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Elegant Universe Airs Tonight on PBS

Posted by michael on from the book-learnin' dept.

fatarfy writes "USA Today among others has an article discussing tonight's presentation of Brian Greene's Elegant Universe, which discusses String Theory. It airs on PBS. From the article: 'The two segments of the show turn their spotlights on a crisis in physics, one invisible to the general public but increasingly embarrassing to the discipline. Simply put, Einstein's unbelievably accurate explanation of gravity, known as general relativity, is completely out of whack with the equally accurate explanation of electromagnetism, radioactivity and atomic forces known as quantum mechanics. The theories are mankind's most fundamental views of verifiable reality, and the disagreement means that something important about the universe eludes our understanding.' Sounds like it's worth watching."

6 of 69 comments (clear)

  1. For sure, more than one thing *grin* by Futurepower(R) · · Score: 4, Funny


    "... something important about the universe eludes our understanding..."

    Exactly correct, but also unintentionally funny. I'm guessing something is more accurately 100,000,000 things.

  2. String Theory by Academy+Girl · · Score: 5, Interesting

    The thing I find funny about critics of string theory is their objection to the idea that there can be multiple dimensions beyond the three dimensions people can perceive. This is where philosophy and physics should intersect -- right at Kant, who pointed out that you cannot understand the world, only your perception of the world. Now, whether or not you agree with Kant, the point is that you, at least, shouldn't be limited by your perception of the universe. It seems plainly obvious that just because people can only perceive three dimensions, the universe certainly doesn't have to be contained by that premise.

    1. Re:String Theory by citoc · · Score: 5, Insightful
      The issue isn't the inability to understand higher dimensions, most critics have an issue with the inability to observe higher dimensions. If higher dimensions exist, why don't we observe things moving in them? The only reason String theory predicts higher dimensions is because the matrix it uses (the math kind not the movie kind ;-) can only be solved in higher dimensions. So the explanation that these higher dimensions must in fact exist on a plane smaller than our observable limit (roughly a proton) seems a bit arbitrary to some (many).

      Surely we can agree that the gap between quantum and relativity needs to be filled, but going off on a whole set of random assumptions based on what needs to be true to solve a little math issue might not be the best approach. Then again, look what it did for Einstein... Of course the difference there was that his predictions were actually observed...

    2. Re:String Theory by Bootsy+Collins · · Score: 4, Informative

      > In order to be taken seriously -- indeed, to even be considered scientific
      > -- a physical theory should be falsifiable.

      Unless, of course, it happens to be _true_.

      I'm not sure whether you meant this reply as a joke or not; the moderation suggests so, and perhaps my humor detector is even worse-off than it usually is. But it seems possible to me that your reply is serious, so (being both a physicist and an educator) I can't help myself . . .

      Perhaps the most widely misunderstood property of modern science is that no proposition, no scientific theory, is ever proved to be absolutely true. No matter how much evidence you accumulate in favor of some theory or model, there's always the possibility that next week someone's going to come up with an experimental or observational result that requires that theory's revision or even outright rejection. Scientific theories can only be proven false; they can never be proved true.

      "Yeah, yeah," you might be saying, "but I wasn't talking about whether theories can be proved true or not; I was talking about whether or not a theory actually is true. After all, even if we can't ever know with 100% certainty that a particular theory is true, it may still be true." Yes, indeed. But that's irrelevant to my original point, the one to which you replied. Since we cannot ever know with certainty whether any theory we put forward is absolutely true, and thus any theory is always subject to scrutiny, our requirement that the theory be falsifiable -- that it be possible to conceive of an experimental or observational result which would rule the theory out -- still stands.

  3. If you already plan to watch Nova... by node+3 · · Score: 5, Informative

    Don't try too hard to find "Brian Greene's Elegant Universe" in your local listing. Instead, just watch Nova as planned, as that's the show which will be covering the topic. Part one is tonight. Part two is next week.

    I don't know why the article (at least), or the headline (even better) didn't mention this. It's sort of the inverse of "The Lone Gunman are Dead".

    Yes, it's in one of the seven links. Did you click all seven? I didn't.

  4. Re:I'm busy tonight by DJayC · · Score: 4, Informative

    Actually, PBS is allowing you to view the program on the website after both airings. (this week and next week)

    From the site:
    "Immediately following the broadcast of "The Elegant Universe" on October 28th and November 4, watch the entire three-hour special here. Each episode will be divided into chapters and can be viewed with the QuickTime or RealPlayer plug-ins. "

    And the link:
    http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/elegant/program.html