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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.)"
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?
My work here is dung.
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.
Blacker than my baby girl's stare. Black like the veil that the muslimina wear. Black like the planet that they fear...
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.
Computers are useless. They can only give you answers.
-- Pablo Picasso
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.
Ninjas don't carry tic tacs
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.
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.
8==8 Bones 8==8
So which is it: the best of times or the worst of times?
According to Schrodinger, both.
Finkployd
Short Answer: No.
Long Answer: Yes.
Longer Answer: Both of the above, but each in a separate Universe.
An Indian-American Hindu committed to non-violent thought/speech/action alarmed by the global explosion of radical Islam
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.
I heard that Intelligent Rubberbands were all the rage.
Your pizza just the way you ought to have it.
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.
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.
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".
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.
Deleted
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.
there is no need to sign your posts. this isn't usenet. your username is right there above your post. stop it.
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.
Fast machines, powerfull AI, impulsive invention,... All I lack is a good espresso machine!
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.
Fascism trolls keeping me up every night. When I starts a preachin', he HITS ME WITH HIS REICH!
You can read about him on Wikipedia, if you like.
Ben Hocking
Need a professional organizer?
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.
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.
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.
Read my sig if you like, but I'll never see yours, thanks to Discussions, Viewing, Disable sigs...
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.
Ben Hocking
Need a professional organizer?
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.
Ben Hocking
Need a professional organizer?
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
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.
A Good Troll is better than a Bad Human.
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?
And the New Yorker is the ultimate authority on the subject, right?
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.
I scream. You scream. I assume that means we're both acquainted with the problem. We proceed.
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.
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.
Conservatism: (n.) love of the existing evils. Liberalism: (n.) desire to substitute new evils for the existing ones.
Ben Hocking
Need a professional organizer?
If it's not testable (and thus, falsifiable) then it's not a theory. The same way intelligent design isn't a theory. ::ducks::
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.
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)]
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.
Yeah, these string theory people have their ideas all caught up in knots. ...sorry. I'll go now.
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.
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
An Invisible Entity of Vast Power whose existence must be taken on faith alone: Liberal Media
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 ;-)
Oh god, that woman is John Romero!
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.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
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?
"Most people in the U.S. wouldn't know they live in a tyrannical state if it walked up and grabbed their junk." - MyFirs
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.
Probably just as valid.....
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.
See
2 3/2226257
http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/06/
for previous discussion.
LineGrunt
... 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
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.
... it's a series of strings!
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"
"Eve of Destruction", it's not just for old hippies anymore...
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.
Maybe after this period, people can be less childlike and some serious discussions about its strengths and weaknesses can begin.
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.
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.
"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.
I've wondered the same thing about string cheese for quite some time now.
MjM
XKCD:Xeric Knowledge Comically Dispen
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.
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?
i\hbar\dot{\psi}=\hat{H}\psi
"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.
http://www.biblegateway.com/keyword/?search=string &version1=31&searchtype=all
Give a man a fish and you have fed him for today. Teach a man to fish, and he'll say "WHERE'S MY FISH, YOU IDIOT?"
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.
At the high school level we use the Bohr ansatz, sure, but Chem 1A these days has plenty of QM.
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:
Find free books.
>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
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.
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.
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.
Opportunity knocks. Karma hunts you down.
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.
Oh god, that woman is John Romero!
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.
I read the article in NY Times, but not closely.
c e.html
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_scien
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.
LOAD "SIG",8,1
LOADING...
READY.
RUN
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.
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
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.
You are welcome on my lawn.
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.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
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.
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.
Is that you, pexor?
Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!
Can you prove that it cannot ever be tested? Or is that just an assumption?
--jeffk++
ipv6 is my vpn
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.
The enemies of Democracy are
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.
.evom ton seod gis eht
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.
Ben Hocking
Need a professional organizer?
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)
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.
Oh god, that woman is John Romero!
Even THIS is more scientific than "intelligent design"
...I mean, come on, the friggen VATICAN finds "intelligent design" not only an insult to science, but an insult to GOD.
h p?id=18503
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_D._Unwin
http://www.catholic.org/national/national_story.p
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.
If you could reason with religious people, there would be no religious people
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!
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.
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.
That's giving it too much credit. Calling it reminiscent of baby babble is more appropriate.
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++
ipv6 is my vpn
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.
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
Opportunity knocks. Karma hunts you down.
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.
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
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.
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.
From the previous
Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known. -- Carl Sagan
A brave little theory, and actually quite coherent for a system of five or seven dimensions -- if only we lived in one.
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.
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.
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.
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.
.evom ton seod gis eht
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.
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.
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.
echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
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...
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?
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
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
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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 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.
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.
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
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.
Table-ized A.I.
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.
/ 41510/( under "Arguments against"; search the document for 'testable')
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
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiverse_(science)
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
"I may be synthetic, but I'm not stupid." -- Bishop 341-B
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.
>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.
unfinished: (adj.)
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
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?
Be heard || Be herd
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"...
"As long as it's conceptually possible"
Being nitpicky, no. One can conceptually require an infinite mass spinning at an infinite speed.
"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.
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.
Oh god, that woman is John Romero!
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.
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
Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
- postmodernism
- string theory
- object oriented programming
What was it about the 80s, eh?I agree with everything in your post. :)
If string theory is a legitimate scientific theory, then so is time cube.
The Uncoveror: It's the real news.
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
Also see Roger Penrose's The road to reality which has a long section on string theory, largely agreeing with the article.
Regards, Martin IT: http://methodsupport.com Personal: http://thereisnoend.org
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.
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 ;-)
Oh god, that woman is John Romero!
hmm... never knew there was a distinction... this is why I love slashdot... learn something new everyday :)
Oh god, that woman is John Romero!
LOL, compared to F=ma, a first order DE is mathematically complex..... it was a comparative statement dammit....
Oh god, that woman is John Romero!