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Eric Weinstein

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Not to be confused with Eric W. Weisstein.

Eric Weinstein
Born
Eric Ross Weinstein

(1965-10-26) October 26, 1965 (age 58)
Los Angeles, California, U.S.
EducationUniversity of Pennsylvania (BA)
Harvard University (MA, PhD)
Occupation(s)Venture capital fund manager, podcast host
Known forIntellectual dark web
SpousePia Malaney[1]
RelativesBret Weinstein (brother)

Eric Ross Weinstein (/ˈwaɪnstaɪn/; born October 26, 1965)[2] is an American investor and financial executive. As of 2021, he was managing director for the American venture capital firm Thiel Capital.[3] He coined the term "intellectual dark web". Weinstein proposed a theory of everything called "Geometric Unity" in 2013 that has largely been met with skepticism in the scientific community.[4]

Education[edit]

Weinstein received his PhD in mathematical physics from Harvard University in 1992 under the supervision of Raoul Bott.[5][6] In his dissertation, "Extension of Self-Dual Yang-Mills Equations Across the Eighth Dimension", Weinstein showed that the self-dual Yang–Mills equations were not peculiar to dimension four and admitted generalizations to higher dimensions.[7]

Career[edit]

Finance[edit]

In 2013, while promoting his theory of everything, Weinstein was working as an economist and consultant at the Natron Group, a New York City–based hedge fund.[8][9][10][4] As of 2021, Weinstein is the managing director for Thiel Capital, a venture capital firm founded by American financier Peter Thiel that invests in technology and life sciences–related companies.[4][3][11][1]

Theory of everything[edit]

Weinstein was invited to give a lecture at Oxford University's Clarendon Laboratory in May 2013, where he presented his proposed theory of everything called "Geometric Unity". The lecture was organized by mathematician Marcus du Sautoy, who also wrote an overview of the theory for The Guardian newspaper.[9] Physicists expressed skepticism about the theory[9][12] and criticized Weinstein for not submitting his ideas for peer review, which is standard in the scientific community.[4]

Physicist Joseph Conlon of Oxford stated that some of the new subatomic particles predicted by Weinstein would already have been detected in existing accelerators such as the Large Hadron Collider.[9] Science writer Jennifer Ouellette criticized the favorable coverage given to the theory by The Guardian, arguing that experts could not properly evaluate Weinstein's ideas because there was no published paper.[13]

In April 2021, Weinstein released a draft paper on Geometric Unity in a guest appearance on the podcast The Joe Rogan Experience. Weinstein qualified in his paper that he "is not a physicist," but an "entertainer" and podcast host. It received strong criticism from some in the scientific community.[4] Timothy Nguyen, whose PhD thesis intersects with Weinstein's work,[a] said what Weinstein has presented so far has "gaps, both mathematical and physical in origin" that "jeopardize Geometric Unity as a well-defined theory, much less one that is a candidate for a theory of everything."[4]

Other ventures[edit]

As of 2021, Weinstein hosts a podcast called The Portal.[15] He is a member of the research team on The Galileo Project headed by Avi Loeb.[16]

Personal life[edit]

Weinstein coined the name "intellectual dark web" to refer to himself and his brother, evolutionary biologist Bret Weinstein. The latter Weinstein resigned from his teaching position at Evergreen State College in 2017 in the wake of controversy over the college's "Day of Absence" for white students and faculty.[4][17]

Notes[edit]

  1. ^ Nguyen, who is a machine learning researcher at Google AI, co-authored a detailed paper with Theo Polya as a response[14]

References[edit]

  1. ^ a b McClurg, Lesley (May 7, 2015). "Let's Talk About Death Over Dinner". The Salt. NPR. Retrieved July 10, 2024.
  2. ^ Weinstein, Eric [@EricRWeinstein] (October 26, 2020). "Midway through my 55th birthday. Still no sign of a personal "I can't turn 55." message from @sammyhagar ...despite obvious hinting earlier in the day. Still, any day that starts with wine tasting can't be all bad..." (Tweet). Retrieved October 26, 2020 – via Twitter.
  3. ^ a b Wallace-Wells, Benjamin (May 13, 2021). "The Rise of the Thielists". The New Yorker. Archived from the original on August 30, 2021. Retrieved July 10, 2024.
  4. ^ a b c d e f g Ongweso, Edward Jr. (April 12, 2021). "Eric Weinstein Says He Solved the Universe's Mysteries. Scientists Disagree". Motherboard. Vice. Retrieved July 10, 2024.
  5. ^ Eric Weinstein at the Mathematics Genealogy Project
  6. ^ Tu, Loring W. (May 2006). "The Life and Works of Raoul Bott" (PDF). Notices of the American Mathematical Society. 53 (5): 558. ISSN 1088-9477. Retrieved July 10, 2024. Reprinted in:
    Tu, Loring W., ed. (2018). Raoul Bott: Collected Papers, Volume 5. Cham: Birkhäuser. p. 47. ISBN 978-3-319-51781-0.
  7. ^ Beaulieu, Laurent; Kanno, Hiroaki; Singer, I. M. (1998). "Special Quantum Field Theories in Eight And Other Dimensions". Communications in Mathematical Physics. 194 (1): 149–175. arXiv:hep-th/9704167. Bibcode:1998CMaPh.194..149B. doi:10.1007/s002200050353. ISSN 0010-3616. S2CID 3238703.
  8. ^ Jha, Alok (May 23, 2013). "Roll over Einstein: meet Weinstein". Notes & Theories. The Guardian. Retrieved July 10, 2024.
  9. ^ a b c d Aron, Jacob (June 2013). "How to test Weinstein's provocative theory of everything". New Scientist. Vol. 218, no. 2920. pp. 10 ff. doi:10.1016/s0262-4079(13)61403-7. ISSN 0262-4079.
  10. ^ Mack, Katherine J. (June 6, 2013). "Einstein to Weinstein: the lone genius is an exception to the rule". The Conversation. Retrieved July 10, 2024.
  11. ^ Illing, Sean (July 4, 2018). "Why capitalism won't survive without socialism". Vox (interview). Retrieved July 10, 2024.
  12. ^ Pontzen, Andrew (May 24, 2013). "Weinstein's theory of everything is probably nothing". New Scientist. Retrieved June 2, 2013.
  13. ^ Ouellette, Jennifer. "Dear Guardian: You've Been Played". Scientific American Blog Network. Archived from the original on February 10, 2021. Retrieved July 10, 2024.
  14. ^ Nguyen, Timothy (August 4, 2021). "Geometric Unity". Retrieved July 10, 2024 – via WordPress.
  15. ^ Castronuovo, Celine (January 15, 2021). "Eric Weinstein: It's time to end the business model of division". The Hill. Retrieved July 13, 2024.
  16. ^ "Eric Weinstein". The Galileo Project. Harvard University. n.d. Retrieved July 10, 2024.
  17. ^ Svrluga, Susan; Heim, Joe (June 1, 2017). "Threat shuts down college embroiled in racial dispute". The Washington Post. Retrieved July 1, 2018.

Further reading[edit]

External links[edit]

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