Edward Witten: General

“String theory at its finest is, or should be, a new branch of geometry. …I, myself, believe rather strongly that the proper setting for string theory will prove to be a suitable elaboration of the geometrical ideas upon which Einstein based general relativity.”

Edward Witten

"Edward Witten" interview, Superstrings: A Theory of Everything? (1992) ed. P.C.W. Davies, Julian Brown

Idea

“Quantum mechanics… developed through some rather messy, complicated processes stimulated by experiment. While it's a very rich and wonderful theory, it doesn't quite have the conceptual foundation of general relativity.”

Edward Witten

"Edward Witten" interview, Superstrings: A Theory of Everything? (1992) ed. P.C.W. Davies, Julian Brown
Context: Quantum mechanics... developed through some rather messy, complicated processes stimulated by experiment. While it's a very rich and wonderful theory, it doesn't quite have the conceptual foundation of general relativity. Our problem in physics is that everything is based on these two different theories and when we put them together we get nonsense.

“If supersymmetry plays the role in physics that we suspect it does, then it is very likely to be discovered by the next generation of particle accelerators, either at Fermilab… or at CERN… Discovery of supersymmetry would be one of the real milestones in physics, made even more exciting by its close links to still more ambitious theoretical ideas. Indeed, supersymmetry is one of the basic requirements of "string theory," which is the framework in which theoretical physicists have had some success in unifying gravity with the rest of the elementary particle forces. Discovery of supersymmetry would would certainly give string theory an enormous boost.”

Edward Witten

Foreward, written June 30, 1999, to Supersymmetry: Unveiling the Ultimate Laws of Nature (2000) by Gordon Kane

Idea , Success

“Generally speaking, all the really great ideas of physics are really spin-offs of string theory… Some of them were discovered first, but I consider that a mere accident of the development on planet earth.”

Edward Witten

as quoted by John Horgan, The End of Science: Facing the Limits of Knowledge in the Twilight of the Scientific Age (1996)
Context: Generally speaking, all the really great ideas of physics are really spin-offs of string theory... Some of them were discovered first, but I consider that a mere accident of the development on planet earth. On planet earth, they were discovered in this order [general relativity, quantum field theory, superstrings, and supersymmetry]... But I don't believe, if there are many civilizations in the universe, that those four ideas were discovered in that order in each civilization.

Idea

“Even before string theory, especially as physics developed in the 20th century, it turned out that the equations that really work in describing nature with the most generality and the greatest simplicity are very elegant and subtle.”

Edward Witten

in a NOVA interview Viewpoints on String Theory, Edward Witten http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/elegant/view-witten.html, July 2003.

Nature