Massive Update on Strings Theory in Wikipedia

S3D writes "There is a massive update on Strings Theory in Wikipedia : AdS/CFT , Andrew Strominger , Cumrun Vafa, Ashoke Sen, Juan Maldacena, Mirror symmetry, String field theory, Holonomy, Heterotic string, Closed string , Open string, F-theory, Background independence, Higgs mechanism, Conifold, Tachyon_condensation, Einsteinian_manifold, Second superstring_revolution Now you can easyly tell Open string from Closed string at last."

Comments

I'm not sure

[Anonymous Coward]

why there is a wiki entry if its only a theory... sheesh, flat earth is a theory

Re:I'm not sure

[Anonymous Coward]

It's still a defined thing ... unicorns don't physically exist either. There's the physical universe and the conceptual universe (or mindspace)

Re:I'm not sure

[Scarblac]

why there is a wiki entry if its only a theory... sheesh, flat earth is a theory

All of science is "only a theory". (Yes, to Americans who still believe what they learned at school - no, theories don't "promote to Law" at some point. They stay theories regardless of what they're named). That's what science deals with.

Now superstring theory is a bit different, since as far as I know they haven't actually had any predictions yet that can be tested, they aren't really "connected to reality". In a way they're now a really complex collection of math that has yet to become a theory.

But of course, regardless of all that, there's a huge body of knowledge, terms, specialist language etc that needs to be explained to people who want to know what they mean. And that's what encyclopedias are for, you know. Just that they explain what "open string" means in superstring theory doesn't mean they're saying "this here is the only truth". They're not making any statement about the likely success of this theory at all They just explain the sort of ideas it deals with.

Sheesh.

Re:I'm not sure

[Zardoz44]

And it's an entry too:

Flat Earth

Re:I'm not sure

[Anonymous Coward]

>(Yes, to Americans who still believe what they learned
>at school - no, theories don't "promote to Law" at
>some point. They stay theories regardless of what
>they're named)

Another note to Americans. We are not all a bunch of jackasses like this guy.

Re:I'm not sure

[Doug Dante]

There is an entry for Flat Earth in Wikipedia.

This diversity of opinion, along with its inexorable and accelerating content growth suggest that Wikipedia, or some similar successor, just may become the standard reference of the earlh 21st century.

Re:I'm not sure

[Roman_(ajvvs)]

But The Guide is much better! it says

-----

DON'T PANIC

-----

on the cover. So much more comforting...

I must admit though, wikipedia definately gives the guide a run for its money!

Re:I'm not sure

[joeljkp]

I believe you mean "flat earth is a hypothesis". Theories are statements that are presumably true and have not been demonstrated false. Hypotheses, on the other hand, are just conjectures, and hold no weight beyond was the conjecturer gives them. A flat earth has been demonstrated false, so it is merely a hypothesis in the minds of those who choose to entertain it.

Re:I'm not sure

[Chuq]

Check the page history for Earth. Sooo many people have added the test "Mostly harmless" to the start of it.. and each new person who does it, doesn't check the edit history, and doesn't realise that they are NOT the first person to think of it!

Re:I'm not sure

[lscotte]

All of science is "only a theory". (Yes, to Americans who still believe what they learned at school - no, theories don't "promote to Law" at some point. They stay theories regardless of what they're named).

Ah good. Then nobody will mind that I just float around now that we know gravity is simply a theory?

Re:I'm not sure

[SEWilco]

Wikipedia needs to have a COMMENT marker.
So someone can insert comments which are only visible to editors, such as:
>> DO NOT SAY "Mostly harmless" AS IT WILL BE REMOVED!

Re:I'm not sure

[Crazy Eight]

...theories don't "promote to Law" at some point.

Hey, ya know what? It may be the vino talking, but that's kinda fucked. :)

Re:I'm not sure

[Anonymous Coward]

theories don't "promote to Law" at some point. They stay theories regardless of what they're named

Actually it you who is making up new rules. Check out the definintion of theory and law for yourself. The standard definitions, not your own personal ones.

sweet vibes

[xophos]

If only i could play those strings...

Why is this an interesting story?

[Improv]

Wikipedia is getting new knowledge all the time. If you really want to find out what's new, just visit here. I don't understand why new Wikipedia entries are meaningful stories for slashdot.

Re:Why is this an interesting story?

[misterpies]

It's worse than you think. The new pages are clearly added by someone in the Harvard physics dept (all the people mentioned in the story are located there), and don't actually contain much info, they're all stubs as far as I can see. I wouldn't be surprised if that same person then submitted a story to slashdot about the new entries...Funny thing, nowhere in the page for Juan Maldacena does it mention that he is the most sleep-inducing lecturer known to man (I had the misfortune to take his strings class at Harvard). I'll have to get into that wiki page and edit it myself.

Re:Why is this an interesting story?

[S3D]

. I wouldn't be surprised if that same person then submitted a story to slashdot about the new entries No, It was me who submitted the story, I'm in no way affiliated with Harvard physics dept or the authers of the articles - moderator of sci.physics.strings Lubis Mottl. I didn't thought that short and in big part accessible for layman explanation of some key concepts of strings theory would meet siuch a hostility on the major tech news site...

Re:Why is this an interesting story?

[Raindance]

Such generalizations can be dangerous. I, for instance, enjoyed the story.

RD

Re:Why is this an interesting story?

[sharkdba]

...meet siuch a hostility...

A few negative (or somewhat negative) posts don't mean hostility. Note that /. is very diversified. You have a few science geeks, who whenever see a science article, whenever it's not a PhD thesis, will complain. That's OK, don't worry about them. There are a BUNCH of various tech geeks (myself included) who have a personal interest in various science topics, and who find summarizations in laymen language quite interesting. If a specific topic awakens deeper interest, there are numerous sources to go to.

Indian theoretical physicist

[Anonymous Coward]

Here is another Indian fellow. Amazing to see them from NASA to all top technical US universities to Microsoft to IBM to Oracle to Medical industry to hotel industry and there are just about a million of them in the country... And you thought they only are cheap labor. You would be surpised if you start looking at the top research institutions in the country. They are everywhere.... This might seem like a flamebait but most of IT guys think of them as cheap labor which in not necessarily true since they are involved in a lot of top research to silicon valley startups...

Re:Indian theoretical physicist

[Anonymous Coward]

Your comment isn't flamebait at all (accuracy should never be the subject of ire). The subcontinent produces many very talented scientists and engineers; the university at Lahore, for example, is easily on par with any American institute, and since most Indians have a very good idea of what real poverty is, they have an excellent work ethic.

There's also the fact that India's population is rapidly approaching 1 billion, so assuming that none are clever enough to do anything but drive taxis or operate cash registers could be considered racist. But then, America has a unique talent for being condesending (at best) or outright racist (at worst) when regarding other countries (except regarding the French, since they deserve it). But if you don't believe me, just search Slashdot for the phrase "towel head", and be prepared to be amazed by the levels of bigotry in this *international* forum supposedly populated by intelligent people. Or set your threshold low and look at all those "Gay Nigger Association" trolls.

Racism can be a lot more subtle than apartheid, and America always needs its bogeymen.

Re:Indian theoretical physicist

[Mal-2]

I think this is in great part because someone already paved the way, and with great success: Subramanyan Chandrasekhar, who solved the Schwarzschild equations while on the long boat trip from India to England. When he met stiff resistance in a field of study, he did the sanest thing I've ever heard -- he'd publish his work in a volume that would go on to become required reading for future generations, and move on to something else. I'm sure you've heard the saying "fuck 'em if they can't take a joke", but his way was more like "fuck 'em if they can't handle the truth".

Mal-2

Re:Indian theoretical physicist

[Mycroft_VIII]

Speaking of Chandrasekhar, isn't the Chandrasekhar limit another name for the event horizon of a Black hole, or was it some other property? I honestly can't remember.
I was wondering how that unusual word got associated with black holes, didn't know if was named for someone (as apears to be the case) or was a word in some language I don't recognize(that would be most of them).

Mycroft

Re:Indian theoretical physicist

[Mal-2]

Something like that, but not exactly. There are actually two Chandrasekhar limits, each setting limits on the mass of bodies not engaged in fusion. The lower, about 1.4 solar masses, is the point at which such a body will collapse into a neutron star. The greater, about 8 solar masses, is the point at which degeneracy pressure will fail and the object will collapse into a black hole. These are what Chandrasekhar worked out on the long boat ride from India to England. His work was soundly criticized by the reigning giants of the time, even ones who believed General Relativity to be true (such as Eddington). In the end, of course, he would be proven right, but the experience left him bitter just the same, and is largely why he jumped to another specialty once he'd written his master work. This became his habit throughout life -- study a field, contribute a seminal work, and move on to another.

As for the event horizon, it's also referred to as the Schwarzschild radius, although bodies that are NOT black holes have a Schwarzschild radius as well (it's just smaller than the object, and has no real-world effects). The Schwarzschild radius of Earth is (IIRC) about a mile and a half. All the mass of the planet would have to be condensed into a sphere about three miles wide to make it dense enough to have an escape velocity equal to that of light. However, if you were to drill that deep, you would not notice anything strange going on, because the mass of Earth is NOT within that relatively tiny sphere.

Mal-2

Re:Indian theoretical physicist

[Mycroft_VIII]

Thanks, it's been way to long since I did any reading on that area of physics.
There are just so many ineresting things out there it's hard to learn as much as I would like and remember it all.

Mycroft

Hmm....Very few comments.....

[MrIrwin]

I'm glad to know I am not the only /.er who can't make head or tails of it;-)

Re:Hmm....Very few comments.....

[Anonymous Coward]

must be a closed string

Tachyons?

[jabberjaw]

From what I had gathered, most anything involving tachyons ranks rather high on the crackpot index. I do not suppose there are any physicits or string theorists who could shed some light as to why they pop up in these entries.

Re:Tachyons?

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, positing that tachyons are "really there" probably ought to get you labelled as somewhat misinformed. But as the wikipedia entry explains, there are (mathematical) situations where you end up with fields with imaginary mass (tachyons). You invoke symmetry breaking, fix a gauge, and your previously imaginary masses suddenly become real. No more tachyons - the tachyon field has "condensed" into a real-valued field.

Re:Tachyons?

[jpflip]

As far as I know, anyone who talks about tachyons as physical particles which we might use to construct warp drives or build a better mousetrap, is venturing into crackpot domain. The word does have a useful meaning in particle theory, which is indicated by the last paragraph of the entry. I'll give it a go, but this may not be helpful - it's unfortunately rather technical and abstract. Imagine you're trying to see how some particle (field) behaves. You can sum up a lot of the field's properties by a potential energy function. This can be a crazy function with lots of peaks and valleys in it, and what it tells you is how much energy it costs for the field to be in a given state. Usually, the field chooses to sit in the minimum energy state possible - the "ground state", the deepest of the valleys. If you "kick" the field with some kind of interaction, it will go into oscillations rolling around the bottom of the valley. These excitations are what we call particles. (Sorry, I said it was technical and abstract). A tachyon occurs when you made a mistake of sorts in your work - you picked the ground state to be at a peak rather than a valley. So the field value is such that you are perched atop one of these peaks. It turns out this would seem to correspond to a bizzare particle called a tachyon - a particle for which the square of its mass is negative (since the potential function is curving down instead of up). This isn't a real particle, though - if you "kick" the field when it's in that state, it won't oscillate normally to give particle states - it will roll off the peak and into a valley. This often happens when you spontaneously break a symmetry of your theory. Imagine your potential function looked like the letter "W". You might choose your ground state to be the one with left/right symmetry, but then you'd be on the peak of the W - you'd eventually roll off to the left or right and break the symmetry. The take-home message is that the tachyon state isn't a real particle, it's an unstable situation that is an indication that you picked the wrong ground state. I think that in the early days of particle physics people didn't understand this kind of thing so well and thought tachyon particles might actually exist. Sorry if I can't figure out how to make that much clearer.

Re:Tachyons?

[behindthewall]

I found your comment interesting and informative. Thanks.

Massive update?

[AlXtreme]

Most of the links are to stubs, this really isn't a massive update. Wake me when someone who knows what he's talking about adds some real (useful/readable) information on these theories.

Re:Massive update?

[Patrik_AKA_RedX]

Since you're the only one who noticed that, I presume we can consider the "nobody-reads-the-articles-anyway"-theory as proven.

Re:Massive update?

[AlXtreme]

Yeah, that's rig... OI!

Wikipedia even is late-breaking trivia stuff

[xmas2003]

There was a Slashdot thread about an SEO contest to get the top Google spot for the keyphrase nigritude ultramarine ... they keyphrase was only announced a few days ago, but there is allready an entry in Wikipedia for it - good for them! ;-)

alek

linkipedia

[HansF]

Must be the highest link-to-word-ratio I've seen in a long time.

Oh come on...

[stienman]

This could be solved with one entry:

Closed String: Contiguously allocated memory ending with 0x00 ('\0', 0, 0b00000000, etc)

Open String: Contigously allocated memory without a terminator (see also Closed String, Buffer Overflow)

-Adam

Light reading

[Mick Ohrberg]

Oh, good. Now I have more material for my light evening reading sessions.

Strings?

[Anonymous Coward]

I use natural gut with about 65 pounds tension.

Oh wait, you weren't talking about tennis.