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::::Witten held professorships at Princeton (and IAS) for ten years before taking up that chaired position, so it's clearly irrelevant to his qualifications in physics.  Simonyi aside, I'm not sure why conducting a college-level physics experiment is supposed to be a prerequisite to be called a physicist, particularly a theoretical physicist.  Many winners of the physics Nobel do purely theoretical work (Wilczek and Gross are two recent such winners, off the top of my head).  Perhaps they did experiments as undergraduates, but they almost certainly haven't since.  Would you question that their work is physics?  Why would that fact that Witten didn't do trivial experiments decades ago have any implications for his qualifications to do physics?  I doubt very much that his failure to perform these experiments has had too crippling effect on his physical intuitions. --[[User:MarkGall|MarkGall]] 18:47, 16 June 2009 (EDT)

::::Witten held professorships at Princeton (and IAS) for ten years before taking up that chaired position, so it's clearly irrelevant to his qualifications in physics.  Simonyi aside, I'm not sure why conducting a college-level physics experiment is supposed to be a prerequisite to be called a physicist, particularly a theoretical physicist.  Many winners of the physics Nobel do purely theoretical work (Wilczek and Gross are two recent such winners, off the top of my head).  Perhaps they did experiments as undergraduates, but they almost certainly haven't since.  Would you question that their work is physics?  Why would that fact that Witten didn't do trivial experiments decades ago have any implications for his qualifications to do physics?  I doubt very much that his failure to perform these experiments has had too crippling effect on his physical intuitions. --[[User:MarkGall|MarkGall]] 18:47, 16 June 2009 (EDT)

::::::Well, in all fairness, it's good to know that the person has some connection with how theories are verified in practice. But as I pointed out above, experimental experience is a requirement of the Princeton degree.--[[User:Lemonpeel|Lemonpeel]] 18:51, 16 June 2009 (EDT)

::::::Well, in all fairness, it's good to know that the person has some connection with how theories are verified in practice. But as I pointed out above, experimental experience is a requirement of the Princeton physics Ph.D.--[[User:Lemonpeel|Lemonpeel]] 18:51, 16 June 2009 (EDT)

== String theory "unrelated" to known forces in nature? ==

== String theory "unrelated" to known forces in nature? ==