Impostures Intellectuelles Quantized Relativity

time no longer exists as an objective physical reality. “When even the gravitational field—geometry i n c a r n a t e — becomes a noncommuting (and hence nonlinear) operator, how can the classical interpretation of Gμν as a geometric entity be sustained? Now not only the observer, but the very concept of geometry, becomes relational and contextual.” The article might have passed unnoticed in the torrent of words produced by academics during the year 1996. Perhaps the heavy use of postmodernist jargon should have given it away. In any case, the author soon revealed it as a parody [S2]. This provoked a reaction from the editors of Social Text, followed by articles and exchanges of letters in the New York Times and the New York Review of Books and eventually in Le Monde. The dispute also generated new texts in the ultimate postmodern format, the Web page.