Joe Polchinski has a rather odd preprint on hep-th, more of a blog posting than a paper, summing up his views on string theory and the multiverse. This is a revised version, wisely dropping a really unfortunate section. The material previously here explaining the background to what was in that section has been moved elsewhere, and I’ve renamed the posting.
I’ve never personally met Polchinski, and from those who know him I’ve heard that he’s a nice guy. I’ve also recently heard that he’s ill, wish him the best.
Update: It seems that I misunderstood why Polchinski removed the section about me from his arXiv article. He’s now claiming that it was just because, since he’d gotten trackbacks to my blog banned, it would be unfair that there would be no trackback to his article (true enough…). This whole situation is a level of bizarre beyond the heights reached way back when during the string wars.
For those reading the version of Polchinski’s article on his website rather than the current one on the arXiv, to understand what this is about, please read the material here.
