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Current Thoughts in String Theory
DrLudicrous writes "The NYTimes is running a nice little synopsis of the current ideas in string theory. Apparently, there is still quite a bit of disagreement about how to interpret the various theories, with some string theorists supporting a semi-deterministic worldview a la Einstein (God does not play dice), while others believe our universe is just one possibility among many, with respect to various physical parameters."
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This site is maintained by a professor and has a great book on string theory. http://www.mkaku.org/
You are correct in stating that we lack the energy to test string theory -- According to Hawking, one estimate of the (theoritcal) grand unification energy would be a thousand million million million GeV. Further, he goes on to say that it would take something the size of a solar system to produce this. So you're right, we can't do it.
BUT, there could very well be places that do have this necessary energy and could be observed to exhibit traits that we can measure and confirm theories with. This has been how most of the more recent unification theories have been confirmed -- either by measuring very small things with very fine equipment or measuring very large things in space.
To make laws that man cannot, and will not obey, serves to bring all law into contempt.
--E.C. Stanton
Bollocks. Einstein's relativity could be readily tested at the time by measuring the bending of the light by Sun's gravity. That's exactly what made them so strong and actually respected by the experimentalists.
To an experimentalist a theory is just hot air until it can be tested in practise.
BOO! TERRO
For anyone curious about string theory, I would highly recommend Brian Greene's "The Elegant Universe: Superstrings, Hidden Dimensions, and the Quest for the Ultimate Theory". He uses excellent writing style and plain, easy to follow examples to illustrate difficult concepts, and rather than going through lots of math and derivations, reserves that type of thing for the endnotes. It makes for a very approachable book that is particularly good for someone trying to learn new concepts rather than the struggle with the gory details of theoretical physics equations.
The conclusion at the time was that General Relativity was confirmed, because the likelihood of measurement or equipment error seemed to have been greater with the result consistent with Newtonian gravity.
All long time readers of the rec.humor newgroups will recognize "the string joke". Apparently it was submitted so many times that it became a cliche for the "already heard joke", to the point that whenever somebody submitted what was thought to be an old joke, people would reply simply with the phrase "I'm afraid not". Ah, those were the good ol' days...
"Freedom means freedom for everybody" -- Dick Cheney
Some other good physics books that don't focus on String Theory that I also thought were very readable:
For Dark Matter and Dark Energy- Quintessence by Lawrence Krauss (who also wrote the Physics of Star Trek)
For Quantum Computing- Minds, Machines and the Multiverse by Julian Brown
The sending of this message pretty much inconveniences everyone involved.
I know more about string and particle theory than 99% of the population, which means I'm still a comparative dumbass on the subject in relation to people who really know what they're talking about.
However, here's a spiffy chart of the current "standard model" to help people get up to speed. Especially helpful for those who don't normally deal with Mesons and Antibayrons on a regular basis...
Lawrence Person (lawrencepersonh@gmailh.com (remove all "h"s to mail)
http://www.lawrenceperson.com/
Einstein's General Theory of Relativity provided an explanation for the motion of the perihelion of Mercury's orbit. Further, it correctly predicted the magnitude of this motion--all of about 43 seconds of arc per century. It's a small motion, but it had been observed, measured, and puzzled at by astronomers in the nineteenth century.
Aside: Many people cite the 1919 eclipse observations made by the Royal Astronomical Society (also mentioned in the link above) as a further early proof of relativity. Though this is the most popular early 'proof', it is tainted with uncertainties. More recent work suggests that the precision of the RAS' instruments was insufficient for the task--the good agreement with theory was likely largely coincidence. Indeed, contradictory results from later eclipses and other groups did follow in succeeding decades. (Measurements with modern instruments have, of course, borne out relativity.)
~Idarubicin
No, that was from measuring the mass of the Higgs boson. You're also assuming that the Earth is a Type-13 planet in it's final stages.
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You may also be interested in reading about loop quantum gravity, an alternative theory of everything. I' not expert, better refer to this reference that I looked up.