he speculated that E8 structure could contain all the known particles, along with missing ones that might yet be found. So I'd like to see this article expand in this direction, including recovering some article material removed. Tom Ruen (talk) 23:23, 28 December 2011 (UTC)


 * Mmm, the problem with this is that this has little to do with the E8 paper itself. In physics that sort of representation has been used for decades, look at here in the page for mesons, the graphs reported there all use the same visualization method used by Lisi. Similar patterns would appear in unification attempts such as SO(10) or SU(5). Because the use of weights and roots in particle physics is a well known thing, I don't think we should use a lot of space to describe it here, if anything, we should create a better article to talk about those aspects. It is true that Lisi uses this graphics more than a lot of people in group theory, but the graphs are, as you said, communication. So we should try to maybe find a reliable source that talks about it and write a sentence that captures this aspect well in the context of the use in particle physics. Also, when starting including projections from an 8 dimensional space, is it really easy to understand what that sort of projections mean? Also, some of the particle identification in Lisi's video and website is at the least controversial, since he assignes particle names to roots that don't necessarily have the correct quantum numbers (see 3 generation problem), so what is it really that we are watching? You understand that everything here is pretty complex. And finding an unbiased way to present it is not the easiest thing possible. 24.7.128.58 (talk) 01:19, 29 December 2011 (UTC)


 * 24.7.128.58, you are correct that weights were used in the past for mesons, and that this same mathematics has been known in particle physics for a very long time, but as far as I know Lisi, in his E8 paper, was the first to use weight diagrams extensively to describe unified models. In the Scientific American article, similar diagrams are used to describe the SO(10) or SU(5) models. Even if Lisi's E8 unification turns out to be wrong, bringing these diagrams back into use for fundamental particle physics is a significant contribution, at least to the popularization of particle physics.-Scientryst (talk) 02:45, 29 December 2011 (UTC)


 * Actually I've seen the root diagrams in lot of papers, especially in math. Now, don't get me wrong, I think that Lisi did a good thing, and that this kind of popularization is a good thing he did. But I don't think there is enough objective material here to write a paragraph about it. I think I remember Baez (correct me if I'm wrong) say that people wil start using these diagrams when they will become useful to them (as opposed to just the mathematical properties). Think of what would happen if you started using this diagrams with Little Higgs models (a class of models that works, and still it's smaller than this page, they don't describe all the possible models in detail), like the model with SO(9)/(SO(5)xSO(4)). If you started graphing this I suspect that you could get very exciting pictures of the cosets and what quantum numbers they have with respect to each other, I have never done it in more than 4 dimensions so I don't know for sure. But very often physicists don't need pretty pictures when they write papers. But yes, it could be an improvement in communications, both in presentations and in the popular press. If in the future some sort of merit will be recognized to Lisi for this then it'll go in the page. But I feel that 1) it's still too early to say and 2) having a reliable source of this as opposed to original research or biased points of view would be pretty hard. I still think that the readers would just be tricked about actually understanding these pictures, because I'm sure they wouldn't really be understanding projective geometry in high dimensional spaces. But yes, it is my opinion that Lisi communicates better these aspects than lots of physicists and I think that in the future he might receive some credit for it. 24.7.128.58 (talk) 03:03, 29 December 2011 (UTC)


 * Have you seen weight diagrams before used in the way Lisi has for describing fundamental particle charges and interactions? This, as far as I can tell, is exactly what the Scientific American article was for. And it satisfies your criterial of being a reliable source.-Scientryst (talk) 03:32, 29 December 2011 (UTC)


 * Yes, the projective diagrams are complicated, and incomplete and possibly wrong, but apparently parts of it are correct as substructures of E8. I suppose the idea exciting to me for the same source as Lisi - we both read the "also hyped" computer search of the structure of E8 in March 2007, . My connection was the uniform polytopes of Coxeter, and so wanted a picture of this shape! So I helped get the first graph of E8 on wikipedia File:E8_graph.svg, and an article on its related 421 uniform polytope projections from Coxeter. Anyway Lisi's TedTalk presentation makes it clear that he's building on previous work, apparently up to 6 dimensions, and expanded by the 1973 Pati–Salam model, which Lisi says raises the model to 7 charge dimensions. Tom Ruen (talk) 01:48, 29 December 2011 (UTC)


 * I'm glad you seem to know what you are talking about. So, with that in mind, it's exactly why they could be wrong that they shouldn't be on wikipedia. WP isn't a place where a person shows and describes their theory, this principle has been established pretty firmly in WP's policies. And the problem is exactly what you said in the following phrase, which is that apparently parts of it are correct substructures of E8. Now, which parts? How can we communicate that the fermionic part is instead not a correct substructure of E8? And what if E8 was the right unification theory but just as a gauge theory, not including the fermions? That could certainly be the case, but the theory would be completely different. So where do we stand? Do we have right parts, wrong parts? When, where? What is really Lisi's contribution in this? The dimension 7 and 8? The identification of the particles? But those have wrong quantum numbers (2 families of fermions) and so how is the theory different from a SO(16)-like theory if we ignore the fermions? It's all way too complicated and it doesn't have a clear explanation anyways. And because Lisi isn't the first one introducing these concepts then it's better to just say what the theory says, without making our life more complicated. If people want to see the video, they have the link. Otherwise they can look up what Dynkin diagrams are and so on... 24.7.128.58 (talk) 02:44, 29 December 2011 (UTC)


 * Scientific American is careful to check the facts of its articles, which is why it's considered a reliable source. I would think diagrams appearing in Lisi and Weatherall's article there on unification, which uses the diagrams extensively, would be reliable, within reasonable standards. One should of course check these things, especially if there's reason to doubt! For Dynkin diagrams, these are wonderful geometric summaries of root diagrams, but they loose some of the structure, such as the number of particles relating to the number of roots, and the direct correspondence between weights and fundamental particle charges. What Lisi appears to have done with his models is to bring these mathematical weight diagrams for particle physics back into use. That may even be more important than his unification idea, and these diagrams should be included in this article.-Scientryst (talk) 03:04, 29 December 2011 (UTC)


 * Can we try to postpone the discussion about the diagrams to after we take care of shortening the blog-like nature of the chronology section? Again, I think a decent job could be done showing one or two graphs, but then the point becomes whether or not those graphs should be explained somewhere else, or otherwise we will go back to a million other impossible problems. If I knew that there was a decent way to present unbiased and truthful information with these diagrams I'd support it, but at the moment I'm highly skeptical this will become another edit war together with lots of original research. By the way, how to we deal with the wrong fermionic quantum numbers in those diagrams? The triality isn't enough to present this particle projected onto some planes that don't show a problem in the identification of particles. Wikipedia isn't a way to present these things. Yes, it might be that bringing back these diagrams for the popular use and communication is even more important than the unification. But we don't have enough just yet. I like them, a lot, but again, it's for appearance, physicists have been dealing with complex group theory well enough just even with generators. I hope Lisi will be eventually get some credit for pushing physicists to use these diagrams for presentations and articles. But let's not start another infinite discussion on something that definitely isn't doable here. 24.7.128.58 (talk) 03:14, 29 December 2011 (UTC)


 * You should read the Scientific American article and see if the diagrams present truthful information, including correct fermionic quantum numbers. If it's presented truthfully, then there should only be one generation of fermions shown embedded in E8, and the mirror fermions should show up on the opposite sides of the diagram.-Scientryst (talk) 03:39, 29 December 2011 (UTC)


 * People can read that SciAm article if they want. Wikipedia is not a place to show this. About the specifics, which is the specific image you are talking about? Leave a link. Anyhow, the information would be truthful only if it explained that the antigeneration doesn't exist (or explain a method to get higher masses for them which is consistent with observed data). Plus, it should be stated that that doesn't cover the other two generation so it's not a good representation of the standard model. A truthful diagrams would add those particles in the fundamental representation on top of the SU(3)xSU(2)xU(1), and would show the fundamental representations of larger groups in unification. Anything different from this would be misleading (regardless the phrasing), possibly wrong (depending on the phrasing) and certainly propagandistic. 24.7.128.58 (talk) 23:12, 29 December 2011 (UTC)


 * GT, I'm afraid you misunderstand. I wish for you to read the SciAm article by Lisi and Weatherall, so you can see for yourself whether it and the diagrams in it seem accurate. Or, if, as you are claiming without apparently having read it, it is wrong.-Scientryst (talk) 20:50, 31 December 2011 (UTC)


 * I read all those articles recently or in the past, I'm serious. But either there isn't an online version of the articles with figures, or I can't find the link. 98.244.54.152 (talk) 23:20, 31 December 2011 (UTC)


 * You could not possibly have read all the articles, you would have been driven mad. But the Lisi-Weatherall SciAm article is important, and it's very unfortunate but there is no freely available online version that I know of. One has to buy it from SciAm online, or check it out from a library. Happy New Year!-Scientryst (talk) 04:36, 1 January 2012 (UTC)


 * What do you mean? I have read everything that Lisi wrote on the arXiv (even the ones from before the media explosion) and the SciAm articles available online, otherwise I wouldn't be here talking. I thought that in some previews comment you said that the SciAm version of the article that was online was the one you were talking about. Are the pictures the only thing missing or is it a completely different article? (i didn't understand that from the references in the page here). Happy New Year. 98.244.54.152 (talk) 19:00, 1 January 2012 (UTC)


 * Sorry, I was joking that had you read all the popular articles about Lisi, you would have gone mad. But, yes, the pictures in the SciAm article are missing from the online version, and they are what are important for what we are discussing here. So please get ahold of a copy so we can discuss this properly.-Scientryst (talk) 19:45, 1 January 2012 (UTC)


 * Both the Scientific American article and description of criticism are written by Lisi himself and cannot be considered to be sources independent of the subject that would establish notability. A further comment: citation rates in physics vary between its subfields. Citation rates for this subject, fundamental theory, can be very high: for example a Google Scholar search for Michael Duff (physicist) (as M J Duff), another practitioner in this field, returns thousand of cites, too many for me to count. The conclusion must be that the impact of Lisi's paper on the mainstream science community has been very minor and it is hardly appropriate for Wikipedia to have such an extensive article about it. Xxanthippe (talk) 23:29, 28 December 2011 (UTC).


 * Notability is not at issue here.-Scientryst (talk) 20:50, 31 December 2011 (UTC)