Is String Theory Really a Scientific Theory?

vk38 writes, "The New Yorker is running a story on whether String Theory is really a scientific theory or just an abstract exercise in math designed to churn out papers and Ph.Ds for the established academics. The article reviews two current books, by Lee Smolin and Peter Woit, laying out the case against string theory." From the article: "Dozens of string-theory conferences have been held, hundreds of new Ph.D.s have been minted, and thousands of papers have been written. Yet... not a single new testable prediction has been made, not a single theoretical puzzle has been solved. In fact, there is no theory so far — just a set of hunches and calculations suggesting that a theory might exist. And, even if it does, this theory will come in such a bewildering number of versions that it will be of no practical use: a Theory of Nothing... String theory has always had a few vocal skeptics... Sheldon Glashow, who won a Nobel Prize for making one of the last great advances in physics before the beginning of the string-theory era, has likened string theory to a 'new version of medieval theology,' and campaigned to keep string theorists out of his own department at Harvard. (He failed.)"

Comments

Thanks for the troll submission

[Anonymous Coward]

This is more FUD from you know who...

Re:Thanks for the troll submission

[Anonymous Coward]

from you know who
No I don't know who: The New Yorker, Sheldon Glashow, Jim Holt, or kdawson?

Re:Thanks for the troll submission

[buswolley]

Sounds like religion to me. ha ha just kidding.

Seriously, the case may be that the reality of the Universe is so complicated that String Theory will take a long time to come to fruition. Also, it may be that there are no testable predictions because of our limited perspective.. eg 3 dimensions.. limited energy resources.. Fundamentally limited abilities to measure..

Or maybe the Universe is just a big knot of strings, and no human can untie it.

I am fud.

Re:Thanks for the troll submission

[Morphine007]

it's true, it really is FUD.

String theory hasn't been replaced by newer versions, it's been updated with small modifications like "what if the basic premise is the same, but instead of a 1D string vibrating in 4 dimensions (x,y,z and t) it's vibrating in 11 dimensions, where the other dimensions are curled up within the planck length?"

There are reasons why string theory has failed to come up with any NEW predictions. For one thing, it's being constantly tweaked so that it is consistent with EXISTING experimentation. After all, why would you build a theory that you hope will become a GUT if it's not consistent with other proven theories?

The other thing is that this is a theory... the fact that it (mathematically) treats particles as being a 1D string vibrating in n-dimensions doesn't actually mean that if you could see items smaller than the planck length, that you would actually see a vibrating string!! It's a mathematical representation... the math doesn't have to represent exactly what's happening as long as it can be used to describe what is happening.

After all, modern chemistry is incredibly useful for predicting how atoms interact with eachother to form compounds... even though it's based off the idea that electrons orbit a nucleus like a tiny little planet orbitting a sun... that is precisely NOT what an electron does, but who cares, the math allows you to make determinations. It's the same with string theory.

I do not think that string theory is a con job. I do, however, think that attempting to come up with a GUT is a MUCH MUCH larger task than simply trying to explain, say, quantum behaviour, like tunneling.

They're starting with a very simple, and very elegant premise (that all particles are periodic vibrations with different frequencies corresponding to different particles) and then building from there. Hell... start with that and just try and figure out how to represent the periodic table... that alone would be mind-boggling. Now start trying to figure out what particle interaction would look like... then build up from there. The trick, is that it's possible to describe nearly everything using this theory... but it hasn't happened yet. Just because it's possible doesn't mean it'll be easy.

This, of course, probably means that it's the wrong way of going about it... but that doesn't make it a waste of time... the hardest part, I think, will be in having enough patience to see what the theory can produce outside of existing theories... unfortunately it has to be harmonized with existing theory ;-)

Re:Thanks for the troll submission

[Overly Critical Guy]

The other thing is that this is a theory/blockquote.
No. Theories are falsifiable.

Re:Thanks for the troll submission

[mako1138]

After all, modern chemistry is incredibly useful for predicting how atoms interact with eachother to form compounds... even though it's based off the idea that electrons orbit a nucleus like a tiny little planet orbitting a sun... that is precisely NOT what an electron does, but who cares, the math allows you to make determinations.

At the high school level we use the Bohr ansatz, sure, but Chem 1A these days has plenty of QM.

Re:Thanks for the troll submission

[tzvicky]

>After all, modern chemistry is incredibly useful for predicting how atoms interact with eachother to >form compounds... even though it's based off the idea that electrons orbit a nucleus like a tiny little >planet orbitting a sun... that is precisely NOT what an electron does, but who cares, the math allows >you to make determinations. It's the same with string theory. Just for a clearness. Modern quantum chemistry (something like 90 years old) IS NOT "based off the idea that electrons orbit a nucleus like a tiny little >planet orbitting a sun". Born model is tought in schools but NOT used by scientists. See, for example: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_chemistry

Re:Thanks for the troll submission

[Morphine007]

Yes, and physics is full of mathematically complex theories (like schrodingers wave equations for example) but you can still predict where an artillery shell is going to land based on Newton's theories.... the theory you use is determined, in large part, by the domain you're trying to find a solution in. You wouldn't, for example, try to use QM to model the collisions of balls on a pool table. Likewise, you wouldn't use QM to try and model gravitational interactions between bodies... but the intent of string theory is that you'd be able to do either using the same framework... that alone should give some insight into the complexity of the theoretical underpinnings of it.... and explain why "breakthroughs" are taking so goddamned long. It has to maintain consistency in domains where other theories can't even represent what's going on... let alone provide the mechanism for making predictions in these domains.

Re:Thanks for the troll submission

[DragonWriter]

There are reasons why string theory has failed to come up with any NEW predictions. For one thing, it's being constantly tweaked so that it is consistent with EXISTING experimentation.

That's not a theory, then, or even a hypothesis, but merely a rationalization. A scientific hypothesis is consistent with existing results and falsifiably predicts new results; a theory is a hypothesis that has survived testing. But if all you have is a model that is consistent with old results and predicts nothing new that makes it testable, you just have a rationalization of those existing results. That's not to say that string "theory", if this description is accurate, isn't scientific; to get to a hypothesis, you start with a rationalization of existing results and then determine falsifiable consequences of that rationalization. That work on actually working out the consequences and getting to a testable hypothesis is slower than current results demonstrating that previous work toward that goal needs to be adjusted doesn't make the work not science, it just demonstrates that its not simple. The whole area of exploration may be a dead end, but lots of areas that appear promising turn out that way; you can't do science if you don't follow lines of inquiry that might turn out to be dead ends, and a line of inquiry directed at producing testable scientific hypotheses doesn't stop being good science because you have to go back occasionally and adjust something and then continue again.

Re:Thanks for the troll submission

[Anonymous Coward]

You're a fucking imbecile and I am glad that you proved your idiocy only a few sentences into your dipshit dissertation.

x,y,z and t? Hey dipshit, the fourth dimension is not time but a spatial dimension which is orthogonal to the three dimensions. Time is the measurement of a sequence of events and phenomena which is fundamental to the structure of the known universe. Kata and ana are not measured in seconds/minutes/hours/etc.

Also the directions are labelled as w, x, y and z. There is no t unless you're dabbling in 7 dimensional solids.

Kindly leave your Rod Serling physics at the door and go back to posting CP at /b/

Re:Thanks for the troll submission

[cool_arrow]

I don't think TFA is saying that it's a waste of time, but that perhaps we are spending too many resources on it in terms of money and brains.

Re:Thanks for the troll submission

[Morphine007]

There is a good chance that we are... I really can't speak to that since I'm CS and not Physics. So I've really no idea exactly how much in the way of resources is being thrown at this

If TFA was trying to say this, it seemed very much to do so by attempting to devalue the entire endeavour. Which is something that I find particularly offensive. I don't claim to be able to understand the mathematical underpinnings of modern physics as well as I would like... but I have been initiated into them through a couple of university level courses. I also have some insight into the logic driving the field. Couple that with the fact that I'm a firm believer that science for it's own sake is never a wasted venture, and you might be able to see where I'm coming from.

Re:Thanks for the troll submission

[N7DR]

There are reasons why string theory has failed to come up with any NEW predictions. For one thing, it's being constantly tweaked so that it is consistent with EXISTING experimentation. After all, why would you build a theory that you hope will become a GUT if it's not consistent with other proven theories?

Yep; there are so many free parameters to superstring theory that it seems that it would be possible to create a version to suit almost any experimental observations. I know that the hope is that one day some version or other will make a useful, experimentally verifiable prediction (after all, these people are not remotely stupid; they do realise that a theory is required to make predictions), but one cannot help suspecting that, when that day comes and if the prediction turns out to be wrong, they'll just tweak one or more of the free parameters to create another one of the infinite number of possible theories so that the nre version does match the experimental result (and which will presumably make some sort of prediction for a future experiment). Wash; rinse; repeat.

I can understand why string theorists get excited about their work: there is a certain elegance to it all. But I cannot be sanguine that it will turn out to be a ToE. It may or may not be a ToN(othing); one suspects that at least some useful things will come out of it. But one cannot help thinking that it will be some much, much simpler revolution and new of looking at things that provides the real breakthrough.

Re:Thanks for the troll submission

[ajs]

String theory hasn't been replaced by newer versions, it's been updated with small modifications like "what if the basic premise is the same, but instead of a 1D string vibrating in 4 dimensions (x,y,z and t) it's vibrating in 11 dimensions, where the other dimensions are curled up within the planck length?"

At the same time, Christianity has updated ID with small modifications like "what if the basic premise is the same, but instead of the hand of God creating man in 1 day (out of 6) it's the hand of some sort of watchmaker creating the entire universe on a timetable of its choosing?"

Notice that neither assertion involves making verifiable predictions or presenting claims that can be tested? The differnce is that String Theory is valid math, which is certainly a serious leg-up.

I'm not a pro- or anti-string theorist, but the claim that string theory is a mathematical model, and not a scientific theory has merit. That doesn't mean it's wrong, but it does mean that it isn't quite science. Making predictions about things below the plank length is terribly easy because no one can prove that your beautiful math is wrong.

There are reasons why string theory has failed to come up with any NEW predictions. For one thing, it's being constantly tweaked so that it is consistent with EXISTING experimentation. After all, why would you build a theory that you hope will become a GUT if it's not consistent with other proven theories?

That's avoiding the point. If you keep modifying string theory to fit new facts without accurately predicting any of those facts, there's a case to be made that string theory might well be one of a practically infinite number of valid models that would fit the data.

I do not think that string theory is a con job. I do, however, think that attempting to come up with a GUT is a MUCH MUCH larger task than simply trying to explain, say, quantum behaviour, like tunneling.

That's still dodging the point. Yes, the GUT has been elusive, but that has nothing to do with string theory's validity. When non-science is hard, that doesn't make it science.

Re:Thanks for the troll submission

[Hal_Porter]

First they came for the theologians, and I said nothing because I am not a theologian.

Then they came for the astrologers, and I said nothing because I was not an astrologer.

Then they came for the business process consultants, and I said nothing because I hate those smug fuckers.

Now they are coming for the software refactoring consultants, and there is no one left to speak up for me. Christ, I might have to get a real job with deadlines. I might have to produce something.

I think I speak for everyone here when I say that useless, pretentious, pseudoscientific professions should be protected.

Re:Thanks for the troll submission

[k98sven]

It's not "FUD" in the least. Have you forgotten entirely what that term's origin and use is? Just because you disagree with a critical view doesn't make it a baseless propaganda effort. If it had been that, they wouldn't have bothered writing an entire book to presesnt their arguments. They wouldn't be presenting arguments to begin with!

There are reasons why string theory has failed to come up with any NEW predictions. For one thing, it's being constantly tweaked so that it is consistent with EXISTING experimentation. After all, why would you build a theory that you hope will become a GUT if it's not consistent with other proven theories?

This is why you don't get it: That is behaviour which is generally considered unscientific. If you need to keep modifying your theory to explain stuff, then it's not a scientific theory. It's an ad-hoc mess of empiricism of zero real value. The rules of the game are:
1) It must be testable (falsifiable)
2) You must provide new predictions
3) You must explain previous observations, observations not used in formulating the theory., and ideally, none at all.
4) You must do so using fewer postulates (assumptions) than the previous theory.

The other thing is that this is a theory... the fact that it (mathematically) treats particles as being a 1D string vibrating in n-dimensions doesn't actually mean that if you could see items smaller than the planck length, that you would actually see a vibrating string!! It's a mathematical representation... the math doesn't have to represent exactly what's happening as long as it can be used to describe what is happening.

The word you're looking for is "model". But how is this another thing? Our current understanding is a model as well. The question is whether it's a better model or not is still there and unanswered.

After all, modern chemistry is incredibly useful for predicting how atoms interact with eachother to form compounds... even though it's based off the idea that electrons orbit a nucleus like a tiny little planet orbitting a sun... that is precisely NOT what an electron does, but who cares, the math allows you to make determinations. It's the same with string theory.

You have no clue. Modern chemistry is not based on any such model. It's based entirely on the standard model of physics. There is not one, not one! molecular property that can be described in anything less than a fully quantum-mechanical treatment. All of chemistry is purely due to quantum-mechanical effects.

And string theory is not the same at all, even if you'd been right. String theory is an attempt at a more basic and general theory of quantum mechanics, in the same way as classical mechanics is a limiting case of quantum theory. It is not an approximation of quantum theory, and not intended to be one.

They're starting with a very simple, and very elegant premise (that all particles are periodic vibrations with different frequencies corresponding to different particles) and then building from there. Hell... start with that and just try and figure out how to represent the periodic table... that alone would be mind-boggling.

You don't get it. The periodic table is already entirely explained from QM, and has been for some time. There's no more reason to describe it in terms of string theory than to describe the motion of billiard balls in terms of quantum mechanics: It's unnecessary because it's already explained by classical mech, and we know classical mech is a subset of quantum mech.

In the case of string theory, all they need to do is show that QM is a subset of that theory. That's not hard and it is. It forms the basic premise of their work as well as the goal. The idea is that they're going to work from part of quantum theory and relativity and somehow arrive at the whole thing. Which parts the

Re:Thanks for the troll submission

[Anonymous Coward]

The other thing is that this is a theory... the fact that it (mathematically) treats particles as being a 1D string vibrating in n-dimensions doesn't actually mean that if you could see items smaller than the planck length, that you would actually see a vibrating string!! It's a mathematical representation... the math doesn't have to represent exactly what's happening as long as it can be used to describe what is happening.

After all, modern chemistry is incredibly useful for predicting...

You know what's low? A physicist pointing to chemists for justification. Turn your badge in.

Re:Thanks for the troll submission

[fferreres]

>The differnce is that String Theory is valid math, which is certainly a serious leg-up.

Math is language, just as english. In fact, spoken languages are more powerfull. There are infinite ideas you can't yet express with just math (and if you ever do, any common language will be much shorter). A universe that's explained by interacting quantities or energies, but may not be all there really actually _is_. Even computer languages are better suited to reality.

Re:Thanks for the troll submission

[Morphine007]

I guess the biggest point that I was trying to make is that it's not complete. You can't hold it against the same scrutiny as you would, say, QED, because it's not at the same stage of completeness.

Will it ever get there? Maybe not.

Once it gets there could it be wrong anyway? Possibly

Is it even worth attempting then? Emphatically YES!

And that's the only real beef that I had with TFA... it seemed to be saying "It's not a complete theory, and it's been incomplete for a while, so it's useless and should be dropped.

Re:Thanks for the troll submission

[jc42]

The other thing is that this is a theory...

Not really. Since it hasn't been tested, it's a hypothesis or a conjecture. In common scientific parlance, "theory" is reserved for things that have passed at least a few major tests. Consistency with past observation isn't sufficient to elevate a new hypothesis to the status of "theory". It takes testing against new observations for that.

Of course, scientists can be nearly as sloppy in their terminology as anyone else. And those pushing a new explanation do like to call their own ideas a "theory", in an attempt to get a status that they don't yet deserve.

And it is getting harder to make up good tests of new physics. Einstein only had to wait a year or two to see the first attempts at debunking fail, and his newfangled "relativity" stuff made it to "theory" level in a short time. It'll take the "string theory" people a bit longer.

It'd be fun to read about an actual test of an 11-dimensional universe ...

Re:Thanks for the troll submission

[Kalle Boll]

Well, couldn't what you say (k98sven) be interpreted as proof that there is a need for new qualitative methods in this kind of physics research. Traditionally physics has used other methods. Isn't string theory more complex (on the border to philosophy if i understand it right) and hence need other scientific methods (and from my knowledge of an field beyond my scope the trend is towards more complex scientific methods). However one thing I can say for sure. It's science whether you approve the methods or not. In qualitative studies it's quite common to start of with vague or even non existent proof, in a way it helps when you want to explore new areas of research... the side affect can be as mentioned better math and not proof of string theory, though its still science. What you present is a stiff rigid view of science which is not correct. I see this as a great example of how physics are evolving to more complex and hard to prove issues.

Re:Thanks for the troll submission

[uncoveror]

If string theory is a legitimate scientific theory, then so is time cube.

Re:Thanks for the troll submission

[k98sven]

I don't quite understand your point. But as I interpret it, you're basically saying we should alter the definition of "science" so that string theory can qualify as science, should it ultimately fail to meet the usual criteria for science. I think that would more or less make the term "science" meaningless.

However one thing I can say for sure. It's science whether you approve the methods or not.

What a silly thing to say! String theory is scientific no matter how they arrive at their results? What if they're using a Ouija Board?

Anyway I think you misunderstood me. I don't disapprove of their methods. I am not saying you can't rely on assumptions and empirical results to form your theory. That's how all scientific theories get formed. But that methodology does automatically mean the resulting theory is scientific, or that the result is a better scientific theory.

I can go out and do an experimental observation of grass, and then formulate the theory "grass is green". This makes a prediction. It is falsifiable. But it is not a scientific theory, because it explains no more than what I'd already observed. I assume you agree to that much? You need to predict more than you assume. Part of the critisism here is based on the fear (voiced also by 't Hooft) that string theory may ultimately amount to little more than that.

It's true that you can argue it's still a scientific theory since it does explain more than it assumes, in the same way QM and relativity does. But if it makes the same number of assumptions, then it's not a better theory than those two. It's not even a new theory. It's just a useless restatement of the old one.

To give such an example: Does the Earth orbit the Sun? The heliocentric model doesn't assume more than the geocentric model. One doesn't explain more than the other. The heliocentric model is just simpler, and therefore more useful.

As I understand it, you're saying it's fine to sacrifice the goal of fewer assumptions for the goal of a more general theory in this case. That's not a view representative of what most physicists think. I'd say the goal of fewer assumptions is actually much more important in this case.

QM and relativity already explain everything we can observe so far. Likewise, what we know them not to explain (e.g. singularities in relativity) is not observable. Science is not in the business of explaining the unobservable in terms of the unknowable, and any such theory is simply unscientific, no matter how rigorous it is in terms of logic.

(Don't get me wrong, any GUT, even such an unscientific one, is still a great intellectual achievement. Just because it's not scientific knowledge doesn't mean it's not knowledge. Math is not a science, as far as I'm concerned. It's still knowledge. Logic is knowledge. Even metaphysics is knowledge - albeit not a very useful kind.)

However: It's entirely wrong to make any kind of blanket statement that string theory is unscientific. I am not doing so, nor are any critics that I know of or would consider listening to. There's no point passing judgement on a theory until there's a finished theory to judge. They're currently nowhere near that point.

But the issue of scientific rigor isn't just the aforementioned philosophical problems. There's also a more obvious social problem. String theorists are largely working in isolation from the rest of (theoretical) physics, and increasingly so. That constitutes a major warning-flag in terms of scientific rigor. Isolation leads loss of critical distance and creation of group-think. Good science is almost never done in isolation.

Because of its big goal, string theory is extremely popular and well-funded. It's a prestige subject. (and many string theorists have the big heads that go with it, another warning sign) The rest of theoretical physics is not so well funded. So a lot of people think that it's getting an inordinate amount of resources, giv

Re:Thanks for the troll submission

[Kalle Boll]

You write a very long and interesting answer. However, I only made one point and that was that the scientific methods used by physicists must evolve and hence it's good to look at other areas of research for inspiration. The "physicist research" today is getting more abstract for sure and also more complex. So in a sense your moving closer to theoretical math as a field of research. "What a silly thing to say! String theory is scientific no matter how they arrive at their results? What if they're using a Ouija Board?" No I didn't say that. I just said you might need new scientific methods/tools to address new problems. Methods are a big part of science. But they are not written in stone and keeps evolving and adapting to the area you research. Your view of science is to me very narrow. You know that there are other areas of science that exist outside your realm, take a look at those for inspiration. "I can go out and do an experimental observation of grass, and then formulate the theory "grass is green". This makes a prediction. It is falsifiable. But it is not a scientific theory, because it explains no more than what I'd already observed. I assume you agree to that much? You need to predict more than you assume. Part of the criticism here is based on the fear (voiced also by 't Hooft) that string theory may ultimately amount to little more than that." I only stated that you can build research on assumptions (or vague and non-existent proof) if you want to explore without the knowledge of the actual goal (like in qualitative study were the goal is often unknown). In a way such assumption might be proven wrong but the value might then be the bi-product. - In such case I would agree (even if it's off topic) that enormous resources to such field is wrong since it's such a long shot, though it might still mandate research in the area. You are also very accustomed to the observation, which someone mentioned, is getting extremely difficult to perform, perhaps another sign for evolved methods in this kind of research. "As I understand it, you're saying it's fine to sacrifice the goal of fewer assumptions for the goal of a more general theory in this case. That's not a view representative of what most physicists think. I'd say the goal of fewer assumptions is actually much more important in this case." No, I just say it's can still be science if you start of research with assumptions. Your thinking is very goal orientated which might be bad if your are looking for something that you don't understand or can grasp. So in a sense string theory research can be a better way to discover and explore unknown aspects of physics (those you don't know of and cant imagine at the moment) than if you bet at a sure card. All the other problems of string theory as a resource hog or that it's a closed of group and if that is good for science is off topic (but is it really a closed group, you can view and criticise the results?). Separate the issues, some are political and not scientific.

Re:Thanks for the troll submission

[k98sven]

I guess the biggest point that I was trying to make is that it's not complete. You can't hold it against the same scrutiny as you would, say, QED, because it's not at the same stage of completeness.

That's what you should have said, then. :)
It's true, you can't judge a theory until it's done. String theory is not done at all.

However, what I think they're saying, what I was saying at least, is that you can judge from the methodology used if it's going to give a useful result or not. As 't Hooft pointed out, at least some string theorists have resorted to problem-solving tactics that will end up creating more problems than they solve.

There's also a general legitimacy problem, not only within string theory (although it's particularily bad there) but within Theoretical Physics as a whole. Some areas of the field are so abstract nowadays, that few know what the heck it's all about. For instance the Bogdanoff affair (http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/bogdanoff/). Two guys got PhDs on the basis of papers that simply didn't make any sense to anyone. And noone's quite sure whether it was sheer fraud or an honestly intended but ultimately pseudoscientific result.

But the extremely abstract nature of modern theoretical physics makes it very vunerable to this unless they interact with others. And string theory is isolated, even for being theoretical physics.

I think that even if turns out to be the right place to go, it might not be the right way to get there. Intermediate theories such as supersymmetry exist, and are not as isolated from 'real' physics.

Is it even worth attempting then? Emphatically YES!

I agree. I think most critics do as well (although perhaps not the most skeptical ones). It's more or less the only line of attack we've got towards a GUT, and we should persue it.

The real question is: How hard should we persue it? Is it getting more resources than it deserves?
It's the most important field of theory in the sense that it could provide a GUT. But it's the least important one in the sense that a GUT would have little impact on most applied physics.

Personally, I'm waiting for the Holy Grail of molecular physics: A way to solve to the molecular Schrödinger equation that scales linearly. It's been mathematically proven one exists (at least in the density-functional reformulation). We just have no clue what it is. Or even a straightforward way to find out!

Anyway.. Sorry 'bout the "no clue" remark before, that was an uncalled for. I guess I'm just a bit touchy about erroneous statements on my field of expertise.

Re:Thanks for the troll submission

[oblivionboy]

You obviously have no idea what string theory is about. The original poster is bang on. Good luck with your career in this, if you have one. Sounds like you've bought into the FUD. String Theory IS modified to fit the experimental results. ALL the time. Anything after this is just about how it falls apart.

Re:Thanks for the troll submission

[Anonymous Coward]

String Theory IS modified to fit the experimental results

That's wrong. There is only one string theory, and always has been: it is a unique theory. What is modified is which solution of the theory is supposed to describe our universe.

Please note, by the way, that there is nothing wrong with modifying a theory to fit the experimental results; that's how the Standard Model of particle physics was arrived at.

Re:Thanks for the troll submission

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, and physics is full of mathematically complex theories (like schrodingers wave equations for example)

A second order linear differential equation is mathematically complex? I don't think there are theories with much simpler mathematics.

Re:Thanks for the troll submission

[Morphine007]

LOL, compared to F=ma, a first order DE is mathematically complex..... it was a comparative statement dammit....

Neither Proved Nor Disproved

[eldavojohn]

String theory is a scientific theory that has neither been proved nor disproved to my knowledge.

I could speculate all day on whether or not it is fact but from what I've read, I will make a few statements. It seems that string theory was invented to satisfy some things we could not explain. This doesn't mean it's wrong or right although some people will contend that it is most probably wrong.

As the summary points out, few (if any) of String Theory's propositions can be tested or even observed. So it is simply an unknown right now. We cannot measure the proposed strings so how can we prove if they exist or they don't? We simply can't yet.

A good analogy would be Bohr's early assumptions about the atom. They were wrong but they were a step in the right direction. In hindsight, we see this now but we don't know what the future holds for String Theory. I'm just glad there are people out there thinking outside the box.

Do not fret, however, as scientists have been very resourceful at proving/disproving theories. I submit, for example, the exercise of determining the diameter of the building blocks of matter. Scientists had the idea to fill up one cubic milliletre of oil and dump it on top of a trough of water with a roller across the top. As the oil spread out, they moved the roller further down the trough. Once they started to see non-reflective parts of the water, they moved it back until they agreed the oil was completely spread out to the best of their abilities. Using this area, they determined how thick a molecule of oil could be without precision tools!

Similar ingenious tests have been devised to easily find the diameter of the earth at sunset on a beach with a yard stick or ruler.

So even though we may never be able to measure these strings, there are still some options left to explore to record properties that may prove/disprove their existence. We're merely in the very early stages of the scientific process.

Let us be excited about String Theory, even if it is wrong it sure is interesting. Nothing's wrong with a scientist who dreams, is there?

Re:Neither Proved Nor Disproved

[Anonymous Coward]

As the summary points out, few (if any) of String Theory's propositions can be tested or even observed.

So how is that any different from intelligent design? If you can't test it, it isn't science.

Re:Neither Proved Nor Disproved

[iocat]

But to really be a theory, it needs to be testable and disprovable. Right now String Theory is not really testable, and it's difficult to disprove, because it morphs to accept whatever disprovations people come up with. Wikipedia actually sites it on the theory page as a more looser definition of theory than the traditional scientific usage of the term. (The term theory is occasionally stretched to refer to theoretical speculation that is currently unverifiable. Examples are string theory and various theories of everything. In common speech, theory has a far wider and less defined meaning than its use in the sciences.)

None of that means it isn't true, of course...

Re:Neither Proved Nor Disproved

[rishistar]

Does anyone really care about this? All people really want to know is - how long is the piece of string?

Re:Neither Proved Nor Disproved

[BytePusher]

I'd like to also mention that this is the same paper that invented a drama (http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/09/ 21/1442239) between several notable mathematicians. It seems the "New Yorker" is in the business of making news, not reporting it, ala "The Onion," but they seem to take themselves more seriously.

Re:Neither Proved Nor Disproved

[MetaPhyzx]

Good post.

That's somewhat the point I was making with a my previous..simplistic post below. It would be different if the artical was written with no apparent predisposed position. Simply a... as someone else said layperson's attempt to understand and explain the debate over String Theory.

Note the possibilities, note the present reality of even putting much of M-Theory's proposed experiments through the wringer, and state time will tell. Critically analyze it, versus....this.

That's not what we got here, and knowing my luck I'll get rated Flamebait again, but hey.

Re:Neither Proved Nor Disproved

[kfg]

As the summary points out, few (if any) of String Theory's propositions can be tested or even observed. So it is simply an unknown right now. We cannot measure the proposed strings so how can we prove if they exist or they don't? We simply can't yet.

Therefore they are God, not theory. An untestable hypothesis. What makes a theory a theory is testability.

KFG

Re:Neither Proved Nor Disproved

[LotsOfPhil]

Grrr. I have no problem with most of your post, but you really get off on the wrong foot.

String theory is a scientific theory that has neither been proved nor disproved to my knowledge. I could speculate all day on whether or not it is fact but from what I've read, I will make a few statements.

In the context of science, "theory" does not mean "unproven." It is very far from "guess." We have "the theory of gravity" and "the theory of evolution." When someone says "evolution is *just* a theory," remind them that gravity is just a theory too, but that seems to be working out okay.

It seems that a lot of confusion can be cleared up by remembering the definition of theory. From the wiki:

In scientific usage, a theory does not mean an unsubstantiated guess or hunch, as it often does in other contexts. A theory is a logically self-consistent model or framework for describing the behavior of a related set of natural or social phenomena. It originates from and/or is supported by experimental evidence (see scientific method). In this sense, a theory is a systematic and formalized expression of all previous observations that is predictive, logical and testable. In principle, scientific theories are always tentative, and subject to corrections or inclusion in a yet wider theory.

Re:Neither Proved Nor Disproved

[Astarica]

Scientific theories are not proved. Good theories are just never disproven. We don't have a proof on why the Law of Thermodynamics must hold true. It is just that no one has ever observed this law being violated. I recall you can restate 2nd Law of Thermodynamics as entropy always increases. Well, let's assume the Big Crunch happens. If universe is getting smaller, then it'd have to be the case the entropy spontaneously decreases (everything is getting crunched together and thus more orderly). Voila, the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics can be violated if the universe doesn't expand forever (which we're not sure until only very recently). Again, it is a Law because it has never been observed to be violated. It is not an inherently true property of the universe under any circumstance.

Further, a theory has to be disprovable to be a theory. We have the theory of gravity and we believe it works because if it doesn't work like what we claim, we would observe a lot of contradictions from just about everything. The Laws of Therodynamics can be disproved, and we believe the law works because it's never been disproved despite plenty of ways to do it. Something that cannot be disproved at all is not a scientific theory. It is only a hypothesis.

Re:Neither Proved Nor Disproved

[cain]

Similar ingenious tests have been devised to easily find the diameter of the earth at sunset on a beach with a yard stick or ruler.

What's the diameter of the earth at sunrise? Can I use the same stick?

Re:Neither Proved Nor Disproved

[radtea]

String theory is a scientific theory that has neither been proved nor disproved to my knowledge.

What makes a theory scientific or not?

Falsifiability is only one criterion. Science is a communal activity, and to a far greater extent what is taken to be "scientific" is what is approved by the community. The community of science has a set of self-perpetuating rules such that we hope our communal sense of where the truth lies never gets too far out of sync with reality.

By the minimal standard of falsifiability string theory passes, just--there are experiments that can at least be imagined that would test the predictions of the large family of equations that string theory now encompasses. But it is a perfectly legitimate point that continuing to invest in a failed family of theories in perpetuity at some point becomes a faith-based initiative, and that divergent approaches should be more welcomed.

Insofar as aesthetics have played a role in physics, they have done so after the fact. The principles that guided most of the major developments in 20th century physics were consistency constraints with quite simple justifications. Most famously, Dirac's insistence on a second-order wave equation that treated space and time symmetrically gave us the foundations for relativistic quantum mechanics. This was not an arbitrary or aesthetic constraint, but a logical inference from empirical fact and known relativistic symmetries.

What string theorists are doing is quite different, and no amount of invoking Einstein or Dirac can hide that. If they want to be taken seriously they need to come up with "aesthetic" principles--if they want to call them that--that uniquely constrain their equations, perhaps up to a constant of integration (we gave Einstein that, after all.)

And until then, the measure of how "scientific" string theory is can be answered by a single question: How many string theorists are spending the majority of their time trying to prove that no string theory can ever describe the universe that we actually live in? If the answer to this question is: few or none, then the string theory community is not a scientific community, but merely a mutual admiration society.

Re:Neither Proved Nor Disproved

[thefirelane]

Wow, this post was so amazingly wrong....

As others pointed out 'theory' doesn't mean 'guess.'

The word you're searching for is hypothesis. Here's how it works:

1) Data
2) Hypothesis that explains current data
3) Prediction derived from Hypothesis
4) Data from new tests
5) See if hypothesis matches #4 data
6) Repeat, then hypothesis is called theory

So, if something can not be tested by going through that process, it is just a hypothesis looking for a way to become a theory. Atomic theory has gone this way too, there was always a theory that explained current data, and had some predictive power. These models eventually failed as new tests were made. Therefore new hypothesizes needed to be created.... This is the scientific process.

Re:Neither Proved Nor Disproved

[Ithika]

So how is that any different from intelligent design? If you can't test it, it isn't science.

But you can't test Intelligent Design by design, so to speak. Everything comes down to the classic response A Big Boy Did It And Ran Away (and yes, I am a Brookmyre fan!).

I don't know for certain, but I'm supposing that quantum physics and string theory make the same predictions about everyday life, in the same way that quantum and classical physics can be reconciled in most circumstances. But for certain cases the error margin between observation and classical prediction becomes too great. So where does non-string physics begin to stray from reality --- and can it be observed by current technology?

Re:Neither Proved Nor Disproved

[Anonymous Coward]

Twice as long as the distance from the middle to either end.

Re:Neither Proved Nor Disproved

[Anonymous Coward]

God? WTF? It's merely untestable right now. Why argue over semantics anyway? Call it a hypothesis if you want. Until someone comes up with a better theory that is testable then we aren't likely to see string theory disappear.

Re:Neither Proved Nor Disproved

[wirelessbuzzers]

You're right: string theory is not a scientific theory. It's a mathematical theory. That is, it's a collection of mathematical axioms and related proofs (and an extremely unpleasant one, according to a physicist friend of mine).

String theory does provide a model of physics. That is to say, if you set the parameters right, you get something that looks kind of like quantum field theory (which, by the way, is also a mathematical theory in addition to a scientific one). Unfortunately, the math is too hard to deteremine how they differ, and even once a determination is made, string theory has a lot of parameters which will have to be set before real predections are possible. Note that quantum field theories are testable, but only barely. For instance, Howard Georgi's "representations of SU(5)" theory was disproved by experiments in proton decay.

Finally, once string theory does make real predictions, they will be hard to test. In particular, they are likely to require enormous amounts of energy, and accelerator experiments can take years to run and analyze. So it will be a long time yet before string theory becomes scientific.

Re:Neither Proved Nor Disproved

[paiute]

In the context of science, "theory" does not mean "unproven." It is very far from "guess." We have "the theory of gravity" and "the theory of evolution." When someone says "evolution is *just* a theory," remind them that gravity is just a theory too, but that seems to be working out okay.

I don't think that there is a theory of gravity. We know gravity exists. We can quantify it. We have a law of gravity based on those observations. But laws are not theories. A theory of gravity would explain how gravity works. So far we have only hypothetical gravitons. When these and gravity waves are someday detected and quantified, then we may have a theory of gravity.

Re:Neither Proved Nor Disproved

[Anonymous Coward]

Your concern is valid and we may be arguing semantics at this point.

However, string theory is testable.

Take a microscope and look for the strings. That's your test.

You don't have a microscope that powerful, you say? Well, then it is testable but your technology or method isn't quite up to snuff yet.

Re:Neither Proved Nor Disproved

[kfg]

God? WTF? It's merely untestable right now.

And thus indistinguiasable from any God hypothesis, thus suffering from the same weakness as any God hypothesis, competing hypothesis cannot be tested for factual basis.

Why argue over semantics anyway?

Bring your dog around and we'll fly it to the abverb.

Until someone comes up with a better theory that is testable then we aren't likely to see string theory disappear.

And there are still Millerites waiting on the top of the hill.

If you want me to debate how many angels can dance on the head of a pin, first show me an angel whose properties can be tested. Until then the argument is a philosophical exercise, not science.

KFG

Re:Neither Proved Nor Disproved

[LordSkippy]

remind them that gravity is just a theory too

Gravity isn't a theory, it is a force. And it's what causes gravity that is a theory. So, while gravitional force is working okay, the theory of what causes it is just a theory. And a theory is, by definition, unproven and could be wrong.

Re:Neither Proved Nor Disproved

[Perseid]

Intelligent Design makes no attempt to prove it's truthfulness. It relies on faith. String Theory may not be provable today or tomorrow, but scientists are trying. They want it to be proven.

Re:Neither Proved Nor Disproved

[maynard]

Talk about an interesting apparatus: A microscope that uses nanometer electromagnetic waves to visualize objects at Planck length scales. Where might I find this super-microscope?

Re:Neither Proved Nor Disproved

[Anonymous Coward]

how long is the piece of string?

at least 1.6 × 10-35 meters.

sincerely,
stupid-retorical-question-answerer man

Re:Neither Proved Nor Disproved

[Pfhorrest]

I don't think that there is a theory of gravity. We know gravity exists. We can quantify it. We have a law of gravity based on those observations. But laws are not theories. A theory of gravity would explain how gravity works. So far we have only hypothetical gravitons. When these and gravity waves are someday detected and quantified, then we may have a theory of gravity.

What we have evidence of is the apparent attraction between objects.

Aristotle explained a limited set of that evidence as the "natural motion" of various "elements" (i.e. the element of 'earth' naturally moves toward the center of the universe, which is the center of our planet Earth in his cosmology).

The Theory of Gravity (Newton's) explains this as the effect of some "spooky action at a distance". A lot of people early on didn't like it for that reason, because it was neither natural motion (which Newton showed to be straight lines) nor the mechanical application of force.

The Theory of General Relativity explains this as an effect of the geometry of space-time; objects once again just following their natural motion, straight lines, only now that we see space as curved, "straight" isn't really straight.

Various theories of quantum gravity attempt to explain this as the effect of the exchange of "gravitons", making gravity once again a "force" analogous to the electronuclear forces, facilitated through the exchange of quanta.

There are many explanations available for gravity. All of them are theories. Some of them are disproven. Others are well-tested and verified. Others aren't.

Re:Neither Proved Nor Disproved

[Morphine007]

a theory is, by definition, unproven and could be wrong.

DING DING DING!!!

Einstein's theory of general relativity is still a theory... it's not fucking ironclad or anything .... it's just that at this point, it's close.

But even that still doesn't stop you from hearing about things that cause a moments doubt in the theory...

This just in: Theories are not immutable law... film at 11...

Re:Neither Proved Nor Disproved

[Anonymous Coward]

It seems that string theory was invented to satisfy some things we could not explain.

I see. So, it's a religion.

Re:Neither Proved Nor Disproved

[arbarbonif]

It's the difference between something being intrinsically un-testable and something that we can't test now. I can't test that firing photons at a sheet of metal generates electricity right now, but that doesn't mean it isn't testable.

God is intrinsically untestable, you can't come up with a concievable method to test it; String Theory is too hard for us to test now, but it could be concievably disproven.

So I'd be inclined to say that String Theory is funky science that is of questionable present use (and a giant math orgy), but it is still science.

Re:Neither Proved Nor Disproved

[Anonymous Coward]

String theory is a scientific theory that has neither been proved nor disproved to my knowledge.

FSM is too.

Re:Neither Proved Nor Disproved

[cohomology]

"A theory of gravity would explain how gravity works."

We do have such a theory - general relativity reduces gravity to
geometry - and some additional (testable) theories about the geometry of spacetime.

It's very pretty: There is no such thing as "gravitational force." Freely falling objects follow geodesics, which are the paths of "extremal proper time" between events. This simple formulation wasn't possible until physicists accepted the possibility that spacetime is curved, and learned the mathematics of differential geometry.

I left out some really difficult stuff about how the distribution of momentum determines curvature ... and I don't know of any "explanation" of Einstein's equations except "it's pretty mathematics, and it works."

You might argue that this explanation of gravity is more complicated than the problem it was supposed to solve, but General Relativity predicted things that were later observed.

Re:Neither Proved Nor Disproved

[Anonymous Coward]

microscopes work by bombarding a object with particles, then looking at the ones that come back. Normally, light is used, this has its limitations, so now electrons are being used. The problem with your suggestion, is that we cant look at strings ever, they make up everything, and there is nothing smaller, thus, if there is nothing smaller, we have nothing to bombard strings with, and so, no microscope, no matter how powerful, will ever see a string.

Re:Neither Proved Nor Disproved

[Eideewt]

According to string theory, that's impossible.

It seems we've reached an impasse.

Re:Neither Proved Nor Disproved

[Artifakt]

String Theory proves Intelligent Design!

The common result of String Theory models is a totally untestable prediction - that there are an infinite number of 'parellel' universes besides our own.* The only to avoid this prediction is to claim that the fundamental constants are all non-randomly selected **. ID makes only one untestable prediction, one God (OK, so some advanced forms of ID predict a few thousand gods with various numbers of arms and three aspects of an Uber-God at the top, or one God, his kid, a ghost, and X number of angels of seven different types assisting, but even these elaborations make a finite number of predictions). Applying Occam's Razor, any finite number of untestable predictions is greatly to be preferred over an infinite number of untestable predictions, and applying My Razor, we should throw out the theory that makes an infinite number of untestable predictions first, way before we reject any of the others (Artifakt's Razor - nothing makes a situation more absurd, more quickly than dragging unnecessary infinites into it). Now we just have to test all the deistic religions and see which one is the simplest theory that encompasses all observations. This should be very simple. Of course we should leave the door open for new models, just ones that don't veer towards such unnecessary complexities as infinities imply. Still, I'm confident that once we are not wasting time on the totally untestable, we should be able to settle the remaining questions in a few years, without the delays and even the potential for bloodshead*** that infinite models impose.

* Some String theory models require an infinite number of parallels formed at the same time as our own, a very, very big finite number of ever branching quantum divergences, an either very big or infinite number of scale repetitions of the observable part in the greater universe, and possibly a fourth either very, very big or infinite number of universes formed at different times than our own. A few predict an unobservable multi-cosmic evolutionary trend or two as well.
        More seriously, "unobservable" is the cosmologists own choice of words there - If you are one of those people who holds string theory is science because not immediately observable does not equal not observable, the actual practitioners of String Theory are the ones saying Nope, Nada, Never! (In other words, ST scientists aren't trying, in that they are, at least in part, making what they themselves claim are forever untestable predictions. This hasn't stopped a few of them from seeking more funding to not prove the unprovable).
        I'm only half being facetious there - there are some real con games going on in this field, by people only one step removed from the "Infinite free energy from the Zero Point" crowd of patent scammers.

** Anyone wishing to is certainly allowed to propose non-deistic entities that can non-randomly select the fundamental physical constants, if they so desire. It sounds like "midget NBA player" to me, but at least it's not infinite and untestable.

*** Rumors have come to my attention that proponents of rival theorys have apparently stooped to such unscientific methods of testing as fisticuffs and possibly worse - All I can say is what do you expect when people propose such poppycock as infinite unobservable parellel universes in an effort to muddy the watters of Cosmology.

Re:Neither Proved Nor Disproved

[mcmonkey]

Scientific theories are not proved. Good theories are just never disproven. We don't have a proof on why the Law of Thermodynamics must hold true.

You're mixing apples and volvos. A proof that the Laws of Thermodynamics hold true is a different bird than the proof on why they must hold true.

Re:Neither Proved Nor Disproved

[kfg]

God is intrinsically untestable . . .

Various God hypothesis have been tested, and falsified. Some God hypothesis are untestable.

. . .you can't come up with a concievable method to test it; String Theory is too hard for us to test now, but it could be concievably disproven.

No, the problem with string theory, right now at least, is that it is not merely too hard to test, it is inherently untestable and no one has yet concieved of a way to make it testable. There are 1001 string theories, just as there are 1001 Gods.

Fix that and then I will test it. Make it simple enough to test. Until then it is quasi-Buddhist philosophy at best. Just because you use abstract mathematical symbols to build an obtuse argument doesn't make it any more science, or any less philosophy, than an argument built with abstract linguistic symbols.

The lab coat does not make the science. The testability does.

KFG

Re:Neither Proved Nor Disproved

[mentrial]

Well, one of the basic differences between science and religion, is that every science paradigm is based on a system of scientific theories.
String Theory fully complies with that, Intelligent Design couldn't be farther away.

Note that im not saying string theory is actually a scientific theory (though as some others have pointed out, I agree that it is scientific, just not quite a theory yet)

Im not a fan of String "Theory", but it is an interesting hypothesis and even if it turns out to be wrong, it still has provided us with more mathematical tools than every other sciences combined in the same amount of time, just for that its worth researching.

But it still might prove to solve some of the greatest problems in modern physics, and be it right or wrong, it wont be a wast of time, so why not give it a shot?

Re:Neither Proved Nor Disproved

[maxume]

Huh? If the big crunch happens, everything would move together towards a lower energy state. Stack three dominos on top of each other the long way:

  |
  |
  |

and flat(sorry about the poor representation):

  ---
  ---
  ---

The flat dominos are in a more stable, lower energy state, and have less entropy. They are also 'smaller', as you put it.

Re:Neither Proved Nor Disproved

[colmore]

Because String theory is a developing model that at the very least (at least in its more popular formulations) has been shown rather thouroughly to match up with real world data. It is entirely conceivable that as technology advances and the theory evolves, testable predictions will be made.

Intelligent Design, is pretty solidly not science. It's a criticism of a science, but it doesn't even provide a space in which to posit new ideas or models and test against data.

I agree that while not outright a bad thing, maybe String Theory is a little too shakey to be getting as much money and attention as it is (surely there are other more promising areas of theoretical physics). But where String Theory might be poor science, I.D. is anti-science. I.D. is a lot more dangerous.

Re:Neither Proved Nor Disproved

[jefu]

First, the "New Yorker" is not a paper, its a magazine.

Second, while the "New Yorker" has, on occasion, really made news (particularly noted are Seymore Hirsh's articles on Iraq and related policies), for the most part it does do reporting. I believe that the skepticism about string theory has been around in physics circles for a while, and for the magazine to report on this hardly makes news - it just tries to make news about physics (and mathematics) accessible to the general reader. Certainly the story about the Poincare conjector was not created out of thin air - but since it was covered in a wide circulation magazine, it came to the attention of many more people than would otherwise have heard of it. But does that count as "making news"? I doubt it.

Re:Neither Proved Nor Disproved

[LihTox]

I agree that if string theory isn't testable, then it isn't science (yet). However, it IS mathematics (which often isn't science either, often dealing with strange systems which have no basis in reality), and as mathematics it is certainly a worthwhile field of study. (There are a lot of physicists out there who are basically doing mathematics.)

And of course, eventually someone might come up with a way to test the string theories, and then they'll definitely be science. :)

Re:Neither Proved Nor Disproved

[Anonymous Coward]

Falsifiability is only one criterion.

No, it's not a criterion at all.

I have very little to object to in the rest of your post.

Re:Neither Proved Nor Disproved

[Anonymous Coward]

Is Kerr spacetime stable? This is way more fundamental than string theory.

Re:Neither Proved Nor Disproved

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem here is that your definition of "look" isn't good enough. the waves entering your eyes are probably strings, or membranes, or vibrations of these, so you're already seeing a string. The problem is that the theory hasn't been used to make predictions that can be tested for. Strings existing isn't really a prediction.

Re:Neither Proved Nor Disproved

[LordRobin]

That's what he said. Entropy always increases, but a "Big Crunch" would cause a sudden, massive decrease in entropy right at the very end.

Re:Neither Proved Nor Disproved

[DragonWriter]

Therefore they are God, not theory. An untestable hypothesis. What makes a theory a theory is testability.

No, what makes a scientific theory a scientific theory is being tested; what makes a scientific hypothesis a scientific hypothesis is testability. A rationalization of existing results from which no new testable predictions have yet been derived is a conjecture or rationalization, neither a hypothesis nor a theory.

That doesn't make it non-scientific; coming up with such a consistent rationalization is a prerequisite for developing a hypothesis. And there is a considerable difference between work to develop a testable hypothesis that has only reached the stage of producing rationalizations that tend to need to be updated before testable consequences are derived from them, and theological concepts like the existence of God that simply don't support empirical testing even conceptually.

Re:Neither Proved Nor Disproved

[mentrial]

No one is saying that st isn't testable, just that it would be wildly impractical to test it. Just suppose that we become a type 3 civilization in the kardashev scale. Then we would count with the energy needed to prove or disprove the string theory (even if an advance in string theory itself that would provide a better way to verify it doesn't occur). So if we are saying that in the current theoretical state, given the resources, we could contrast st, then it is science. The fact that we don't have such resources doesn't means that it isn't science, just that it is a hypothesis instead of a theory. btw, math IS a science, allways

Re:Neither Proved Nor Disproved

[sgt_doom]

So how is that any different from intelligent design? If you can't test it, it isn't science.

I can see why the poster doesn't have a sign on handle....It is called a theory because it hasn't been successfully test yet. On the other hand, Intelligent Design is neither a theory nor anything intelligent.

That is easily proven, just journey to its place of origin, The Discovery Institute in Seattle, WA, USA, and take a look at the goofy chronic screw-ups who created it. I certainly wouldn't want to be identified with those f**kwits....

Re:Neither Proved Nor Disproved

[SEE]

No current version of string theory, within the limits of our current technological ability to engage in tests, makes a testable prediction that differs from those made by the Standard Model and/or General Relativity.

Re:Neither Proved Nor Disproved

[put_the_cat_out]

The differnce between a scientst and a theologist when presented with the ID theory:

The theologist thinks, OK, that makes sense, and accepts the proposition.

The scientist begins looking for the tools used by the intelligent being.

Re:Neither Proved Nor Disproved

[LihTox]

I'm not convinced that mathematics is a science, but the question is one of semantics I suppose. My position is that, string theory's not being a science (which I don't have a strong feeling about either) would not mean that string theory is quackery or some sort of con game, which was the opinion I inferred from the writeup.

Re:Neither Proved Nor Disproved

[Anonymous Coward]

Sure they are testing it. They're testing it with mathematical hypotheticals on a chalkboard. Thats all they can do at this point. Until such time we *think up* a way to physically test what we are churning out with string theory mathematics, it will only progress by more chalkboard hypotheticals.

As far as differing from Intelligent Design? Does that particular religious belief propogate from mathematics, its systems, relativity(?), and the conundrums of space, time, and energy?

Is there a particular way you test for Intelligent Design? Oh thats right. You don't test religion. You follow its beliefs...

Mod parent post down for comparing microscopic dust to a Unicorn.

Re:Neither Proved Nor Disproved

[Ithika]

Excellent! :)

So why is String theory regarded as the pretender to the throne? What's so special about general relativity (about from being a smidgen easier to understand)? Is it just because it was first?

If someone can maybe explain in terms of sets that would be extra helpful.

Re:Neither Proved Nor Disproved

[kestasjk]

The special theory of relativity also took a while before it could be proven in experiments, and some aspects of the general theory of relativity still haven't been experimentally observed today.

Re:Neither Proved Nor Disproved

[mentrial]

What I meant is that String theory is falsiable, even Woit agrees with that. The matter is that with our current technology we can't do it. So it may not be a real theory (they insist on calling it a theory because it predicts gravity, but st is part of a paradigm in wich gravity is an existing theory), but it is scientific. more info in the discution at the bottom of cosmicvariance.com http://cosmicvariance.com/2006/06/19/the-string-th eory-backlash/ btw, Sorry about that, yes it was a semantics issue. Its odd, but in american english it seems that science is meant most of the time only as the natural sciences. I didn't knew that :P

Re:Neither Proved Nor Disproved

[tgibbs]

The common result of String Theory models is a totally untestable prediction - that there are an infinite number of 'parellel' universes besides our own.* The only to avoid this prediction is to claim that the fundamental constants are all non-randomly selected **. ID makes only one untestable prediction, one God (OK, so some advanced forms of ID predict a few thousand gods with various numbers of arms and three aspects of an Uber-God at the top, or one God, his kid, a ghost, and X number of angels of seven different types assisting, but even these elaborations make a finite number of predictions). Applying Occam's Razor, any finite number of untestable predictions is greatly to be preferred over an infinite number of untestable predictions, and applying My Razor, we should throw out the theory that makes an infinite number of untestable predictions first, way before we reject any of the others (Artifakt's Razor - nothing makes a situation more absurd, more quickly than dragging unnecessary infinites into it).

This is sheer nonsense. Every scientific theory makes a huge number of untestable predictions. For example, atomic theory predicts that every bit of matter, everywhere in the universe, is made of atoms. Almost of that matter is inaccessible, and untestable. Gravitational theory predict that all the motion of all masses everywhere in the universe, is described by the same mathematical law. Again, almost all of them (an infinite number if the universe is infinite) are inaccessible and untestable. So comparing the "count" of untestable predictions is nonsensical, and has nothing to do with Occam's Razor, which relates, not to the number of untestable predictions, but to the number of degrees of freedom (i.e. adjustable parameters) that a theory offers. So an infinitely powerful supernatural being has an infinite number of degrees of freedom, because there are no constraints whatsoever on what it could do, and Occam's Razor will always lead us to prefer a hypothesis with a finite number of degrees of freedom over completely unconstrained "supernatural" hypotheses. The less constrained a hypothesis is, the harder it is to find testable predictions, and a completely unconstrained hypothesis makes no testable predictions at all.

The disappointment with string theory is that it seems to have a huge number of degrees of freedom, so many that nobody has managed to come up with testable predictions. So technically, it is still mathematics rather than a mature scientific theory. Of course, many theories go through such a stage, but eventually ways are found to derive predictions. But of course, string theory may just turn out to be a "dry hole," with too many degrees of freedom to be of any use.

Re:Neither Proved Nor Disproved

[Anonymous Coward]

So how is that any different from intelligent design? If you can't test it, it isn't science.

Not being able to test something is not required for science. Having falsifiable predictions is.

Basically, there are three things required for something to be called a scientific theory:

1. It must explain all previously known related phenomenon.
2. It must be falsifiable.
3. It must be predictive of future phenomenon.

String Theory does all three of these. The problem is that we don't currently have the technology to falsify it experimentally. Just like before there was flight and atomic clocks it was impossible to test time dilation in relativistic theory.

By contrast, Intelligent Design only does the first. It is not falsifiable in any way, shape, or form. There isn't any POSSIBILITY of making an experiment to disprove it. It also isn't the least bit predictive. You can't use I.D. to make any statements about what should happen. Because of these, I.D. is not science. It's not a hypothesis. It's not even philosophically sound. It's just junk.

Re:Neither Proved Nor Disproved

[Anonymous Coward]

Most famously, Dirac's insistence on a second-order wave equation that treated space and time symmetrically gave us the foundations for relativistic quantum mechanics. This was not an arbitrary or aesthetic constraint, but a logical inference from empirical fact and known relativistic symmetries.

The Dirac equation is a first order equation.

Re:Neither Proved Nor Disproved

[It'sYerMam]

All of the instances you cite, however, are hypothetically falsifiable - it doesn't matter that they're unverifiable if they are falsifiable. What needs to be established, and I don't know enough to do this, is whether String Theory is falsifiable.

Re:Neither Proved Nor Disproved

[Tomfrh]

So why is String theory regarded as the pretender to the throne?

Because it's HARDCORE man, it's all string n branes n junk, and is all hyperdimensional.

Re:Neither Proved Nor Disproved

[The_Wilschon]

No, the problem with string theory, right now at least, is that it is not merely too hard to test, it is inherently untestable and no one has yet concieved of a way to make it testable. There are 1001 string theories, just as there are 1001 Gods.

These are two different problems. Inherent untestability is not the same problem as multiplicity of theories. One could say that there are an uncountably infinite number of different Standard Models, because the 19 parameters all take on values in the continuum. Heck, there are an uncountable number of Newton's Gravitational Theories, because G is a continuous value. Show me any theory that does not show some form of multiplicity and I will be exceedingly surprised if it manages to model the universe very well at all.

Now as to inherent untestability, I don't believe that st is inherently untestable. It is untestable given our current abilities. If we built an accelerator which could probe down to ~Planck scale sizes, then if we saw evidence for string-shaped structure, we would say "Aha, st is right!", and if we did not, then we would say "Aha, st is wrong!". I'm not a string theorist, (although I am a particle physicist) but IIRC all the string theories predict a similar size for strings. We can measure the structure of the proton at current accelerators by scattering various things off of protons. Before that we measured the structure of the atom by scattering experiments (Rutherford, anyone?). With high enough energies, we could probe structure at or below the predicted size of strings. That is a perfectly fine test, just not one we can do today, or in the next 100 years (most likely).

Re:Neither Proved Nor Disproved

[The_Wilschon]

Therefore they are God, not theory. An untestable hypothesis. What makes a theory a theory is testability.

Perhaps they are in a similar class of ideas as God, but being untestable is not generally considered to be the only criterion for being God. Semantic squabbling, perhaps, but I think it is important, especially in a discussion like this, to use language in the least fuzzy way possible.

Re:Neither Proved Nor Disproved

[NotthatFrankie]

It is called a theory because it hasn't been successfully test yet.

No, something that hasn't been sufficiently tested is a hypothesis. A theory is an explanation of the data collected. This is why some scientists are wary of the String Theory; in their eyes, it relies too much on math and not enough on data.

Re:Neither Proved Nor Disproved

[Tablizer]

Science is a communal activity, and to a far greater extent what is taken to be "scientific" is what is approved by the community.

I disagree. "Voting" is used because rigorous rules/algorithms to rank scientific ideas don't exist, at least not practical ones. Voting is a convenient shortcut to cut the costs of weighing, NOT the ideal.

Re:Neither Proved Nor Disproved

[newt0311]

Fail. ST strikes out at #2. see earlier posts for more info. You are right about ID not being a theory b/c it also strikes out at #2 but then so does evolution and evolution actually has some credible evidence against it!

Re:Neither Proved Nor Disproved

[newt0311]

actually no. Einstien predicted from his theory that during a solar eclipse, stars would seem to be farther out from the sun than normal. that was pretty well tested and was infact one of the first tests of relativity. some other tests were the constancy of the speed of light and (later) measurements of the duration of time in different inertial settings (something like planes going east and west).

Re:Neither Proved Nor Disproved

[DannyO152]

That's a point. To me, string theory seems to be a mathematical model and may be assessed on a purely abstract basis by looking at the mathematics, so it has that advantage over intelligent design. But when one is trying to test and observe a phenomenon in a realm where the observation changes the result, then that certainly provides a challenge to the classic scientific method, in a similar fashion to the way "Everything I say is a lie," pulls the legs out of the proposition that there's a logical system which can decide every statement as either true or false. The string model is relatively new, and I don't think the idea of designing experiments to test it and allow it to mature into theory status has been abandoned yet.

Re:Neither Proved Nor Disproved

[eonlabs]

If it can't be proven based off current law and observation, it is not a theory. If it can't be used predictively, it's not self supporting. If repeatable observations support it, but not current theoretical law, the laws we've come up with are missing something necessary to grasp the whole scenario. Relativity predicted light would bend a certain way around a star. Newtonian physics didn't expect it to. Observations supported relativity. Therefore relativity is a theory. String theory isn't a theory. It's sound mathematical conjecture. What I'm worried about is when people decide they're going to try making black holes so they can look at string theory locally and in its natural element.

Re:Neither Proved Nor Disproved

[acgetchell]

Actually, that is wrong.

First, some perspective.

Quantum mechanics is not a theory, it is a set of construction rules for theories that reflect reality. Whatever quantum field theory you construct of whatever operators you care to name (the rules of QM/QFD being most easily phrased in terms of operators), some of those operators do not commute [A,B] != 0, and some of those operators do not anti-commute {A,B} != 0.

We happen to call those bosons and fermions respectively.

String theory, being a quantum field theory including gravity (hence, a superset of general relativity), is also a set of construction rules for theories of reality.

As it so happens, some of those theories produce large extra dimensions of > than the millimeter scale. In general, we characterize those theories by a parameter space, and theories with a parameter space producing large extra dimensions of a particular type *are* disallowed by observation.

If observation disallowed the entire parameter space of string theory, it would be entirely falsified.

Instead, it is something dubbed "The Landscape".

Secondly, it is interesting, but not informative, to listen to opinions of people who have never studied string theory remark on its structure/usefulness.

In fact, string theories do provide some elegant solutions to things like supersymmetric (quantum) gravity (SUGRA), supersymmetry (SUSY), and a good number of other subtle points that are only understood with sufficient background in QFT, GR, etc.

Everyone laughs at "the internet is a series of tubes", but then we get long expostulations about string theory from people that haven't studied it.

Third, remember that the authors of the article (e.g. Lee Smolin) have a somewhat vested interest in denying the usefulness of String Theory, as it allows their own theories (i.e. Loop Quantum Gravity) to be more prominent.

As a matter of my own opinion, LQG has even more difficulties than String Theory, for example, it assumes the spacetime metric is smooth even at quantum scales, and that a classical theory (GR) can be "quantized". As GR is not renormalizable, this is violently at odds with known, tested QFT, which is accurate to 11 decimal places.

Re:Neither Proved Nor Disproved

[superiority]

IANAS, but I'm sure string theory has other results, which are theoretically testable (though not necessarily with current technology).

Re:Neither Proved Nor Disproved

[Pseudonym]

If the answer to this question is: few or none, then the string theory community is not a scientific community, but merely a mutual admiration society.

More accurately: If this is true, the string theory community is not a physics community, but a pure mathematics community.

Nobody is disputing the fact that string theorists are coming up with some extremely cool and elegant mathematics, and in that, it's good science. The dispute is that these theorists might not be doing any physics.

Re:Neither Proved Nor Disproved

[ynohoo]

Thats funny, not a troll!

It would appear that physics has been hijacked by pure math. Remeber the classic pure mathematician's toast "may pure math never be of any use to anyone".

Re:Neither Proved Nor Disproved

[Oligonicella]

Well, good science in that it adds to a body of knowledge. Aside from math geeks though, of what use is that body of knowledge? Not that I wish to disallow the math geeks their toys, but the rest of us frankly aren't interested in many/multi/micro - universes/dimensions/branes.

Re:Neither Proved Nor Disproved

[Zoolander]

Aren't they in the realm of 'Yeah, but you need a collider the size of the solar system to test it'?
Looks like we have to wait some time, I guess...

Re:Neither Proved Nor Disproved

[mapkinase]

We cannot measure the proposed strings so how can we prove if they exist or they don't? We simply can't yet.

Since we cannot yet, then there is no theory. My problem with string theory is the number of parameters that they fit in to explain things. Just look at the number of dimensions various string theories that existed in the past were exploited.

I am extremely satisfied that this article made it to the top page of Slashdot. Next step - take the same look at macroevolution. What did it predict. What is the predictable experiment of macroevolution that can go right or wrong.

With evolution it is difficult because having religion in the other camp (string theory does not have objections from any religion) immediately forces some people to become staunch supporters of any pseudoscientific unfounded assumptions.

Clean up the science. Get rid of "science".

Re:Neither Proved Nor Disproved

[cbacba]

Not science if you can't prove it? What a radical thought! Science today is based on the hypothesis - 'wouldn't it be nice if'

Beware of Algor the high priest of global warming. He and his followers will get you for that.

String theory or maybe it should be modified to become spring theory - give it that little longitudinal twang and add another coupla more dimensions - isn't alone. Evidently, the more exotic one makes their 'solution' - the better chance one has of getting more bucks for their 'research' and increasing their status (and possibly making more $$$$ in that book deal).

I guess that makes two types of new science. There is the politicized science - current best known example being manmade global warming and past all time best example being the eugenics of the earlier 20th century. Then there seems to be prostituted science. Not sure what the best examples of this are but perhaps exotic dark matter might take the cake for the current crop.

Re:Neither Proved Nor Disproved

[cbacba]

to be a theory means it must make predictions - ultimately some predictions must be tested - or observed. It doesn't seem that string theory - after all the hype has been able to ever provide a prediction which could potentially be tested. Otherwise, it is an exercise in esoteric mathematics.

Smoke, elves and mirrors theories may actually give results, but ultimately, the full correct theory must not only give results but it also must provide the conceptual description, i.e., open up the understanding so it's no longer just a closed box with a crank on the side.

My bookie isn't taking bets on string theory ever doing that.

Perhaps the answer lies in a different direction, like learning of the ultimately small by further analysis of the inconceivably big.

Re:Neither Proved Nor Disproved

[sjames]

The problem is, there are so many degrees of freedom available to be arbitrarily tweeked as needed that nothing really falsifies string theory even in principle.

Let's say we magically get our hands on a solar system sized accelerator and do some tests. The results will constrain the parameters of string theory, but will still leave uncountable variations on the theme that haven't been falsified. Collectively their predictions cover enough possabilities that we are truly none the wiser. That is, string theory(s) still won't tell us what to expect when we get our hands on a galaxy sized accelerator.

Consider, an X cannot happen in a Y. That covers a LOT. If I leave X and Y loosely defined, any time you show me an X like thing happening in a Y like thing, I just tweak my definition until the X like thing is defined not to be an X or the Y like thing is defined not to be a Y. You still can't tell if this other X like thing will turn out to be an X or not.

That is, I STILL haven't told you if this untested X like thing can or cannot actually happen in a Y.

The problem is that situation describes both total gibberish and an incomplete theory equally well. Continued work may end up predictively defining X and Y or it may not. Just in case, it's best to make sure we don't shove anyone aside just because they're not a big fan of the X and Y theory.

Re:Neither Proved Nor Disproved

[sjames]

Nobody is disputing the fact that string theorists are coming up with some extremely cool and elegant mathematics, and in that, it's good science. The dispute is that these theorists might not be doing any physics.

Actually, some ARE disputing exactly that. What nobody denies is that it's interesting mathematics. Mathematics is NOT a science.

Re:Neither Proved Nor Disproved

[Listen Up]

No, you are COMPLETELY WRONG. Mathematics IS science. The universe operates Mathematically. Mathematics is the language of the universe. Science IS applied Mathematics. Theoretical science is pure Mathematics. Empirical science is only a collection of single observations without explanation or understanding without Mathematics. Without Mathematics, science is nothing.

Re:Neither Proved Nor Disproved

[Listen Up]

The most important point you miss is intent. Unless you are a complete fucking moron, which it appears most people are, the intent of intelligent design is to try and pass religion as reality.

The three most important points to consider:

1) Disprovable
2) Repeatable
3) Predictable

The universe operates Mathematically. And all science at its most fundamental level is Mathematics. If string theory, *or any use of string theory* as a part of other scientific theories or models, reaches disprovable, repeatable and predicable results then string theory's scientific validity will be verified.

Re:Neither Proved Nor Disproved

[sjames]

They ARE closely related and science is strongly dependant on mathematics. Science APPLYs mathematics.

There are entire branches of mathematics that deal purely in the abstract and whose results have nothing to do with anything at all in the physical world and don't necessarily say anything about it.

Without science, mathematics still exists.

Re:Neither Proved Nor Disproved

[Pseudonym]

Aside from math geeks though, of what use is that body of knowledge?

To the best of my knowledge, every field of mathematics more than (picking a number, say) 20 years old has found a practical application.

When I was at university, I had a friend who was doing a PhD in radical theory (an obscenely abstract area of group theory). She came in crestfallen one day, and when asked what was wrong, she said that somebody had found an application for it in environmental management.

That's not to say that every theorem has an application. But the thing is, you never know what's going to turn out to be important. There's a nice theorem from group theory which, when applied to permutation groups, says something like this:

If P and Q are permutations, then Q^-1PQ has the same cycle structure as P.

The mathematician who discovered this probably thought it was very cool and completely useless. Little did he know that this would turn out to be, as one cryptanalyst put it, "the theorem that won World War II". Using this theorem and a copy of the Enigma machine patent, Polish mathematicians managed to recover the original Enigma rotor and reflector ring permutations without physically having an Enigma machine, by analysing cycle structures.

This isn't a "story"...

[MetaPhyzx]

This isn't some reasonably objective piece on string theory; the author appears to be skeptical from the start, and BARELY lets up. I'd hoped I'd be reading a critically analytical article but I guess not. Wake me when the "story" is such.

Re:This isn't a "story"...

[orasio]

I think you don't understand the meaning of "objective".
To be objective, you need to start being skeptic, and then evaluate all the alternatives, choosing the one that seems more likely to be true/better.

There is no middle ground between "skeptic" and "believer". For any new piece of knowledge the sensible form of analysis is start as an skeptic, and follow from there.

Re:This isn't a "story"...

[Anonymous Coward]

The september Scientific American has indepth book reviews on two books talking about the deep problems with String Theory. Here's some text ripped from their site:

http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?chanID=sa006&arti cleID=000713DC-8161-14E3-BAEC83414B7F0000&pageNumb er=1&catID=2

The Inelegant Universe
Two new books argue that it is time for string theory to give way
By George Johnson

The Trouble with Physics: The Rise of String Theory, the Fall of a Science, and What Comes Next
by Lee Smolin
Houghton Mifflin, 2006

Not Even Wrong: The Failure of String Theory and the Search for Unity in Physical Law
by Peter Woit
Basic Books, 2006

When you click the link for the Postmodernism Generator (www.elsewhere.org/pomo), a software robot working behind the scenes instantly throws together a lit-crit parody with a title like this: "Realities of Absurdity: The dialectic paradigm of context in the works of Fellini." And a text that runs along these lines: "In a sense, the main theme of the works of Fellini is the futility, and hence the stasis, of precapitalist sexuality. An abundance of deconceptualisms concerning a self-falsifying reality may be revealed."

Reload the page, and you get "The Dialectic of Sexual Identity: Objectivism and Baudrillardist hyperreality" and then "The Meaninglessness of Expression: Capitalist feminism in the works of Pynchon."

With a tweak to the algorithms and a different database, the Web site could probably be made to spit out what appear to be abstracts about superstring theory: "Frobenius transformation, mirror map and instanton numbers" or "Fractional two-branes, toric orbifolds and the quantum McKay correspondence."

Those are actually titles of papers recently posted to the arXiv.org repository of preprints in theoretical physics, and they may well be of scientific worth--if, that is, superstring theory really is a science. Two new books suggest otherwise: that the frenzy of research into strings and branes and curled-up dimensions is a case of surface without depth, a solipsistic shuffling of symbols as relevant to understanding the universe as randomly generated dadaist prose.

In this grim assessment, string theory--an attempt to weave together general relativity and quantum mechanics--is not just untested but untestable, incapable of ever making predictions that can be experimentally checked. With no means to verify its truth, superstring theory, in the words of Burton Richter, director emeritus of the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center, may turn out to be "a kind of metaphysical wonderland." Yet it is being pursued as vigorously as ever, its critics complain, treated as the only game in town.

"String theory now has such a dominant position in the academy that it is practically career suicide for young theoretical physicists not to join the field," writes Lee Smolin, a physicist at the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics, in The Trouble with Physics: The Rise of String Theory, the Fall of a Science, and What Comes Next. "Some young string theorists have told me that they feel constrained to work on string theory whether or not they believe in it, because it is perceived as the ticket to a professorship at a university."

The counterargument, of course, is that string theory is dominant because the majority of theorists sense that it is the most promising approach--that the vision of oscillating strings singing the cosmic harmonies is so beautiful that it has to be true. But even that virtue is being called into question. "Once one starts learning the details of ten-dimensional superstring theory, anomaly cancellation, Calabi-Yau spaces, etc., one realizes that a vibrating string and its musical notes have only a poetic relationship to the real thing at issue," writes Peter Woit, a lecturer in mathematics at Columb

Layperson's perpective

[lawpoop]

I am a geek, but I have seriously problems with math ability. I have a Bachelor of Arts degree. However, I like to keep up on math and science news as much as possible, inasmuch as I can understand it.

IIRC, string theory *does* make predictions, but the amount of energy required to run an experiement would be literally almost astronomical, so we have no practical way of testing it. I think according to concensus on what the 'scientific method' is, that makes it a hypothesis -- an educated guess, based on evidence. After it has sucessfully passed a few rounds of experiment, then we can say that it is a theory.

So, bottom line, it is scientific, as much as any other hypothesis. However, it's not a theory.

Re:Layperson's perpective

[truthsearch]

I am a geek, but I have seriously problems with math ability. I have a Bachelor of Arts degree.

Sorry to break it to you, but you're a hippie, not a geek. ;)

Re:Layperson's perpective

[Sparohok]

You lost me at "literally almost astronomical."

Re:Layperson's perpective

[Anonymous Coward]

How convenient. "We'll we have some theories, but there is no way to prove them". Hmmm, sounds a lot like "Well, we theorize there is a God, but we have no way to prove it".

Doesn't science teach there is a huge difference between "believing" how something works, and "knowing" how it works.

Seems to me string theory is more of a belief system than real science.

Re:Layperson's perpective

[Anonymous Coward]

String theory makes real, testable (if impractical) predictions. Religion, on the whole, does not, and many condemn anyone who would attempt to prove or disprove god rather than simply have faith. Religion does not say "some time in the future, if we build a Dyson sphere or break the laws of thermodynamics, we'll be able to empirically communicate with god and travel to the afterlife and back", it says "god does not deign to provide proof of his existence, believe in him or burn in hell". Science doesn't have to be easily falsifiable. Asshole.

Re:Layperson's perpective

[algoa456]

"I am a geek, but I have seriously problems with math ability"

A contradiction in terms - like a musician who can't play a musical instrument.

Re:Layperson's perpective

[Anonymous Coward]

Damn. I was hoping my B.A. in Mathematics would forever cement my geekiness, but now I find out that I'm just a damn dirty hippy. I better go try out for the barefoot bong-loaders frisbee team.

Re:Layperson's perpective

[Oligonicella]

What evidence? For that matter, what hypothesis? It is basically abstract parlor conjecture, much along the lines of "Oh, one can travel back in time by spinning an infinite mass counter clockwise at an infinite speed and rotating clockwise around it." If all three requirements for a "hypothesis" are impossible to accomplish, it ain't science.

Not a scientific theory.

[imstanny]

From my basic understanding string theory; it is a theory that cannot be tested in the lab, and therefore, its predictions cannot be observed. The same inability exists when it comes to testing the theory of God. Both theories can explain many/most/all things in nature, but fail to be scrutinized scientifically. Also, there is More Than One string theory; all have thier similarities and differences; kinda like various religions.

Re:Not a scientific theory.

[brunascle]

from what i understand, it can be tested in the lab, just not with today's instruments. we dont have the resources to build a particle accelerator big enough, yet.

Re:Not a scientific theory.

[jfengel]

There's a difference between what's not practically testable and what's truly unfalsifiable. As long as it's conceptually possible to come up with a falsifying experiment, even if it's wildly impractical, it's still a scientific theory. We may yet come up with ways to test the theory. Sometimes that's because somebody comes up with a clever new test, an ingenious new reformulation of the theory, receives unexpected results from an exsting accelerator, or builds a new particle accelerator.

What's happening here is that people are complaining that the scientific establishment has made it difficult to work in alternatives to string theory. But just because you can't get a job to disprove a theory doesn't make it unfalsifiable. There needs to be healthy debate in the scientific community about which theories to work on. Shutting valid theories down is not healthy for science, but neither are accusations that conflate "impractical" with "impossible".

Re:Not a scientific theory.

[Astarica]

It is possible there is a way to disprove God exists that we are not aware of yet. Does this mean there is now a theory of God? Clearly it can explain anything we need to be explained, and maybe someday someone will find a way to disprove it.

Re:Not a scientific theory.

[blibbler]

Not only is there no way to test string theory at the moment, string theorists cannot even concieve of a way to test it in the future. As others have stated, the only tests people have thought of involve energy levels similar to that of the entire universe, to effect a change on an atomic scale.
So we have a "theory" that doesn't make any predictions, and cannot be tested. In that way it is very similar to "Intelligent Design" which also doesn't make any predictions, and cannot be tested. If ID isn't science, why is string theory?

Re:Not a scientific theory.

[jfengel]

To be a scientific theory, you have to be able to describe the test, even if you can't do it. For string theory, there exist experiments one could describe, but lack the resources to perform. One could write the paper down and give excruciating detail of exactly what constitutes a failure of the experiment. The resources provably exist in the universe; collecting them is just too expensive to actually do.

"God" lacks any scientific theory at the moment precisely because it lacks such a test. Partly that stems from the malleable definition of the term. Once "God" was that which created the species of the earth, but the term was redefined when a more testable hypothesis was elucidated. Various people point to gaps in demonstrating that hypothesis ("irreducible complexity"), but such gaps are routinely covered with new and compatible explanations, and the term "God" altered to fit the remaining gaps. For an experiment to work you're not allowed to redefine your terms in the middle.

Simiarly, "God" is sometimes defined as a non-human entity who wrote a book of moral codes. Disproving that is impossible; whenever additional evidence is found for human authorship, the term is redefined to be a sort of Divine Inspiration. It's not impossible that Divine Inspiration did in fact happen, but since nobody can say what the term means (nobody ever having witnessed it or having any idea when they might again witness it), it's not a falsifiable hypothesis.

The test does have to be finite. One can say "God is that which punishes sins", but many sins in fact go unpunished, and the hypothesis is false. If one tacks on "eventually", the hypothesis is no longer falsifiable, because you'd have to wait forever to know that the sin was punished.

None of this, by the way, should be construed to prove the non-existence of God. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. Scientists tend to apply Occam's Razor: if you can't test for something, it doesn't mean it isn't there, but we'll ignore it until it forces us to believe in it.

It gets sticky there. One could say, "God punishes sins, and I'll know it after I die" sounds like a testable hypothesis; all you have to do is die. But even if it's true that there are more things in heaven and on earth than are dreamt of in my philosophy, the source of the data "things are different in heaven" is suspect. One can expand one's epistemology to include a trap door, but Occam's razor suggests that we exclude it on practical grounds. Again, feel free to believe it, but you have no grounds to quibble if I do not.

You are, in fact, free to continue to believe in it. It gets sticky when you start to draw conclusions from it, especially when they apply to me: not just "God exists" but "God told me to pass a law that bans X". The former is valid, though not terribly useful. The latter is, at least scientifically, invalid without further evidence.

Re:Not a scientific theory.

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm amazed when people make an argument like this. It's as if they severely lack logical abilities. Comparing Intelligent Design to string theory is like saying a scary movie about monsters is the same thing as a math formula that you can't confirm in phisics because the only tool you have is a rock.

Re:Not a scientific theory.

[slittle]

Because it attempts to explain our reality - existence as we exist in and perceive it. Deities and the supernatural in general are by definition outside our reality, therefore not science. Even if god(s) exist, that they can mess with our reality is still an abnormality; science deals only with the natural.. uh, nature of our reality. Interference from higher powers may be fact, but it cannot be predicted (or better still, practically exploited), thus irrelevant, scienficially.

Understanding gravity, for example, allows us to navigate probes around our solar system, orbit and/or land them intact on other planets/moons/asteroids. "God did it" may be perfectly true, but it is still not a position of knowledge and understanding, it simply gets us hit in the head with fruit.

Re:Not a scientific theory.

[Astarica]

Suppose I have a theory that God exists, but he will only let his presence known to stop a black hole generator from destroying Earth. This is falsifiable if we can build a black hole generator and watch Earth get sucked up into it. Ignoring the concerns for preservation of Earth, is this now a theory? We could conceivably have the technology to build a black hole eventually, so it is testable. Is this a theory? No, not until we can build a black hole generator to test this (perhaps on a planet other than our own) and see if God appears as predicted, or not.

Re:Not a scientific theory.

[Anonymous Coward]

If we need all the energy in the universe to test, everything but the experiment ceases to exist because all things require energy to exist. If the scientest doesn't exist during the experiement, can he really give an accurate account of what happened? We won't exist while the experiemnt is underway, can we independently verify the results?
Coming up with an experiemnt that literally requires all of the energy in the uinverse is the same as me saying that we could test for the presence of a higher power by merely flying to heaven.

Re:Not a scientific theory.

[statusbar]

Can you prove that it cannot ever be tested? Or is that just an assumption?

--jeffk++

Re:Not a scientific theory.

[Chris Burke]

So we have a "theory" that doesn't make any predictions, and cannot be tested. In that way it is very similar to "Intelligent Design" which also doesn't make any predictions, and cannot be tested. If ID isn't science, why is string theory?

No, that's not correct. String theory DOES make predictions -- the problem is that so far none of these predictions would differentiate it from current theory. It's predictions are compatible with predictions of other theories, which is why the author is calling it a mere mathimatical exercise, although the point of string theory is to allow us to use multiple currently incompatible theories that make their own predictions within the same framework.

ID makes no predictions period.

Re:Not a scientific theory.

[TempeTerra]

I'm sorry, but that's absolutely NOT what makes a theory scientific. Scientific theories respect no definition of 'natural' or 'unnatural', or whether things are 'in our reality' or not. The important thing is falsifiability. Most theories involving God(s) are unscientific specifically because they are unfalsifiable.

Creationism for instance - if we claim that all species were created 6000 years ago we can examine the fossil record and see if there is a sharp distinction 6000 years ago where all species suddenly appeared. As it happens, there is not, and this shows that creationism as stated above is SCIENTIFIC, FALSIFIABLE, and FALSIFIED. It made a prediction and was shown to be wrong. Fair enough.

Creationism becomes unscientific when you add extra bits like "...because God made it that way", or "God put the fossils there to trick us". How can you show it was God, not Satan? or Loki? or The Flying Spaghetti Monster? If the fossils were put there to trick us, how can you show that this is different from the fossils being there because those animals actually lived and died in the past? With no way to test these questions, Creationism becomes unscientific because it cannot be falsified.

Back to String Theory. I wouldn't say I understand it at all, but it's important to remember that a theory is scientific if it makes predictions which can be tested. If String Theory's predictions are all too hard to test given our current micro/macro physics technology then it's what I like to call a crappy scientific theory.

Re:Not a scientific theory.

[blibbler]

Can you prove that Intelligent Design can never be tested? (actually Intelligent design would be a lot easier to test than any of the proposals for string theory: Just create a bunch of earth-like words in similar to earth positions in their gallaxy, chemical composition, etc. Leave them for 6-8 billion years, and see if anything developed.)

Anyway, it isn't me who is saying that string theory can't be tested, it is string theorists. String theory has been around for 40 years, and there is still no way to test it.

How is the statement "I believe that the universe is made up of wobbling wrinkles of spacetime that we will never be able to detect or control" more scientific than "I believe god guided the development of live in a way that is impossible to detect or control"? They are both meaningless statements from a scientific perspective.

Re:Not a scientific theory.

[statusbar]

Exactly! So if the current set of people are not able to conceive of a way to test something, does that mean that it is not possible for it to be correct?

Or does that just mean that they are not smart enough to either prove or disprove the conjecture?

--jeffk++

Re:Not a scientific theory.

[slittle]

It's just the same thing explained another way.. but my version inherently accounts for the difference between things that we're unable to falsify, and things that cannot be falsified. One can only falsify what is real within one's own reality. That which is beyond real cannot. Even if both are true.

"Archaeology is the search for fact... not truth. If it's truth you're looking for, Dr. Tyree's philosophy class is right down the hall." -- Indiana Jones

Re:Not a scientific theory.

[Dragonslicer]

At which point your theory is no longer "God exists", but "God exists and will stop a black hole generator from destroying Earth". If we create a black hole generator and God stops it, congratulations on providing evidence that God exists. However, if God doesn't stop the black hole generator, you've only disproven that God will stop a black hole generator from destroying Earth, not that God exists.

Re:Not a scientific theory.

[blibbler]

I think that is precisely the problem. We have had tens of thousands of scientists working over 40 years on this "theory", and they have not advanced our knowlege of physics one iota. What it has done is consume tens of thousands of scientist-years which could have been spent developing other theories that are testable and falsafiable. What some people are even more concerned about is tens of thousands of scientists spending another 40 years working on a theory that adds nothing to the scientific discourse.

Re:Not a scientific theory.

[TempeTerra]

Well, I see your point about only being able to falsify thing which are "within one's own reality", but I worry that you might be making an a priori assumption about what is within reality. Sub-atomic particles, which I'm sure you would agree are within reality, were thought up as a theory and confirmed by experiment.

What if we could perform repeatable scientific experiments which showed a correlation between sacrificing a bull to Mars and victory in battle? Would you accept that Mars was actually within the realm of reality? The situation is parallel to sub-atomic particles, but involves a God. I would claim that under these circumstances the theory "sacrificing to Mars increases the chance of victory in battle" is scientific, whereas I think you would not on the grounds that it involves a God.

Re:Not a scientific theory.

[DragonWriter]

actually Intelligent design would be a lot easier to test than any of the proposals for string theory: Just create a bunch of earth-like words in similar to earth positions in their gallaxy, chemical composition, etc. Leave them for 6-8 billion years, and see if anything developed.)

That wouldn't test intelligent design:

IF ID was correct, then something could develop, but only if a mystical intelligent designer wanted it to, and was interfering as He did on Earth. OTOH, nothing might develop, because the iDesigner didn't want it to, and didn't interfere to make it.

If ID was incorrect, then nothing might develop, because the right chance events didn't happen, and the process of developing life is a chaotic one sensitive to small changes in conditions and chance events. OTOH, something might develop, because the right chance events occurred.

No outcome would differentiate between the truth and falsity of ID.

Re:Not a scientific theory.

[Oligonicella]

"As long as it's conceptually possible"

Being nitpicky, no. One can conceptually require an infinite mass spinning at an infinite speed.

Re:Not a scientific theory.

[jfengel]

Amplifying what Dragonslicer said, yes, you do have a scientific theory, but it's rather narrow. It's impossible to use that theory to demonstrate that God created the heavens and the earth, or that God wants us to not eat shellfish.

Given that it's a testable hypothesis, you're free to go explore the ramifications of that hypothesis. What kind of God is it who exists only to save the Earth from its direst peril? What would he say if in fact he appeared to flick that black hole out of the way? What else does He want/do?

No immediate conclusions come to my mind, but as a scientist you're free to pursue your theory, do experiments to test it, and get others to replicate those experiments. We'd prefer you stick to ethical experiments (i.e. not actually risking the earth in a black hole), but scientific ethics is a whole 'nother topic.

let's upgrade it then

[MooseTick]

String theory sounds weak. Let's upgrade the name so it sounds like it has to be true. Henceforth it will be referred to as String Fact.

I'll even throw a bone to an entrepreneural slashdotter out there. STRINGFACT.COM is not registered yet. It is yours for the taking.

Re:let's upgrade it then

[grangerg]

I believe what you meant to say was Intelligent String Design. That's a definite grand unification theory. Along with the String Theory scientists, you'll get the ID and FSM nut-jobs all in the same boat. =)

Re:let's upgrade it then

[hal2814]

Intelligent String Design is also not taken.

Re:let's upgrade it then

[Anonymous Coward]

String theory sounds weak. Let's upgrade the name so it sounds like it has to be true. Henceforth it will be referred to as String Fact

Seemed to work for the Evolution Theory.

Re:let's upgrade it then

[lostboy2]

I'll buy that for a dollar.

A lot of the debate in these comments is about the definition of various words. So, in the spirit of truthiness, we should use the term scientifish, as in "String theory is a scientifish theory."

Re:let's upgrade it then

[PornMaster]

It is now!

string theory does make testable predictions

[Anonymous Coward]

the problem is that those predictions are currently beyond our experimental powers. i believe the most near-term prediction could be supported if supersymmetric particles are observed at the large hadron collider when it's completed.

Re:string theory does make testable predictions

[Anonymous Coward]

Technically, testable means "able to be proven false". If supersymmetry is not seen in the LHC, it could just mean we haven't seen it. I am not a physicist, but I have not heard of a semi-realistic test that could prove string theory false.

A thinly veiled attempt to defame all science?

[Bones3D_mac]

Any idea what side of the whole "intelligent design" debate the author of this article subscribes to? It'd be interesting to know whether or not his motivation in this is to somehow smear the credibity of science as a whole on the political level.

Re:A thinly veiled attempt to defame all science?

[Anonymous Coward]

Short answer: you're an idiot.

Long answer: it doesn't matter. There are proponents and detractors of String Theory on both sides of the "Intelligent Design" thing. There are very legitimate reasons for questioning and criticising String Theory. The problem is that people on both sides get very passionate about it. String Theory itself (as with many strong beliefs, whether Intelligent Design [or conversely for the ID crew, Evolution]) is sometimes taken more on faith than facts.

Is it a strong theory? Yes. Can we prove it? No. Has it predicted anything we don't already know? Not really. However, it has spurned great leaps forward in mathematics and our understanding of quantum chromodynamics.

I'm one of the fence-sitters on this one. I'm not so sure String Theory is the right path, but I'm also not convinced it's wrong yet.

On a side note, Lee Smolin is speaking today on this subject at Microsoft main campus, building 113.

Re:A thinly veiled attempt to defame all science?

[Bones3D_mac]

Honestly, it doesn't matter to me whether or not we live in a 10 or 11 dimensional universe either way. The article just seems to have a very negative tone to it and suggests we have scientists that are just sitting on their asses wasting precious time and money. What's the harm in having guys like Michio Kaku thinking outside of the box every once in a while? It just seems a bit more worthwhile than spending millions on pointless tests such as measuring the flow rate of ketchup.

Re:A thinly veiled attempt to defame all science?

[squiggleslash]

I don't think it's smearing science, indeed in some ways it's keeping intact science's integrity in the face of "ID" and other anti-science movements.

String theory appears, for the most part, to be a very smart, very compelling, system that could be used to explain how the universe works. As such, it's easy to get lost in the excitement and forget that the current evidence for it is, well, not what it could be.

The author is saying "We should hold off and be careful about how we portray this, especially in relation to other scientific principles like relativity. It clearly isn't in the same class." That's absolutely right to do, and it helps prop up the scientific method if there's this kind of auditing going on all the time. It's no more defaming science than it is for someone to come up with a new "test" for relativity, who then does that.

Re:A thinly veiled attempt to defame all science?

[MikeBabcock]

Intelligent design is irrelevant to string theory; or the big bang for that matter. Given the amount of entropy in the universe, we're basically still dealing with how things "may" happen and "may" have begun anyway.

Pretending for a moment than an all-powerful being created this entire reality around me milliseconds ago and I never actually typed that first sentence at all but simply remember having done so as some sort of cosmic practical joke, there's no reason not to study what could have happened nonetheless.

All that to say this -- a grand infinitely powerful creator's existance would be potentially unprovable and is therefore pretty unscientific as a study (unless one found such proof elsewhere). String theory is just as bad right now. Neither is very scientific.

Re:A thinly veiled attempt to defame all science?

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't think it's smearing science, indeed in some ways it's keeping intact science's integrity in the face of "ID" and other anti-science movements.

I don't think he MEANT to smear science, but I think in his over-zealous prosecution of the string theorists he comes off that way.

Popular media is not the place to debate the merits of scientific ideas which is why the liars constantly force ideas like ID and global warming denial into it - no self-respecting scientist will waste his or her time arguing with someone making claims about science outside of the realm of science. He would do people who respect science a much greater service by evenly explaining that string theory is not really THE theory, but just one of many unification theories that are currently being pursued. It just so happens that, for whatever reason, string theory is the version of Unification that seems to get most of the press.

In the end, anyone who understand the acrimony between the unification scientists learns nothing and is merely turned off by the insults and barbs and anyone who doesn't understand the acrimony (or doesn't even know about things like Branes and M-Theory) comes away having heard "lazy scientists are lying to you because they're angry math geeks seeking validation" which is absolutely the last thing John Q. Public needs to be hearing in the middle of all the other lies about science being shoved around as basic fact in popular media.

Re:A thinly veiled attempt to defame all science?

[HorsePunchKid]

I did RTFA and didn't think it was anti-science so much as anti-groupthink. I don't think this article's author is this Jim Holt, who is clearly pro-ID. I can't find much about the New Yorker's Jim Holt, but at least this attribution makes it clear it's not the same one.

Re:A thinly veiled attempt to defame all science?

[DragonWriter]

Is it a strong theory? Yes. Can we prove it? No. Has it predicted anything we don't already know? Not really.

The answer to the third question directly contradicts the answer to the first question.

Re:A thinly veiled attempt to defame all science?

[Bones3D_mac]

Yeah, I wasn't necessarily implying the two were related... but only that if the ID proponents wanted a way to discredit the validity of formal science, something as shaky as string theory would be an ideal subject to attack. Either to claim ID is no less valid than string theory, or to mock science in general by using string theory as the primary example of how rediculously flawed science often is.

From a purely political standpoint, string theory is an ID proponent's wet dream, since it introduces enough uncertainty into our precious "legitimate" science to make it an ideal soapbox to stand on.

Re:A thinly veiled attempt to defame all science?

[MikeBabcock]

Personally I believe in God and I have no problem with good science either. What I don't understand is people who believe that being scientific precludes having beliefs. You don't study or research everything you think; you take most of it on faith that someone else did, or didn't. There is a lot of your life based on belief in others / belief in process / belief in the system / etc. and you'd pretty much be a basket case if you tried to be 'scientific' about your entire world.

I have no problem reconciling my belief in God with my belief in science.

Well....

[finkployd]

So which is it: the best of times or the worst of times?

According to Schrodinger, both.

Finkployd

Re:Well....

[KDN]

You mean Heisenberg?

Re:Well....

[Pitr]

It depends. If the times are not being observed, it's both, so it's Schrodinger. If they're being observed but you're just not sure, it's Heisenberg.

Ergo, ignorance is bliss... and not. ;)

Re:Well....

[mschuyler]

Actually, Schrodinger's cat.

Re:Well....

[rthille]

Yeah, but according to his cat, it's just the worst of times. After all, regardless of whether he's alive or not, he's still stuck in the damn box!

Re:Well....

[Valdrax]

That's just the latest person to add to the theory. I believe the proper scholar to attribute is Dickens.

Is String Theory Really a Scientific Theory?

[GillBates0]

Q: Is String Theory Really a Scientific Theory?

Short Answer: No.
Long Answer: Yes.
Longer Answer: Both of the above, but each in a separate Universe.

Re:Is String Theory Really a Scientific Theory?

[SilentOneNCW]

Hey! I thought I was the only one who used that joke...

Re:Is String Theory Really a Scientific Theory?

[Anonymous Coward]

> Q: Is String Theory Really a Scientific Theory?

From a distance it appears to be a scientific theory, but when you get up-close, it isn't.

Actually it's on the ropes (pun intended)

[MSBob]

I heard that Intelligent Rubberbands were all the rage.

Re:Actually it's on the ropes (pun intended)

[smooth wombat]

I prefer 'Invisible Rubberbands'. I once used that phrase in a letter-to-the-editor in a reply to someone who tried the whole, "It's a theory!" nonsense when talking about ID.

After all, if evolution can be challenged by a theological precept which cannot be tested in any fashion, then so can the Theory of Gravity be challenged by the Theory of Invisible Rubberbands.

Re:Actually it's on the ropes (pun intended)

[alienmole]

There's already a competitor to the theory of gravity: Intelligent Falling.

a theory needs to predict

[KDN]

While I am a believer in string theory, it has yet to come up with a prediction that can be tested or observed. That is generally the acid test for a theory to gain substantial credibility. Everything so far requires more power than a galaxy or needs to see things smaller than planks (?) constant, neither of which we have access to. I believe I recall even one of the supports saying that they have come up with an untestable theory. However, no one has been able to conflicts in the theory either. It could be that we're like the dog being taught nuclear physics, its just beyond our comprehension, so far.

Re:a theory needs to predict

[jandrese]

One thing that has me worried about String Theory in general is that whenever something comes up that seems to disprove parts of it, the theory adds some complexity to deal with the problem. This sort of escalating complexity is usually a sign of a flawed theory.

Of course most scientists seem to be a little wary of string theory too. The problem is that while it sucks, nobody has come up with anything better yet. If think if someone came up with a competing theory that was a bit more elegant you would see scientists flocking to it in a hurry. You can't just give up entirely on String Theory until you have something better. For all we know it might be the right answer. The inability to even make simple lab tests to prove or disprove it is a major concern too, people would be a lot more comfortable with the theory if we could actually test it.

Re:a theory needs to predict

[KDN]

Of course most scientists seem to be a little wary of string theory too. The problem is that while it sucks, nobody has come up with anything better yet. If think if someone came up with a competing theory that was a bit more elegant you would see scientists flocking to it in a hurry. You can't just give up entirely on String Theory until you have something better.

This is exactly what I felt about quantum mechanics as well. Compared to Einstein's relativity, it was too complicated, too random, to messy. That's why when I first heard of string theory I was interested. Just one component a string. But then they said it has 10, or 11, or 33 or however many dimensions they have nowadays. And the math was showing values what were just so hugely large or small that nothing could be tested.

Personally I think both quantum and string theory are like those old models that showed the universe going around the earth. And as more accurate observations of the heavens came along, the modelers would add wheels inside of wheels inside of wheels to compensate for the observed movements. I'm hoping to live long enough to see someone come along, put a few lines on the blackboard that turn one of our assumptions on its head, that explain all the effects, and watch a stunned audience go silent and then say "of course, why didn't I think of that?".

Re:a theory needs to predict

[Anonymous Coward]

"It could be that we're like the dog being taught nuclear physics"

Howabout quantum mechanics?

http://alumnus.caltech.edu/~jsu/farside.gif

Can you explain it to a 6 year old?

[Anonymous Coward]

Not string theory. Not ever. Can we all agree it must be wrong and try again?

Can we please...

[Anonymous Coward]

Can we please not have stories with questions in the title? Whenever there's a question in the title everyone tags it "yes", "no", and "maybe" which defeats the purpose of having a tagging system. I know this is off-topic but I'm not trolling, just rather sick of it.

Compared to Intelligent Design

[Cybert4]

Be careful not to give ammo to the ID folks. Talking with them is akin to having a deep philosophical discussion with an ant. String theory may or may not be the best science, but it is infinitely greater than any religious book.

Re:Compared to Intelligent Design

[Xtifr]

Actually, it's good to point out that "string theory" is a non-scientific theory just like intelligent design. Then they can't use the excuse that we're just persecuting them because we hate religion or something. Science has standards, and neither ST nor ID meet the standards necessary to be called a scientific theory.

Oh, and ID has nothing to do with any religious book. People who argue that know as little about ID as they do about string theory. Although I admit that's beside the point--the creationists who've latched onto the ID label are too stupid to understand the distinction, let alone any of the rest of this discussion. But bottom line, I think that rejecting string theory on the grounds that it's not science is a Good Thing in the war against religious nuts who yammer about "intelligent design" without knowing what it means. It helps eliminate accusations of bias.

Re:Compared to Intelligent Design

[Anonymous Coward]

Two things

1. First ID does not just equate to Fundamentalist Christian. Speaking as someone who has studied creationism, many, most, maybe all creationists cannot stand ID. They say that ID is too lenient and that 6 literal days is how creation took place. I will say that the implications of ID seemed to be more consistent tp the Christian worldview, but also to the Hindu Worldview, the Jewish Worldview, the Muslim Worldview. Take it or leave it, but I just mentioned a LARGE majority of the world.

2. I'm not sure which ID folks you have been talking to. Have you talked with William Dembski? How about Scott Minnich or Michael Behe? Wait, those are all scientists, perhaps you need to talk to a philosopher. Try William Lane Craig or JP Moreland. Unless of course you are talking about the common ID person. Of course, the common person with little thought in ID would be like an ant. But I don't hold that against the common person who holds to evolutionary theory.

Ultimately, I ask one question. Should we forsake truth, because it does not fit our preconceived notions of the world? If there something that is true, but may support the ID folks, should we reject it because of it's implications?

Re:Compared to Intelligent Design

[DragonWriter]

Actually, it's good to point out that "string theory" is a non-scientific theory just like intelligent design.

String "theory" is not "non-scientific theory just like intelligent design."

String "theory" is an effort to develop a scientific theory based on a particular conjecture, it is scientific though it has not yet produced a tested theory, or (as argued here) even a testable hypothesis. It is pre-theoretic science: the work necessary to get to a scientific theory.

Intelligent Design is a outright fraud, for which documentation exists showing that its framers invented and embraced it to advance Biblical Creationism when direct embrace of that idea was failing, and to undermine the entire idea of empirical science and provide a wedge for casting non-empirical, non-testable, religious conjecture as science. It is purely anti-scientific, a propaganda effort to get non-scientific religious ideas taught as science.

If it's not testable it isn't science.

[Colin Smith]

It's philosophy.

String theory is at the moment, philosophy. As soon as someone comes up with a way of testing it, it will become science.

Re:If it's not testable it isn't science.

[alexgieg]

You, sir, have no idea what Philosophy is.

Do you "prove" logic by testing it, or testing anything is to apply logic to the issue?

When something "becomes" science, that's because it never was philosophy. Philosophy is that discipline that provides you the tools with which you build science. Not the other way around.

Re:If it's not testable it isn't science.

[hunterx11]

You don't prove logic by testing it because logic cannot be proved. And there are certainly areas where philosophy has given way to science when empirical evidence provided explanations for things previously unexplainable by science, such as astronomy and evolution. In the future, philosophy of mind will become a science, too.

I'm not sure that I'd call string theory philosophy, but I wouldn't dismiss such a categorization immediately, either. It isn't just an as-of-yet untestable proposition, it is a framework that makes fundamental ontological claims.

Re:If it's not testable it isn't science.

[sfeinstein]

Parent is snobby but correct.

Theory - Testability = Religion

Re:If it's not testable it isn't science.

[Khashishi]

I don't know what you are talking about. If something becomes a science, it wasn't a philosophy? You seem to be forgetting that science used to be (and maybe still is) a field of philosophy. It was philosophers who came up with the concept of an atom. And it's philosophers who came up with the concept of strings.

Re:If it's not testable it isn't science.

[Scarblac]

When something "becomes" science, that's because it never was philosophy. Philosophy is that discipline that provides you the tools with which you build science. Not the other way around.

Well, that's pretty much true for string theory right now. It's a huge body of math that doesn't predict anything in particular. However, it's possible that in the future, it can be built into something that actually says something about the real world - and then it'd be a useful tool for doing science with.

Right now it's cool math that might some day be usable as a tool to build science with, but nobody knows how yet. Sounds to me like philosophy...

Re:If it's not testable it isn't science.

[alexgieg]

I don't think string theory is a set of ontological claims. But much like the other sciences, it can be inserted into ontological frameworks, be it the scientistic ontology, the thomist one, or any other.

These frameworks, by the way, cannot be proved either. But that's a "non-provability" in the same sense of logic: they offer the framework upon which you construct the provable. Remove all of them and science becomes the realm of pure instrumentalism, where no scientific finding is ever a description of reality, because either the term "reality" has no meaning, or the finding is understood as a mere practical description of sensory perceptions and nothing more, or both.

People who ask for "proofs" of philosophical claims clearly don't understand neither what Philosophy is, nor what a proof is. They're talking about words, not about things.

PS.: Specific evolutionary studies are science, but Evolution in itself isn't "a" science. It's an ontological framework too. And one must take care when dealing with this because logical errors are easy to come by. Rudimentary evolutionary studies, for instance, can be found in Thomas Aquinas and Aristotle, thus they don't go by themselves against thomist ontology. The Evolutionary framework, on the other hand, is incompatible with it, because both compete in being the ultimate explanation of reality. Interestingly enough, the kantian anti-ontological framework, which is the basis for most of current science methodology, explicitly denies the possibility of any kind of evolutionary study, something most neo-kantians dismiss as soon as they discover this to be the case.

Re:If it's not testable it isn't science.

[alexgieg]

Wrong. All religions are testable. The question is: which scientist is willing to give up 20 years of their life to check whether practicing the ascetic disciplines actually provides the results the religion says they'll provide?

Please note I'm not talking about "miracles". These are secondary and ultimately irrelevant.

Re:If it's not testable it isn't science.

[alexgieg]

Yes, you can think of String Theory as a field of Mathematics, much like Mathematics is a field of Logic. And in this sense I can agree. But string theorists are struggling to identify observable physical entities or, at least, observable physical relations. I'd prefer then to say that whatever mathematical advancements string theorists are developing are a colateral effect of what they're doing, not the main thing. As such, these mathematical developments cannot be taken as being the main subject of the field. Also please note that other fields of Physics have also contributed to mathematics, and that didn't make them anymore philosophy than before.

Re:If it's not testable it isn't science.

[Colin Smith]

You, sir, have no idea what Philosophy is.

Bullshit.

Philosophy is a field of study that includes diverse subfields such as aesthetics, epistemology, ethics, logic, and metaphysics, in which people ask questions such as whether God exists, what is the nature of reality, whether knowledge is possible, and what makes actions right or wrong. The fundamental method of philosophy is the use of reasoning to evaluate arguments concerning these questions. However, the exact scope and methodology of philosophy is not rigid. What counts as philosophy is itself debated and varies across philosophical traditions.

From Wikipedia.

Main Entry: philosophy
Pronunciation: f&-'lä-s(&-)fE
Function: noun
Inflected Form(s): plural -phies
Etymology: Middle English philosophie, from Anglo-French, from Latin philosophia, from Greek, from philosophos philosopher
1 a (1) : all learning exclusive of technical precepts and practical arts (2) : the sciences and liberal arts exclusive of medicine, law, and theology (3) : the 4-year college course of a major seminary b (1) archaic : PHYSICAL SCIENCE (2) : ETHICS c : a discipline comprising as its core logic, aesthetics, ethics, metaphysics, and epistemology
2 a : pursuit of wisdom b : a search for a general understanding of values and reality by chiefly speculative rather than observational means c : an analysis of the grounds of and concepts expressing fundamental beliefs
3 a : a system of philosophical concepts b : a theory underlying or regarding a sphere of activity or thought
4 a : the most basic beliefs, concepts, and attitudes of an individual or group b : calmness of temper and judgment befitting a philosopher

From Merriam-Webster.

Re:If it's not testable it isn't science.

[alexgieg]

That's just because Philosopher like to think about a lot of things, and some of those seem to be about the concrete world. The moment the guy does this he's switching from Philosophy to Science.

Just because Chemistry is used to develop new gastronomical compounds there's no reason to say that every chemist is a cook, or that Chemistry and Cooking are one and the same thing, or that Cooking is just Chemistry made into practice. Points of contact aren't the same as identity.

Re:If it's not testable it isn't science.

[hchaos]

String theory is at the moment, philosophy. As soon as someone comes up with a way of testing it, it will become science.

Contrary to what a lot of people around here seem to think, there are testable predictions from String Theory, the obvious one being supersymmetry. If supersymmetric particles do not exist, String Theory is false. Since supersymmetry also predicts the mass of supersymmetric particles, it's quite possible to develop experiments that, over time, will either detect these particles or establish beyond reasonable doubt that nothing is there.

Re:If it's not testable it isn't science.

[alexgieg]

Wikipedia and a dictionary. That's what I call scholarship.

Please understand one thing: "what reality is?" and "is this real?" are two different questions. Also, read my other answers in this sub-thread.

Re:If it's not testable it isn't science.

[Chris Pimlott]

I love it how this happens; whenever there is a discussion about whether something is or is not a theory, or isn't actually science, the Science People always piss of the Philosophy Poeple because philosophy always gets used as a dumping ground for everything that starts out with "what if..." but doesn't quality as science. "Damn it guys, we have rules too, you know. Stop sending us your trash!"

Re:If it's not testable it isn't science.

[alexgieg]

I hope someone mod you "+Insightfull", I really do! :)

I couldn't have put it better.

Re:If it's not testable it isn't science.

[VE3MTM]

Much of science was originally derived from philosophy. The atomic nature of matter, for example, was (first?) theorised by the Epicureans, as the postulate that matter is not infinitely divisible. The epic poem "On the nature of things" (also translated as "On the nature of the universe") argues this point. While this has since been disproven, for many years this was the accepted scientific theory.

There are many other examples -- psychology, chemistry and physics, for example. All these fields that are now science sprang from the writings of various philosophers. Once the scientific method was applied to them, they transitioned into sciences.

As a side-note, you do not prove logic. It is a closed system, like mathematics. Real world things (physics, for example) may be described in terms of it, but it is not described in terms of anything in the real world.

Re:If it's not testable it isn't science.

[Colin Smith]

Philosophy is a word used in the english language. Defined in and by encyclopedia and dictionaries. Feel free to point to an authorative source which disputes the definitions I have highlighted.

Your other answers are mental masturbation, I've already pointed out that I'm right and you're wrong. Now go away.

Re:If it's not testable it isn't science.

[Anonymous Coward]

But he's got about 945,000 more hit points than you do. That's what the numbers in parentheses are, right?

Re:If it's not testable it isn't science.

[DragonWriter]

Contrary to what a lot of people around here seem to think, there are testable predictions from String Theory, the obvious one being supersymmetry. If supersymmetric particles do not exist, String Theory is false.

I don't think you understand what testable means. It doesn't mean that "there is conceptually an observation that could be made that might suggest the hypothesis might be true", it means there is an unambiguous and repeatable test that could be conducted which could clearly and unambiguously show the hypothesis to fail in its prediction that would be expected to succeed if and only if the hypothesis was correct, or at least a better explanation for the underlying process that what went before. And not merely that its "possible to develop" such experiments, but that one is developed. Until and unless such an experiment is developed, the conjecture is just an untestable conjecture. Once you have test, its a testable hypothesis. Once its been tested, it might be a theory, if all goes well.

Re:If it's not testable it isn't science.

[DragonWriter]

The question is: which scientist is willing to give up 20 years of their life to check whether practicing the ascetic disciplines actually provides the results the religion says they'll provide?

Many versions of (e.g.) Christianity are ambiguous about any concrete benefits in the material universe, the ultimate result is in the afterlife. While they are in a sense testable in this regard (if there is an afterlife, those who die will experience it either as predicted or not), they are not scientifically testable, in that the results of the tests are not reportable and repeatable in a systematic way.

Re:If it's not testable it isn't science.

[zacronos]

What counts as philosophy is itself debated and varies across philosophical traditions.

[ass] From your quote, which you claim is from Wikipedia. I would like to point out that it contradicts your assertion that you are right and the other poster is wrong about what philosophy is. In fact, if we take the wikipedia entry you quoted to be authoritative, then I can authoritatively claim you are both wrong for claiming or implying that the definition of "what philosophy is" is an objective fact, rather than something subjective and debated (basically, subject to opinion).[/ass]

Re:If it's not testable it isn't science.

[ebuck]

Trash Theory.

Re:If it's not testable it isn't science.

[hchaos]

I don't think you understand what testable means. It doesn't mean that "there is conceptually an observation that could be made that might suggest the hypothesis might be true", it means there is an unambiguous and repeatable test that could be conducted which could clearly and unambiguously show the hypothesis to fail in its prediction that would be expected to succeed if and only if the hypothesis was correct, or at least a better explanation for the underlying process that what went before. And not merely that its "possible to develop" such experiments, but that one is developed. Until and unless such an experiment is developed, the conjecture is just an untestable conjecture. Once you have test, its a testable hypothesis. Once its been tested, it might be a theory, if all goes well.

I damned well do know what testable means, apparently a lot better than you do. For starters, it means "able to be tested", not "has already been tested".

You're confusing "hypothesis" and "theory", and they're not the same thing, and a hypothesis certainly does not become a theory after it has been tested. A hypothesis is a prediction about the outcome of an experiment. A theory is a predictive model of reality which is used to derive hypotheses. So the first step in designing an experiment is to come up with a hypothesis that, if it is not true, will invalidate the theory. The experiment, however, can only directly test the hypothesis, not the theory. This is the basis of the term "falsifiable", because an experiment can only prove a theory to be false, it can never prove it to be true.

So, in our specific case of String Theory, we have a hypothesis: At certain, predicted, energy densities achievable through the collision of subatomic particles, supersymmetric counterparts to known particles should be detectable. If there is no supersymmetry, String Theory is wrong. Is this hypothesis testable? Of course, and that's why physicists are in the process of developing the experiments to test it. Will confirmation of supersymmetry prove String Theory? Of course not, no experiment has ever proven a theory to be true. But "theory" doesn't mean that it's true, "theory" doesn't even mean that it's not known to be false, "theory" just means a predictive model that can be falsified through those predictions.

String Theory makes a lot of other predictions, too, it's just that those predictions which have been tested are the same predictions that the Standard Model makes (which makes sense, you don't want a Theory of Everything that can't explain everything), so there is no way to distinguish between the theories yet (or any other theory that is out there).

Re:If it's not testable it isn't science.

[The_Wilschon]

So where do the first principles present in any philosophical system come from? Even the first principles of logic, like the law of non-contradiction? Generally, they are said to be "self-evident", which boils down to "In my experience of the world, this is true". This would make those first principles empirically, or observationally, based; that is, they come from science, albeit a very simple and basic science. And now we have entered epistemology, a branch of philosophy.

Of course, one could hold some particular first principle(s) "because I want to", or "because it is interesting", or "because if I don't at least claim to, then this man over here will shoot me in the head".

Re:If it's not testable it isn't science.

[alexgieg]

That's not accurate. There've beens many academic studies in the last decades on the "esoteric" branches of major religions, and these studies all agree in the fact that what the mystics/saints/whatever from different religions, continents and ages described as being the results they obtained from their practices are extremely similar, if not equal. Search, for details, the works of Whitall N. Perry, Frithjof Schuon or Seyyed Hossein Nasr, among others.

If you have a set of methods, all of which say you'll obtain results "x", "y" and "z" at the moments "a", "b" and "c", and you follow them and obtain the predicted results, in a systematic and repeatable way, all of that coupled to a body of peer reviewers able to correct your mistakes, you have a science. If this science cannot be linked in a meaningfull way with other sciences, too bad. This doesn't make it any less scientific.

Furthermore, if any and all scientists must study at least 15 or 20 years to be able to understand what their peers are doing, not to mention to do usefull research himself, there's no point in saying that what they do is objective and everything else is pure subjectivity. There's a mountain of "subjective" knowledge, both theoretical and practical, that must be absorved by the individual for those things to start becoming meaningfull. Other fields of research having similar requirements don't make them any less scientific. It's precisely the contrary.

There's more to the contemporaneous field of religious studies than XIX century positivism. Most scientists and atheists ignore this, but that's their problem, not a problem of the religious studies. ;)

Re:If it's not testable it isn't science.

[alexgieg]

Fine. Here the authoritative source: me. Because Philosophy is exactly what I'm studying at University for the last 7 years.

Want something more? Go read the guys who developed this thing: Plato and Aristotle. They offer lots of insights on the subject. Pay special attention to the distiction they made between a Sophist and a Philosopher. Oh! And don't forget that Aristotle is the guy who invented Biology, Zoology, Physics and the Political Sciences. So, his take on the subject is somewhat relevant.

Dictionaries? Yes, they're usefull. But only so far as their methodology is. Usually what dictionarists do is to research how a word is currently used in language. If a new, wrong meaning gains acceptance and diffusion, it enters the dictionary. After all, they're value free. Alas, you've already heard the expression "occult sciences", no? Well, since it's used a lot, then for a dictionarist the term "science" will include a definition that allows the "occult" variety to be part of it. Would you accept, because of this, that "occult sciences" be taught in the science curriculum of schools or, for that matter, ID?

Take care. Trying to win an argument by verbal tricks usually leads to unintended consequences.

Re:If it's not testable it isn't science.

[Oligonicella]

Please don't lump psychology in with chemistry and physics. Psych is science in that it is a particular branch of knowledge.

Re:If it's not testable it isn't science.

[johansalk]

I agree. I hate it how the common use of the term "philosophy" seems to stand for "idle nonsense that potheads do".

Re:If it's not testable it isn't science.

[cbacba]

physics evolved from what was once called natural philosophy. You will notice an interesting correlation between western philosophy at particular times and the nature of our understanding of the world at that time.

Not all things scientific are directly testable. That doesn't mean they cannot be analyzed in a scientific manner with rather good results.

strings may someday provide some sort of results. At present, they have been sucking up far more resources than deserved.

Re:If it's not testable it isn't science.

[DragonWriter]

That's not accurate.

Yes, it is.

There've beens many academic studies in the last decades on the "esoteric" branches of major religions, and these studies all agree in the fact that what the mystics/saints/whatever from different religions, continents and ages described as being the results they obtained from their practices are extremely similar, if not equal.

Which is all very nice, but has nothing to do with what I said that you claimed was wrong. But don't let irrelevance get in the way of your rant.

Re:If it's not testable it isn't science.

[maverick_starstrider]

Firstly, Democritus was the first one to muse about some threshold for indivisibility of matter. Secondly, much of physics (most notably QM) has come from ignoring 'peanut gallery' philosophers and following the math and data. Thirdly, as a physicist-in-training (not done grad yet) myself I find it quite irritating when philosophers who have no grounding in math weigh in with an opinion on math based theories, reading scientific american or 'elegant universe' doesn't actually mean you know anything about the theories mentioned. Fourthly, attributing the discovery of atomic properties by people like rutherford to democritus is a kin to attributing the Cold War to Nostradamus. Democritus presented one of many metaphysical views on some metaphysical issue and no one in early atomic physics was setting out to prove him right or probably cared the slightest bit about him. It's like saying that if there is a myth in some ancient shamanistic culture called 'X' where they believed that an animal god filled the world with tiny loops of twine to create the world then culture X is responsible for string theory and knew about it long before everyone else clued in and we should listen to culture X more often. Metaphysical rambling is not the spring board to a complex mathematical theory. Finally, I'd love to hear how string theory was first proposed by philosophers. If anyone could be attributed as some far reaching figure from the past who inspired string theory it would most definetly be Leonard Euler.

why does the new yorker care?

[bunions]

Let the physicists, who are the only people who can truly understand this, sort it out. They likely don't need the academic process becoming any more politicized than it already it. If it's a blind alley, they'll find that out in due time. While it's regrettable that it's taking as long as it is to reach a conclusion on the issue, come on - it ain't exactly flippin' burgers, and we're not exactly hung up waiting for the result. Let the scientists work.

Re:why does the new yorker care?

[Anonymous Coward]

It may not be flipping burgers, but think about all the intellectual capital that's been burned on what's, by definition, NOT a scientific theory. It's very difficult to think about a career in physics these days if you don't subscribe to the ST camp, but I just can't help but wonder what other advances could have been made if grad students' time and energy had been spent elsewhere in the field.

Re:why does the new yorker care?

[flawedconceptions]

Spot on, parent. It is impossible to appreciate the allure of the mathematical foundations without many years of dedicated study. It says a lot that two researchers have spoken out as they have, but I think that most of the community feels that the conceptual motivation for string theory is sufficient to warrant more investigation... and even their fellow physicists don't have the understanding to vouch for one side of this debate or the other.

It's also worth mentioning that this research -- at its worst -- is pushing the limits of several fields of mathematics. Ed Witten's Fields Medal gives evidence of that. (iaap)

Re:why does the new yorker care?

[bunions]

It's their intellectual capital to burn. Since when do we allow the lay public get to say who gets to study what?

Re:why does the new yorker care?

[Anonymous Coward]

Reason to ask questions: money. Bilions of tax money are being poured into this theory, which no outsider understands. It is 30y old, produced nothing. Getting bigger every year. Time to aply some brakes.

Re:why does the new yorker care?

[Anonymous Coward]

why does the new yorker care?

They're journalists.

Journalists find out about events and trends happening in fields including but not limited to the fields of politics, science, art, and religion, and then report on what they have learned.

The backlash against string theory is an event and/or trend happening in the field of science. Therefore, the New Yorker, an institution of journalism, has found out about it and is now reporting what it has learned to its readers.

Why does Slashdot care? Why do you care?

Re:why does the new yorker care?

[jefu]

Should the New Yorker not cover things that may be beyond the reach of the average reader?

Even if they were publishing the mathematical theory itself, they should be free to do so (though it would probably not appeal to the average reader), but they're not doing that, they're publishing about a controversy in the field - just as they might about any other field. Is physics somehow different than (to take an example from one article I remember) considering the effectiveness of different kinds of therapy on people who've experienced stressful events and who might then be subject to PTSD?

Writers and journalists should be encouraged to write about whatever interests them and their audience, even if the people they're writing about don't always find it flattering or helpful.

As someone who frequently reads the New Yorker, I must say I've learned a lot from it over the years - and in many areas that I'm not familiar with such readings have sometimes taught me something (perhaps only a little, but something), sometimes aroused my curiousity, and sometimes introduced me to whole new ideas that I might not have otherwise run into. I say "More power to 'em".

Re:why does the new yorker care?

[bunions]

my point is, I suppose, not that the new yorker shouldn't be covering this - as the anon points out, they are journalists, that's their job, but rather that it's not up to them to judge - and I felt judgement was implied in the article and the comments here - because they're not in a position to do so, and likewise with all the non-string-theorists here sniping about the definition of what a theory is. If the physics community decides that string theory is a blind alley, so be it. Until then, let's have less judgemental nattering from the peanut gallery. Like I said, academia doesn't need any more politicizing.

Re:why does the new yorker care?

[Xiroth]

Sort of. Physics is the most essential science - without it, we make no significant advances, and development of new areas of scientific research is slowed. It being constrained to an area with what now seems to be little chance of being useful is a serious damper to scientific advancement, and is certainly an issue which society needs to debate. The physicists are, of course, in the best position to see the facts of the debate, but their work has impacts on all of modern civilisation, so everyone deserves some (if smaller) say.

Re:why does the new yorker care?

[arodland]

Where do you see "constraint"? Some people think that there is a benefit to working in this field, and they do. Scientists aren't being held at gunpoint and forced to do string-theory work.

Re:why does the new yorker care?

[Oligonicella]

Because the public economic capital funds their intellectual capital. Unless, of course, they are supporting themselves without grants from the gov.

Re:why does the new yorker care?

[johansalk]

I say present both sides of the issue, and let the kids (and their parents!) decide for themselves.

Re:why does the new yorker care?

[Anonymous Coward]

There are a few times when newspaper criticism has obstructed scientific inquiry.

As a result of the New York Times' criticism, Robert Goddard (known today as the "father of modern rocketry") withdrew from the public eye and became a hermit, limiting his collaborative research ability.

Re:why does the new yorker care?

[bunions]

Do you really want the government stepping in on academia in that kind of micromanagment style?

"Want an RA position? Ok, only if your thesis is on the the Approved Physics Curriculum List, form 80.15/Z-EZ."

Re:why does the new yorker care?

[Reservoir Penguin]

I'm not sure there is a way out of this alley. If you read the article you must have noticed that the String Priests, I mean Theorists are changing the very defenition of natural science - a theory no longer needs to be falsefiable (an objective thing), instead it merely has to be 'beautiful'

Smell test fails...

[deepvoid]

String theory fails the smell test, by being so complicated that none of it's predictions can actually be tested. For instance, the theory never explains HOW a dimension can be rolled up in the first place, and wouldn't a rolled up dimension require two more dimensions to adaquately describe. String theory also fails to explain the various constraints described by previous models. Many of the characteristics of string theory are actually inner-wound descriptions of larger characteristics of matter. How would string theory model elastic collisions without claiming the elastic nature of the strings themselves. Alot of physicists' careers have been brought to a standstill for doubting the "faith" of string theory. Scientists should stop the bloodletting and put this smoking pile to rest, along with the other untestable theories that have gone before it.

String theory has nearly stopped all real research into the subatomic universe, in favor of a load of wishfull thinking, written by a few individuals who are too heavily focused on padding their hats to make their heads look bigger.

Let me explain this in programming terms

[Profane MuthaFucka]

The people who make up theories of physics are computer consultants. The people who are raising questions about it are like a cranky customer. The various theories of physics are whatever the consultants make for their customer

The consultants are hired by the customer to write an app. Every time they write the app, the customer comes back and says "that's not quite right". The consultants take off for a few months and come back with a new app that addresses all the objections. Each time the consultants show off their new app, the customer says that the application still isn't quite right.

Finally, after going back and forth for years over this application, the application is getting quite close to what the customer wants but still has a few problems. Eventually, the consultant comes back with an application that is promised to finally, once and for all, solve the customer's problems. The customer takes a look at the application, notices the very thick manual, and realizes that it's going to take YEARS to understand this new application. So, he asks the consultant if this is his idea of a sick joke. No, said the consultant, this application is flexible enough to adapt to any problem you might want to solve or could invent. We call it a "C Compiler".

We seem to have arrived at String Theory just like that.

Re:Let me explain this in programming terms

[wintermute42]

Actually, what you described reminds me a of eXtreme Programming and the projects that were actually undertaken by Kent Beck and his eXtreme Programming colleagues. Constant "refactoring", never delivering software that met the customer needs, until finally the project was canceled (for example, the infamous GM Payroll project which supposedly launched eXtreme Programming into the world).

Regarding the "manual" for the "C Compiler": one of the attractions of C was the thin book by Kernigan and Ritchie. Even the ANSI standard for C is not that thick. Perhaps a better analogy would be the infamous Ada specification, which is large and defines a language that almost no one uses by choice.

Lee Smolin is definitely NOT an ID'er

[benhocking]

You can read about him on Wikipedia, if you like.

Re:Lee Smolin is definitely NOT an ID'er

[Bones3D_mac]

Thank you. At least this shows the question in itself is not malicious in nature.

String theory

[Anonymous Coward]

String theory is an elaborate joke played by physicists on curious nerds with an over-inflated sense of their own intelligence. Basically, smelly computer nerds like to think of themselves as intellectually superior, so they latch onto something that sounds complicated. Then they spout that at IRC parties and web forum based social gatherings so that they can feel important and smarter than other people. Meanwhile, physicists are down at the pub with their girlfriends, boyfriends and mates, drinking beer and laughing like drains at the computer nerds.

Not yet, but it will be! (Maybe? or Maybe Not?)

[Banner]

String theory is at times one of the biggest con jobs in Physics, and at other times some of the most interesting speculation. It's also the 'Theory that will NOT die!' reminding me of so many late night C rate thrillers.

Why? Because everytime string theory gets disproven, they come out with a new theory and call it 'String Theory'. String Theory from the 70's really doesn't resemble current string theory much other than the name. It's strange that this is so, but there are a lot more politics involved than there is science at times. And the author is right, there are lots of articles being written, but not much going on that can be said to prove the theory, and little in the way of predictions (cause those could be tested). And so far, everytime someone does stand up and make predictions, it quickly gets disproven by actual tests. Which may be why no one is predicting much using it anymore.

At this point actually String Theory may very well be the most 'disproven' theory in physics. But that doesn't seem to stop people from trying. It will be curious to see what science has to say about all of this 50 years from now. To be honest I think many of us have gotten too close to the subject to be objective about it, and I think that is not helping the issue on either side.

Re:Not yet, but it will be! (Maybe? or Maybe Not?)

[Hoi Polloi]

I think it still has a lot of life left in it as long as PBS and the Discovery Channel have money left for flashy documentaries on it.

Re:Not yet, but it will be! (Maybe? or Maybe Not?)

[Frightening]

Because everytime string theory gets disproven, they come out with a new theory and call it 'String Theory'.

That's the funniest thing I've read all day. Microprocessor manufacturers need to take heed of this elegant method. No marketing department needed.

Theoretical Physicist A: So what do we call this one?
Theoretical Physicist B: No idea.
Theoretical Physicist A: I like "string theory". Let's just stick to the old timer eh?
Theoretical Physicist B: You're right. It's not like anyone understands anything anyway.
Theoretical Physicist A: Yeah and if they ask we'll tell them there's no real difference, if you look at all parallel dimensions.
*high fives*

This reminds me...

[LunarOne]

This reminds me of that Dilbert strip where Asok explains how "it's not logically possible to prove something can't be done". Wait, I think I'm going into an endless loop while thinking about thinking about thinking about this in the context of string theory.

Re:This reminds me...

[ICantFindADecentNick]

Insolubility of the quintic, Godels Incompleteness Theorem ..... Sure it's possible to prove something can't be done. Maybe Scott Adams isn't the best source to base your view of logic.

Rolled up dimensions don't require extra dims

[benhocking]

Having a "rolled up" dimension doesn't require an extra dimension, because they're not _actually_ rolled up. The metric used to describe them is just easy to picture that way. Just like curved 4-dimensional space time doesn't need a 5th dimension to be curved into. I tried looking for a good web-site that explains this, but didn't find one in the time I'm willing to spend looking for one. I'm sure someone else knows of one, though.

Re:Rolled up dimensions don't require extra dims

[ebuck]

Don't try to explain it with 4 or 5 dimensions, because that's far too challenging to imagine, much less to use as a base of an analogy.

Compare it to a cube. People know what cubes are. Say that you're trying to measure a cube, so you take the measurements of every edge of the cube, 12 measurements in all. Then you realize that really there are 3 sets of measurements, containing 4 identical measurements along the height, width, and depth of the cube. Suddenly something that seemed like a 12 dimension object really only seems to have 3 dimensions now. That's roughly how String theory "loses" dimensions over time. The first time I heard of the theory, it needed over a hundred dimensions to work, then around 80, 60, etc. Now I'm wondering if it's under the 12 that my memory told me it either hit, or might hit.

Finally, you could notice that you don't really have 3 measurements, you have one set of three identical measurements (because it's a cube the height, width, and length are all identical) So you only really have one dimension now. Of course, you dimension only applies to the "cube" universe, where everything must be a cube. However, that's the danger of models, they can become disconnected from the constraints of the real world they are modeling.

A perfect example of such a disconnect is the idea of a circular orbit around a moving planet. All planets move, and it's impossible to maintain a stationary circular orbit because the planet will move closer to one side of the circle, increasing the gravitational pull on that side, twisiting the circle into an elliptical shape.

Perhaps we could agree that it is a model

[benhocking]

String theory might not have earned the rights to be called a theory yet, but as with Bohr's model of the atom, perhaps we could agree that it has earned the right to be called a model.

Re:Perhaps we could agree that it is a model

[Roger W Moore]

Not really. Bohr's model of the atom was a "picture" which matched experimental data but which was known to not really explain everything (e.g. why were the orbits quantised?). This is the same as the current Standard Model: it matches all observable phenomena at high energy....so far. We know it is not complete though because it does not include gravity, has a heirarchy problem etc.

So I'd take a model to be a system which works but which does not really answer all the questions. String Theory is not that far advanced - they have 10^500 possible solutions last I heard and only one of those can be correct...so they have their work cut out for themselves!

Re:Perhaps we could agree that it is a model

[DragonWriter]

Its clearly a model of sorts, though, unlike Bohr's model, its not a model that used to be a theory but was replaced with a more complete theory but that remains a useful simple explanation in some domains, but instead a more complex theory that, from the charges levelled against it, predicts nothing, at least yet, that is testable that isn't predicted by more simple theories.

Re:Perhaps we could agree that it is a model

[regular_gonzalez]

Unfortunate analogy, considering that Bohr's atom is not what an atom really looks like.

Re:Perhaps we could agree that it is a model

[Oligonicella]

Fine. Model of what? (Hint: you can't use "reality" if it doesn't model reality.)

A bit of dupe

[FredK]

Also see http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/06/2 3/2226257 And in particular the comment by Ian Bicking which points to this article on the views of Carver Mead http://laputan.blogspot.com/2003_09_21_laputan_arc hive.html#106446538310636532 I found his views quit interesting.
Fred

Authority

[Stoertebeker]

And the New Yorker is the ultimate authority on the subject, right?

Re:Authority

[Drunken Priest]

Have you ever read the New Yorker?

No way

[SlappyBastard]

It is barely, if at all, testable. Half its assumptions are based on assumptions that require assumptions in order to assume something we should probably assume.

While some of the math might be right, the same theory applies to friggin role playing games, too. So, are those real just because their math ads up?

Where are the good string theory experiments? Nowhere.

Occam's razor

[zoftie]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occam's_razor

As far as my popular understanding of the domain goes, it goes like this. Before there was quantum phyiscs. Scientists thought lets smash these atoms see if there is anything inside them. So to the dismay of theirs they have been rewarded with millions of particle types quarks, muons etc etc. that they are trying to categorized catalogue, derive properties of. Some of them didn't like the idea that millions of disjoint test results as material for explaining universe's compositions. With advances in field of mathematics and nod from those early einstein papers they moved on trying produce the theory of everything. Sort of like beautiful theory of relativity. Though relativity has been easy to test and formulas are often recognized by some 6th 7th grade students (E=mc^@), string theory is quite a bit more complicated then that. As it stands of nearly infinite data result domain of quantum physics.

As the string theory suggests that protons neutrons and electrons are singlewaveforms of certain frequency. And smashed atoms and half-waveforms and for some reason decay rapidly.

I suppose it is an excersize in occam's razor placed into the future when theory can be verified.
Why scientists are folling said theory, is in their wet deams they think of Unified field theory, which string theory may well support.

Just like way back as someone mentioned here Bohr's suppositions were incorrect in many ways, but generally incorrect. Perhaps string theory will inspire a new one in the future, that will make more sense.

But for now I would think it should be renamed a hypothesis, away from shameless marketing of non existant product! :)
2c.

Re:Occam's razor

[Morphine007]

When you come up with an idea for how Things(TM) work... it's would be a hypothesis. When you get a large portion of the physics community to start working out the math and trying to get it to the point where it's provable/disprovable, it becomes a theory. Just because Einstein's theory of relativity (or general relativity) has withstood a fuckload more scrutiny than string theory doesn't mean that it is somehow more than just a theory. At any point in time, someone could make an observation that isn't supported by the theory (even Einstein's) and if the theoretical underpinnings of the theory cannot be modified to support the observation... then the theory is wrong and it is discarded (or in the case of Newton, included with the caveat that it falls apart outside of a specific scope.)

Re:Occam's razor

[fujiman]

You lost me at Occam's Razor.

O.R. is not science. That's why it's not called "Occam's Law". It's about as useful as an analogy in a discussion, and about as scientific.

Just because something is easier to understand, doesn't make it true.

Medieval Theology?

[alexgieg]

Mr. Glashow can be a genious in the field of Physics, but I doubt he's also so much of a genious in the fields of History, Philosophy and (yes) Theology to be able to make such an absurd statement. No matter how much he dislikes religion and related subjects, there's a difference between stating a personal taste and talking meaningfully about something you don't know about.

Lee Smolin thinks he has

[benhocking]

If think if someone came up with a competing theory that was a bit more elegant you would see scientists flocking to it in a hurry.

That's the thing. Lee Smolin thinks he is working on a competing theory that is a bit more elegant - namely loop quantum gravity. I personally am not qualified enough to judge the validity of that assertion.

Stepping in it

[Lurker2288]

If it's not testable (and thus, falsifiable) then it's not a theory. The same way intelligent design isn't a theory. ::ducks::

its not a SCIENTIFIC theory

[almightynayr]

if its not testible then it is not science, if we allow string theory to be called scientific theory then were gona have to accept Intelligent Design as scientific theory because its just as untestible.. again, I dont hear about string theory being tought in highschools, nor is anyone trying to push it into the minds of our children.

works of philosophy vs. works of science

[unani_moose]

As long as there have been "modern scientists", there have been complaints that their theories are untestable and, as such, are works of philosophy and tools of calculation rather than works of science. It's a healthy debate, but critics should have a better background in the philosophy of science. Critics used almost precisely these arguments when the atomic theory was in development. Just because you cannot yet think of a testable hypothesis for a scientific theory does not mean that it does not exist.

As noted at http://web.lemoyne.edu/~giunta/whewell.html, an excerpt of a text by William Whewell from Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences vol. 1, 1840, pp. 406-7 [from Maurice Crosland, ed., The Science of Matter: a Historical Survey (Harmondsworth, UK: Penguin, 1971)]

So far the assumption of such atoms as we have spoken of serves to express those laws of chemical composition which we have referred to, it is a clear and useful generalization. But if the atomic theory be put forwards (and its author, Dr Dalton, appears to have put it forwards with such an intention,) as asserting that chemical elements are really composed of atoms, that is, of such particles not further divisible, we cannot avoid remarking that for such a conclusion, chemical research has not afforded, nor can afford, any satisfactory evidence whatever. The smallest observable quantities of ingredients, as well as the largest, combine according to the laws of proportions and equivalence which have been cited above. How are we to deduce from such facts any inference with regard to the existence of certain smallest possible particles? The theory, when dogmatically taught as a physical truth, asserts that all observable quantities of elements are composed of proportional numbers of particles which can no further be subdivided; but all which observation teaches us is, that if there be such particles, they are smaller than the smallest observable quantities. In chemical experiment, at least, there is not the slightest positive evidence for the existence of such atoms. The assumption of indivisible particles, smaller than the smallest observable, which combine, particle with particle, will explain the phenomena; but the assumption of particles bearing this proportion, but not possessing the property of indivisibility, will explain the phenomena at least equally well. The decision of the question, therefore, whether the atomic hypothesis be the proper way of conceiving the chemical combinations of substances, must depend, not upon chemical facts, but upon our conception of substance.

He then went on to say that it could never be proven and would remain a work of philosophy and a tool for efficient calculation only.

Apologies in advance

[Perseid]

Yeah, these string theory people have their ideas all caught up in knots. ...sorry. I'll go now.

Scientists against following hunches?

[Oz0ne]

Sorry, I must have missed the memo. I thought the basis of the scientific process was observing phenomena, coming up with an idea to explain it, and testing it, then revising that idea.

Now, it's true there's no testability to string theory(s) yet, but it certainly fits with the observing phenomena bit. Since when is examination and extrapolation frowned upon by scientists? I'm not saying there aren't better things string theorists could be doing, but I certainly see the exploration of the concepts a worthwhile pursuit.

My Great fear

[pugugly]

I keep expecting to hear at some point some bright boffin prove that the reason there are so many variations of string theory is that string theory is actually homomorphic to all of mathematics - if you can describe it in math, you can describe it in string theory.

Pug

Uh no

[drinkypoo]

String theory doesn't make testable predictions. Therefore it is not a theory: "A theory in technical use is a more or less verified or established explanation accounting for known facts or phenomena" It is in fact only a hypothesis.

This doesn't make it not science; it's just not a theory, and calling it a theory, no matter how sure you are it is right, is not science either.

Re:Uh no

[Starker_Kull]

The problem is that "theory" has so many shades of meaning at this point, from 'a possible explanation of the available evidence' to 'a predictive, robustly tested framework that makes no predictions contrary to observation or experiment'. String 'theory' leans to the former. "The String Hypothesis" just doesn't sound good - but that's all that it is, and all it may ever be, unless our calculational methodolgies start improving a lot.

Re:Uh no

[Stalyn]

Meta-science is not a science either. Claiming "string theory doesn't make testable predictions" is not a testable prediction. I'm not sure how you could prove in the affirmative how a theory is unable to ever make a testable prediction. You could say something like "there are no testable predictions as of today" but that does not rule out some time in the future.

Re:Uh no

[Chris Burke]

Of course String Theory makes testable predictions. Just like General Relativity and Quantum Mechanics make testable predictions.

The bad news is that they are the same predictions that General Relativity and Quantum Mechanics make, many of which we've already tested, and is thus indistinguishable from them.

The good news is that String theory makes the same predictions as GR and QM while still being only one theory.

It is the non-compatability of GR and QM that creates the need for something like ST. If ST doesn't make a single unique prediction, but is able to explain both the quantum and relativistic worlds, then not only is that a theory, it's a great theory.

Re:Uh no

[808140]

Here's the problem though. GR and QM are both, relative to ST, extremely simple. And while ST may make the same predictions that GR and QM make, it does so in a far more complex way, without adding any extra information -- QM and GR are incompatible, but ST fails to resolve those incompatibilities in a testable way.

GR was more complex than Classical Newtonian Mechanics, but it was, essentially, a value-added theory: it explained a bunch of things that Classical Mechanics couldn't, all while remaining compatible with Classical Mechanics in places where Classical Mechanics made accurate predictions. Therefore, GR was taken to replace classical mechanics, despite the added complexity of the theory, because it was broader in scope, falsifiable, and provably more correct than the theory it replaced.

ST does not fit this mold. It is far, far, far, far more complex than either GR or QM, and makes no extra falsifiable predictions. It doesn't resolve the inconsistencies between the two. In other words, from a purely scientific perspective, it's just a hypothesis and not a particularly useful one at that.

Of course, I'm a mathematician by training and lots of interesting math has come out of ST, so for that I'm happy.

Re:Uh no

[ProteusQ]

7. guess or conjecture

By definition 7 of that page, Creationism is a theory.

Point being: whether something is a guess/conjecture or an actual theory boils down to the existence of a test that would disprove the theory should the test come up positive. No such test == not a theory.

I leave it up to the experts as to whether such a test exists for ST.

Re:Uh no

[Buzz_Litebeer]

The problem is, if string theory was WRITTEN to the other theories, to describe what is happening and mathematically manipulated to come up with the same results, then it is not a theory.

If it were a theory, then string theory could independantly create a new testable hypothesis (that may be backed up by current quantum theory or relativity) and be tested based on merits of its own. Something is not a scientific theory if it merely describes what has already happened and can make no new predictions outside of that sphere. Even if the predictions were WRONG then it would still have been a theory. The world has had people creating explanations for already observed behavior for thousands of years, some have been called religions, others philosophy etc... but most didnt actually meet the criteria of being testable or (in the case of religions especially) falsifiable.

Re:Uh no

[drinkypoo]

You could say something like "there are no testable predictions as of today" but that does not rule out some time in the future.

In English, your statement and my statement mean the same thing. You would only have a point if I had said "string theory will never make testable predictions." Since I didn't, I can see that your response is only an unreasoning knee-jerk.

Please consider actually reading my comments and perhaps comprehending them before you reply. I am tired of people responding to comments I didn't write, and instead responding to things they think I said because they don't understand English. I realize that it is a goofy and conflicting language due to its long and tortured history, but that does not excuse you.

Re:Uh no

[backdoorstudent]

Of course String Theory makes testable predictions. Just like General Relativity and Quantum Mechanics make testable predictions. The bad news is that they are the same predictions that General Relativity and Quantum Mechanics make, many of which we've already tested, and is thus indistinguishable from them. The good news is that String theory makes the same predictions as GR and QM while still being only one theory.

This is completely wrong.

First of all it is no surprise that it resembles QM because it is QM. It assumes QM and applies it to a vibrating string, brane, etc.. But there is no new theory because there's at least a handful of different ways to do this and they're all called string theory. GR on the other hand is not as obvious. They are able to get equations that resemble Einstein's equations, but GR does NOT just pop out of it.

Re:Uh no

[CheshireCatCO]

And Intelligent Design makes "predictions", too. When they don't agree with the data, they either ignore the data (string theory has done this with the predicted value of the cosmological constant) or they tweak the many tunable parameters to make the theory work and claim that it's always worked fine. The problem with a theory with that much freedom is that it's a useless fit to the data. It's akin to fitting a linear data set with a 50th order polynomial. You can do it and the residuals will look great, but it's still useless to you.

Re:Uh no

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually string theory does make a testable prediction. String theory, in its most common form, predicts the existance of atleast one massive neutral spin-1 boson (Z`). This comes from the breaking of the E6 symmetry group down to SU(3)xSU(2)xU(1) (note: fundamental particle physics is entirely described by symmetries and the SU(3)xSU(2)xU(1) describes the Standard Model, ie the world at our energy scales) which gives two U(1) symmetries which will manifest themselves as Z`s (with the exact behaviour described by the mixing angle between the two). However the mass of this Z` can be anywhere between about ~600 GeV (ruled out through direct searches) and ~10^18 GeV. However if we were capible of running experiments that could produce particles of mass ~10^18 GeV we could test a prediction made by string theory. However I do agree that there is no current pratical test to disprove string theory.

Re:Uh no

[ObsessiveMathsFreak]

The good news is that String theory makes the same predictions as GR and QM while still being only one theory.

True, but only an edited version of the truth.

String theory predicts over 10 to the power of 500 possible models for the universe. Amid all these, I'm sure you could find one that predicted bother GR and QM, but I doubt you could find one that does both and descirbes the universe we live in.

Re:Uh no

[Stalyn]

It depends if you mean String Theory the theory or String Theory the community. If you mean String Theory the theory then "String Theory doesn't make testable predictions" and "there are no testable [String Theory] predictions as of today" are not testable predictions. There is no way of knowing that String Theory in its current or future state is unable to make testable predictions.

If you mean String Theory the community then both "String Theory doesn't make testable predictions" and "there are no testable [String Theory] predictions as of today" mean the same as "As far as I know no one has produced testable predictions using String Theory (the theory)".

Maybe what you specifically meant is "As far as I know no one has produced testable predictions using String Theory and therefore String Theory is not a science". But that is pretty much a useless statement which was the point of my comment; meta-science is a worthless endeavor.

But I do agree English is a pain in the ass.

Re:Uh no

[hswerdfe]

dude did you even read your own link?
Most of the definitions do not have the requirement that a theory make testable predictions.
Why would you link to somthing as evidance and try to use it as an argument in favour of your view if it disagrees with you.

you are a strange strange person.

Re:Uh no

[drinkypoo]

dude did you even read my comment? or, for that matter, my link? the part I quoted pretty explictly tells you how the word is used in professional circles. this is news for nerds, not news for laymen. I'm sorry if this was too complicated; I'll try in the future not to use words over two syllables in my comments... just for you.

Re:Uh no

[tgibbs]

The bad news is that they are the same predictions that General Relativity and Quantum Mechanics make, many of which we've already tested, and is thus indistinguishable from them.

The good news is that String theory makes the same predictions as GR and QM while still being only one theory.

It is the non-compatability of GR and QM that creates the need for something like ST. If ST doesn't make a single unique prediction, but is able to explain both the quantum and relativistic worlds, then not only is that a theory, it's a great theory.

If a theory tells you what you already know to be true, then it is a retrodiction, not a prediction. There is a good reason why scientists demand that theories make predictions: A theory with a sufficient number of degrees of freedom can be made to fit any data set. For example, a polynomial of degree n can always be made to exactly fit n + 1 data points, yet may be completely unable to predict what happens between those data points.

Re:Uh no

[i kan reed]

Let me apologize for being blunt, but you're an idiot. You throw around scientific terms like a creationist does. A hypothesis is an a simple assumption, and a conclusion derived from that assumption. Example: If I leave this fries out for 3 weeks, they will have mold on them. Non-example: Mold grows on everything. The rightness and wrongness of neither of these is important for whether they are hypothes, it is the structure of them, and the ability to theoretically create an expirment that could disprove them. Secondly, that's abusing the idea of scientific theory. Theories in science, are a collection of principles, hypotheses, and deductions centered around one main idea. Also, I like how you skipped the #1 item on your list of definitions and went for something lower down because it didn't completely contradict your point.

Re:Uh no

[Chris Burke]

Here's the problem though. GR and QM are both, relative to ST, extremely simple. And while ST may make the same predictions that GR and QM make, it does so in a far more complex way, without adding any extra information -- QM and GR are incompatible, but ST fails to resolve those incompatibilities in a testable way.

If ST provides the same results as GR and QM using the same framework, rather than two completely separate frameworks that cannot be referred to at the same time, then yes it has added extra information. Right now, we can't consider QM and GR in the same universe at the same time, yet clearly they do both exist in the same universe, and ST attempts to describe that universe.

Whether it has succeded in that goal yet is open to debate, but that is the goal of ST, and it is important for that reason.

It would be like if Newton's theories were just a re-wording of two other theories, one that dealt with objects at rest, and the another that dealt with objects in motion, neither of which being able to cross that boundary. Newton's theory works in both regimes, and in this hypothetical example would still be an excellent new theory.

Re:Uh no

[drinkypoo]

Let me apologize for being blunt, but you're an idiot. You throw around scientific terms like a creationist does.

You can see people who are actually contributing to science in a direct way having the same argument that we are having right now, with many people smarter than either one of us arguing the same point that I am.

Also, I like how you skipped the #1 item on your list of definitions and went for something lower down because it didn't completely contradict your point.

This may shock and/or startle you, but the items are not in the dictionary in their order of application to your current situation, because dictionaries (online or no) cannot read your fucking mind.

This means that you have to use your brain to determine which sense fits best. And, if you read the portion of the entry which I quoted, it makes it clear that yes, indeed that is the sense that best fits the current situation.

I'm sorry this is so hard for you to accomplish, but perhaps if you keep trying, in fifty or sixty years you'll be dead (or I will) and I won't have to pay attention to you any more.

Re:Uh no

[sickofthisshit]

If a theory tells you what you already know to be true, then it is a retrodiction, not a prediction. There is a good reason why scientists demand that theories make predictions: A theory with a sufficient number of degrees of freedom can be made to fit any data set. For example, a polynomial of degree n can always be made to exactly fit n + 1 data points, yet may be completely unable to predict what happens between those data points.

It is not as simple as that. Part of what makes scientific theories useful is that they provide a framework in which scientists can create new results. People knew, for instance, that the precession of Mercury's orbit about the Sun was anomalously large compared to what a simple Newtonian calculation could accomodate. Lots of smart people tried to come up with various additional assumptions to explain it, but unconvincingly enough that it was still considered a problem.

Einstein's theory of General Relativity gave a straightforward calculation that agreed very well with what the astronomers had measured. This was a "retrodiction", but it was still evidence in favor of GR, because it is an unambiguous result.

After GR, people pretty much stopped looking for classical explanations of Mercury's orbit. Instead, they started looking around for sensitive tests to distinguish GR from other possible theories of gravity that usually resembled GR.

The reason people were convinced by the GR explanation, but not by classical attempts was basically aesthetic. Not enough direct evidence for, say, the interior mass distribution of the sun existed to rule out a sufficiently elaborate classical theory. But GR allowed one to stop looking for "ugly" explanations and settle for an "elegant" one.

Scientists basically "demand" that a theory be "satisfying" enough to work on. That's why string theory sticks around.

Sheldon Glashow may make fun of it, but the traditional particle theorists like him don't have anything better to show for the last 20 years of their work. Plus, Shelly's a dork.

Re:Uh no

[tgibbs]

Einstein's theory of General Relativity gave a straightforward calculation that agreed very well with what the astronomers had measured. This was a "retrodiction", but it was still evidence in favor of GR, because it is an unambiguous result.

Certainly, a theory has to be consistent with what is already known, and explaining something that was previously unexplained increases interest in a theory--if it is a theory with a modest number of degrees of freedom. But even with General Relativity, it was tests of the theory's predictions that really convinced people that it was on the right track.

Re:Uh no

[bcrowell]

The good news is that String theory makes the same predictions as GR and QM while still being only one theory.
Actually that's not true. String theory is inconsistent with GR in a couple of important ways. One is that string theory can only accomodate a background spacetime that doesn't change with time. Another is that it naturally gives a zero or negative cosmological constant, and accomodating the observed positive cosmological constant requires horrible kludges. In these two ways, it's inconsistent with both general relativity and experimental data.

Re:Uh no

[mysterystevenson]

String Theory didn't come first the conclusions did. Anything can be worked backwards in math to say anything. Coming up with new conclusions or even a real direction would be something. Something completely missing from String. It's like a mad mathematician has taken all the known theoretical formulas and tossed em in a mixer and hoped for the best. Hey no one can argue against something that can't be argued against , right? Sounds like a prime breeding ground for falsification and outright fraud ! String has had so many funds misdirected from other theories that actually had some potential to do some real predictions and in fact were abandoned after some success. This isn't even as close to potential practicle predictions as "Noncommutative Quantum Field Theory" and as for connecting Relativity and Quantum Mechanics, have you never heard of ALPHA ? String is a tangled up mess !

Re:Uh no

[bcrowell]

Here's the problem though. GR and QM are both, relative to ST, extremely simple. And while ST may make the same predictions that GR and QM make, it does so in a far more complex way, without adding any extra information -- QM and GR are incompatible, but ST fails to resolve those incompatibilities in a testable way.
Well, I guess it depends on what you mean by "complex." Conceptually, it's actually very simple to describe, especially compared to the standard model. It's just a situation where a simple theory requires calculations too complex to carry out in order to make a definite prediction about things like cross-sections, etc. It's also not entirely true that string theory fails to be testable. It would be closer to the truth to say that it does make some generic predictions, and those predictions appear to have been falsified. It originally predicted a zero or negative cosmological constant, which turns out to be incorrect, although they've found a kludge to accomodate the observed positive value. It also predicts that supersymmetry should be a perfect symmetry of nature, which is definitely not the case experimentally, since there is no selectron with the same mass as the electron, etc.

Re:Uh no

[gfody]

Theoretically, string theory makes testable predictions and that makes the statement 'string theory makes testable predictions' a meta theory without technically fulfilling the requirements to be a theory itself and validates string theory by asserting an infinite regress which allows string theory the theory to ultimately make a testable prediction. Likewise, the statement 'theoretically, string theory makes testable predictions' can be made valid with the meta meta statement: Theoretically, in theory, string theory makes testable predictions.

Finally, all doubt can be laid to rest by validating the meta meta theory with:
In theory, theoretically, in theory, string theory makes testable predictions!

Re:Uh no

[greg_barton]

ST does not fit this mold. It is far, far, far, far more complex than either GR or QM, and makes no extra falsifiable predictions.

Why is that a bad thing? Who says the laws that govern the structure of the universe must be comprehensible by humans? This whole idea that theories that are "more elegant" are better just baffles me. Sure, simpler models are easier to work with, but so what?

Re:Uh no

[Iron Condor]

Meta-science is not a science either.

This is too general. It can be one if you do it that way.

Claiming "string theory doesn't make testable predictions" is not a testable prediction.

This is a claim. Your claim. You are claiming something. Can you support that claim? Prove it, maybe? Show evidence for it? Provide a line of reasoning that tells us that it is true?

The way you are doing it here, simply making claims without support, is indeed not science - just as you asserted above. But that doesn't mean that it has to be done this way.

I'm not sure how you could prove in the affirmative how a theory is unable to ever make a testable prediction.

Just because you are "uncertain" how something (anything) could be proven does not mean that it cannot be proven. Or that it has not indeed already been proven somewhere by someone. This is a blatant argument from ignorance here.

Note that I am not claiming that your conclusion is necessarily wrong. Even false premises can be led to correct conclusions.

It is entirely possible to examine science in a way that is itself scientific.

Replace "string theory" with "religion"

[RingDev]

Religion is a scientific theory that has neither been proved nor disproved to my knowledge.

I could speculate all day on whether or not it is fact but from what I've read, I will make a few statements. It seems that Religion was invented to satisfy some things we could not explain. This doesn't mean it's wrong or right although some people will contend that it is most probably wrong.

As the summary points out, few (if any) of Religion's propositions can be tested or even observed. So it is simply an unknown right now. We cannot measure the Religion so how can we prove if they exist or they don't? We simply can't yet.

A good analogy would be Bohr's early assumptions about the atom [utk.edu]. They were wrong but they were a step in the right direction. In hindsight, we see this now but we don't know what the future holds for Religion. I'm just glad there are people out there thinking outside the box.

Do not fret, however, as scientists have been very resourceful at proving/disproving theories. I submit, for example, the exercise of determining the diameter of the building blocks of matter. Scientists had the idea to fill up one cubic milliletre of oil and dump it on top of a trough of water with a roller across the top. As the oil spread out, they moved the roller further down the trough. Once they started to see non-reflective parts of the water, they moved it back until they agreed the oil was completely spread out to the best of their abilities. Using this area, they determined how thick a molecule of oil could be without precision tools!

Similar ingenious tests have been devised to easily find the diameter of the earth at sunset on a beach with a yard stick or ruler.

So even though we may never be able to measure these Religion, there are still some options left to explore to record properties that may prove/disprove their existence. We're merely in the very early stages of the scientific process.

Let us be excited about Religion, even if it is wrong it sure is interesting. Nothing's wrong with a scientist who dreams, is there?

Re:Replace "string theory" with "religion"

[Anonymous Coward]

You appear to belong to the Church of Bold Fonts

Re:Replace "string theory" with "religion"

[RingDev]

You totally diserve a +1 funny for that! heh

-Rick

Shoulders of giants

[gmuslera]

A theory that can't be proved or disproved, or can't be used in a practical way right now, can still be pretty useful if describe the real universe more accurately than our previous knowledge. You dont know what will come in the future, what development could be done taking that as a fact. Something that could have been seen in his own moment a small correction to the accepted Newton laws, like relativity (wasnt the one of their 1st experimental proofs observed like 15 years after?) , have a bit of practical uses right now.

Re:Shoulders of giants

[DragonWriter]

A theory that can't be proved or disproved

Is an oxymoron, when you are using the scientific understanding of "theory". If it can't be disproven, or even if it could be disproven but has not yet withstood testing, its not a theory at all.

forget god...

[Anonymous Coward]

...I'm still skeptical that man exists.

FSM - theory too

[tygt]

So the FSM (Flying Spaghetti Monster) theory of creation hasn't been proven, or disproven, either.

Probably just as valid.....

Talk with me.

[Cybert4]

Christians, and religious people in general, are stupid. Somewhat like ants are to humans. So we agree. That being said, I do agree that there are some aspects of "ID" that I can agree with. Mainly the parts that relate to the anthropomorphic principle. I'll open my mind to this, as long as the ants and their silly books keep away.

Re:Talk with me.

[Anonymous Coward]

Christians, and religious people in general, are stupid.

So are people that make overly broad generalizations.

Cheers.

Dupe

[LineGrunt]

See

http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/06/2 3/2226257

for previous discussion.

LineGrunt

So ... where's all the ID bashers?

[cascadingstylesheet]

... cricket chirp ... cricket chirp ...

[That's what I thought. It was never *cool* to bash string theory. It was never so cool and in to bash it that the late night hosts were bashing it. So you didn't join in ...]

Re:So ... where's all the ID bashers?

[geekoid]

great way to compare apples to motor oil.

Hey coward.

[Cybert4]

In a perfect world, I'd carefully examine every Christian's background. In the real world, I have to make quick judgements. Welcome to reality.

Re:Hey coward.

[Eli Gottlieb]

Welcome to reality. Here, I've never encountered a militant athiest who bothered to actually meet or talk to religious believers instead of writing us all off as fools.

Ani Y'hudi, v'atah leytzan.

The Universe is not a big sphere....

[otis wildflower]

... it's a series of strings!

Re:The Universe is not a big sphere....

[HermanAB]

No, no, it is a series of tubes, connected together with strings, like a giant, distributed, paper cup telephone. See, that explains everything...

Intellectual Masterbation

[HotNeedleOfInquiry]

Sheldon Glashow, who won a Nobel Prize for making one of the last great advances in physics before the beginning of the string-theory era, has likened string theory to a 'new version of medieval theology,' I prefer the term "intellectual masterbation"

Re:Intellectual Masterbation

[JoeGee]

Like you, I learned to spell phonetically, but "masturbation" has no "e".

Scientific Theories

[Pancake Bandit]

Scientific theories are different from the way that "theory" is used in everyday life. I'll let dictionary.com explain it for me: "A theory in technical use is a more or less verified or established explanation accounting for known facts or phenomena". We can't do experiments to give "String Theory" enough support to actually call it a theory. So, for now, it's a hypothesis.

First one fad, now another

[ishmalius]

For so long, String Theory has been politically correct and unassailable. Now all of a sudden there is a flurry of anti-String sentiment. During either trend, if you disagree with the current mode, you are considered a dope and an ignorant Luddite.

Maybe after this period, people can be less childlike and some serious discussions about its strengths and weaknesses can begin.

Re:First one fad, now another

[Tony]

That's what this is: a serious discussion about string theory's strengths and weaknesses. String theory has been given its head to produce something testable (making it earn its moniker of "theory"). It hasn't. It has remained an interesting mathematical investigation of abstract topology, which (as others have pointed out) has been interesting in its own right.

However, until *some*body comes up with a way of testing string theory, there is no way to properly call it a science, which kind of smarts in a hard-science field such as physics. This doesn't mean string theory won't be viable science in the future; it simply isn't viable science today.

The crux of science is, after all, testability. Without that, there is no science, only conjecture and speculation.

Perimeter Institute

[GRW]

Lee Smolin is on the faculty of the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics which has an excellent public lecture series on physics and other scientific subjects. I have attended many of these lectures and they are always fascinating. These lectures are recorded and are available on PI's website in Windows Media format.

Two words

[Anonymous Coward]

Halting
Problem

Of course it's a scientific theory.

[AWeishaupt]

"Sterile" neutrinos, Supersymmetric particles, Kaluza-Klein particles, Energy 'leaking' into higher dimensions...

These are some of the predictions of string theories.

And they all can, to some degree, be tested empirically.

All the technology that needs to be implemented to do this isn't readily available right now, but hopefully, in coming years with experiments such as LHC and IceCube coming online, we could start to see meaningful results - Remember, it took years for empirical confirmation of General Relativity, simply due to technical limitations.

Coincidence?

[carrier lost]

I've wondered the same thing about string cheese for quite some time now.

MjM

Two Meanings of "Theory"

[Zobeid]

I think we're mixing up two different meanings of the word "theory". When we speak of "string theory" we aren't talking about a specific scientific theory (as in theory of gravity, etc.). . . We're talking about a field of theoretical (as opposed to experimental) study.

Put another way. . . The "Theory of Evolution" is what Charles Darwin came up with. "Evolution Theory" is the field of study that was spawned from it. In the case of strings, we have "String Theory" as a field of study, but it hasn't yet produced a worthy "Theory of Strings" to enshrine in the scientific canon, and it's now looking highly questionable that it ever will.

Science is explicitly experimental in nature

[xPsi]

"Theoretical science" is an oxymoron. Science is explicitly experimental in nature. That isn't to say that theory is worthless. As a physicist I have published theory papers and did theory work for my Ph.D. But the value of pure theory is the degree to which it couples back and tells us about experiments. Ideas are great. But in science, if they don't tell you about experimental results, then it is just pure mathematics (internal consistency) or, worse, a masturbatory exercise.

IMHO, String Theory is really, at best, a mathematical model that has yet to be tested. The ideas are fundamentally rooted in real physics, so it isn't like they are just making it up. In principle, it could be helping to develop mathematical tools to help solve other problems (they should advertise that if that is true). But I don't want any this fruity post hoc crap; let's have some real predictive tests. I also worry about the cost-benefit. Even if string theory eventually does make a prediction that turns out to be true within the next 500 years, is string theory causing a kind of contemporary brain drain, drawing young bright thinkers away from well-defined theory/experiment problems that really matter in physics right now?

It's Not Intelligent Design

[Swift2001]

I'd suppose, if String Theory has no fruitful proofs in the next... while, that it will be abandoned as a scientific theory. Phlogiston, anyone? Theories are like that.

"Intelligent design" will never be abandoned until we're all living in the beginning of A Canticle for Liebowitz, at which point the pointy-headed mutant monks will decide that science and rationality are defeated, and the world is safe again for mad a priori assumptions that the clergy can dispense to peasants.

Sure it is.

[C_Kode]

The String Theory started out as a hyothesis then became a theory as many people started working on it.

1. Hypothesis = A thought out guess by a single person.
   
2. Theory = A widely regarded hypothesis.
   

Re:Sure it is.

[mentrial]

You must also prove your hypothesis a finite number of times.

Lint Theory?

[Anonymous Coward]

So, should start calling it Lint Theory?

Proved?

[Anonymous Coward]

Never trust a scientific writer claiming a theory has simply not been proved.

No scientific theory will ever be proven.

You can only build evidence for a theory or disprove the theory. Build enough evidence and your theory may become law, but it is still not proven.

There is no 'proof' or absolute 'truth' in science.

String is mentioned in Bible! Must be Fact!

[wsanders]

http://www.biblegateway.com/keyword/?search=string &version1=31&searchtype=all

A belief for Athiests

[grapeape]

String theory is no more unproven than Intelligent Design, actually both are quite similar in that they make a convenient explanation for things that are otherwise unexplainable. I guess Athiests and Non-Athiests all needs something to believe in.

Re:A belief for Athiests

[alienmole]

What nonsense. Intelligent Design is not a scientific theory by any stretch of the imagination. Show me the math, the testable, specific and accurate predictions, the falsifiability (even if only in theory). You can't. It's not even remotely a question of needing "something to believe in". If you think that, you don't understand science at all. Scientific theories don't give us something to believe in, they give us ways to predict what will happen under specific circumstances, which allows us to understand what's going on around us better. If they don't make such predictions, they're no use as scientific theories. Intelligent Design makes no predictions other than "Whatever God wants". The computer you used to type your post relies on electrons transmitting signals through a semiconductor at nearly the speed of light. The people who invented that technology relied on science. Science works, and contributes constructively to the daily lives of most of humanity. Intelligent Design only works as a political tool, and as a way to identify people not capable of rational thought.

Re:A belief for Athiests

[dltaylor]

PferdMerde!!!!

Although scientists are often very sloppy using the word "belief" (except when some of them are talking about their schizophrenic religious fantasies), "belief" is a shorthand for the "too long" phrase "given my current set of information and ability to process it, this explanation (whatever it is) satisfies the questions better than any other expanations (whatever they are)". Even "belief" in the "scientific method" is just shorthand for "it works better than anything else we've tried" for providing understanding of the events in the universe.

When what was called then "string theory" was first proposed, it was a response to an observed, and theoretical, mismatch between quantum physics which describes small-scall phenomena fairly well and general relatively, which describes large-scale structures well, but which each seem to "fall apart" at the scale of the other. While string theory has been complicating itself, perhaps to the point of absurdity, NO OTHER EXPLANATION for the melange of particles and forces we observe can explain them either. That is why "string theory" keeps hanging around. If the "quantum gravity" proponents could adequately explain things, then string theory would be nothing more than a "quirky" sidetrack in our understanding of the universe.

About the only point with any validity in either of the diatribes is that, being human, physicists often display group/herd behavior and fail to be as open to "outside the box" thinking as would happen in a more-perfect world. What reasoning person would believe the loony who claimed that the continents moved? Of COURSE electrons orbit the nucleaus of atoms like planets orbit a star! ...

Re:A belief for Athiests

[Gnostic Ronin]

So show me the testible accurate predictions (and I mean things discovered AFTER String "Theory" was proposed). If String Theory was scientific, surely at some point in the last 40 years, something predicted by String Theory must have been discovered.

It is true that ST isn't political yet, but really that's about the only difference between String Theory and Intelligent Design. It's faith, and I'm from the Show-Me-State.

Re:A belief for Athiests

[alienmole]

Even if string theory fails as a theory, it's still an attempt to provide a mathematical model for space, matter, and the various forces. It is falsifiable in the simple sense that if it predicts things that are at odds with known theories and observations, there's a problem that would have to be resolved. If string theory could be falsified in this sense, it would have been dropped long ago. To qualify as scientific, it doesn't actually have to make new predictions, particularly in the realm it's operating in. ID makes absolutely no comparable predictions, other than, as I said, "That's what God wanted".

We're at a point in fundamental theoretical physics were progress is incredibly difficult because of the limitations on our ability to analyze the necessary structures. Those limitations aren't going away any time soon - the next generation of accelerators might help a little, but quite likely not in any major way. For all we know at the moment, it's possible that we'll never discover a better theory of everything than the Standard Model + GR + SR. So does that mean we should stop trying? At this point, one of the best tools we have is mathematics, and that's what ST is exploiting.

ST has some suspicious features: with so many degrees of freedom, and so few ways to experimentally constrain those freedoms, it can be tweaked endlessly to produce the desired results. However, that in itself doesn't mean that there's not a workable theory there. Think of it as exploring a mathematical space, looking for something which fits our universe. In fact, it's not that different from how previous theoretical discoveries were made, except that the mathematics of previous theories was trivial by comparison, so it was much easier to hit on the "right" theory in the space being explored.

You might claim that ST is a bad scientific theory, or a failed scientific theory, but to say that it's comparable with ID shows a serious lack of understanding of the distinction between science and fantasy.

Re:A belief for Athiests

[Gnostic Ronin]

Even if string theory fails as a theory, it's still an attempt to provide a mathematical model for space, matter, and the various forces. It is falsifiable in the simple sense that if it predicts things that are at odds with known theories and observations, there's a problem that would have to be resolved. If string theory could be falsified in this sense, it would have been dropped long ago. To qualify as scientific, it doesn't actually have to make new predictions, particularly in the realm it's operating in. ID makes absolutely no comparable predictions, other than, as I said, "That's what God wanted".

We're at a point in fundamental theoretical physics were progress is incredibly difficult because of the limitations on our ability to analyze the necessary structures. Those limitations aren't going away any time soon - the next generation of accelerators might help a little, but quite likely not in any major way. For all we know at the moment, it's possible that we'll never discover a better theory of everything than the Standard Model + GR + SR. So does that mean we should stop trying? At this point, one of the best tools we have is mathematics, and that's what ST is exploiting.

ST has some suspicious features: with so many degrees of freedom, and so few ways to experimentally constrain those freedoms, it can be tweaked endlessly to produce the desired results. However, that in itself doesn't mean that there's not a workable theory there. Think of it as exploring a mathematical space, looking for something which fits our universe. In fact, it's not that different from how previous theoretical discoveries were made, except that the mathematics of previous theories was trivial by comparison, so it was much easier to hit on the "right" theory in the space being explored.

You might claim that ST is a bad scientific theory, or a failed scientific theory, but to say that it's comparable with ID shows a serious lack of understanding of the distinction between science and fantasy.

Re:A belief for Athiests

[alienmole]

I agree with everything in your post. :)

FINALLY

[insertwackynamehere]

someone with some sense to say "um the string theory isnt a theory because almost everything is based on 'maybes' and not facts, as theories require' The string theory is very interesting but the fact remains it is practically all speculation on top of speculation on top of speculation on top of some fact.

problems

[bcrowell]

I read Smolen's book recently, and learned a lot of new and interesting things about string theory from it. Some problems with string theory:

1. There are lots and lots of possible string theories, describing different ways for the extra dimensions to curl up. Some string theorists have been reduced to using the anthropic principle to explain why one version would exist and not the others; this is a major admission of defeat, since the anthropic principle is really not an accepted way of doing science.
2. String theory was always thought to require a zero or negative cosomological constant, which was fine when the cosmological constant was believed to be zero. When observations showed it was nonzero and positive, it should have been taken a disproof of string theory. Instead, string theorists came up with a massive kludge to try to get a positive value from string theory. It's not clear whether the kludge is really a reasonable, viable mechanism.
3. String theory is done on a background of spacetime, but we know that spacetime is dynamic. String theory, in its present versions, appears to be incompatible with a time-varying background spacetime.
4. Many important results in string theory are merely conjectures that everybody believes to be true. In particular, string theory's finiteness has never been proved in general. All that's been proved is that a certain type of term in perturbation theory is always finite. According to Smolen, very few string theorists are even careful enough about this kind of thing to realize that finiteness hasn't been proved in general.
5. There are strong, model-independent arguments that spacetime must be discrete at the Planck scale. (There's a good, nontechnical discussion of the argument in Smolen's Three Roads to Quantum Gravity.) String theory assumes it's continuous.

Re:problems

[Dread_ed]

Where's my "+1 damn this dude is smart" mod?

Thanks for a good post that I can use a s a springoard to topical research what will increase my understanding of the article and subject of String Theory.

Re:problems

[herovit]

Some of these are valid complaints, some are not. Responses from a one-time string theorist:

1. Yes. It's a shame. The usual response is "Well how's _your_ quantum gravity theory coming," which tends to shut people up. But there are other interesting responses. See Lenny Susskind's recent book.

2. That's the wrong way of looking at it. While we thought the cosmological constant was zero, no one really looked to see if you could get nonzero ones in string theory, since you could clearly do zero. Once we saw that it wasn't zero in nature, people started looking in string theory, and realized that you could do it pretty easily, and in fact, it is probably more general for the cosmological constant to me nonzero in string theory.

3. It's not that string theory is invalid in time-dependent spacetimes, it's just that we don't yet understand how to calculate much there. We have some ideas. It is true that most of our understanding of string theory is background-dependent--that is you have to specify a spacetime background before calculating anything.

4. This is true. This is a very difficult problem, and is really a job for the mathematicians. Even quantum field theory, a very well regarded theory, has some mathematical problems. Because we can't prove things, what we do is calculate them in different ways. So far, almost all of these calculations don't disagree with each other (there is a little debate about one or two).

5. I wouldn't characterize these arguments as strong. And string theory does not really assume that spacetime is continuous, though it's a little hard to explain why. Briefly, spacetime is an emergent phenomenon of the theory, and words like "continuous" or "discrete" don't necessarily apply. It is certainly true that string theory is blind to variations in spacetime on very small scales, which is very similar to a theory with a discrete spacetime.

Two final comments: The article, and many people, blame string theorists for this problem, which may be fair. But the real reason for it is that physicists have no interesting, fundamental experimental puzzles, and haven't for more than twenty years. So they don't have anything better to do than try to work out this fascinating theory. This may be changing a little, as interesting cosmological data emerges, and may change dramatically with the LHC.

Also, complaints about testability were levied not too many years ago against another theory: cosmological inflation. Now we have new ideas of how to test it, and we're doing so. So far, it's passing with flying colors.

But it's a valid thing for people to talk about these issues, and I think most string theorists welcome the discussion.

Re:problems

[bcrowell]

Thanks for the interesting response!

Yes. It's a shame. The usual response is "Well how's _your_ quantum gravity theory coming," which tends to shut people up. But there are other interesting responses. See Lenny Susskind's recent book.
What Smolen is really arguing for is to have resources divided in a more rational way. Loop quantum gravity, for instance, has apparently made some major advances recently: they can prove that a flat spacetime is a solution, and, IIRC, that a flat spacetime naturally emerges under certain types of reasonable initial conditions.

It's not that string theory is invalid in time-dependent spacetimes, it's just that we don't yet understand how to calculate much there. We have some ideas. It is true that most of our understanding of string theory is background-dependent--that is you have to specify a spacetime background before calculating anything.
I could be misunderstanding Smolen's book, or explaining it badly, but my understanding from the book was that if you look at how string theory works if you make the spacetime not flat, it turns out that you can make it work if your background spacetime is inhomogeneous in space, but there is a specific technical problem that makes it impossible to generalize to a spacetime that has time variation in it.

Maybe worth keeping in mind.

[Silent sound]

It should be noted that even if String Theory turns out to be "an abstract exercise in math", that doesn't mean it's useless. String Theory has done a poor job of spurring advancements in physics, but it's been a source of massive advancements in mathematics in its own right, due to the advances in things like topology that have been required to describe string theory's odd equations. Even if these advancements never get used in service of a useful string theory, seemingly useless advancements in mathematics have a way of turning out to be critically useful years after their discovery. In the meanwhile, the lack of "a" string theory may turn out to be a good thing-- string theory's excessive flexibility might mean that while it's useless by itself, it provides mathematical language that would allow us to formulate early versions of a future theory that describes something closer to reality, as a bootstrap. If string theorists would take the criticisms of the "not even wrong" crowd to heart and start concentrating on results rather than elegance, we might be able to move forward toward this point. This said, I think the viewpoint that overreliance on string theory is distracting us from other promising ways to proceed should be encouraged. String Theory was a good idea to look into, but after this long without noticeable progress, it is definitely worth looking into alternatives. I think the field of science is large enough that we can explore string theory alternatives while continuing the exploration of string theory itself as a parallel track. Of course, in order for this to work, the string theory detractors are going to have to actually produce real alternatives and results of their own-- there will come a time soon when criticizing string theory is not enough. Encouraging people (and funding sources) to take a step back and take a different tack of looking at the problem is productive, but blindly attacking the establishment just because it's the establishment is not. And I have to admit some of the attacks on string theory veer into some kind of strange territory sometimes. From the article:

Smolin adds a moral dimension to his plaint, linking string theory to the physics profession's "blatant prejudice" against women and blacks. Pondering the cult of empty mathematical virtuosity, he asks, "How many leading theoretical physicists were once insecure, small, pimply boys who got their revenge besting the jocks (who got the girls) in the one place they could--math class?"

Wait. What?

Re:Maybe worth keeping in mind.

[Anonymous Coward]

String theory is a great mathematical theory and merits discussion purely on such a note. The lack of testablility means that it currently would best be described as a widely known hypothesis. "String hypothesis" or "string model" would be a better name. It differs from inteligent design in two ways. First it is useful as math even if it is not currently a testable theory. Intelligent design is simply useless for almost any pursuit of knowledge. Second with advances in technology, expirements may be possible to make string theory an actual theory or to destroy it alltogether. Intelligent design seems to be impossible to test without messing with time.

Re:Maybe worth keeping in mind.

[Anonymous Coward]

String theory is a theory in the mathematical sense, not the scientific sense. When understood in this context, the name fits.

Intelligent Design

[emh203]

So Technically Speaking, it is no different than intelligent design. It is supported only by fancy math (like William A. Dembski for ID) but makes no Testable Scientific Predicitions. We should hold it on the same level as the Religous Right who stand behind ID. Its no more than a religion at this point.

...from the Evil Genius camp...

[Anonymous Coward]

My plans for conquering the universe wholly depend upon "String Theory" to be correct. Without strings there might not be any "Graviton sParticles".
My "Graviton Collector" will capture Graviton sParticles flowing between the 9 dimensions. Once I have collected enough of the sParticles, I'll be able to affect the specific gravity of the "other" 6 dimensions, thereby holding them hostage. The beings that inhabit that universe will have to pay up bigtime, or I'll fling them all into space and throw that entire dimension into disarray! BWahahahaha!

Misquoted

[Sparohok]

The article opens with a rhetorical device where it contrasts two extreme, stereotyped viewpoints. The summary quotes only one of these viewpoints, portraying it as the author's voice. I think that's really appallingly lame. The submitter and/or editor should be ashamed of themselves for so grossly distorting the author's intent.

Everyone Is a PhD

[pkcs11]

Whenever slashdot puts up a scientific article, regardless of how small the body of participants in the particular brand of science, the body of said participants multiplis to the Nth degree.
Suddenly everyone has an advanced degree in ScienceX.

In Soviet Russia ...

[Anonymous Coward]

... This theory Strings You along ...

and in the Peoples Republics of North Korea or China or Amerika .. ... They use this Theory to String You Up Without Proof ...

Perhaps it should be called String Along Theory ...

Feynman on a similar topic

[clovis]

I read the article in NY Times, but not closely.
The article is only partly about the nature of string theory.
The main point to me is this: A small group of physicists is using their academic and political power to prevent opposing views from being investigated. This isn't new, most disciplines have this problem and always will. It's corporate culture.

As for whether it's good science, right or wrong they are trying to figure out how the world works the best way they can and that's science.
Here's a good read that's only slightly related:
http://www.physics.brocku.ca/etc/cargo_cult_scienc e.html

I am completely full of shit, but at least I try

[eric2hill]

Since I'm not a math major, I'd like to run an idea by you. It seems that string theory dictates 11 dimensions, which in my mind means that there are 11 different variables required to accurately predict the outcome of a string theory equation. 4 of those are X, Y, Z, and T(ime). The rest are showed as tightly folded infinitely small dimensions, which to me, wasn't terribly simple. So I started trying to come up with a different way to represent the extra needed 7 dimensions and have come up with something that may be complete nonsense.

Here goes...

I go back to my High School particle explanation of a "thing"... Imagine a small ball of energy.

This ball of energy can oscillate in 3 dimensions, so you have a frequency of oscillation in X, Y, and Z, called HzX, HzY, and HzZ.

Secondly, this ball can spin on 3 axes as well, so you have a speed of rotation (or oscillation change as needed) about all three axes, called RX, RY, and RZ.

Lastly, this ball has a magnitude (size), called M.

Given a position in space (X, Y, Z), a point in time (T), three oscillation frequencies (HzX, HzY, HzZ), three axes of rotation (RX, RY, RZ), and a size (M), that adds up to 11 characteristics of this "ball" of energy.

Can this model represent the 11 dimensions required by string theory? Does the math even allow for this type of representation?

Again, I'm talking out of my ass here. Any math people please feel free to stand up and prove me wrong.

No it's not... but....

[ChronoFish]

No it's not a scientific theory - it's a philosophical "theory".

But it takes "faith" to poor your heart and soul into research to either prove or disprove your beliefs. With out the faith that our instincts are correct, there would be no "eureeka!" moments.

Faith is what you have before you've proven your point - it's your belief.

As a string theory agnostic, I believe it's possible that the string theorist may very well be able to prove string theory. But until then it's not a scientfic theory - it's just a belief.

Doesn't mean it's wrong. It just means it's not established fact.

-CF

Another attack on science

[PopeRatzo]

It's bad enough we've got the God Squad telling us that Adam and Eve had to run away from T. Rex, and George Bush editing the papers of climatoligists. We don't have to become concern trolls about the "state of science".

Science has a great way to sift the BS from the facts. They have to PUBLISH, then let other scientists either confirm their theory or not. Experiments are designed and performed and replicated (or not). It's worked since before Isaac Newton was an alchemist.

Plus, wasn't the Theory of Relativity just an "abstract exercise in math"? And wasn't E=MC^2 also an "abstract exercise in math"? At least until it was proven to hundreds of thousands in Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Physics vs. Math Theory is the Important issue

[billstewart]

I agree with you - string theory is fundamentally a set of mathematical theory. The math looks sort of like math that might have something to do with the physical universe, in which case it could also be Physics; otherwise it's just a bunch of cool math.

Assuming that the calculations have been done consistently, it's valid math - the testability issues are really about whether the theory lets you predict anything about the universe to get an idea of whether it's likely to let you predict other correct things about the universe. This is somewhat different from the testability issues about, say, Dark Matter, where the theories that are being tested are typically "Maybe the Missing Dark Matter is made of This Kind of Stuff". Unfortunately, it may end up that the kinds of physical actions that string theory makes the biggest difference in are "what happened 0.001 seconds after the Big Bang?" or "what happens deep inside a star when it goes supernova?" which are hard to observe in any way that lets you do useful tests.

Physics is hard!

[Roger W Moore]

What I do not understand about all the negative comments on string theory is that they seem to object to it purely on the grounds that it has not yet produced a testable prediction. If there was evidence out there that it will NEVER produce a testable prediction then I would completely agree with the critics. To my knowledge this is not the case. There are certainly incredible problems to extracting a testable prediction but does that mean we should give up, pack up our bags and go home?

Sorry but sometimes physics is hard - even for physicists! Of course it might turn out in the end to be a waste of time from the physics point of view (although I'm sure even then it will leave a legacy of interesting maths) but we don't know that yet. Giving up on, from my understanding, the most promising avenue of research just because it turns out to be hard to figure it out is not good physics.

Apropos of nothing whatsoever...

[Moofie]

Is that you, pexor?

That was sort of my point

[benhocking]

String theory can't be "correct" because it isn't complete. Bohr's model can be considered a very crude first approximation. Furthermore, if I had to guess, I'd guess that even if "completed", it still wouldn't be correct. So, Bohr's model is not a bad analogy, except that - as others have pointed out - Bohr's model was far more complete than string theory is today.

Actually, it's being tested right now.

[Happy Tinfoil Cat]

There was a prediction that the worlds largest super-collider would produce a tiny black hole which would devour the Earth in a 45 minute period. This super-collider is built now, and being amped up and will prove-disprove this prediction (although nobody will really ever know the outcome either way)

Re:Actually, it's being tested right now.

[newt0311]

How about conducting a little research. thanks a hawking radiation, the tiny black hole will fizzle itself into nonexistance in a few picoseconds the moment it is formed. It will still serve as good proof since clasical theory with its ~3 spatial dimensions predicts that colliders can not push enough energy into a small enough space. With ST's monstrosity of 10 spatial dimensions, if you went smaller than the curl size of these dimensions, gravity would start to collect up at a much higher exponent (10 instead of 3) and maybe make a black hole which would then subsequently light up the collider like a christmas tree when it blows itself to bits. Of course, if there is no black hole, the ST physicists will just state that those damn dimensions are curled up tighter than tested. to eat up the earth, you would need whole countries of those colliders.

Mathematical proof of God...

[C10H14N2]

Even THIS is more scientific than "intelligent design"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_D._Unwin ...I mean, come on, the friggen VATICAN finds "intelligent design" not only an insult to science, but an insult to GOD.

http://www.catholic.org/national/national_story.ph p?id=18503

I have always had a problem with String theory.

[Brad1138]

1st let me say I fully believe in the scientific method, and am not tainted by any religious agenda. String theory always has seemed so wild with very little if any evidence to point to it as... anything, I guess. It seems like something some pulled out of there ass one day ran with, gathering a large following along the way. Granted it seems to fit into the current understanding of the Universe (or at least solve a number of questions) but you might be able to make a compelling argument for "Rubber Chicken theory" also.

My knowledge of string theory is limited to the few Nova & Discovery chan programs I have watch on it (also I like to think I have scientific mind). But I have never bought the example that is commonly used to explain the extra dimensions needed for string theory(11 total). Usually it is explained that an ant crawling on a line that we perceive as 1 dimensional with no height or width (only length) actually has extra dimensions only the ant can see/utilize because the ant is so small. It doesn't matter how small you are, a 1 dimensional line is still 1 dimensional.

Actually, there's no such difference.

[Anonymous Coward]

There's a difference between what's not practically testable and what's truly unfalsifiable.

No, there isn't. The problem of what distinguishes science from pseudoscience and non-science is an open one. And one that might not have a principled answer at all.

There's plenty

[Cybert4]

Try whywontgodhealamputees.com. If you can manage to not quote from some old book, you'll get people willing to talk to you. Even the militant atheists. I don't have the patience. Others might.

Outright Fraud?

[Cybert4]

That's giving it too much credit. Calling it reminiscent of baby babble is more appropriate.

Reminds me of another theory (Goodbye Karma!)

[fujiman]

String theory is at times one of the biggest con jobs in Physics, and at other times some of the most interesting speculation. It's also the 'Theory that will NOT die!' reminding me of so many late night C rate thrillers.

Why? Because everytime string theory gets disproven, they come out with a new theory and call it 'String Theory'.

This reminds me of Evolution, in the sense that the label "Evolution" is applied to all areas of science: Biology, Astronomy, Geology... It's as if no one would ever refute anything called "Evolution" for fear of being labeled a religious fundamentalist.

I'm uncomfortable with the automatic acceptance (at the popular level, anyway) of anything labelled evolution, without proper scientific examination. I see this all the time on documentaries, TV shows, talk shows. Some scientist will say "Oh, that's evolution." and the host will just nod his head as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.

Maybe it's just me, but if we want to keep religion out of science, we need to start with ourselves.

Re:Reminds me of another theory (Goodbye Karma!)

[kamapuaa]

I have seen a lot of science programs in my day, and not once have I heard anybody ever say that astronomy or geology was demonstrating evolution. It wouldn't even make any sense. I'm more likely to believe you don't care for the Theory of Evolution for some theological reason, and have to make up straw-man counter-examples, just for the chance to say something bad about it.

Of course if you have any examples or astronomers evoking evolution, you could easily provide a link...

Since when did people get so uppity. . ?

[Fantastic Lad]

Among the latest crop of geek memes is the weird desire to get all politcally correct about what and what is and is not a 'theory'.

A year ago, nobody would force this nonsense to the table.

I can't stand popular memes! Occam started making the rounds after Jodi Foster popularized him in Contact. Ugh. The number of dumb and dumber arguments resulting from a little mis-applied knowledge was astronomical. Bubbo's Ridiculous Law, (Or whatever his name is) which states that the well-accessorized geek must close his ears upon hearing the word, "Nazi" is another.

While not quite as destructive to a healthy mental process, this cross-culture, (geek culture, that is) sudden need to lecture other geeks left and right upon the proper use of the word, "Theory", is just as annoying.

You watch. It will be mis-applied by geeks trying to knock the wind out of interesting, new ideas by declaring the ideas to be beneath even the rank of theory and therefore somehow worthy of contempt. I've seen so many people who are scared to think for themselves that unless all the ideas in their heads have been validated by somebody else, (TV or other annoying geeks with name tags), then they will shie away from them at all cost.

It's the old jr. high programming. If you are different, you will be punished through ostricization.

A cowardly geek is useless.

-FL

Re:Since when did people get so uppity. . ?

[PapaBoojum]

What an utterly nonsensical rant.

The proper definition of a scientific theory is hardly a meme, new or old. If you think its less than a year old, then I can only assume you just had your first Internet connection installed.

Same with Occam's Razor. It was been bandied about on BBSes, on NNTP newgroups and discussion forums since they existed... ~long~ before "Contact".

The reason you see so many people insisting on the proper definition of a scientific theory is that without it, any loon can claim some explanation they recently removed from their rectal sheath is a 'theory' (see Intelligent Design). It has absolutely nothing to do with being different or ostricization.

Those insisting on the proper use of the term 'scientific theory' are not the one being 'uppity'...

Re:Since when did people get so uppity. . ?

[Fantastic Lad]

The proper definition of a scientific theory is hardly a meme, new or old. If you think its less than a year old, then I can only assume you just had your first Internet connection installed.

Bzzt. Wrong. When random people I meet on-line and off who would not otherwise care one way or the other all suddenly start simultaneously lecturing each other on the proper definition of the word, "theory", (as has been the case over the last couple of months, but not during ANY time before that), it's a popular meme.

And if you think Occam wasn't popularized by the film, 'Contact' to a bunch of people who prior had no idea that the man had ever even existed, you are in error. Simple as that.

I appologize if my tone annoyed you, but guess what? I'm annoyed by the mis-use of otherwise good ideas.

-FL

Re:Since when did people get so uppity. . ?

[P3NIS_CLEAVER]

People are pissed because since the SSC was canned getting funding for a physics department is very difficult, and 'silly strings' soak up a large amount of funding and mindshare.

Re:Since when did people get so uppity. . ?

[Anonymous Coward]

The cancellation of the SSC has not affected physics funding outside of high energy physics.

Re:Since when did people get so uppity. . ?

[P3NIS_CLEAVER]

This may be true but it is a huge chunk of the physics department. I personally knew a bunch of guys working on things like new detector designs and software to process the data. Theorists would of had tons of data to sift through. It was a huge project, and it isn't like the budget was shifted to some other physics programs.

Ed Witten Seen Read Not Even Wrong

[22RealMcCoy]

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
THE PHYSICS TIMES
Princeton, NJ

http://physicsmathforums.com/

Ed Witten was seen reading Woit's THE NOT EVEN WRONG while simultaneuosly walking down Nassau Street in an inertial frame, followed by his 137 postdocs, who were chanting in unison, as measured by a stationy observer standing outside of PJ's Pancakes.

Some towards the front of the line started crying first (in the lab frame), as they realized it was the end of a free ride for blind obedience, and that for health benefits, trips to exotic conferences, and summers off, they were going to have to start thinking on their own.

The news spread far and wide. Up in Cambridge Lubos Motl changed his snarky one star amazon review for NEW to a laudatory five star review, so as to secure future NSF funding. And Michio Kaku added Woit as a friend on his myspace page, after a call from his media team.

"I've seen darker days than this," Brian Greene smiled, recalling the bar scene with the hot chick in his PBS mini-series. "I already got my two string theory coffee table books out and am set. I know that I have secured the Nobel--in literature."

Witten said, "It is time to make peace. The most important thing that we ST, LQGers, and Not Even Wrongers must do is continue to oppose physical theories, which unify disparate physical phenomena in the same physical framework. Otherwise mathematical masturbation will fall out of favor, and we will have to join the proletariat in working for a living and taking what they're giving."

I wish Woit would have talked more about his views on the future of physics. For it is not enough to criticize, and I would hate to see the future of physics dominated by those untying the knots of String Theory.

ST hath failed. Utterly and completely. It could not have failed more with twice as much NSF fundining.

String Theory was the only game in town, and now there are two--ST & deconstructing ST.

But there is another that actually unifies QM & SR & GR with a physical model: MDT--it's physics!

Moving Dimensions Theory is in complete agreement with all experimental tests and phenomena associated with special and general relativity. MDT is in complete agreement with all physical phenomena as predicted by quantum mechanics and demonstrated in extensive experiments. The genius and novelty of MDT is that it presents a common physical model which shows that phenomena from both relativity and quantum mechanics derive from the same fundamental physical reality.

Nowhere does String Theory nor Loop Quantum Gravity account for quantum entanglement nor relativistic time dilation. MDT shows these derive from the same underlying physical reality. Nowhere does ST nor LQG account for wave-particle duality nor relativistic length contraction. MDT shows these derive from the same underlying physical reality. Nowhere does ST nor LQG account for the constant speed of light, nor the independence of the speed of light on the velocity of the source, nor entropy, nor time's arrow. MDT shows these derive from the same underlying physical reality. Nowhere does String Theory nor Loop Quantum Gravity resolve the paradox of Godel's Block Universe which troubled Eisntein. MDT resolves this paradox.

Simply put, MDT replaces the contemporary none-theories with a physical theory, complete with a simple postulate that unifies formerly disparate phenomena within a simple context.

THE GENERAL POSTULATE
OF DYNAMIC DIMENSIONS THEORY
The fourth dimension is expanding relative to the three spatial dimensions.

If at first the idea is not absurd, then there is no hope for it.
-Albert Einstein

But after thirty years of the absurdity of String Theory, millions of dollars from the NSF, and billions of complementary dollars from tax and tuition and endowments spent on killing physics and indie physicists, perhaps it's time for something that makes sense-for a physical theory that actually accoun

hilarious post

[Anonymous Coward]

by one of string theory's own:

http://motls.blogspot.com/2006/09/richard-hamilton -behind-shing-tung-yau.html

what was that again, about a lady, and too much protesting?

I Wish

[Dolly_Llama]

I wish I were smart enough to claim this for my own, but...

I am a theoretical physicist. I am educated in Supersymmetry, Riemannian geometry, and the original Kaluza-Klein theory. I am educated in field theory in curved space time, but not Supergravity, nor do I care to be.

I have only one thing to say about all of this. Everytime I sit in a talk on strings or branes all I can think is one thing.

Extra dimensions are the epicycles of Modern Physics

That's all I have to say. If you understand this, it is profound.

From the previous /. string theory discussion

...Another bunch of huey from the pointy heads...

[Anonymous Coward]

Right up there with so called "Global Warming" and "the sun is getting bigger"!!!

Superstring Theory

[SMACX guy]

A brave little theory, and actually quite coherent for a system of five or seven dimensions -- if only we lived in one.

ALL TIED UP AND STRUNG ALONG: NEW STRING THEORY MO

[22RealMcCoy]

Tied Up & Strung Out: Hollywood String Theory Movie!!! Looking For Extras!!!
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
http://physicsmathforums.com/showthread.php?t=56
http://revver.com/video/48391/ (WATCH IT!)

ALL TIED UP & STRUNG ALONG, a movie about String Theorists and their expansive theories which extend human ignorance, pomposity, and frailty into higher dimensions, is set to start filming this fall. Jessica Alba, John Cleese, Eugene Levie, Jackie Chan, and David Duchovney of X-files fame have all signed on to the $700 million Hollywood project, which is still cheaper than String Theory itself, and will likely displace less physicists from the academy.

"As contemporary physics is about money, hype, mythology, and chicks," Ed Witten explained from his offices at the Princeton Institute for Advanced Study, "The next logical step was Hollywood, although I thought Burt Reynolds should play me instead of Eugene Levy."

Brian Greene, the famous String Theorist who will be played by David "the truth is out there" Duchovney, explained the plot: "String theory's muddled, contorted theories that lack postulates, laws, and experimentally-verified equations have Einstein spinning so fast in his grave that it creates a black hole. In order to save the world, we String Theorists have to stop reformulating String Theory faster than the speed of light. We are called upon to stop violating the conservation of energy by mining higher dimensions to publish more BS than can accounted for with the Big Bang alone, and I win the Nobel prize for showing that M-Theory is in fact the dark matter it has been searching for."

Greene continues: "At first my character is reluctant to stop theorizing and start postulating, but when my love interest Jessica Alba is sucked into the black hole, I search my soul and find Paul Davies there, played by John Cleese. I ask him what he's doing in my soul, and he explains that the answer is contained in the mind of God, which only he is privy too, but for a small fee, some tax and tuition dollars, a couple grants here and there, and an all-expense-paid book tour with stops in Zurich and Honolulu, he can let me in on it. And he shows me God in all her greater glory, as he points out that we can make more money in Hollywood than writing coffee-table books that recycle Einstein, Bohr, Dirac, Feynman, and Wheeler. I am quickly converted, and I agree to turn my back on String Theory's hoax and save Jessica Alba."

But it's not that easy, as standing in Greene's way is Michio "king of pop-theory-hipster-irony-the-theory-of-everything- or-anything-made-
you-read-this" Kaku, played by Jackie Chan. Kaku beats the crap out of Greene for alomst blowing the "ironic" pretense his salary, benefits, and all-expense paid trips depend on. "WE MUST HOLD BACK THE YOUNG SCIENTISTS WITH OUR NON-THEORIES!! WE MUST FILL THE ACADEMY WITH THE POMO DARK MATTER THAT IS STRING THEORY TO KEEP OUR UNIVERSE FROM FLYING APART, OUR PYRAMID SCHEMES FROM TOPPLING, AND OUR PERPETUAL-MOTION NSF MONEY MACHINE FROM STOPPING!!" Kaku argues as he delivers a flying back-kick, "There can be ony ONE! I WILL be String Theory's GODFATHER as referenced on my web page!! I have better hair!"

But Greene fights back as he signs his seventeenth book deal to make the hand-waving incoherence of String Theory accessible to the South Park generation, senior citizens, and starving chirldren around the world. "Kaku! Kaku! (pronounced Ka-Kaw! Ka-Kaw! like Owen Wilson did in Bottle Rocket)," Greene shouts. "It is theoretically impossible to build a coffee tables strong enough to support any more coffee-table physics books!!!"

"Time travel is also theoretically impossible, but there's a helluva lot more money for us in flushing physics down a wormhole. Nobody knows what the #&#%&$ M stands for in M theory ya hand-waving, TV-hogging crank!!! Get it?? Ha Ha Ha! We're laughing at the public

Sting Theory

[pizpot]

Enough already. Here it is in black and white:

Another suburban family morning
Grandmother screaming at the wall

We have to shout above the din of our rice crispies
We can't hear anything at all
Mother chants her litany of boredom and frustration
But we all know her suicides are fake
Daddy only stares into the distance
There's only so much more that he can take
Many miles away
Something crawls from the slime
At the bottom of a dark
Scottish lake

Another industrial ugly morning
Tha factory belches filth into the sky
He walks unhindered through the picket lines today
He doesn't think to wonder why
The secretaries pout and preen like cheap tarts in a red light street
But all he ever thinks to do is watch
And every so called meeting with his so called superior
Is a humiliating kick in the crotch
Many miles away
Something crawls to the surface
Of a dark Scottish loch

Another working day has ended
Only the rush hour hell to face
Packed like lemmings into shiny metal boxes
Contestants in a suicidal race
Daddy crips the wheel and stares alone into the distance
He knows that something somewhere has to break
He sees the family home now looming in his headlights
The pain upstairs that makes his eyeballs ache
Many miles away
There's a shadow on the door
Of a cottage on the shore
Of a dark Scottish lake

Many miles away
Many miles away
Many miles away
Many miles away
Many miles away...

Occam's Razor says Hydrinos over Strings

[Anonymous Coward]

Uncertainty, wave/particles, and string theory are bunk. The universe is deterministic and the same laws apply everywhere from sub-atomic to galaxy scales: www.blacklightpower.com

Dr. Mills unifies the theories of Bohr, de Broglie, Maxwell, Einstein, Newton, etc. via a new insight into the nature of the atom. Mills takes advantage of a 1986 Herman Haus paper that explains how charged particles may undergo acceleration without radiation. He then applies the mathematics of this insight into a new analysis of the hydrogen atom. His new model treats the electron, not as a point nor as a probability wave, but as a dynamic two-dimensional spherical shell surrounding the nucleus. The resulting model, called the "orbitsphere", provides a fully classical physical explanation for phenomena such as

1. Quantization
2. Angular momentum
3. Bohr magneton

Essentially, the electron orbitsphere is a "dynamic spherical resonator cavity" that traps photons of discrete frequencies. Broader implications of GUT-CQM include the possibility of catalytically shrinking the hydrogen atom to below "ground" state, releasing useful energy in the process. Unification of the electron orbitsphere radius formula with General Relativity (GR) provides a quantum explanation for gravity as well. This leads to a novel explanation for the recently observed accelerating expansion of the cosmos.

Testability...

[msauve]

As long as it's conceptually possible to come up with a falsifying experiment, even if it's wildly impractical, it's still a scientific theory. We may yet come up with ways to test the theory.

So what you're saying is that the Flying Spaghetti Monster isn't a religion, it's a theory, since one only need travel to Milliway's to see if they serve spaghetti to determine it's truthfulness?

Re:Camparing to einstein

[noigmn]

The analogy that string theorists and media make between string theory and Einstein is criminal. Einstein saw that the previous physics was not holding up with the old theory in experiments, and there was a need for a new theory or perspective. The majority of Einstein's discoveries were new rules made from observations also. Ie. speed of light = c in any inertial reference frame, and space time curving near large masses. It was a new way of looking at things to account for experiment.

String theorists on the other hand, saw a mathematical formula and have tried to make a theory of everything from it. There is obviously a need for quantum gravity theories as we move into the future, but the scientific way to approach this, as Einstein did, would be to look at the experimental results in quantum and relativity, and the previous theories, and see where the conflict is and explain it. Not beat around in the dark with numbers and when they find things using incomplete theories, claim that they exist.

I agree totally that they are destructive to science. They can work in the maths faculty if they wish but to waste physics funding and physics media space when there are so much more important and valuable finds out there, is criminal. How funding can go into a theory that implies nothing testable, hence nothing valuable is beyond me. And they say we will need it when we can test it. What a joke. When we can test it, we can develop the right theory from experimental evidence. This is called science :).

Bush Administration!

[Anonymous Coward]

First the Bush Administration tries to undermind the theory of evolution! Next they try to undermind the science behind global warming!

Surely they are going after string theory next! I am frayed this is knot what I was expecting.

Turing Complete?

[Tablizer]

It is like a Turing Complete language: it can be programmed to fit whatever you want it to fit. It may not necessarily be the "right" model, but perhaps it can be made to be the "correct" model by tuning enough parameters to make it fit observations, at least to the limits of our experimentation with the physical world. Such a tool, one could perhaps argue, is almost as good as the real thing.

Testability not Falsified

[DynaSoar]

The point that M-theory (the string theories) has produced no testable hypotheses is negative speculation. Nobody has developed it enough to the point where it can be tested. It requires either development of the theory to the point where we can conduct tests based on current technology, or advances in technology to match with advances in the theory so that it can be tested at a finer level.

That said, there have been potentially testable hypotheses put forth, but they have not been able to be tested yet:
http://science-junkie.group.stumbleupon.com/forum/ 41510/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiverse_(science)( under "Arguments against"; search the document for 'testable')

In any case, it's convincing because the math works. The same was said of solar neutrinos*. The search continued for 30 years because the theory made sense despite something more negative than lack of testable hypotheses -- consistent failure of tests to produce the results predicted. Here we had what amount to falsification, yet they persisted and finally got their answer. Lack of falsification is a far more positive starting point.

And although M-theory is so stratospheric that few undertsand more than part of it, it is starting to develop an elegance. Like it or not, that's a telling sign that there's something there.

*ref. "The Golem" by Collins and Pinch

FSM Noodle Theory

[fithmo]

Come on, we all know the universe isn't made of tiny strings vibrating in 11 dimensions. That's just ridiculous!

It's obvious that these percieved "strings" are just the noodly appendages of He who created all that is, and by His own decree there are only 3 dimensions: our dimension, the pirate dimension, and the ninja dimension.

Weekdays are rolled up in time

[MarkusQ]

Having a "rolled up" dimension doesn't require an extra dimension, because they're not _actually_ rolled up. The metric used to describe them is just easy to picture that way. Just like curved 4-dimensional space time doesn't need a 5th dimension to be curved into. I tried looking for a good web-site that explains this, but didn't find one in the time I'm willing to spend looking for one. I'm sure someone else knows of one, though.

The weekdays-space (Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, etc.) is rolled up into a "tube" with a circumference of exactly seven days. But it isn't "rolled up" through any other dimension. This is also a good way to get people to picture how the universe could be finite and yet leave the question "what's outside it?" meaningless (technically, the weekday-space is finite but unbounded). The color wheel and the compass rose are two other examples.

--MarkusQ

Strings or Navel Lint?

[0xC2]

Seems to me that a "theory of everything" unifying the relativity and QM, would need to incorporate a property of the universe that has until now been completely neglected. That property is wholeness. I offer no proof, just a nagging doubt, that a full explanation of the universe will forever be incomplete, because the analytical tools of science (of which I see no suitable substitute), will never be able to approach the concept of wholeness, or be able to inject wholeness into an equation. And I point out that the instant of the birth of our universe, we approach an analysis of the moment when our universe could only be described, umm, holisticly. So science encroaches on a task of navel contemplation. Is string theory the study of universal navel lint?

Re:Strings or Navel Lint?

[tenco]

would need to incorporate a property of the universe that has until now been completely neglected. That property is wholeness.

Is this you, Plato?

It is scientific because it is mathematics.

[master_p]

The String theory is scientific, because it is mathematics. It is a theory, i.e. not proven yet, of math in the context of physics. It suggests a field of experimentation that some day might be performed to prove it or disprove it.

On the other hand, Intelligent Design is not a theory because it does not contain a system of laws and it does not suggest a way to test it. ID simply says "look at this item, see how nice and complicated it is? I can not explain how it is created, so it must have been created by someone, it can not be a creation of nature"...

Re:It is scientific because it is mathematics.

[nagora]

The String theory is scientific, because it is mathematics.

That makes it mathematical, which is not a superset of scientific as you imply. To be scientific it has to be testable. Many trivial mathematical operations are non-scientific and are called axioms: n raised to the power of 0 is 1, for example. There's nothing scientific about that, it's just part of the framework to the particular type of maths you learned at school; there are other axioms which define other "types" of maths from the common one.

There are certain assumptions in the various sciences which appear to be axioms but in reality scientists are always poking at them to test them too, whereas to a mathematician the question "Is n to the 0th power REALLY always 1?" is nonsensical and the correct answer is "If you want it to be, yes. How did you get into my house?".

In defense of string theory

[Anonymous Coward]

Disclaimer: I've worked with Lee Smolin before. That being said, I would like to provide a few pro-string theory arguments. Incidentally, please note that Lee himself still does string theory research as well as loop quantum gravity (LQG).

On testability: string theory could certainly be tested if we could probe the Planck scale. We will never be able to build an accelerator to do that directly. There is some chance we might eventually do it indirectly by measuring fluctuations in the cosmic gravitational wave background. In addition, string theory encompasses many scenarios in which the string scale could be probed at much lower energies, but nobody is very confident that those scenarios are likely to be correct.

The problem is that very basic arguments suggest that quantum gravity effects only show up at extremely small distance scales or extremely large energy scales (the Planck scale). This is going to be a huge obstacle to any attempt to quantize gravity, including Lee Smolin's loop quantum gravity. If we can test a theory of quantum gravity in the near future we will be lucky (e.g. the aforementioned low-energy string scale scenarios). Until then, any theory of quantum gravity is necessarily going to be mostly mathematics — but there has to be such a theory, because gravity and quantum theory are inconsistent as they stand today. So we are forced to look for quantum gravity theories to reconcile this conflict, but without experimental evidence. Accordingly, the main way to proceed is via logical consistency with known physics, which has been very successful in the past. (It is essentially how Einstein arrived at relativity before there was any strong experimental evidence in its favor.)

There is a serious possibility that string theory might be testable. I don't believe that puts string theory outside the realm of science altogether, however. String theory does at least make predictions, even if we can't test them. Moreover, it is motivated by reason of consistency with known physics. Gravity has to be reconciled with quantum theory somehow. It can't be proven, but there are strong reasons to believe that string theory overcomes obstacles to quantizing gravity in a unique way that all other approaches can't duplicate.

Here are a couple of arguments in favor of string theory put forth by string theorists:

In particle physics, it has been possible to write down theories of the non-gravitational forces while being ignorant of high energy
Planck scale physics. This is essentially due to the Applequist-Carrazone "decoupling" theorem, which uses renormalization group arguments to show that low-energy physics can be made independent of high energy physics, because at sufficiently low energies you can't excite the higher-energy modes; therefore, their contribution is irrelevant.

This decoupling breaks down for gravity. Because gravity is a universal interaction, it couples to everything (because everything has mass-energy); the low energy effects of quantum gravity are never independent of high-energy physics. So you can't write down a theory of quantum gravity unless you purport to know everything about particle physics up to arbitrarily high energies — which of course you can't possibly say, unless you can do experiments at the Planck scale.

This is a criticism that string theorists level against loop quantum gravity. LQG is usually attempted ignoring all realistic particle
physics, and even if that approach succeeded, you'd have to write down a different LQG theory to take into account real particles, which might work completely differently than a vacuum LQG theory. LQGers respond by saying that they want to start by just proving it's possible to quantize *any* kind of gravity using this approach, and then worry about "realistic gravity". (For some of these criticisms of LQG, see here and here;

Re:Irony, thy name is fujiman

[Oligonicella]

"Maybe it's just me, but if we want to keep religion out of science, we need to start with ourselves."

This is the first comment I've seen on this article that invokes religion.

Phase Space

[neurostar]

Given a position in space (X, Y, Z), a point in time (T), three oscillation frequencies (HzX, HzY, HzZ), three axes of rotation (RX, RY, RZ), and a size (M), that adds up to 11 characteristics of this "ball" of energy.

Yes, that adds up to 11 characteristics. But most of those are dimensions in phase space, not in real space. Only the first four (x,y,z,t) are space-time dimensions. The others are phase space coordinates. I'm not a string theorist by any means, but it's my understanding that the 11 Dimensions are space-time dimensions. So using phase-space values wouldn't account for the other dimensions.

For some more info on phase space: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phase_space

Epicycles

[sjames]

In some ways, string theory (which is actually a meta-theory resulting in uncounted millions of variations on a theme theories) reminds me of the ancient idea that planetary motion is explainable by epicycles, that is perfect circular paths within paths.

In a sense, the idea of epicycles was (sort of) correct. If you throw enough carefully chosen epicycles at it, you can match up with a planet's motion to arbitrary precision. The problem is, having done so, the calculation is dreadfully difficult to complete and tells us very little about any other planet's orbit. The radius and period of each epicycle is hand tuned to fit observation. In fact, there can even be many multiple collections of epicycles that predict the position of a particular planet at a given time equally well and nothing beyond taste and computational convieniance to differentiate them.

The current state of string theory 'feels' like it is about at that point now. We really need a Kepler to come along and show us the ellipse hidden inside all those arbitrary epicycles. Let's hope that when he does, mainstream physics won't decide it doesn't look 'stringy' enough and exile him to the broom closet somewhere.

three intellectual fads

[doom]

Here's a (probably wonky) thought for you. Three intellectual fads that gained prominence at roughly the same time:

• postmodernism
• string theory
• object oriented programming

What was it about the 80s, eh?

String theory. Here's a way to test it

[AM4]

If there is any validity to the string theory concept and its many dimensions, the throwing up into space of a sky hook, which would somehow hook onto some of those dimensions and be secured by others, would be an excellent test. o god, i can't believe "string theory" and "sky hook" collided in my brain after reading the New Yorker article.

WTF is a GUT?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm acronym deficient.

Re:WTF is a GUT?

[Morphine007]

Grand Unified/Unifying Theory.... aka a TOE (Theory of Everything)

A Theory that can explain particle physics, nuclear forces (strong, weak, electroweak, etc...) and gravity all in the same breath ;-)

Re:WTF is a GUT?

[Anonymous Coward]

GUTs and TOEs are not the same. Technically, a GUT unifies all the non-gravitational forces; a TOE unifies a GUT with gravity.

Re:WTF is a GUT?

[Morphine007]

hmm... never knew there was a distinction... this is why I love slashdot... learn something new everyday :)

Penrose, Road to Reality

[martin_the_geek]

Also see Roger Penrose's The road to reality which has a long section on string theory, largely agreeing with the article.

Converse

[Anonymous Coward]

"if you can describe it in math, you can describe it in string theory"

Now Imagine the converse is not true.
That would be GREAT!