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String Theory in Two Minutes
An anonymous reader writes "Most of us have heard of string theory, many of us know what it is and some of us may even be experts in the field. But could you explain it in two minutes? Discover Magazine recently had a contest to do precisely that: create a two minute or less video of everything you need to know about string theory. You can view some of the best entries (video) as well as the winning video: String Ducky!"
Stretched analogy
of beauteous harmony,
thou art String Theory.
I understand why "Ducky" won, but how could "The Problem with Math" win the polls? It wasn't really that good...
Because even when video/audio quality is subpar, with a grating Crystal Method style soundtrack, little kids waxing erudite about particle physics are soooo adorable. It's no contest - "Ducky" is clearly the superior work here.
Lil' Thindime, lilting a lacrimose lament, krashes the kwaint konfines of Kokonino Kounty
If it needs 11 dimensions in which to vibrate, how is it still a "string," or how is the model of a string still descriptive?
Don't blame me, I voted for Baltar.
String theory is a theory. A theory is a big old (mathematical, preferably) framework for explaining how something works.
The hypotheses of which you speak are little, testable, predictions that you make based on a theory which tend to test it. You can also make hypotheses based on gut instinct, or something fuzzier than a formal theory, in which case they help guide your theory-making.
String theory is still in the fuzzier stages when compared to things like relativity, the standard model and quantum mechanics, but there are some testable hypotheses coming out of it. One is the different speeds of photons mentioned in an earlier post. Another is the multiple dimensions. According to some string theories these dimensions are small, but large enough that some current or near future experiments should start seeing them.
Competing theories are GOOD. I'm not sure MOND is really a direct competitor to string theory, but the more ideas the better.
In my experience, a major obstacle to a proper "relationship" to fundamental physics is the idea that somehow it can be understood in a visual or sensory way. Mathematics can model things that just don't make any sense. Our sensory organs are not equipped to experience fundamental reality. Possibly after studying mathematics long enough, the brain grows a sensitivity to the math. But trying to visualize this stuff is ultimately an exercise in frustration. What happens is that you risk taking that flawed visual model seriously, and trying to extrapolate. Which gets in the way of learning the math necessary to solve the problems.
Be heard || Be herd
I think the problem is mainly that people who study the "string hypothesis" are theoreticians and applied mathematicians. They generally refer to themselves (and are referred to by others) as "theorists", so naturally when they focused on strings they acquired the moniker "string theorists".
Well, "obviously" a string theorist must study "string theory", right? And then that looked sexier on grant and job applications, and yet another bastardization of the word "theory" was born.
I suppose it's one example of a mechanism by which word meanings get screwed up.
Until now hearing "string theory" made me think of infinitely long, parallel strings that run through the entire cosmos. Then, since that seemed to reduce our 3 dimensions to 2, I thought every string had an infinite "resolution" as well, holding different particles/energies at different parts of it. I *think* A Brief History of Time used a similar explanation, but more probably I'm remembering it wrong. :)
What the videos told me:
"Protons are made up of something smaller, which doesn't look like a ball, but like a vibrating loop of string. This may mean the world is 11-dimensional."
I was quite off the beat, then
Click here or here.
I can understand string theory but what I don't understand is why we need string theory and what it actually tells us about the universe. Vibrating "strings"... please. I think a lot of people have either smoked way too much weed and think this is actually plausible or they have over active minds from not watching enough TV.
That's simply not true. A theory has to explain observations. This is what current cosmological theories do. It is an observation, that galaxies seem to fly away from us, the faster the farer away they are. The standard cosmological theory with its Big Bang can explain it. One of the predictions of this theory was, that there should be a background radiation. That radiation was found and its temperature is in accordance with the calcualations. The theory of inflationary universe, which is an extension to the standard theory can explain why the radiation is so homogenous, why the world is more or less flat and it even can explain to some level the observed distribution of galaxies.
Can the cosmological theories explain everything? No. Have they gaps? Definitely. But this is something nearly every theory has to live with. When Newton came up with his theory of gravitation he also could give absolutely no explanation for the source of gravitation, he himself was not happy with the fact that a body has an influence at a place where it is not present.
I never heard about that. I am not an expert in cosmology, so I would be interested if you could point me to a source to read about this claim. And what do you mean with "long time"?
We're having enough trouble convincing the public that when we say "evolution is a theory," we really mean "evolution is a set of statements that have each been experimentally verified multiple times." Let's not make it easier for ID nuts to confuse the public about what scientific theories are. A theory must be something that has overwhelming empirical support. Under this definition, string "theory" isn't a theory--it's a set of hypotheses.
Lots of scientists have been working on the theory for 30 years, as you say. It might be useful to explain to the scientifically inclined nonexperts just what all those eggheads are doing. The duck video gives a clear and intriguing introduction to the theory. It might be the trigger to get some young student to realize how much there is still to be discovered about physics, and maybe encourage him/her to become a scientist.
So it's your position that physics is finished then? Nothing more to discover?
You'd be in good company. A lot of people have thought that. Their track record for being right is pretty abysmal though.
Of course it's hard to think of specific examples of what a unified theory would allow. Who could have predicted what applications quantum mechanics would have before it was discovered?
Your argument has been used to dismiss ALL of basic science. It's not immediately obvious what it's good for, so why bother? What you're forgetting is that all engineering is based on principles that used to be basic science, most of them of questionable use.