Slashdot Mirror
Strings Link the Ultra-Cold With the Super-Hot
gabrlknght writes "Superstring theory claims the power to explain the universe, but critics say it can't be tested by experiment. Lately, though, string math has helped explain a couple of surprising experiments creating 'perfect liquids' at cosmic extremes of hot and cold. 'Both systems can be described as something like a shadow world sitting in a higher dimension. Strongly coupled particles are linked by ripples traveling through the extra dimension, says Steinberg, of Brookhaven. String math describing such ripples stems from an idea called the holographic principle, used by string theorists to describe certain kinds of black holes. A black hole's entropy depends on its surface area — as though all the information in its three-dimensional interior is stored on its two-dimensional surface. (The 'holographic' label is an allusion to ordinary holograms, where 3-D images are coated on a 2-D surface, like an emblem on a credit card.) The holographic principle has value because in some cases the math for a complex 3-D system (neglecting time) can be too hard to solve, but the equivalent 4-D math provides simpler equations to describe the same phenomena.'"
XKCD
Fascism starts when the efficiency of the government becomes more important than the rights of the people.
Lately, though, string math has helped explain a couple of surprising experiments
Yes, that happens all the time. The problem with string theoy is not that it doesn't predict anything. It's that it predicts everything. At least, one of the innumerable variants will predict anything after it's happened. If anyone could pick out some predictions before they happen then that might be something to get excited about.
Yet another physical phenomenon fits the theory of everything. How about a prediction from string theory for once?
Just my $0.55 (US inflation, 1774-2008, for $0.02)
Can this be what brings string theory from realm of math into the realm of science? (testable hypotheses and all that)
"The point is that we have two different kinds of systems capturing the same kind of physics," says string theorist Clifford Johnson
Back in the day it was commonplace to construct analogs of mechanical systems, for instance, using electronic components. If the differential equations describing the two systems are similar, so will their solutions be.
That the topic is string theory is also reminiscent of how soap works. Half of a soap molecule is soluble in water, the other half insoluble - thus bridging between wet and oily substances. Very yin and yang.
Splunge for me too! I think it's a great-idea-but-possibly-not-and-I'm-not-being-indecisive!!
I still don't understand anything about string theory. Thank you /. for once more making me feel stupid.
Once you've put Octavarium by Dream Theater on and smoked a fat joint, this will make a lot more sense.
To you, at least.
Finally had enough. Come see us over at https://soylentnews.org/
Hang on a minute... "Similarly, the extra dimensions that strings require would probably be far too small to detect by available methods." What? I was under the impression a dimension was like a mathematical axis, i.e. infinite in two directions...? I keep seeing a lot of articles on this sort of low level physics and mathsy stuff, and I'm not sure if I'm not understanding it because it is too complicated, but I'm starting to think the reporters are dumbing everything down and trying to explain complicated topics using nontechnical language, just throwing in the odd keywords to sound clever. There seem to be two extremes - sciencey news articles written by reporters which try to give a general idea to people who don't have a clue (It's something to do with holography, dimensions, strings and is far too complicated for you), and sources like wikipedia, which you need to already know what it's telling you to understand (I'm not saying that is a bad thing, I'm saying wikipedia is not good for teaching things - which it isn't supposed to be, I think). Can't I have something inbetween?
String theory is ripe with predictions. The problem is we can't test most of them directly, hence the main problem - lack of falsifiability (see: not even wrong).
The thing is, "God did it" doesn't give you any equations or principles. String theory, while it may turn out to be completely wrong, at least gives us something to test.
...math for a complex 3-D system ...
was probably meant to be "complicated". "Complex 3d" means C^3... or (R+iR)^3 if you prefer.
Any guest worker system is indistinguishable from indentured servitude.
That still doesn't explain string cheese. :P
They just make up math to cover everything.
None of it makes any sense, and no one understands it, it just fits what we observe.
When it doesn't fit, they add layers to the math to make it fit. It's not a theory, it's a table of data written in the most convoluted way imaginable.
And this whole hologram bullshit is retarded. A "news" story about a "new" "theory" of how our 3D universe may be a holographic projection of a 2D plane on the edge of the universe comes out every few months. It's bullshit, and they always make an analogy to holograms, which are 2D but store 3D information.
What fucking horse shit. Holograms are 3D (NOT 2D) and reflect light in 3D. To interpret a hologram, you read it as 2D data by viewing it from a single angle and alter the relative angle of the light incident on the surface to obtain more 2D data. Multiple sets of 2D data are then combined (by our magical eyes, or whatever reading device you want to use) and the 3D information is reconstructed. Effectively, a hologram compresses 3D data into thin 3D data, and analyzing it from multiple angles allows us to decompresses it decently.
The incompetence if fucking astounding, and I wish the fucking scientific community would just say GTFO to string theorists until they can produce an actual fucking theory. Too bad so many scientists are in desperate need of grant money and are afraid of being ridiculed ("lol it's ok if you don't understand it, most people don't").
I think the problem is that it is so complicated it predicts everything that can or could happen. So the math is interesting to apply after the fact--but you can't extract the real from the possible results through the math alone.
Having to many points is the same as having none at all. And that's what String Theory in its current form seems to be.
"Ultracold" here refers to degenerate Fermi gases, not Bose-Einstein condensates (BEC).
Here's a layman article:
A Fermi gas of atoms
Deborah Jin
Physics World, 2002
And the original publication by the Duke group:
Observation of a Strongly Interacting Degenerate Fermi Gas of Atoms
K. M. O'Hara, S. L. Hemmer, M. E. Gehm, S. R. Granade, J. E. Thomas
Science Vol 298, p 2179 - 2182 (2002)
If you want to be taken seriously, avoid descriptions like "a shadow world sitting in a higher dimension." It's a meaningless analogy that only serves to make your field sound like pseudoscience BS.
While I am not sure that I agree with the sentiment on religion (we all have our own ways of coping... religion isn't the worst), I think you pretty much got it with string theory. It's disingenuous to call it science. Calling it math would be more appropriate. As a matter of fact, if it must remain a priory because its assumptions are not testable, it must be math. Now calling it religion is probably not fitting the bill. It is still based on postulate-and-then-use-logic-to-deduce paradigm. As opposed to religions' vision-followed-by-political-expedience paradigm. For anyone who wants to argue that "religion uses logic, too," I say "fair enough." But math uses only logic to come up with conclusions. And math can be based on arbitrary assumptions from which those conclusions are drawn (the only restriction is non-self-contradiction). Whereas religion will attempt to use plausible assumptions and then draw arbitrary (from the point of view of logical consistency) conclusions.
Any guest worker system is indistinguishable from indentured servitude.
If it isn't testable it has no place in science.
Study it if it makes you feel good, but understand that you're not practicing anything scientific.
------ The best brain training is now totally free : )
Here is the thing. There are people that understand it, and can explain it. Just because you need a Phd to understand it.
You are right to be skeptical, but don't confuse not being able to understand something with it not being understandable.
It also make predictions.
There are tests, we need a certain collider to come on line...
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
So what your saying is if anyone on slashdot asked a super hot model out she would be ultra cold to them? I think I finally understand string theory or is that relativity?
i thought once I was found, but it was only a dream.
Mathematical mental masturbation does not constitute a scientific theory. I need to see hypotheses and tests before I will even consider giving these models the honor of being called a theory.
And you wonder why so many people believe ID proponents when they say that Darwinian evolution is "only" a theory.
The thing is, "God did it" doesn't give you any equations or principles.
Sure it does! God(0)* = the universe! See? Beautiful, mathematical proof!
*Definition of the God function left as an exercise for the reader.
"16MB (fuck off, MiB fascists)" - The Mighty Buzzard
...all claiming that String theory is not testable.
To these people, I'd like to point out that:
1] Not being testable with current technology is not the same as not making any testable predictions. Technology advances, after all, and there are predictions that were made by Einstein that are still being tested today.
2] It's flat out wrong to say there is no work being done to test String theory. The LHC will begin to unlock a number of answers in this regard.
"It's caused by forces" sounds an awful lot like "God did it"
"It's caused by atoms" sounds an awful lot like "God did it"
etc etc
To be pedantic, science does not require belief. That's the point. Anything that qualifies as science is replicable. You're supposed to be able to take the described starting conditions and the described procedure and end up with the described result. If you don't, either you did something wrong or it's not science. Worthwhile science tends to require very careful adherence to the descriptions, and then requires some serious thought to relate the results to the conclusion. It can be difficult to perform the thinking correctly. This is where belief starts to creep in where it shouldn't.
The difficulty of correctly relating results to conclusions gives rise to our current conundrum in physics. Relativity is a bunch of equations that make predictions which can be experimentally verified (we think). Quantum mechanics is another bunch of equations that make predictions which can be experimentally verified (we think). Take one set of those equations and start plugging them in to the other set, and everything goes whacky. You get infinite answers for things that we know darn well aren't infinite. Therefore there's something wrong. String theory arose out of mathematicians trying to reconcile the two sets of equations.
That seems to have been a bad idea. As you say, it can't be tested. So there are people out there who are questioning relativity and quantum mechanics. It may be that there is something wrong with one or the other or both sets of equations. They SEEM to work really really well. We talk to space probes using engineering that uses relativity. We build computer chips using engineering that uses quantum mechanics. The equations seems to describe their respective phenomena really well. So if there's something wrong with one or the other, it's a very subtle something. String theory starts with the premise that there's nothing wrong with either, and proceeds to cheat by postulating physical things that are theoretically undetectable.
I'm not so sure that was the right way to go. Both theories, and all of their predecessors, started out with the premise that there was something wrong with the earlier theory. The wrongness got steadily less with each successive iteration. This time, the wrongness is so tiny that nobody has come up with a way to isolate it in a hundred years.
My money is on something wrong with relativity. Quantum mechanics can be explored and demonstrated using built things, like computer chips. Relativity is much less amenable to exploration with built artifacts. Lots of it is pinned on seen things, particularly astronomical things. Historically, we've not been very good with seen things. We're much better with built things.
I'm not convinced that the behavior of ultra-cold and super-hot things require string theory to explain. This stuff is still very new, so it will be interesting to see what alternative explanations people can come up with.
Yah, that's the problem - every theology ever invented can be summed up with one line of code:
If ($cause == $unknown) { exit("God did it!); }
Of course, they all like to pretty it up by adding comments and redefining meaningless variables, but the end result is the same.
The article dorks up the notion of holography by associating it with 3-d holograms. The concept is that you don't need to know whats in the middle if you can draw a border around it and measure the surface of that border with sufficient resolution.
In "near field measurements" you are too close to the source to treat it as a simple point source, or a point source with directionality to its output. Normally you would have to be in the far field (at least several wavelengths of the frequency you're measuring or several times the physical size of the source) to be able to measure it using point receivers. Being in the near field you can't simply scale your measurement to farther distances using the normal spreading formula involving r^2 or r^3.
As an example, sticking a mic 4 inches away from a loudspeaker can't tell you what the sound level will be 100 feet away. Amusingly, the typical 1-meter you normally on stated SPL levels is too close for larger woofers.
Holographic measuring is the concept of putting an array of sensors in the near field surrounding the object and being able to extrapolate far field measurements. There are criteria for the number of required measurement points and spacing based on the distance and frequency you're trying to measure. From those measurements you can determine the far field measurements and make some calculations about whats inside the boundary. One technique is to take all those new measurements, amplitude and phase, and substitute those as individual point sources in calculating the far field sound levels.
It has always irked me how easily people misuse the word 'theory'. Until it is testable, with reproducable results, it will remain 'String Hypothesis'.
I think the issue with the testability of String Theory is as follows:
In a theory, there are generally variables. For example, in General Relativity, there are "constants" (called such because they are measured via experimental science) that emerge from the theory. These "constants" are actually variables in General Relativity (if you were to set them to different values you would have a different "universe"). However the important thing is that "variables" that we had yet to measure which the theory predicted would be certain values (given other variables which we had measured and plugegd into the theory) turned out to be consistent with what General Relativity said they would have to be when we did get to performing experiments to confirm their values (so far).
The problem with String Theory is that there are many variables (not a show stopper) but that they seem to need to be fixed at certain values to arrive at "our universe". One might say General Relativity did the same thing, but no, given a set of variables that we had measured, we got predictions on what the values of the remaining variables in the theory must be. This does not seem to be the case with String Theory where we have not found any good reason to set the variables the way they must be to get our universe's constants out of the theory.
Why is this important? Because String Theory MIGHT be correct (i.e. more accurate than General Relativity) but we have no indication of why the variables in the theory should be set the way they are (i.e. no experiment has been constructed as far as I know that will measure a value in reality and set it to a specific value in the theory). And even if that were to happen, it seems that it is possible to fiddle with the other variables in String Theory to again arrive at the model of our universe. So it seems that we would need to experimentally resolve each variable in String Theory independently which says to me that the theory has no predictive capability.
IANAP, just an enthusiastic amateur who is annoyed at the state of physics.
-- Humans, because the hardware IS the software.
Yes there are tests but the tests won't be definitive. One of the problems with string theories is that there are a multitude of them and they very very mutable. The collider will only rule out (likely) or confirm (doubtful) a subset of the possible string theories. However, the remainder of the string theories will be safe from falsifiable experimentation. What is needed but lacking is way to winnow out candidate string theories that a) describe our/the universe, b) solve current quandaries of physics like why certain physical constants have the values that they do, c) make predictions which are practical to confirm, d) are parsimonious as string theories are notorious for introducing several new constants and constructs for every one they explain.
Now I may not be a PhD but I am a taxpayer who is happy to see some of his taxes go to funding basic scientific research. And I agree with those who say that the current fashionability of string theories preclude other approaches from being funded and that string theories are getting a free pass on standards of prediction, observation, and experiment that other branches of science are held to.
Incidentally, a hallmark of all other good theories in physics to date is that all can be represented by fairly simple systems of equations which an Asimov, a Sagan, or for that matter a good HS science teacher can explain to an interested (and research funding...) public. Be they Newtons Law's, Special and General Relativity, or Maxwell's Equations, good theories tend to have a parsimonious tightness to them that practically shout out what experiments one should do next. Now I realize that in the end, that the universe need not conform to such beautiful systems but the fact that to date that it has and string theories most certainly are not give me pause.
The FA at least holds out some hope for winnowing out more implausible string theories (and no the idea that all string theories describe a possible universe cuts zero ice until someone finds a way to observe/test that) at least and maybe showing the way to an actual viable theory that is more than pretty math.
As a rule, if you cannot test something today, and you don't have a working blueprint for a machine that, once built, can test your theory, then you don't really have a testable theory.
Okay, I get that string theory is much more elegant and being merely and engineer, mathematically well over my head, but this is getting a little ridiculous. I'm having a difficult time recognizing string theory as science.
Has string theory truly helped us understand anything better? If it has improved our understanding, what predictions of physical phenomena have come of this increased understanding of the physical universe? If your theory can only explain, not predict, aka No Predictive Power, then it is no better than pop psychology.
If the energy states required to test the theory are at a scale that is not physically measurable, what are we really talking about? That's not physics, man. That's metaphysics.
A lot of smart guys or no, string theory has yet to offer anything of real scientific vale and shouldn't be considered science until it does. Science has pumped decades of its best minds into this and its time we said enough. Those hundreds of PhDs should be considered PhDs in math, not physics.
Blasphemer! The Glorious String demands you be purified by Super-Hot fire!
The Long Now Foundation
1] Not being testable with current technology is not the same as not making any testable predictions. Technology advances, after all, and there are predictions that were made by Einstein that are still being tested today.
Yes it is true that certain implications of Einstein's theories have only become testable recently. But it is also true that others were testable even with turn of the 20th century technology. As I recall, an expedition was mounted to South Africa to test the prediction that the eclipse happening there would make it possible to actually measure a particular kind of gravitational lensing by the Sun. That the measured lensing agreed strongly with the theory was a strong confirmation. Einstein's theories also explained a precession in Mercury's orbit that Newton could not and explained the lesser degrees of it in the other inner planet orbits. By the early Seventies, it was even possible to directly measure time dilation with synchronized atomic clocks one moving in a jet liner and the other left on the ground.
In thirty five years, I would almost surely think that SOME aspects/predictions would have been practical to test.
String theories have been around for thirty five years and the LHC will only be able to test a subset of possible string theories leaving a great many safe from falsification by it.
This article really is not about string theory. The article is really about the math developed as people have explored string theory. It is this math that has been applied in explaining "perfect liquid" experiments.
It's not really maths either though. It might turn out to be maths, but at present there are too many points in string theory where the physicists have been unable to prove "obvious" theorems (not base axioms, but actual "x follows from y" type theorems) but have continued to build on them *assuming* them to be true. And as anyone who has ever encountered any amount of post-high-school maths will tell you, sometimes "obviously true" theorems in maths... aren't true. So it's very possible that a not insignificant part of what we call string theory will turn out to be incorrect.
Am I the only one who imagined some rope-based game for geeks to hook up with hot chicks after reading the title? I am? Ok.
Name one prediction of string theory that could be tested with any technology. In other words, name one prediction of string theory that if found false (in any way) would disprove string theory. I'll give you a better one: name one prediction of string theory.
And just to cut short one level of string-theory silliness: "there might be 11 dimensions, but if there's not then we can still make the theory work with four" is not a prediction.
Because of theoretical advances and other sources of investigation, most physicists believe that LHC will do nothing more than confirm the current most accepted version of the Standard Model. Doesn't mean we shouldn't do it, but this is different than earlier experiments of this type, where physicists were more exploring than confirming. And LHC will not be exploring the energy levels that most string theorists say would actually provide them useful information for further developing the theory (e.g. will not allow us to differentiate between an 11 dimensional and 4 dimensional universe).
So, basically, I agree with any of the other comments here that what we have is a bunch of cosmologists running around doing very interesting math, but not doing any useful physics.
May be string theory is the biggest joke God ever played. In order to progress in science, we have to first have faith.
As an interested layman who counts cosmology as a 'hobby', I keep feeling that the String Theories as well as M-Theory are somehow flawed for the very reason that they are not parsimonious and introduce more questions than they seem to answer. I also keep feeling that at some point some brilliant young cosmologist is going to come up with a theory more elegant and 'simple' by an order of magnitude that renders them obsolete.
Release him, foul infinity! The power of the dimensions compels you!
Space Shuttle was a program that strapped humans to an explosion and tried to stab through the sky with fire and math
You take take something obviously false like ghosts and attempt to compare it to whatever you'd like to cast disrepute on. Classy. Second, to have a ghost detector, you're required to first know that ghosts exist (otherwise then your ghost detector isn't really a ghost detector).
Also, you don't seem to recognize the long history of advances in science which were purely mathematical to begin with. For example: Black holes were first predicted mathematically, without any observations to back it up. Did scientists ignore it?. Hell no. Even neutron stars were originally just theoretical too. Whenever a physicist started doing calculations involving black holes or neutron stars, did people crap all over their work and berate it to the point of halting interest in the subject? Were they castigated for exceeding the bounds of the Theory of General Relativity?
Eventually we got the technology to test both of those ideas, and the vast majority consensus is that black holes and neutron stars exist. There's no evidence yet that rules out the possible existence of sufficiently convincing indirect evidence for string theory. Yes, direct evidence is unlikely, but we've got enough indirect evidence
Not only that but my own string theory related theory is that 99% of the posters here bitching about string theory do not have the necessary knowledge of physics and math to actually have a truly informed opinion about string theory. And of the remaining 1% I would venture that only a small fraction have gone to the necessary effort to actually properly evaluate it. But then it's so safe to try and look intelligent by chanting with the crowd; after all everyone around you believes you.
Here's a thought - the right to an opinion isn't a requirement that you have one.
The tyrant will always find a pretext for his tyranny - Aesop
Another point that I think is invalid is the idea that string theory is able to make room to explain any result and therefore not testable. This can be said of any theory. Consider the standard model and all the articles posted on slashdot of observed particles that were not predicted. Do people think the standard model won't find room to accommodate them? People are harder on string theory than the standard model because it is so full of alien ideas. Can you imagine if string theory required, yet forbid the graviton like the standard model does? Sure there are theories of quantum gravity but they include axioms no less radicle than those in string theory.
whatever it is , its verifiable, it has more reality than any string theory.
I mock religion all the time. I have to hold science and scientists up to the same standard. I'd be a hypocrite to accept unprovable scientific mumbojumbo, interdimensional whatnots and all. at face value while discounting unprovable religious mumbojumbo all the time.
I agree that if something is not testable then it is not science. I also agree that we should not accept things as true without adequate evidence. But, I've noticed a trend of people who seem to just about (if not whole-heartedly) deify science and I guess I don't fully understand why.
What I mean is that if something cannot be proven scientifically it is claimed either (1) it does not exist or (2) should not be accepted unless and until it can be proven scientifically. Since when does science answer everything? Science has a limited domain in which it operates. If you try to apply it outside of that domain it breaks down.
For instance, to quote from: here ... "Science never will be able to observe or explain such concepts as love, hate, sorrow, or joy. Science never will be able to explain why a man in a foxhole during a war throws himself on a hand grenade to save his fellow soldiers."
I have never seen, tasted, touched, smelled, or heard love. I have observed the effects and expression of love, but not love itself. If I were to apply science only, I would say love does not exist. Love is not something that is testable. Yet, we know that love does exist as much as hate, sorrow, and joy. In such cases, we use logic and reasoning, without the scientific method, and still come to a valid and truthful conclusion.
The same follows in a court of law. Science can aide in solving a crime and bringing about an innocent or guilty verdict based on that evidence. But there are times where the truth is not ascertained by science, but by eye witness testimony. If 100 people confess to seeing a crime, and their stories match up very closely, then through logic and reasoning, the truth is discovered. There are no scientific hypotheses or tests performed.
So, I have a question to which I would appreciate some honest answers. Despite the tone of this post, I am not trying to start a flamewar. I really would like to understand some alternative viewpoints.
Why is it we readily accept things proven scientifically, yet reject those things that cannot be proven scientifically, but can be proven with other valid means (e.g., logic and reasoning)?
Actually, most physicists believe the LHC will fail to find the Higgs and in doing so give some hints as to why the Standard Model is broken.
Most physicists are optimistic like that.
How we know is more important than what we know.
My non-technical mother in law is interested in string theory but she has no clue what it's about, except that everything in the universe is made out of tiny "strings" that go into another dimension. She is a retired grade school teacher and knows what atoms and subatomic particles are, and she understands the idea of a line having zero width and a plane having zero thickness. I'm trying to come up with an analogy that will get across the basic idea.
Say the universe is two-dimensional, like the surface of a drum. No thickness, just a plane. Then say somebody outside of the universe pokes a needle through the drum head and pulls a piece of thread through it. The thread is one-dimensional, with no actual thickness, so the place where it goes through is just a point. Nobody who lived in the 2-dimensional surface could see the point because it has no thickness. But what if the thread vibrates like a guitar string... as it moves back and forth, the point where it goes through the drum also moves back and forth. The spot becomes a little line. If the string didn't vibrate exactly back and forth but kind of wandered around in a fuzzy pattern, the point would look like a hazy dot.
Because the string vibrates so fast, the people in the plane of the drumhead would never perceive it as a point, but only as a blurry spot (assuming they could see things that small).
That's what a subatomic particle is in our universe, except in 3 dimensions. Wherever a vibrating cosmic string passes through our universe, it forms a hazy dot-like pattern in space, which to us is a subatomic particle.
I know this is far from exact, but does it give enough of the general idea?
Perfect Holographic Liquid...Auuugghhh...
Sig this!
Slashdot appears to have cut off a sizable chunk of my post, so allow me to continue with a 2nd post...
Yes, direct evidence is unlikely, but we've got enough indirect evidence to prove black holes & neutron stars exist, so it's not unreasonable to assume that we could find sufficiently convincing indirect evidence for string theory.
Lastly, the use of the world theory here is arguably legit. Not in a scientific context, but rather in a mathematical context. Ever heard of Set theory, game theory and chaos theory?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory#Fields_of_study_called_.22theories.22
Those are fields of math, and until there are experiments, arguably string theory is too.
But that is no different than quite a bit of Math itself, where there is a lot built on certain very difficult unsolved problems. There are quite a few theorems where the only currently developed proof is conditional upon the validity of one of those major unsolved theorems. Perfectly normal.
Stylish sheet to fix many problems in Slashdot's D3: https://gist.github.com/801524
Syntax error at ");"
Yes and no. I read the post and the poster displays an incomplete understanding of the what he's talking about. In some ways, he's wrong, but mostly he's incomplete. I suppose my reply was incomplete for no other reason that I was being a jerk and dismissive.
The first paragraph, nothing inherently wrong there.
The second paragraph about "we think" things have been experimentally verified is where it starts to go off the rails. Relativity and quantum mechanics have both predicted, verified and repeatable results of both experiments and observations.
I'm going to use relativity for a moment here because the OP states that he thinks something is "wrong" with relativity or somehow stands weaker footing than quantum mechanics, specifically because he believes that devices have not been built to explore and demonstrate. No.
Going back to my previous example, relativity predicts that for the velocity and orbit of a GPS satellite, there will be a time dilation amounting to a very small fraction of a second. There MUST be compensation for this discrepancy, otherwise, your GPS unit would be off by about 10kms a DAY. Is this an experiment? No, it's even better. The experimental confirmations took place before. This is an everyday practical application of the Theory of Relativity. We know that in these conditions, what we know holds to be true. There is nothing inherently wrong with either relativity or QM, because in their respective spheres, they work.
The fundamental concept that Areyoukiddingme is misunderstanding is that scientific endeavors are not predicated on the concept that the ideas of the present, and by association the past, are wrong. Newton's ideas as laid in the Principia are as fundamentally sound today as they were during his time. However, at the extremes of mass and speed, it starts to fray at the edges. Does that mean he was wrong? Negative. His understanding was incomplete , which is a very different thing from wrong. As Newton himself was standing on the shoulders of giants, others would build on his theories, all the way up to Einstein and those who followed him.
This is a very important nuance - the elimination of errors in our understanding is a side effect of the purpose of science, which is to increase our understanding. This is a constructive, not a destructive intellectual process.
I'm not a physicist, so my understanding is very limited, but the answer to you question is "probably yes".
The thing is the phenomenon string theory help understand and predict is not related to quantum gravity, for which string theory is developed. This thing called Maldacena duality and state that certain quark-gluon interaction have the same mathematical description as stringy black hole. Surprising thing is, that it seems such quark-gluon object - "dual black hole" was observed at RHIC collider. Why "seems" in that statement ? Because calculations, which fit to observed data, were very imprecise - they were made for different, though similar quantum theory. So now physicists puzzled, why so imprecise calculations fit experiment so perfectly.
Wow, this sounds like one of those "not even wrong" posts. Except... it is wrong.
kurzweil_freak
5th Kyu Genbukan Ninpo/KJJR student
Be the darkness that allows the light to shine.
As an interested layman who counts cosmology as a 'hobby', I keep feeling that the String Theories as well as M-Theory are somehow flawed for the very reason that they are not parsimonious and introduce more questions than they seem to answer.
I can't help but wondering, how is that flawed? Almost every scientific breakthrough yields more questions than answers.
I also keep feeling that at some point some brilliant young cosmologist is going to come up with a theory more elegant and 'simple' by an order of magnitude that renders them obsolete.
I'm not sure. String theory is much like quantum physics a few years ago: lots of beautiful equations that are unmanageable for any current practical applications, but they have yet to be disproven. Once our understanding of the world as explained by ST grows, we might actually see some practical uses for it, like how QD explained viscosity. Besides, due to our understanding of QD we have been able to prove and refine a lot of classical physics equations. It is not unthinkable that ST might do the same.
Then again, it might just be a load of bollocks.
Not to pick on you because I appreciate your attempt to explain this, but, if you think about it, a shadow does not exist.
That is more sophistry than scientific argumentation. You're simply discarding projection as a (valid) means of examining an object.
It is an inappropriately named VOID
To continue your sophistry, how can something be a void?
Light is blocked by something else, to create what we incorrectly refer to as a thing (shadow)
... which is still a valid way of examining that "something else", since we have no way to observe it or measure it directly.
It's a meaningless analogy that only serves to make your field sound like pseudoscience BS.
The miracle of pseudoscience has brought us fields and theories such as reflexology, chiropractic, magnet theory, global warming, scientology(ish), psychobabble, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radithor> radioactive medicinces , or the movement to close down the Large Hadron Collider.
Without psuedoscience, what would all the people in the world do if they wanted to get their neck cracked, their feet massaged, and their brain demagnetized while enjoying a nice UV cooking session and methodically fluffing L. Ron Hubbard's ego while enjoying a passive prostate warming and impeding scientific progress?
I mean sheesh, you have to give pseudoscience some credit...
Motorcycles, Robots, Space Gossip and More!
So it's like, 2^64 = 0?
Until String Theory (which is definitely a catchy name) produces testable predictions, it will remain at the same level as religion, as it still requires a belief that it explains "everything".
Who says you have to "believe" it in order to study it? I think String Theory is quite interesting and enjoying studying some of the concepts around it (although freely admit that a lot of the maths is beyond me right now). It doesn't mean I believe that the universe actually works that way - it might, it might not. Maybe in the future we'll know for certain, maybe we won't. But regardless, it's still an interesting line of research that MIGHT yield results one day - belief is NOT required (as with any science).
My book about LSD and Self-Discovery
Also on facebook as: DroppingAcidDaleBewan
Well, you're not quite doing it right then.
Science is the process of taking an idea and testing whether it's verifiable. You can disapprove of the idea, but it hasn't really anything to do with science itself.
Superstring theory is an interesting idea.. and if it's correct, will probably give us a greater understanding of the universe, once we actually know how to play with it, and understand how it works.
yet more proof that the super-hot are ultra-cold?
Nah, the just discovered the existence of the Plane of Shadow. Now we just need to figure out how to plane shift to it.
"Lack of speed can be overcome. In the worst case by patience." --Znork
The thing is, "God did it" doesn't give you any equations or principles. String theory, while it may turn out to be completely wrong, at least gives us something to test.
Wooooosh? No?
Granted, GP wasn't funny, but he makes a slightly valid point. String theory have not yet given us anything to test, although parent is claiming the opposite.
At the moment there are no falsifiable predictions that is actually possible to carry out. Thus you can make a (though somewhat extreme) comparison to religions.
I lost my sig.
If 100 people confess to seeing a crime, and their stories match up very closely, then through logic and reasoning, the truth is discovered. There are no scientific hypotheses or tests performed. ...
Why is it we readily accept things proven scientifically, yet reject those things that cannot be proven scientifically, but can be proven with other valid means (e.g., logic and reasoning)?
There's nothing unscientific about that approach - you're still making observations (the witnesses make observations, we make observations of the witnesses), and forming a model about what happened. That's still following the scientific method - we just don't think of it as "science" because it's not at very high tech, you don't need a scientist in a white coat to explain it to the jury, and the "science" involved is rather trivial.
If we find out about something through observations, forming hypotheses, testing - that's science.
"Science never will be able to observe or explain such concepts as love, hate, sorrow, or joy. Science never will be able to explain why a man in a foxhole during a war throws himself on a hand grenade to save his fellow soldiers."
Of course we can investigate these things scientifically. And if we can't - then no other method will help us find out either.
If think your confusion comes from confusing the scientific method, with a much more narrower usage of the term (i.e., meaning physics, chemistry or biology). When a historian or detective looks at evidence and works out what happened, we call that "history" or "crime solving" not "science", but it's still the same process as the scientific method.
"math" is not singular.... gentlemen, start your engines. let the best pun win.
Any guest worker system is indistinguishable from indentured servitude.
Define "God". If your definition uses the word "intelligence", define "intelligence". If it uses a word derived from "conscious", define "conscious". This isn't even an argument (not yet). So far it's just an attempt to reduce miscommunication.
Any guest worker system is indistinguishable from indentured servitude.
...if it must remain a priory because its assumptions...
a priori
thanks. my bad.
Any guest worker system is indistinguishable from indentured servitude.
Is that where we could find Tiamat?
I drank what? -- Socrates
The LHC has an off chance of indicating that some predictions may be wrong, but it's a long shot that an experiment in the foreseeable future will conclusively say one way or the other. So while you're right that string theory has given more equations than "god did it", it doesn't give us all that much more to test, which is the problem.
... "God did it", don't you think?
You give the Higgs boson too much credit, there are many other particles in the Standard Model that deserve recognition as well.
If someone is passing you on the right, you are an asshole for driving in the wrong lane.
I'm pretty sure Tiamat lives on the 1st level of Baator.
"Lack of speed can be overcome. In the worst case by patience." --Znork
If anything, God is the answer to all this. One thing we can all agree on, is that there are a lot of questions and whether you believe there is a God or there is no God, you are making that decision purely on faith. Science is just another extension of faith. String theory, of all things, should highlight this. We don't understand everything and our best efforts are even still, just approximations (albeit very good ones). While pursuing science has a very practical side (making our quality of life better), it also has a philosophical side, hoping we will someday have an "answer" to all this. There is absolutely no evidence that science will ever provide a final answer(s), but we continue to put our faith in it to provide these answers. If the answer to everything turns out to be a set of mathematical equations, then I would say that that is God. If it turns out we simply cannot completely define our universe through science, then clearly there must be something else that provides this answer. Who knows "what" that is?
A modified standard model works for me
Of course it does. That's like saying that digital electronics theory works for you, no need to bother with analog electronics theory.
True, yet digital is nonetheless based on analog.
I'm by no means the biggest advocate of string theory, but obviously it is intended (regardless of its current incompleteness) to be a deeper level of description of the universe than is the standard model.
Even if string theory (or loop quantum gravity or spin foams) eventually succeeds at being a good theory of everything, it is quite possible, even likely, that it will continue to be more practical for most purposes to work in terms of a modified standard model.
We still make heavy use of Newtonian physics, after all.
But that doesn't mean that a theory of everything is pointless; its purpose is not identical to that of simplified working models.
Professional Wild-Eyed Visionary
This topic comes up now and again, this idea that science requires no faith. It is a false, misleading idea, and it only serves to further fracture humanity. I responded to such a post a while back; you can read it in full here if you like. I'm reposting much of it below because it applies equally well here.
When a scientist posits a hypothesis, he believes it to be true, or that there is a good chance that it is true. This faith, based on his previous experience, is what compels him to run experiments to test his hypothesis, which may turn out to be true or false. More fundamentally, he has faith that by experimenting he will be able to prove or disprove his hypothesis, or at least discover whether or not it is provable at this time, even though the only thing he has to go on is his personal experience.
[Faith also] plays a role in science at a greater than individual level. Repeatability is well and good as a test, but one must have faith that testing was actually performed as reported, and accurate results obtained. A better example, perhaps, is when we accept the word of geologists that the rock in a certain area is X million years old. This statement is based on the faith that the geologist knows what he is about, and on his part, faith that the methods used by his testing equipment are sound, and so on. You also have faith that the scientific process will continue to yield practical results; otherwise what would be the point? "In its most extreme form, scientism is the faith that science has no boundaries, that in due time all human problems and all aspects of human endeavor will be dealt and solved by science alone." (source: wiki::scientism)
On faith in religion:
You may complain that I have been discussing "faith" while what you wrote is "blind faith." The truth is that there are individuals who take the existence of God on blind faith, that is, solely on the faith of others, and there are other individuals who take the truths found by science on blind faith. Yet just as there are also individuals who take science on informed faith, that is, their own experimentation, so too are there individuals who believe in God based on informed faith. What informs them is their own spiritual* experience, and though that may never satisfy you it certainly satisfies them. It is the divergence of experience that explains why believing in God is an option for some and not for others; it is the same thing that allows you and I to see the same film at the same time in the same theater and come out with opposite opinions as to its worth.
Science tells us a lot about the universe in which we live; I do not intend to dispute that by pointing out the role that faith plays in science. I do not intend to defend any religion in particular, either, only to defend the option of choosing to follow a religion without being viewed as somehow inferior to or less intelligent than those who choose no religion.
Faith should not be disparaged simply because it is faith, because that is a hypocrisy. Who among you desires an unfaithful wife or friend? The scientific method has produced many wonderful things, so faith in it is well-founded. Religions have also produced many wonderful things (though its productions are often social and personal) so for many individuals faith in them is also well-founded. If in cases it is not, that is a fault of judgment in the individuals practicing the religion and not a fault of faith. Your problem should be framed as "misplaced faith" and not "faith" as a whole, otherwise it is ludicrous when examined.
As for string theory, I know too little of it to say anything with authority, so I'm not going to write it off but I'm not going to try to build something using its principles either. The consensus is that it is currently untestable, so it probably shouldn't be hyped as much as it is. But cursing it as "Not Science!" and throwing it out entirely is prematurely destructive behavior. A surface-level explanation of Relativity sounds less bizarre to us now only because we've been living with it for a century.
Your brain is not a computer.
If anything, God is the answer to all this.
This is white noise. Aka "dodging the question". The rest was just a sermon, so it wasn't worth addressing.
Any guest worker system is indistinguishable from indentured servitude.
That is not what I'm saying. All of the successful theories I mentioned were not simple to discover or derive but they all
a) unify previously disassociated facts
b) make practical to study predictions
c) are parsimonious which isn't the same as simple at all
String theory only accomplishes a) at the expense of b) and c). What I was saying is that theories that have been successful unifying ideas, making predictions, and even leading to technology have all had a quality of parsimonious elegance to them. String theory only unifies ideas at the expense of being impractical to study by observation and by doing unspeakable things to Mr. Occam. It has had over 35 years and only now will the new Collider be able to falsify some of them. Most theories don't go that long without being subject to some and preferably many forms of falsification.
And I was not suggesting that string theory should not be studied. I AM suggesting that other approaches like Quantum Loop Gravity and others shouldn't be starved in it's almost exclusive favor.
Sorry. You seemed to genuinely want to know what I thought about God and I certainly didn't have to answer your question (and it served me no benefit to do so). In turn, I received an incredibly rude response from you. I answered your question. You asked me to define God and that is God to me. If you don't want a sermon, then I suggest you don't ask people to define God. Your response was uncalled for.
You seemed to genuinely want to know what I thought about God
I didn't.
You asked me to define God and that is God to me.
I wanted you to define an English word. I didn't ask for your opinion of it or any emotional connection that you have to it. If I asked you to define the word "yogurt", I would expect something along the lines "a fermented milk product produced by adding lactobacillus bulgaricus and streptococcus thermophilus bacteria". I would not expect something along the lines "yogurt is the only way to have good middle eastern food". You throw around the word "god" and capitalize it to emphasize that it has some personal meaning to you. That's fine. But you used that word in a discussion of a scientific topic. That's when you get to have the burden of producing an objective definition. Instead you gave a sermon. If you don't think you can explain a term you use, don't use it when you describe a scientific phenomenon.
Any guest worker system is indistinguishable from indentured servitude.
The one thing I found strange about String theory is that it made Physicists study Algebraic Geometry (with Sheaves and such). Algebraic Geometry got started as a field when mathematicians tried to link up the algebraic properties of polynomial equations (what "algebraic solutions" does it have is one of the questions you might ask) with the differential/topological (how much curvature does it have, how many "multi-dimensional" pseudo-holes does it have -- think about the questions of curvature and "holes" you might ask about multi-holed doughnut in many dimensions -- this is a gross simplification, but I am grasping for intuitive analogies).
What I remember about Algebraic Geometry is that it was one of the harder fields of study in all of mathematics and only a few mathematicians in the world could wield the theory with any real authority and skill (Faltings is a famous such Mathematician). At the time it made me worry that maybe humans would never be clever enough to truly figure out the rules of the universe. Because if we are already have to understand some Algebraic Geometry to get a handle on the current most respected "theory of everything", what would happen if the "theory of everything" required one level of abstraction complication beyond that? There has been a constant progression of theories in Physics from the less abstracted to the crazier highly abstracted (quantum mechanics and general relativity already can only truly be understood by at most a few hundred people in the world). Maybe this time we are going beyond the ability of us poor human mortals to understand.
In defense of String theory, though it may give no predictions, it does give those who study it a feeling of "enlightenment", as if they are getting a potential intuitive understanding of how the universe is put together. Studying mathematics in general can create such a feeling (I think in general that is why mathematicians love their field of study), but it is way cooler to think that the theory and the real world might have some linkage. Also, from what I understand, competing theories all have the feeling of artificial glitchy repairs to existing theories without granting much enlightenment. If you give me a bunch of data, I can create an equation which will spit out the data. But if the equation does not offer insight into the nature of the data (for example, you cannot see that it is actually a "repeating wave pattern of visual distortions"), then though it may be useful, it really does not offer much in the way of "enlightenment".
Some may view the usage of the word "enlightenment" as an allusion to some type of religious feeling. That may be, but it is NOT connected to any type of statement that could be read as "this vision that I see is true and those who disagree with me are morally inferior beings and will be viewed as a lesser person by the higher powers that rule the universe". In fact I suspect that those who disagree with me about the worthiness of understanding mathematics may have spent more time worrying about their morality (as opposed to their "faith") and may actually be superior human beings (and may be viewed as such by the higher powers in the universe).
The problem is, for every possible outcome from experiments on LHC, there is a string theory to accommodate it. Each one of those string theories, in turn, has some varient for each and every possible outcome of the next great collider. Thus far, we have nothing to even hint at what variant to prefer.
That is, do all the runs you want and we'll be none the wiser as far as string theory goes.
Really, string 'theory' is not a theory at all. It's a system of mathematical constructs that may prove necessary to describe a suitable theory of everything one day.
I'm not sure I follow what the incessant complaining about String Theory is. String Theory explains all data without being contradicted by any. If it is wrong, it will eventually be proven wrong when the correct theory comes around. Until then, if it proves useful and provides intuitive structures to understand things like entirely new phases of matter, it is serving a very real purpose. Despite this, I appreciate the skepticism of /. Science is skepticism. But let us never forget, science is also the ability to embrace things which once appeared wrong when new data suggests their correctness.
There is a strong historical bias implicit in the examples you give about phenomena that were first predicted purely mathematically. It is true that black holes were first conjectured mathematically before their effects were ever observed, but this success is an exception rather than the rule. Most physical conjectures that are based purely on mathematics are actually false: think of the ether, or any number of now forgotten theories of electricity and magnetism.
Because they are false, they are now forgotten, and because they are forgotten, it seems to you that mathematics alone has a better prediction track record than it really has had. But this is only because you (and I, and everyone) have been exposed to a disproportionate number of successful mathematical ideas.
String theory must be properly viewed as belonging to a long line of crazy mathematical ideas with a very low success rate. Comparing it with spectacular chapters of the history of science is highly premature.
Oh, that's what you wanted! Here, Google> define: God. That should just about clear it up for you, hopefully. In my OP, I used "God in a scientific discussion" in jest. You know, a joke.
kk. i probably got carried away. sorry. i guess i just couldn't see why the Spaghetti Monster would want us to have faith in "string theory".
Any guest worker system is indistinguishable from indentured servitude.