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The Man Who Invented the 26th Dimension

StartsWithABang (3485481) writes Based on all the experiments we've ever been able to perform, we're quite certain that our Universe, from the largest scales down to the microscopic, obeys the physical laws of three spatial dimensions (and one time dimension): a four-dimensional spacetime. But that's not the only possibility mathematically. People had experimented with bringing a fifth dimension in to unify General Relativity with Electromagnetism in the past, but that was regarded as a dead-end. Then in the 1970s, an unknown theoretical physicist working on the string model of the strong interactions discovered that by going into the 26th dimension, some incredibly interesting physics emerged, and String Theory was born.

259 comments

  1. Gotcha covered... by i+kan+reed · · Score: 4, Funny

    Here at discount dimension warehouse you can get 27 dimensions for the price of 26. We honor all competitors empirically undemonstrated theory coupons. More dimensions for your money.

    1. Re:Gotcha covered... by gstoddart · · Score: 2

      LOL ... fsck it, we're going to 30 dimensions. ;-)

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    2. Re:Gotcha covered... by cyberchondriac · · Score: 5, Funny

      I vote for 42.. y'know, to make things consistent.

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    3. Re:Gotcha covered... by Noah+Haders · · Score: 1

      agreed, let's turn this shizznit up to eleven.

    4. Re:Gotcha covered... by meerling · · Score: 1

      So that's your answer then, your ultimate answer, 42 ?

    5. Re:Gotcha covered... by Archangel+Michael · · Score: 2

      Yeah, the problem with 42, is you have to stop off at 34, and as every man knows, all work stops at 34. Physics Porn FTW!

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    6. Re:Gotcha covered... by Tokolosh · · Score: 3, Insightful

      26 base 10 = 42 base 6

      --
      Prove anything by multiplying Huge Number times Tiny Number
    7. Re:Gotcha covered... by Bacon+Bits · · Score: 5, Funny

      Don't listen to him! He sold me a dimension and when I got it home it turned out to be merely a complex vector!

      --
      The road to tyranny has always been paved with claims of necessity.
    8. Re:Gotcha covered... by Yunzil · · Score: 3, Funny

      These dimensions of yours; how big are they? Last time I bought one when I got it home and opened the box I couldn't even see it.

    9. Re:Gotcha covered... by JustOK · · Score: 1

      No one needs more than 640K dimensions.

      --
      rewriting history since 2109
    10. Re:Gotcha covered... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Philosoraptor asks: Is there porn of physics because it exists, or does physics exist because there is porn of it?

    11. Re:Gotcha covered... by ClickOnThis · · Score: 1

      No one needs more than 640K dimensions.

      Tell that to the statistical mechanics theorists. They need 6 dimensions for each particle in the system.

      --
      If it weren't for deadlines, nothing would be late.
    12. Re:Gotcha covered... by FatLittleMonkey · · Score: 1

      LOL ... fsck it, we're going to 30 dimensions. ;-)

      Remember, no matter where you go, there you are.

      --
      Science is all about firing a drunk pig out of a cannon just to see what happens.
    13. Re: Gotcha covered... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      the human eye can only see 30 dimensions, anyone who claims 60 dimensions are betterbis full of shit

    14. Re:Gotcha covered... by Todd+Palin · · Score: 1

      You only can have the extra dimension until you open the box at which point the dimension collapses into the ordinary three dimensions. Next time don't open the box to insure the dimension stays intact. Be warned, however, that some theorists believe that you can't see the extra dimensions, so the extra dimension you purchased might still be alive and well. It might be best to just close the box and hope for the best. Perhaps you can re-sell it on Ebay. How would anyone know you had opened the box?

    15. Re:Gotcha covered... by someone1234 · · Score: 1

      Except if you go nowhere, because then you are still somewhere.

      --
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    16. Re:Gotcha covered... by operagost · · Score: 5, Funny

      Most theoretical physicists I know haven't even made it to base 3.

      --

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    17. Re:Gotcha covered... by rgbatduke · · Score: 2

      Oh, and what about the graphic dimensions and hidden dimensions? Just because your working physical-space dimensionality fits in 640K -- at least, if you have a backing store with a few megadimensions to spare -- doesn't mean that you don't need someplace for God to hang out and run things, or dimensions needed for your inner spiritual eye to be able to visualize the projective results of the stuff in the 640K.

      Now, for just 2^{640!} dollars, I'd be happy to sell you an expansion space with an extra 400K dimensions, to let you offload God into a meta-space of Its own and still have sufficient dimensional resolution to be able to achieve satori or visualize the cosmic whole in some sort of projection. And it comes with both serial and parallel dimensional portals, not to mention a built-in communication channel connecting your working dimensionality with God-space. It also permits you to expand your paltry 64K dimensional mother-Universe to a proper full-scale Universe with all 2^{1024} dimensions that the underlying physics can use -- with indirect dimensional addressing -- accessible.

      For the first time, your matter assemblers and compilers will have the dimensions that they need to work. Inflation will be tremendously accelerated. You can cut the time required for a full-scale big bang reboot to end up with Intelligent Life from 14 billion years to a mere 20! Just think of what you can evolve after that!

      rgb

      --
      Even when the experts all agree, they may well be mistaken. --- Bertrand Russell.
    18. Re:Gotcha covered... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Most theoretical physicists cant even prove they exist until the wave collapses and they do or they don't. The latter eventually being the definitive state

    19. Re: Gotcha covered... by bill_mcgonigle · · Score: 1

      "turn it up to eleven " /me finally gets M-theory.

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    20. Re: Gotcha covered... by Noah+Haders · · Score: 1

      "it's *in* the computer"

    21. Re:Gotcha covered... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      that's something different for centauries

    22. Re:Gotcha covered... by Zynder · · Score: 1

      How would anyone know you had opened the box?

      Cause there's a dead cat in it?

    23. Re:Gotcha covered... by kuzb · · Score: 1

      ...and then we added ANOTHER BLADE ... err, dimension...

      For the record, I now don't know if I'm looking for the closest shave ever, or a unified theory.

      --
      BeauHD. Worst editor since kdawson.
  2. Crazy Parakeet Man by timrod · · Score: 4, Funny

    Not to detract from his contributions to science, but the photo of him in the Medium article makes him look like some sort of Parakeet Wizard. How he stayed sane with 40 parakeets in his house is something I will never understand.

    1. Re:Crazy Parakeet Man by i+kan+reed · · Score: 5, Funny

      I'm severely concerned for you if you've ever met any physics PhDs who didn't give off that vibe.

    2. Re:Crazy Parakeet Man by gstoddart · · Score: 2, Interesting

      How he stayed sane with 40 parakeets in his house is something I will never understand.

      LOL, based on how nobody has ever been able to explain WTF String Theory actually claims to tell us or how you'd verify it ... I'm not sure of his 'sanity'. ;-)

      String Theory has always been a little dodgy, and there seems to be about 20 different versions of it, most of which seems to not to make sense, even to many physicists.

      --
      Lost at C:>. Found at C.
    3. Re:Crazy Parakeet Man by meerling · · Score: 5, Interesting

      There are less of them now than there were a few years ago, the LHC saw to that. The data they gathered on the Higgs Boson ruled out numerous theories, though there are still a lot more to go.

    4. Re:Crazy Parakeet Man by NEDHead · · Score: 1

      It only looks crazy in 2 dimensions. In 26 it is perfectly reasonable

    5. Re:Crazy Parakeet Man by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      LOL, based on how nobody has ever been able to explain WTF String Theory actually claims to tell us or how you'd verify it ...

      You know about those tests where you are given a number series and is supposed to guess the pattern and select the next number.
      They become increasingly harder the more math you know since you can find so many equally simple functions that matches the series.
      String theory is a bit like that, but without the constants.
      Just add another dimension for every point of measurement you have and eventually it will all come together.

    6. Re:Crazy Parakeet Man by gstoddart · · Score: 1

      It only looks crazy in 2 dimensions. In 26 it is perfectly reasonable

      My Linear Algebra prof used to say that about his office ... in 3-space, his office was an incomprehensible mess.

      --
      Lost at C:>. Found at C.
    7. Re:Crazy Parakeet Man by wonkey_monkey · · Score: 1

      How he stayed sane

      What makes you think he did?

      --
      systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
    8. Re:Crazy Parakeet Man by preaction · · Score: 2

      I work with one, but technically they aren't in academia anymore. Perhaps he didn't give off enough of that vibe.

    9. Re:Crazy Parakeet Man by Jane+Q.+Public · · Score: 2

      Yes, some publications even asked "Is this the end of String Theory?" which of course meant it wasn't.

      I mean, it did take some serious blows. But it isn't quite gone yet.

      On the other hand, since I have still seen no suggestions of practical ways to test for its existence (only its non-existence), I still have a bit of trouble with the "Theory" part. Last I heard it was only a hypothesis.

    10. Re:Crazy Parakeet Man by Guppy06 · · Score: 1

      like some sort of Parakeet Wizard

      At least he seems able to keep bird crap off his face, unlike some other wizards.

    11. Re:Crazy Parakeet Man by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      He probably just kept a lot of cracker around the house.

    12. Re:Crazy Parakeet Man by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

      I went to Rutgers for physics and engineering, worked in physics department for a number of years, and my desk was in a lab across the hall from his office; I can say without hesitation that he was not playing with a full deck.

      That said, he was a brilliant man and one of my favorite professors. His classes were always interesting.

      And damn did he love those birds.

    13. Re:Crazy Parakeet Man by lgw · · Score: 4, Insightful

      String theory became extremely dodgy for a while there - in fact, it went totally off the rails IMO. There were physics journal articles with long philosophical rants and no equations. When the "get random nonsense published" prank war hit physics, it's no surprise it was a string theory journal that fell for it.

      This is what happens to any science without new data coming in. When the Superconducting Supercollider was cancelled, particle physics began getting a little nutty, and by the time you had mid-career physicists with who had only published works never to be challenged by experiment, well, it's an object lesson in how not to do science.

      But the LHC was the needed fix. Theory and experiment are now re-coupled, and I hear that sanity is returning aggressively. Meanwhile the other end of physics, cosmology, has the most accurate data ever to work with, thanks to the CMBR probes, and has been making huge strides for a decade now (cosmology with significant digits, who'd have thought?).

      --
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    14. Re:Crazy Parakeet Man by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      You think because it's convoluted, unintuitive, and difficult to understand that it deserves to receive more merit than other unprovable abstract "models" of our universe?

      I would think the opposite. I also think that you're naive, and your kind should be cleansed from the gene pool.

    15. Re:Crazy Parakeet Man by Your.Master · · Score: 5, Insightful

      What she's saying is that there is no known practical test which requires string theory as an explanation -- the other theories are sufficient. That doesn't contradict the idea that there are tests which could disprove string theory.

      Consider the claim that a man who stands before you was created just outside your front door 5 minutes ago, fully formed with enough knowledge to communicate and a local accent, etc., but no evidence of any prior existence was created along with him. Your alternative explanation is that he's lying and was born 30 years ago, as his appearance suggests. You could disprove his theory by finding his house with pictures of him growing up -- that's prior evidence of his existence. It's extraordinarily doubtful that you could ever prove his claim, even if it were true -- it's just much more likely by virtue of simplicity that he was born and you can't find evidence of where he grew up prior to 5 minutes ago, because there's certainly no less evidence of that.

      It's not enough for a theory to stand up to attempts to disprove it -- that's a necessary but insufficient condition. It also has to explain something, anything, in a way that is either simpler or more complete than other known theories.

      Newton's Laws stand up because they are simpler but less complete than theories like relativity. Relativity stands up because it is more complete than Newton's Laws -- there are known situations when Newton's Laws simply give the wrong answer and relativity gives the right one. QM stands up because it explains something that relativity does not, so it's more complete in a different sense. Aristotelian cosmology failed because it was simply wrong. Geocentrism failed not because it was "wrong" (a geocentric frame of reference is a perfectly valid, albeit non-inertial, frame of reference, and you can absolutely make accurate calculations about the universe with Earth defined as its geometric center), but because it was incredibly complicated compared to heliocentrism and provided no discernible scientific benefits. That leads to the question: is string theory like geocentrism, in that it's not strictly disproven but it's an unnecessary pain in the ass?

      The request here would be for a situation that String Theory explains, and QM and Relativity either do not explain, or explain inaccurately, or explain in a more complicated fashion. It's useless until it provides one of those things, other than the joy of pure mathematics. Science does not state "all proposed theories are true until disproven" -- rather, it says "don't assume a proposed theory is true until you fail to either disprove it, or come up with an easier answer".

      I'm not personally in a good position to evaluate the merits of string theory anymore, and neither is anybody with merely the knowledge in that wikipedia article (though it helps). You should note, though, that the wikipedia article you yourself cited, cites Feynman, Penrose, and Sheldon Lee Glashow as making an even stronger argument Jane Q. Public is making -- saying that it simply is a failure as a theory, because it doesn't provide practical novel experimental predictions (in other words, it's not more complete than existing theories).

    16. Re:Crazy Parakeet Man by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      String Theory has always been a little dodgy, and there seems to be about 20 different versions of it, most of which seems to not to make sense, even to many physicists.

      I think it's clear there are exactly 26 different versions, depending on how you look at it...

    17. Re:Crazy Parakeet Man by sjwaste · · Score: 4, Funny

      That escalated quickly.

    18. Re:Crazy Parakeet Man by fyngyrz · · Score: 1

      Science does not state "all proposed theories are true until disproven" -- rather, it says "don't assume a proposed theory is true until you fail to either disprove it, or come up with an easier answer".

      Actually, just because you come up with an easier answer doesn't mean that the more complex / harder answer isn't right as well.

      --
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    19. Re:Crazy Parakeet Man by AchilleTalon · · Score: 1

      Interesting given the guy never finished his Ph.D.

      --
      Achille Talon
      Hop!
    20. Re:Crazy Parakeet Man by nedlohs · · Score: 1

      There is no "right".

      If the model continues to match observation and its predictions continue to turn out to be the case it is a good scientific model. Whether it is "right" and actually how the universe really is is completely irrelevant. If the model is simpler than other models that make the same predictions then it is better, again regardless of whether it is "right".

      And of course adding a couple dozen dimensions to the mix is going to be make being simpler tricky :)

    21. Re: Crazy Parakeet Man by tesdaburys · · Score: 1

      There is. It's called value to humanity. Newton's ideas gave us new wealth. Einstein's gave us even more (e.g. Corrections for GPS to work)

    22. Re:Crazy Parakeet Man by Quirkz · · Score: 1

      I'm reminded of one of my old physics profs who tripped over a trash can frequently, and apologized to it every time.

    23. Re:Crazy Parakeet Man by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      A little bit dodgy? It has yet to produce any testable hypotheses after decades of existence. It's time that it was put down and the funding provided to physicists that are working on things that might are actually science.

    24. Re:Crazy Parakeet Man by nine-times · · Score: 2

      That leads to the question: is string theory like geocentrism, in that it's not strictly disproven but it's an unnecessary pain in the ass?

      I don't think this goes far enough in explaining the issue. Geocentrism wasn't much of a theory, it was more of an assumed state. Insofar as it was a theory, the evidence for it was the empirical observation that we seem to be standing still while the rest of the universe moves around us. If you want to talk about a theory that assumed geocentrism, I believe there were a few different ones, either involving angels or aether or some other explanation of what stars were. Arguably, many of them weren't "scientific" theories, as they weren't grounded in science, nor did they provide a framework for testing them scientifically.

      And that's one way in which geocentrism might be related to String Theory. It's arguably not a "scientific theory" because it's not exactly grounded in scientific testing/observation, and there's not yet an opportunity to test it. People really get this whole "theory" thing wrong. In reaction to "creationism", there's been a big push to have "theory" defined in such a way that theories are inherently proven, but that's coming it the whole thing from the wrong direction. A theory can be completely unproven and have no support, but only has to be a coherent explanation for a set of phenomena. The issue is that in order to be a scientific theory, it has to have some relation to science.

      So that brings the question around to, what does the process of science generally require to consider a theory to be valid and scientific? Well, to start, you have to have the phenomena being explained being scientific in nature. Explaining the behavior of particles: scientific. Explaining the behavior of God: not scientific. So that's the first requirement, and string theory passes.

      Second, the theory has to make use of scientific principles and techniques to form a coherent explanation. It must be related to existing theories that are related. So for example, if you're talking about behavior of particles, it should related to existing theories about particles and the forces that govern them. It must either adopt and fit in with existing theories, or else provide an alternate theory that explains the same observations that existing theories explain. In order to be considered a superior theory, it must either explain those observations better or more elegantly, or else explain additional observations that the prior theory failed to explain. Last I've read, it's still debatable whether String Theory passes this test. People are still working on fitting it to observations, and it may explain some things more elegantly while failing to explain other things.

      The third big requirement is that it needs to be testable. More specifically, the requirement generally put forward is that it needs to make some kind of new prediction that other theories failed to predict, which eventually turns out to be true. For example, Einstein came up with a new theory to explain how light moves. That theory resulted in the prediction that you could take a very fast plane trip that would cause time to pass more slowly for you, while traveling on the plan, than it would for someone sitting on the ground. No prior theory would have anticipated this result, and in fact many people still find it difficult to wrap their heads around, but the prediction seemed to be true.

      It's on this last requirement that String Theory, as far as I know, fails. As far as I've read, it has not made new predictions, unanticipated by other theories, which have turned out to be true. In that sense, you could argue that it's lacks specificity required by a scientific theory, and so is not a proper scientific theory. At least not yet, until more things are hashed out.

      I don't have a horse in this race. Just throwing in my 2 cents.

    25. Re:Crazy Parakeet Man by angel'o'sphere · · Score: 1

      It's not enough for a theory to stand up to attempts to disprove it of course it is, hence plenty of scientists are exactly working on that.
      saying that it simply is a failure as a theory, because it doesn't provide practical novel experimental predictions (in other words, it's not more complete than existing theories) that does not degrade it to a hypothesis, it is still a theory under exploration.

      Hehe your geocentric versus heliocentric comparison makes no sense imho ... if you want to compare here then string theory is like the heliocentric one ... all looks fine until you realize Sol is not in the center of the universe. That is a bit compareable to your point that String Theory gives not more or simpler explanations of physical phenomena than QM or GRT gives.

      Point is: it is an active research topic, hence it is not dead, nor is it a 'none theory' ....

      --
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    26. Re:Crazy Parakeet Man by bware · · Score: 1

      When the "get random nonsense published" prank war hit physics, it's no surprise it was a string theory journal that fell for it.

      Are you referring to Sokal? http://www.physics.nyu.edu/sokal/transgress_v2/transgress_v2_singlefile.html/

      That wasn't published in a string theory journal.

      While I'm not the biggest fan of ST, I'm not aware of any prank publications in a refereed physics journal, and neither are the first three pages of a search.

    27. Re: Crazy Parakeet Man by nedlohs · · Score: 1

      And newton's ideas had nothing to do with what is "right". He added a magical force at a distance between objects that made the math work. It doesn't matter if that's "right" - it worked and that is all that matters.

      Relativity also just made the math work. Whether it actually matches the real universe is pretty much irrelevant. As long as the math gives the right answers (corrections for GPS as you said) then it is a useful theory.

    28. Re:Crazy Parakeet Man by mcswell · · Score: 1

      Did the trash can keep accepting his apology? Even if it didn't, I don't suppose it complained.

    29. Re:Crazy Parakeet Man by monkeypushbutton · · Score: 1

      As far as I understand it, its proponents believe that it is, on one level, simpler than the standard model of particle physics, against which it competes. The standard model simply states that there are various flavours of fundamental particle, seventeen or more, each with a set of properties, such as mass and charge, with no further explanation of where those come from, or why they appear in families with similar properties, or whey each particle has a given mass, charge, etc.

      String theory arises as an attempt to predict the properties of these particles by considering them as modes of vibration of a one string (or in some theories surface). The usual analogy is that we once believed that the vast variety of atoms was "all there was", and the the atom was indivisible. However the patterns we see in the periodic table led us to search for a theory with fewer fundamental particles, even though such a theory was in more complicated than the original hypothesis.

      It seems unlikely that string theory will make a testable prediction in the next few years, and until then the jury will be out on its validity, however I think it is a valid attempt to make sense of the zoo of particles the standard model predicts.

    30. Re:Crazy Parakeet Man by Quirkz · · Score: 3, Funny

      It did not accept the apology, and actually, I'd even go so far as to say it got a little bent out of shape over the incidents. Eventually it turned into a certified basket case, and we had to replace it with another unit that had stronger mettle.

    31. Re:Crazy Parakeet Man by mcswell · · Score: 1

      Darn! You made me choke on my coffee laughing!

    32. Re:Crazy Parakeet Man by Jane+Q.+Public · · Score: 1

      Grow up and perhaps make science education.
      Your well worded but substance less scientific (cough cough) rants, show pretty clearly that you never have any idea what you are actually talking about.

      Holy shit, dude, you just spilled your Dunning-Kruger all over the damned floor.

      That's your problem. I'm not going to clean it up for you.

    33. Re:Crazy Parakeet Man by Jane+Q.+Public · · Score: 0

      So we uninformed barbarians in the third and forth world areas of this planet still get informed about why a white underclass christian in a suburb of a booming american metropole has no health insurance?

      Well, I don't have an answer to that. But I can tell you what probably ISN'T an answer: Last I checked, fewer people had insurance AFTER Obamacare than before.

      Also, Federal Court recently struck down taxes and subsidies of Obamacare for the 36 states that used the Federal exchange.

    34. Re:Crazy Parakeet Man by angel'o'sphere · · Score: 0

      Underlines my point ... you are note a first world country :)

      --
      Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
    35. Re:Crazy Parakeet Man by lgw · · Score: 1

      Sokal fired the first volley in the prank war. No prank war ever ends with the first prank. Naturally, the offended postmodernists felt obligated to publish nonsense paper in a physics journal, and I remember a Slashdot article about their success in a string theory journal. Wikipedia doesn't list it in the list of pranks following the Sokal hoax, but surely we can't question the unimpeachable accuracy and multiple layers of editorial fact checking of Slashdot, can we?

      --
      Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
    36. Re: Crazy Parakeet Man by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Your post is utter bullshit. I am on mobile so it's not practical to refute every point but consider this: what Penrose et. al. said was that it was a failure as a theory because it failed to make experimental predictions *at an accessible energy scale*. The very same can be said of relativity! In Newton's era, the velocities needed for relativity to defer from NM were inconceivable. We didn't even have particle physics back then. But as it turned out, as we could observe when technology reached the necessary level, Newtonian mechanics were in fact an approximation to relativity in the limit where the velocity was zero. Is it so inconceivable that QM may be an approximation of a more complete theory at low energy scales? What authority have you to dismiss the work of thousands like this?

    37. Re: Crazy Parakeet Man by hawkinspeter · · Score: 1

      I agree that what matters is if the maths works out to match reality, but there can also be a deeper connection. If the maths produces some "curious" results that later turn out to also match reality, then it's a good clue that the maths provides a good insight as to what is actually happening. e.g. The equations of General Relativity predicting black holes or Dirac's equations predicting antimatter.

      Conversely, you can also have the case where the maths doesn't actually correctly model the real world, but is studied to gain insights into the more complex situation of reality.

      --
      You're a temporary arrangement of matter sliding towards oblivion in a cold, uncaring universe
    38. Re:Crazy Parakeet Man by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Sadly human-scale extra dimensions are ruled out by experiment. :-(

      Additionally, non-human-scale extra dimensions that are large compared to the Planck scale but smaller than the observable universe are not supported by evidence, and there are no especially strong reasons to favour theories which rely upon compactified or otherwise tiny dimensions, and cosmically large extra dimensions are almost always unphysical (but useful in theories that exploit a formal (i.e., mathematical) correspondence in higher dimensions between e.g. General Relativity and field theory to make calculations easier).

      On the other hand if a higher-dimensional theory explains his office arrangement, that's perhaps mathematically beautiful even if unphysical.

  3. String theory is voodoo physics by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Troll

    Decades from now, people will look back on it and laugh--putting it beside Phrenology and others in the "Hall of Pseudoscience."

    1. Re:String theory is voodoo physics by Noah+Haders · · Score: 1

      agreed. nobody can truly vet it because nobody can truly understand it because nothing makes sense. welcome to my world.

    2. Re:String theory is voodoo physics by i+kan+reed · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Proposing an idea that explains a previously unexplained observation isn't pseudoscience. It can certainly be wrong, and should be treated as such until experimentally tested.

      But pseudoscience lives in a special realm, where it wraps itself in the verbiage of science, while not sharing the methods and intent. String theory very clearly falls into the "not testable yet" category, rather than the "designed to resist testing" category that weapons grade bullshit enjoys.

    3. Re:String theory is voodoo physics by gtall · · Score: 1

      Let there be myriad mathematical theories. It's okay, no one is going to lose their lunch over it. Einstein's theory of relativity was theoretical at first. It was only later that scientists were able to devise experiments to test it, and they are still conjuring up new experiments for further testing. Even the aether theory had an impact on science. It forced experiments that falsified it and we learned by doing that.

      Science posits new theories all the time. Even if the aren't testable now, they may some day.

    4. Re:String theory is voodoo physics by Himmy32 · · Score: 2

      I know I shouldn't feed the trolls, but it deserves to be said.

      In no way is String Theory anything like Phrenology. Trying to develop a model that unites both the large scale and the small scale is incredibly difficult. Quantum mechanics and relativity are complex enough without trying to unify them. String theory and super-symmetrical models have a basis in advanced mathematics, but the question is whether or not the model matches the immensely complex reality.

      Even if it doesn't work out, studying the problem advances our knowledge of the known universe and modelling it in mathematics. That's how science works, you make a hypothesis and you attempt to test it and then you reform your hypothesis. The current problem right now is finding a way to test it. A failed hypothesis is not something to laugh at, because what you learn from that failure helps you forms a new and more accurate model.

    5. Re:String theory is voodoo physics by gstoddart · · Score: 1

      String theory very clearly falls into the "not testable yet" category, rather than the "designed to resist testing" category that weapons grade bullshit enjoys.

      No, but if it's inherently not testable ... then what, exactly, is it's value to science? What conditions need to come about for it to ever be tested?

      From a science perspective, is it really any different than me saying that deep within every star lives a napping space goat whose farts drive the fusion process? That's untestable as well, but isn't designed to resist testing. Is my farting space goat pseudo science while String Theory is real science?

      It may not strictly speaking be pseudo-science -- but at this point, it's pretty far removed from actual science.

      It's just awfully hard to take it seriously when it's a claim which can't be tested, verified, or really even investigated.

      At which point, it seems hard to conclude that it's still actually science.

      --
      Lost at C:>. Found at C.
    6. Re:String theory is voodoo physics by i+kan+reed · · Score: 1

      Why do you allege the lack of testability is "inherent". That's a charge I hear a lot from people who pretend to like science, but mostly just regurgitate nice sayings they've heard about science.

    7. Re:String theory is voodoo physics by oh_my_080980980 · · Score: 1

      You mean a hypothesis until tested. A theory is a proven hypotheses - something laymen get wrong all the time. FYI string "theory" is dead. It was never alive to begin with only in the minds of people grasping at straws. A spate of recent research has consigned string "theory" to the dust bin.

    8. Re:String theory is voodoo physics by oh_my_080980980 · · Score: 0

      Yes it is because it was nonsense to begin with - too complicated with zero predictive ability. It was a dead end as all the research as shown.

    9. Re:String theory is voodoo physics by HornWumpus · · Score: 2

      A theory is not proven. It is just a hypothesis that has not been disproven, despite repeated attempts.

      String theory can't be dumped; because it is just an intellectual exercise to find mathematical systems that return the same statistical shadow as quantum mechanics. As they see more statistical shadows, they refine their math. The ones that predicted yet unobserved statistical shadows gain credibility.

      Doesn't mean their are actually multidimensional strings vibrating. But perhaps their is a mathematical cousin to vibrating strings operating at a quantum level (as circuits are cousins to structures).

      --
      John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
    10. Re:String theory is voodoo physics by gstoddart · · Score: 1

      I'm not clear on what magic needs to come into existence to test it.

      This certainly says it's untestable:

      My conclusion, as you'd expect, is that string theory is not testable in any conventional scientific use of the term. The fundamental problem is that simple versions of the string theory unification idea, the ones often sold as "beautiful", disagree with experiment for some basic reasons. Getting around these problems requires working with much more complicated versions, which have become so complicated that the framework becomes untestable as it can be made to agree with virtually anything one is likely to experimentally measure. This is a classic failure mode of a speculative framework: the rigid initial version doesn't agree with experiment, making it less rigid to avoid this kills off its predictivity.

      So, tell us, please ... what is missing from our collective understanding of whether String Theory can be tested?

      Because I've been hearing for rather a long time that physicists can't test it, or that parts of it have been refuted by the LHC.

      I get the distinct impression that we simply have no basis on which to test it. Reputable scientists say it can't be tested.

      So, on what basis are you asserting that it's testable?

      Or would be have to create a 26 dimensional device to measure this? Because, really, that's a pretty steep challenge.

      I know enough about math and science to know that physicists have been saying String Theory is voodoo for decades, and it doesn't sound like we're any closer to being able to test it.

      --
      Lost at C:>. Found at C.
    11. Re:String theory is voodoo physics by sjames · · Score: 4, Informative

      The problem with string theory isn't that it doesn't predict anything. The problem is that it predicts nearly everything and shows no particular bias towards one prediction over another. Pretty much any experimental result that comes out can be accommodated by string theory.

      It is interesting. It may one day help to describe an actual theory (making it string toolkit rather than string theory) it may spur thought along new lines, but it isn't a very good theory.

      The one thing string theory does predict strongly is supersymmetry, but that was already predicted by less extreme theories. The whole thing may turn out to be moot if LHC can't scare up a supersymmetric particle.

    12. Re:String theory is voodoo physics by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 1

      Let there be myriad mathematical theories. It's okay, no one is going to lose their lunch over it.

      There is only so much funding, and so many tenured positions. So if funding goes to string theorists, there is less for real physics.

      Einstein's theory of relativity was theoretical at first. It was only later that scientists were able to devise experiments to test it

      This is backwards. Experiments had already been done that the prevailing "ether" theory could not explain. Relativity provided a simple and precise explanation. New experiments were also done. For string theory, no one can even conceive of how there can be an experimental verification.

    13. Re:String theory is voodoo physics by i+kan+reed · · Score: 1

      Yeah, and this is a much much much more valid criticism, but I do get a bit sick of the cargo cult "I don't know anything but like to sound smart by using the word pseudoscience" posts.

    14. Re:String theory is voodoo physics by i+kan+reed · · Score: 1

      This isn't what you were saying. I don't disagree with this digest at all. The link is a great criticism, about the nature of how scientific theories fail, but it's nothing about "inherent" untestability.

    15. Re: String theory is voodoo physics by Electricity+Likes+Me · · Score: 1

      Still doesn't make it untestable. You keep fitting and explaining until you have enough description to make an unambiguous prediction - thats your test.

      Pseudoscience is when you never do a test you should and can do. See any free energy insanity, or the recent EMDrive stuff.

    16. Re:String theory is voodoo physics by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Calculus is used in physics all the time. It's untestable, just like string theory. The problem is confusing a tool with a theory. String theory is really a set of theories using strings. It's like calling something calculus theory. There are plenty of calculus theories that are wrong. There's infinitely many theories you can make using calculus. You can't test them all. Same thing with strings. However, any theory you make with strings can be tested. Some we can't differentiate from other theories with current technology. You've taken honest and correct complaints about string theory and extended them way beyond reason.

    17. Re:String theory is voodoo physics by angel'o'sphere · · Score: 1

      String theory is not dead and never was.

      I don't get how you can start a post like this:You mean a hypothesis until tested. A theory is a proven hypotheses - something laymen get wrong all the time. And then come to the brain dead conclusion: FYI string "theory" is dead.
      It never occurred to you that the exact same experiment supports Einsteins Theory about Relativity AND String Theory? Do you have any single example of an experiment that 'disproved', 'falsified' the 'String Theory'?

      In the last decades no one disproved any prediction the 'String Theory' (s) made ...

      Claiming it is no sound scientific / physical theory is nonsense.

      Meanwhile looking here on this thread it seems there is comparable to the AGW discussion an anti String Theory 'conspiracy' going on?

      What nonsense is that!? 'String Theory(s)' are an established science since 30 or 40 years!

      --
      Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
    18. Re:String theory is voodoo physics by tyme · · Score: 2

      gtall wrote:

      Einstein's theory of relativity was theoretical at first. It was only later that scientists were able to devise experiments to test it

      Actually, you have that exactly wrong: Einstein's theory of special relativity was a direct attempt to explain a specific experimental result, the negative results of the Michelson-Morley interferometer experiment to verify the existence of the liminiferous aether. The Michelson-Morley results were published in 1887, and Einstein published special relativity in 1905.

      --
      just a ghost in the machine.
    19. Re:String theory is voodoo physics by Stormy+Dragon · · Score: 2

      The theory of relativity wasn't testable when it was first proposed. Part of the reason Einstein never got a nobel for it was that it wasn't until the 1970's that there was real firm experimental evidence for it.

      There's a distinction between something that can never be tested and something that can't be tested now due to technological limitations.

    20. Re:String theory is voodoo physics by bondsbw · · Score: 1

      The problem with string theory isn't that it doesn't predict anything. The problem is that it predicts nearly everything and shows no particular bias towards one prediction over another. Pretty much any experimental result that comes out can be accommodated by string theory.

      I think what you just described is called "math".

      ("Maths" across the pond.)

      --
      All my liberal friends think I'm a conservative, all my conservative friends think I'm a liberal.
    21. Re:String theory is voodoo physics by slashdice · · Score: 1

      Trying to develop a model that unites both head shape and psychological attributes is also incredibly difficult.

      --
      Copyright (c) 1990 - 2014 Dice. All rights reserved. Use of this comment is subject to certain Terms and Conditions.
    22. Re:String theory is voodoo physics by sjames · · Score: 1

      It is close. It does involve a lot of math, but unlike math, it claims some relevance to physical structure. Math makes no such claim.

    23. Re:String theory is voodoo physics by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      but calculus is testable... The rest of your post just gets worse from there.

    24. Re:String theory is voodoo physics by Enigma2175 · · Score: 4, Informative

      The theory of relativity wasn't testable when it was first proposed. Part of the reason Einstein never got a nobel for it was that it wasn't until the 1970's that there was real firm experimental evidence for it.

      There's a distinction between something that can never be tested and something that can't be tested now due to technological limitations.

      You mean the observations Eddington took in 1919 confirming light bending in accordance with predictions by general relativity didn't take place? From the Wikipedia entry:

      "Eddington's observations published the next year[5] confirmed Einstein's theory, and were hailed at the time as a conclusive proof of general relativity over the Newtonian model."

      Also, relativity made a number of testable predictions. From the wiki page on the theory of relativity:

      "The predictions of special relativity have been confirmed in numerous tests since Einstein published his paper in 1905, but three experiments conducted between 1881 and 1938 were critical to its validation. These are the Michelson–Morley experiment, the Kennedy–Thorndike experiment, and the Ives–Stilwell experiment. Einstein derived the Lorentz transformations from first principles in 1905, but these three experiments allow the transformations to be induced from experimental evidence."

      Obviously the testing of the theory still continues as we gather more data from around the universe, but to say there wasn't firm experimental evidence until the 1970s isn't correct.

      Until string theory makes some testable predictions it's just mathematical and philosophical wanking.

      --

      Enigma

    25. Re:String theory is voodoo physics by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Einstein proposed experiments to validate his theories, we just did not have the ability to perform them. String theory has no proposed experiment.

    26. Re:String theory is voodoo physics by Cito · · Score: 1

      But, but, History Channel says ancient aliens had nuclear power!!! :-P

      *styling mousse & hair gel*
      *poses*
      "Aliens!!!"

    27. Re:String theory is voodoo physics by fyngyrz · · Score: 1

      Look, you insensitive clod. I know the aliens will come if I just add enough dimensions to my cardboard saucer. Now take off, I have to get to my Origami class so I can learn to fold space.

      --
      I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
    28. Re:String theory is voodoo physics by Stormy+Dragon · · Score: 1

      String Theory has made testable predictions:

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S...

      The problem is that all of them either require particle accelerators that are far beyond our current ability to power or require measuring some aspect of space that we haven't come up with a device to measure yet.

    29. Re:String theory is voodoo physics by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "A theory is not proven. It is just a hypothesis that has not been disproven, despite repeated attempts."

      You're describing a philosophical "theory", not a scientific one.

    30. Re:String theory is voodoo physics by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      A theory is a proven hypotheses . . .

      No, that is not what a theory is. A scientific theory is a world-view that tries to make sense out of what we can observe - an explanation of the world, or at least of the part of it that the theory deals with. A good scientific theory leads to hypotheses that can be tested, and if they are shown to be wrong, the theory can be discarded (or modified to meet the new data, if you feel the need to hold onto your old ideas)

    31. Re:String theory is voodoo physics by lgw · · Score: 2

      Very well put - I was trying to figure out how to say this, but that nails it.

      String Theory is a toolkit - an infinite set of theories. You can specify some of the tunable parameters and get a specific testable theory, but there's no non-arbitrary way to do that. So many physicist-decades sunk into something which "might be useful one day".

      You can say it's all math, not physics, and so uselessness is fine, but then the problem is it's pretty bad math - no elegance, most equations aren't solvable yet.

      String theory started as an attempt to simplify the standard model to a few primitives, but it has totally failed in that regard.

      --
      Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
    32. Re:String theory is voodoo physics by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      shitloads higher energy and luminosity to probe down to the planck length

    33. Re:String theory is voodoo physics by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      lorentz derived them from first principles, too,the transformations under which maxwell's equations are invariant...constant speed of light in vacuum, used in derivations by einstein are a consequence of this...this is circular to cite one approach as more first principalish...

    34. Re:String theory is voodoo physics by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      You mean the observations Eddington took in 1919 confirming light bending in accordance with predictions by general relativity didn't take place?

      You mean the observations with error bars large enough to encompass both the Einsteinian and Newtonian predictions for the bending of light?

    35. Re:String theory is voodoo physics by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      No, calculus is not testable. It is provable, having been established as a bulletproof pure mathematical concept by Weierstrass in the 19th century. Being math, a set of assertions using calculus is either always right, or always wrong. (Those of you who are thinking "Gödel"--shut up.)

      However, a set of equations may be mathematically correct without accurately describing a real-world phenomenon. This mapping between math and the real world is what physicists "test."

    36. Re:String theory is voodoo physics by stiggle · · Score: 1

      I've got some testable predictions for other theories - but they're currently beyond our current ability to make a time machine and a FTL space craft, but I'm sure we'll get around to that at some point.

      If you can't build the experiment then it is untestable, even if you have some vague idea of what the experiment requires.

    37. Re:String theory is voodoo physics by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      ...so it's just like god and religion. Call me when the bullshit train stops.

    38. Re:String theory is voodoo physics by kuzb · · Score: 1

      ...so basically it's not testable. I fail to see how these new conditions change anything.

      --
      BeauHD. Worst editor since kdawson.
    39. Re:String theory is voodoo physics by david_thornley · · Score: 1

      There's a big difference between "not testable except with stuff we know how to build and haven't actually built" and "untestable" or "only testable with an FTL starship".

      --
      "When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
    40. Re:String theory is voodoo physics by david_thornley · · Score: 1

      A theory is some sort of model that describes what we know and makes predictions that are at least theoretically testable. General Relativity was a theory before anybody tested it. Once it's withstood repeated attempts to disprove it, it gets better established.

      --
      "When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
    41. Re:String theory is voodoo physics by david_thornley · · Score: 1

      It's not difficult: we've got one (Phrenology). Now, if somebody were to do a blind experiment, giving a phrenologist information about individuals and letting him feel their skulls (they can be restricted from any other examination), we could see if the phrenologist could match information and skulls more accurately than random chance. (Personal opinion: the phrenologist can't.)

      I've read that certain types of hand shapes have been correlated with personality traits, so a few aspects of palmistry may well be valid (again, though, I'd bet against finding a correlation between lifespan and any characteristic of the "life line").

      --
      "When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
    42. Re:String theory is voodoo physics by HornWumpus · · Score: 1

      That's a hypothesis. They get promoted to theory when they have been tested. Shades of grey exist.

      --
      John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
  4. so what's the news? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    seems like this is 40 years old too late to be news.

  5. While we're at it by StripedCow · · Score: 2

    Why not postulate an infinite number of dimensions?

    --
    If Pandora's box is destined to be opened, *I* want to be the one to open it.
    1. Re:While we're at it by i+kan+reed · · Score: 3, Funny

      Because that's not necessary to explain a particular empirical observation?

    2. Re:While we're at it by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Why not postulate an infinite number of dimensions?

      All 26 dimensions are needed to bring the mathematical properties needed to explain real world phenomena, as the article points out.

      What purpose do the infinite dimensions in your theory serve? Or are you merely trying to be clever (and not succeeding)?

    3. Re:While we're at it by serviscope_minor · · Score: 1

      Because that's not necessary to explain a particular empirical observation?

      Out of interest, which observations to those 26 dimensions explain?

      --
      SJW n. One who posts facts.
    4. Re:While we're at it by i+kan+reed · · Score: 1

      Well, let's go to RTFA land and see:

      Theorists had tried to no avail to design a Pomeron closed string theory that was unitary in the ordinary four dimensions of spacetime. Instead the theory yielded monstrosities called tachyons that defied the law of cause and effect. A tachyon is a particle or field that travels faster than light and hences moves backward in time. While some researchers such as Gregory Benford have speculated about their properties, they have never been an accepted part of realistic physical theories. Most physicists believe that the only viable way to have a physical theory with tachyons is if they decouple from the theory, meaning they do not impact the observable phenomena—things like cross-sections and scattering amplitudes—that arise from it. (In addition to scholarly papers about tachyons, Benford also wrote a short story called the “Tachyonic Anti-telephone” about causality violations through backwards-in-time communication.)

      So that's the unexplained phenomenon and:

      In a moment of revelation, Lovelace suddenly realized that the solution to the problem was staring him in the face. Suppose one relaxed the assumption that strings lived in a four-dimensional world. He cranked up the dimensions of their surroundings higher and higher, and found that at precisely D = 26 the tachyonic problem vanished and unitarity was restored. He could scarcely believe such an odd result.

      That's the resolution that requires 26 dimensions. My linalg-fu is weak, so I'm actually not checking the math myself. Happy?

    5. Re:While we're at it by serviscope_minor · · Score: 2, Insightful

      The GP was talking about "emperical phenomenon".

      So that's the unexplained phenomenon and:

      Those aren't emperical phenomenon. They're not phenomenon at all. It's just a mathematical artefact from an incorrect theory.

      That's the resolution that requires 26 dimensions. My linalg-fu is weak, so I'm actually not checking the math myself. Happy?

      Not really, no.

      Currently there are no actual phenomenon (i.e. real things) which string theory yet explains.

      --
      SJW n. One who posts facts.
    6. Re:While we're at it by mrbester · · Score: 1

      Microsoft supports 64 dimensions in VB(Script) arrays, which should be enough for anybody.

      --
      "Wait. Something's happening. It's opening up! My God, it's full of apricots!"
    7. Re:While we're at it by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      my guess, they're creating a vector such as (x1,y1,z1,time, em force at x,y,z,tim, strong force at x,y,z,tim, weak force at x,y,z,tim, all quark colors at x,y,z,tim), etc, and end up with a vector of 26 entries.... from there, they create a matrix to move to the next state...and they call that matrix unification, or the theory of everything.

      (and yes, sometimes they're lucky and collapse some dimensions---like electroweak force, etc., but that pretty much sums up their whole ``there must be at least N dimensions for stuff to make sense).

    8. Re:While we're at it by Rinikusu · · Score: 1

      Wouldn't that be funny if we just needed to apply calculus to the whole problem and assume infinitely small slices of an infinite number of universes.

      --
      If you were me, you'd be good lookin'. - six string samurai
    9. Re:While we're at it by Cito · · Score: 1

      To reload the matrix you only need the 1.

    10. Re:While we're at it by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Who knows. Maybe one day it will become necessary

    11. Re:While we're at it by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Currently there are no actual phenomenon (i.e. real things) which string theory yet explains.

      It removes the ultraviolet divergences from quantum field theory. It retrodicts gravity in a unified framework. Not much, perhaps, but hardly nothing.

    12. Re:While we're at it by Greyfox · · Score: 1

      Well the math doesn't seem to care how many dimensions you have. If you need another dimension, just add another one!

      --

      I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?

    13. Re:While we're at it by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The plural of phenomenon is phenomena. Even famous public science educators frequently get this wrong, so I fear the distinction will disappear (by losing the singular, however) from the language in the one or two decades.

    14. Re:While we're at it by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Maybe not necessary, but arguably much more elegant. 26 seems like an arbitrarily selected number, infinity looks like some sort of limit.

  6. Re:String theory is not science! by Ultra64 · · Score: 2

    Huh?

    How is a theory that attempts to describe the laws of physics *not* science?

  7. Why are they all space dimensions? by gurps_npc · · Score: 3, Interesting
    Frankly, the concept of a 2nd time dimension makes a lot more sense to me AND is a lot more interesting.

    Not only does a 2nd time dimension allow for actual time travel (in a one dimensional universe you can't change the order of anything - you need a 2nd space dimension to hop over or around someone in front of you - so a second time dimension allows for time travel).

    But also it make it a lot easier to understand why we do not SEE the 5th or higher dimension, let alone confirm it with scientific instruments.

    I can look up/down, North/South, and East/West, but I can not look past/future. So it makes sense that I also can not look t2+/t2-.

    --
    excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
    1. Re:Why are they all space dimensions? by gtall · · Score: 2

      What I'd really like is an extra space dimension so I can jump around traffic jams. An extra time dimension would good too so that it doesn't take me very long to do it.

    2. Re:Why are they all space dimensions? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      but then you could get a space jam...

    3. Re:Why are they all space dimensions? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Last I read, there is no discrimination between space and time dimensions in the common features of competing string theories (there could be 15 timelike dimensions, but we're sure there's at least one). You do not SEE "higher" dimensions simply because you are not angled that way. You could define the three dimensional space of your experience as numbers 2, 8, and 23 with no consequence whatsoever in the calculations. They are all perpendicular to each other, so there is no ordering.

      As for confirming their existence with scientific instruments? We might've already, but another model is more popular. The basis of having 10 (early models found an oddly low-dimension sweet spot at 10 dimensions, then a wide band of stability at 24 or more) or more dimensions is to have "room" for the different forms of interactions. Even if some of the dimensions were 1 Plank-length loops in on themselves so that there is only one position in those dimensions, simply having the direction exist benefitted the geometry of force interactions.
      On the other hand, if there are more dimensions with meaningful distances, it allows the existence of parallel, intersecting, or even skew universes as compared to what we observe. Depending on what forces reach how far in these dimensions, dark matter and dark energy could be interactions from nearby or intersecting regions of other familiar matter just outside our ability to angle our instruments.

    4. Re:Why are they all space dimensions? by physicsphairy · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I can look up/down, North/South, and East/West, but I can not look past/future. So it makes sense that I also can not look t2+/t2-.

      You can't do anything except for analyze the signals of photons presently impinging on your retina. You have no direct means of experiencing the space ahead of and behind you any more than you do the time directly ahead of and behind you. But assuming those photons travelled in straight lines in space and time and have spectra which depend on the object they last interacted with, you can make some good inferences about what objects were there a short time ago. Just as you can make the inference that those objects may have also been there at an earlier time, or may continue to be there longer than that.

      It's only because the speed of light is so fast that we act like we are making direct spatial observations. Slow it down enough and you might not say your eyes were very good for finding the position of things at all -- just for telling you what they were like in the past.

    5. Re:Why are they all space dimensions? by serviscope_minor · · Score: 1

      What I'd really like is an extra space dimension so I can jump around traffic jams

      Buy a helicopter. They come with an extra space dimension at no extra cost.

      --
      SJW n. One who posts facts.
    6. Re:Why are they all space dimensions? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      http://milesmathis.com/string....

      Actually, they are all *time* dimensions. There is still only one time interval---they overlap (the same interval), but in the math they transport the dt to the top and call it another d'n', misunderstanding what they are actually representing in the physical world. Modern physics has strayed down wrong paths for decades and got trapped in a room full of mental mathematical porn. Gotta get back to the mechanics.

    7. Re:Why are they all space dimensions? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Time travel is the weakest of all sci-fi plot devices. It is what an author uses when he is completely out of ideas.

      It does not make sense. Nor does hoping it is possible make sense. The only interesting upshot of its being possible would be that someone from the future (who doesn't know or care about you) could go to the past and change something that would prevent you from ever existing, and there is nothing you can do to prevent it. Yippie.

    8. Re:Why are they all space dimensions? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      What I'd really like is an extra space dimension so I can jump around traffic jams.

      You can actually use the oridnary time dimension for that, in many cases. Plotting your course through space-time so that you avoid the suckers who are sitting in the traffic jam can sometimes be tricky, but it's usually worth it.

    9. Re:Why are they all space dimensions? by fyngyrz · · Score: 2

      > but then you could get a space jam...

      That's fine as long as you have space peanut butter.

      --
      I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
    10. Re:Why are they all space dimensions? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Come on and slam and welcome to the jam
      Come on and slam, if you wanna jam

      [Slams inter-dimensionally]

    11. Re:Why are they all space dimensions? by gurps_npc · · Score: 1
      All you did was move the goal post. Why can light travel easily through the 3 standard space dimensions, but not the others?

      You got caught up in the technicalities, not the inherent point I was talking about..

      --
      excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
    12. Re:Why are they all space dimensions? by gurps_npc · · Score: 1
      Saying "I am not 'angled that way' is nonsensical. All you did was make new assumptions that had no reason.

      To put it simpler, what is so special and different about the first 3 space dimensions that we are 'angled that way', but not about the others.

      My point is that the we are also 'not angled' so as to see OR detect the time dimension. Therefore the time dimension has more in common with the other dimensions we can not detect than the physical dimensions.

      As for not discriminating between time and space, that is a foolish mistake. As I stated earlier, the time dimension is dramatically different, as both detected by our native sense organs AND by scientific instruments. We can freely move back and forth - by both our muscles and machines - in all three space dimensions, but not the time dimension. Our science shows that certain things that go both ways in space, can only go one way in time (entropy).

      Time is demonstrably and quantifiable different from the four existing space dimensions. Then the question becomes if the known time dimension is so different from the known space dimensions, what about the 'extra' theoretical dimensions? Are they like our known space dimensions? Or are they like our known time dimension?

      I agree with you that string theories do not intentionally make this distinction. Instead they treat all the extra dimensions like space directions. Specifically they assume no entropy arrow effect and they assume free movement in both directions.

      That does not mean they don't discriminate, it means they think all the extra dimensions are SPACE dimensions.

      Which is exactly the point I am complaining about.

      The silly ideas that space dimensions exist, but are themselves only tiny loops is by Occam razor, un-neccessary. It is far simpler o say:

      1) The universe consists of 3 space dimensions, that are easily measurable, and 23 time dimensions that are difficult to measure. Casual daily experience confirms the existence of the first 3 and at least one of the other 23.

      As opposed to saying:

      2) The universes consists of 1 time dimension, 3 space dimensions, and 22 tiny other dimensions. Casual daily experience confirms the existence of the first 4, but we only can theorize about the other 22 because they are one of several possible explanations for how the universe works.

      --
      excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
    13. Re:Why are they all space dimensions? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Space and time are not necessarily separate notions. From the perspective of a photon travelling at c, the amount of time that passes from its generation in the nuclear furnace of a start to when it impinges your retina is nil. Despite travelling potentially many billions of light-years, from its frame of reference, it gets there as soon as it leaves. It becomes an interesting question, then, as to what might be occurring in dimensions orthogonal to those 4 we find familiar in order to maintain causality within them.

    14. Re:Why are they all space dimensions? by physicsphairy · · Score: 1

      So the whole second half of your post was not about how we can't see and measure in temporal dimensions but we can in spatial dimensions?

      Light does travel easily through the temporal dimension. It does so constantly. (In the sense of how we experience it.)

      If you want to know why we can't visit the Jurassic, then also ask yourself why we can't visit Alpha Centauri. We occupy a small slither of space just as much as we do a small slither of time. If you talk on the scale of the earth or the solar system or the galaxy, we travel space in a set direction as well. Time is the same way -- we're caught up in such a current of increasing entropy that any motions made in the reverse are fairly futile. With enough energy, however, it could be done (in either case).

      My point is that your distinctions between space and time are largely a matter of how you choose to interpret your experiences. We certainly can probe another temporal dimension as well as another spatial dimension. (Although we could imagine features for both which make that difficult.)

    15. Re:Why are they all space dimensions? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      And torsion-based theories always seemed a lot more sensible to me. No need for extra dimensions, just kick that arbitrary "torsion-free connection" assumption to the curb and use the extra degrees of freedom (electromagnetism comes out nicely).

      Unfortunately as far as I can tell it doesn't take you much past electromagnetism and a lot of nutters have made their nests there...

    16. Re:Why are they all space dimensions? by david_thornley · · Score: 1

      Does not follow. We can send somebody to Alpha Centauri. (Given any reasonably current technology, it will take one heck of a long time, and they won't be alive for long, but those are implementation details.) That's an engineering problem. Voyager I could have been pointed at Alpha Centauri if we wanted, and it's a lot heavier than a human body. Visiting Earth in the Cretaceous isn't going to happen, given current scientific theory (unless we find an ancient time machine). Moreover, the standard spacetime metric treats time and spatial dimensions separately: the invariant interval between two events is based on the square of the distance between them minus the square of the time difference. (Or the reverse.)

      There are significant differences between space and time.

      --
      "When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
    17. Re:Why are they all space dimensions? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You can't do anything except for analyze the signals of photons presently impinging on your retina

      Tell that to olfactory-centric animals.

      What your eyes perceive and how you are able to move through space time are two different things. We have the ability to drastically alter our vectors through 3-dimensional space, but only very slightly slow or accelerate our practically-constant vector through time, through relativity.

  8. Re:String theory is not science! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    String theory is math. Math is not science. This should not be in the "science" section of /.

    Troll? Math is science at its most fundamental level.

  9. Unknown? by rfengr · · Score: 3, Informative

    How could be unknown if "A study in 2009 ranked him as the 14th most influential physicist in the world for the period 1967-1973.", or was he unknown at the time, which is common for anyone before popular ideas? Unknown in the general public is anyone but Einstein.

    1. Re:Unknown? by plover · · Score: 1

      Yeah, I thought the editing failure was typical. "Relatively unknown", "obscure", or even "all-but-forgotten" would have been a better choice. But to hyperlink to the guy's wiki bio from the word unknown? That's just lame.

      --
      John
    2. Re:Unknown? by Almost-Retired · · Score: 2

      This latter statement is gradually becoming moot, thanks to the efforts of another Japanese person with a tv personality.

      Now, speaking as someone who has spent 65 of my almost 80 years, dealing in electronics, I have yet to detect an error or distortion of what you can see on your tv screen (the last 54 years in broadcast engineering) that was not completely and absolutely explained when analyzed, by General Relativity, including time dilation in an electron beam caused by the combination of its mode of amplification, velocity vs distance traveled, plainly visible on the video monitoring scopes at the voltages commonly used in Klystron amplifiers.

      String theory, until it can make a testable prediction, which it has not in nearly 45 years, is to this old, un-papered but practicing engineer, strictly a means to keep a chair funded at some university whose management doesn't understand that a great number of us who do deal with relativistic effects on a daily basis, think its the pure stuff usually found, still warm and smelly, behind the male of the bovine specie. IMO they should close that chair and use the money to reduce tuition costs for other, far more practical subjects of study. But they cannot even think of doing that. They'll give the themselves a nice comfy raise instead.

      My $0.02, in 1934 dollars.
      Cheers, Gene

    3. Re:Unknown? by angel'o'sphere · · Score: 2

      String theory does hundreds of testable predictions in QM and relativity and aims to predict 'stuff' that are grey area in both QM and relativity.
      Where does the brain dead idea come from that thousands of physicists on the planet work on a theory that makes no testable predictions?
      Maxwell formulas/predictions, radioactive decay, space time warping close to gravity wells etc. ARE EXACTLY THE SAME IN STRING THEORY! Hence scientists find it interesting!

      --
      Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
    4. Re:Unknown? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Well, let's put it this way: My h-index is higher than his. On the other hand, he has 10 100-citation papers, while I only have 4. On the other other hand, his papers have been racking up citations for decades. Nonetheless, when you're in a class with me, you're very very unknown.

    5. Re:Unknown? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      So fr as I have read, anything testable has already been tested. Sure it can play copy-cat, but where its its prediction of a new effect that we might be able to use to switch gravity on and off?

      It always gets real quiet about the time someone asks such a question.

      Gravity is the last of the forces we still cannot test, even for its most important characteristic, its P.V. Our orbital math falls over in its morning oatmeal if its assumed to have a C speed propagation velocity, so it only works as observed, over billions of years if its essentially instantaneous.

      That little conundrum also points to a possible flaw in our space programs to detect a passing gravity wave. If it is instant at a distance, then how are we to connect the detected wave, with a visible event whose light (and the Neutrino's too) may take 75 million years to get here?

      Very simple answer, "we" can't correlate something with that sort of a time base. What will be the dominant species (f any) on this planet 75 million years hence? What past records might still exist that they could consult? It would almost have to be carved in stone, then encapsulated in hardened mud that would itself slowly form a stone.

    6. Re:Unknown? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Where does the brain dead idea come from that thousands of physicists on the planet work on a theory that makes no testable predictions? Maxwell formulas/predictions, radioactive decay, space time warping close to gravity wells etc. ARE EXACTLY THE SAME IN STRING THEORY!

      Predicting something that is already known isn't a prediction at all.

      The problem is that you can get such fake predictions just by adding parameters and dimensions to a theory until it fits all known physics. Arguably, that's what string theorists have been doing and why they have ended up with those horrendous theories.

  10. Re:String theory is not science! by Rosyna · · Score: 1, Troll

    Because it isn't testable.

  11. General relativity will never be reconciled by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    General relativity will never be reconciled with quantum mechanics until singularity is taken out

  12. Re:String theory is not science! by Ultra64 · · Score: 2

    To quote I kan reed:

    'String theory very clearly falls into the "not testable yet" category, rather than the "designed to resist testing" category'

  13. Re:String theory is not science! by i+kan+reed · · Score: 2

    Neither is an assertion about the absolute limit on speed in the universe(really: devise a test for that).

    At some level, science is about creating a model that explains existing observations. Testing that model, looking for violations is essential but the postulation of an internally coherent parsimonious system that matches what we already see is science.

  14. Re:String theory is not science! by medv4380 · · Score: 1

    Test-ability and the Title of Theory. String Theory is a Mathematical Theory, and an interesting Scientific Hypothesis. You can have a Math Theory as long as your math is sound given your assumptions. You can only have a Scientific Theory if your experiments, and data can be tested. Everything String Theory predicts and is testable for is in Relativity and Quantum mechanics. It doesn't provide anything new that we can test for yet. So giving it the mantel of Scientific Theory when it hasn't yet done the work needed gives it more credit then it should have. And doing so gives legitimacy to creationist claims that evolution is "Just A Theory".

  15. Re:String theory is not science! by timeOday · · Score: 2

    You can spin equations out the wazoo (math) but it doesn't mean they model any natural phenomenon in particular (physics).

  16. Claud W. Lovelace by darkwing_bmf · · Score: 5, Informative

    is his name. Not sure why the summary left it out.

    1. Re:Claud W. Lovelace by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You mean it isn't Buckaroo Banzai?

    2. Re:Claud W. Lovelace by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      RTFS! The summary clearly states "an unknown theoretical phycisist"!

      I bet you wish, time was a real dimension so you could go back and unpost your disinformation!

  17. I'm not a physicist, but by PJ6 · · Score: 1

    I thought there had to be more than 3 macro-scale space dimensions to allow the whole 'finite but unbounded' thing. You know, so you can't sail off the edge of space?

    1. Re:I'm not a physicist, but by Oligonicella · · Score: 1

      Finite but unbounded is not reality, only a conjecture designed to eliminate infinite length in any direction. People don't like either the concept of the universe being a bubble in a void or curving around on itself. The truth of the situation is we haven't a clue as yet.

    2. Re:I'm not a physicist, but by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Could you explain why? A 3-dimensional sphere is perfectly consistent.

    3. Re:I'm not a physicist, but by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      No. The universe does not close in on itself. That has been proven.

    4. Re:I'm not a physicist, but by PJ6 · · Score: 1

      No. The universe does not close in on itself. That has been proven.

      Citation needed. Care to share?

  18. Re:String theory is not science! by gtall · · Score: 3, Informative

    That's easily defended. All physical theories are math. That's it, there's nothing more to them. We interpret mathematical theories using a model, i.e., in this case, the universe. Some theories are consistent with the model, some are not. Those that are not, are no less scientific because they describe what cannot be the case. All that is required of a mathematical theory is that it be consistent.

    Einstein's general relativity a mathematical theory. Astrophysicists are still constructing tests to see how valid it is. Any testing is only as good as the resolution inherent in the physical system used for testing. In that sense, you could say that general relativity will forever be just a mathematical theory, it can never be fully tested because we'll never have infinite resolution (if that even makes sense). Mathematical theories of physics are merely scribbles on a piece of paper. We manipulate the scribbles and when we see our manipulation mirrored or represented in the Universe, we say the theory describes that part of the Universe. However, the representation is only up to a certain epsilon, so it is more accurate to say the theory describes the representation only up to the limit of resolution of our tests.

  19. Yes it is. by pavon · · Score: 2

    The scientific model is quite simply:
    1) Develop testable hypothesis (aka theory)
    2) Develop experiments/observations to test hypothesis
    3) Perform experiment/observations
    4) Repeat
    Anyone who participates in any of these steps is performing science. It took a while to find practical tests of String theory given it's extreme generality, but several have been suggested and a few have even been performed, ranging from the scale of planetary motion to LHC data.

  20. Re:String theory is not science! by Sockatume · · Score: 4, Insightful

    "String theory is untestable" is one of those easy to remember phrases that keeps you away from a great amount of interesting information:

    1) "String theory" is actually a family of related theories that make different predictions, where they're advanced enough to do so
    2) They're neither as a class, nor individually, a priori untestable
    3) They're theories of high energy physics, so what predictions they do make will be difficult to test on currently existing hardware
    4) The mathematical tools to make sense of the theories and make predictions are novel themselves

    String theory is at a stage kind of like parachuting early-20th-century physics into the 15th century. It's not relevant at length scales where we can easily make observations, but we don't have the necessary cognative or physical tools to write it off either. Have we been handed relativity, or the aether? We can't say because we're not smart enough yet.

    Now, as a matter of expediency I'd argue that any self-respective physicist should dedicate himself to advanced models that are a little closer to home and might act as stepping stones to string theory's energy scales, but since when has any self-respecting scientist been led away from a beautiful hypothesis by pragmatism? Much less a physicist?

    --
    No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
  21. Re:String theory is not science! by Oligonicella · · Score: 1

    And until it falls into the testable category, it's speculation not any form of an hypothesis.

  22. Re:String theory is not science! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    An absolute speed limit is as testable as anything in physics, and it's tested all the time in linear accelerators.

  23. Where is Buckaroo Bonzai when you need him? by mmell · · Score: 4, Funny

    Just sayin'.

    1. Re:Where is Buckaroo Bonzai when you need him? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That movie is an unintelligible, sucky mess. Just sayin'.

    2. Re:Where is Buckaroo Bonzai when you need him? by ItsJustAPseudonym · · Score: 1

      Beyond the eighth dimension. Duh.

    3. Re:Where is Buckaroo Bonzai when you need him? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      [Buckaroo Bonzai] is dead. He fell on his head.

  24. Re:String theory is not science! by Actually,+I+do+RTFA · · Score: 1

    Neither is an assertion about the absolute limit on speed in the universe(really: devise a test for that).

    An absolute speed limit is as testable as anything in physics, and it's tested all the time in linear accelerators.

    Really? Then you have empirical evidence disproving my "Things can totally go faster than light in a vacuum once you cross the event horizon of a black hole" theory?

    --
    Your ad here. Ask me how!
  25. Re:String theory is not science! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Math is that part of science you can do without a universe.

  26. Re:String theory is not science! by oh_my_080980980 · · Score: 1

    Science is about observation. Anything else is speculation. Somebody failed high school.

  27. Dim IX by Guy+From+V · · Score: 1

    Gotta be over 9000

  28. Re:String theory is not science! by oh_my_080980980 · · Score: 0

    Bullshit. String theory is dead. The latest research has shown that known of the boundary conditions for string theory exist.

    We don't have the necessary cognitive tools? Really genius.....

  29. Re:String theory is not science! by HornWumpus · · Score: 1

    He's wrong, as currently formulated it is testable in the sense that you gain new data (e.g. Higgs boson interactions) you can rule out those string theory formulations that failed to predict the new data.

    You can falsify individual 'string theories', but no matter what you do they will always be able to construct/revise a new one.

    --
    John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
  30. Re:String theory is not science! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    What is the argument you are making here?

    Are you proposing that all of physics is untestable because we don't know how to test it inside of a black hole?

    Which is a theoretical construct by the way. Can you prove anything happens inside of a black hole at all? Can you prove the things we call black holes in the universe are actually the objects that have been theorized?

  31. Re:String theory is not science! by HornWumpus · · Score: 1

    That was true for Newton as well.

    --
    John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
  32. Re:String theory is not science! by i+kan+reed · · Score: 1

    Yeah, genius, you figured it out. Good job. We just observed E=MC2. It was written on a tiny chalk board on some atoms we looked at with a microscope. We didn't extrapolate that idea from any sort of theory or model.

    It's absolutely the case that we mapped observational experimental data to the resulting formula, and found perfect matches, but it's not like a plot of data points for mass and heat energy released in radioactive is identical to a smooth curved mapped by a mathematical equation. We create the system, and we examine if it corresponds to reality.

    Inasmuch as the math of string theory maps to the behavior of tachyons(as described in this article) it's tested in much the same way. People say it isn't "tested" because your tests, nominally, shouldn't be the same as the data you're trying to explain in the first place, and should represent a divergence from the null hypothesis.

  33. Re:String theory is not science! by HornWumpus · · Score: 1

    Math is a tool used by science, it is not a science. It belongs somewhere in the useful philosophy neighborhood.

    --
    John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
  34. Re:String theory is not science! by niado · · Score: 1

    "String theory is untestable" is one of those easy to remember phrases that keeps you away from a great amount of interesting information:

    1) "String theory" is actually a family of related theories that make different predictions, where they're advanced enough to do so 2) They're neither as a class, nor individually, a priori untestable 3) They're theories of high energy physics, so what predictions they do make will be difficult to test on currently existing hardware 4) The mathematical tools to make sense of the theories and make predictions are novel themselves

    String theory is at a stage kind of like parachuting early-20th-century physics into the 15th century. It's not relevant at length scales where we can easily make observations, but we don't have the necessary cognative or physical tools to write it off either. Have we been handed relativity, or the aether? We can't say because we're not smart enough yet.

    Now, as a matter of expediency I'd argue that any self-respective physicist should dedicate himself to advanced models that are a little closer to home and might act as stepping stones to string theory's energy scales, but since when has any self-respecting scientist been led away from a beautiful hypothesis by pragmatism? Much less a physicist?

    If I could give out a "comment of the day" award, this one would win it.

  35. Unknown? by angel'o'sphere · · Score: 1

    So the inventor of multi dimensions, founder of string theory is unknown?

    Perhaps you wanted to make a sentence like " at that time unknown scientist ... "?

    After all people with the surname Lovelace are very well known in the geek community. Hm, have to check if they are actually related.

    --
    Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
  36. Oh it's not the only possibility /mathematically/ by fisted · · Score: 1

    Statements like that make me cringe. News at 11: Not everything mathematically possible is physically possible, it's the other way around.

  37. Didn't notice by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Couldn't bear to even try and read the medium.com linkspam.

  38. Don't use Peter Woit as a authority... by grimJester · · Score: 1

    Woit has written a book called "Not even wrong" about string theory and how it's not science in his opinion. He actively blogs about string theory hype. He's not a string theorist and although he does have a PhD in physics he's not published anything scientific in decades. He teaches math and writes anti-string rants as a hobby.

    1. Re:Don't use Peter Woit as a authority... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I love how the armchair critics keep citing this.

      Even Wikipedia is more accurate that Woit's assertions that are 30 years out of date.

  39. String "Theory" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I'm not asking you about evidence that you have found. I'm merely asking you to imagine evidence that you might find some day, which would confirm or disprove your "theory."

    I'm not asking you to tell me about an experiment that you have performed. I'm merely asking you to discuss an experiment that you might some day be able to perform, if say, you had a modest grant of ten trillion dollars per second and ten thousand years to work on putting your experiment together.

    The questions about a scientific theory simply don't get any easier than this. Have you ever wondered why creationists don't seem to be able to grasp what the word "theory" means? Maybe it's because people like you, have been teaching them that the word "theory" MEANS NOTHING. Indeed, I wonder why I even see you two, as two different groups. Your concept of Science sure looks the same to me.

    Everyone, please join me in henceforth, addressing all String Theorists with honorary titles such as Pastor, Minister, Your Holiness, etc.

  40. Re:String theory is not science! by timeOday · · Score: 1
    No, the key difference is that Newton could measure the world in order to select the equations that best modeled his measurements.

    Of course there were limits to how accurately he could measure, so his mathematical models were only accurate within those bounds (as always with physics).

  41. Re:String theory is not science! by angel'o'sphere · · Score: 1

    Then I really wonder why every german university is teaching it.
    Ah ... yeah, because the germans are so backyard, true.

    --
    Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
  42. Re:Oh it's not the only possibility /mathematicall by bluefoxlucid · · Score: 1

    Even worse: he proposes that our universe is only 3 spatial dimensions, when it's well-accepted that this is a consequence of inflation. Originally, we had ten dimensions in balance; but the force between them gave out, and six of these contracted while three expanded. The three expanding dimensions make up our growing bubble of space--the universe--while the six shrinking are not major forces in our universe, but possibly have an impact on the quantum level (see: quantum foam).

    Thus we have three-dimensional space-time, and six dimensions of no note. It's like having a few rich people and some non-notable Ska.

  43. buckaroo banzai by Charliemopps · · Score: 1

    Was his name Buckaroo Banzai?

  44. Re:String theory is not science! by sjames · · Score: 1

    Neither is an assertion about the absolute limit on speed in the universe(really: devise a test for that).

    It's been tested over and over again.

  45. Urg, terrible headline by Vyse+of+Arcadia · · Score: 1

    No one "invented" 26-dimensional spaces. Might as write a headline about the man who invented the number 26. Weird that the article is pretty decent.

  46. There is a flaw in your logic by frovingslosh · · Score: 1

    You're making a false assumption.

    --
    I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
  47. Re:String theory is not science! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Sounds a bit like Godel's Incompleteness Theorem.

  48. Re:String theory is not science! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I thought everything is moving at the maximum speed? The only difference is time based on relativity.

  49. Re:String theory is not science! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    All you're demonstrating is that mainstream science doesn't care if things are testable. It only cares if they are falsifiable. And string theories satisfy this need for falsifiablity

  50. Obligitory xkcd. by fahrbot-bot · · Score: 3, Funny
    --
    It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
    1. Re:Obligitory xkcd. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
  51. String theory is not a waste of resources! by Dorianny · · Score: 3, Interesting

    String theory was devised as a mathematical model that seems to describe a workable universe which may, or may NOT be our universe. Problem is that we know that the Standard Model cannot be the complete picture but so far we have no experimental data to use as a starting point to figure out what lies behind it. When we finally do get a hint of new physics some of the new math being invented by String Theorists is going to be very useful weather or not String Theory itself correctly describes our universe.

    1. Re:String theory is not a waste of resources! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      experimental data to use as starting point to find out what lies beyond it
      neutrinos with rest energies

  52. Re:Oh it's not the only possibility /mathematicall by Chris+Mattern · · Score: 1

    Thus we have three-dimensional space-time,

    If you're nominating time as a dimension, space-time would be four dimensions. Three dimensions would be just space.

  53. Cross roads of physics and computing by WaffleMonster · · Score: 4, Funny

    "All problems in computer science can be solved by another level of indirection" - David Wheeler

    "All problems in physics can be solved by another dimension" - Some jackass

    Is 26 dimensions better or worse than 26 levels of indirection?

    1. Re:Cross roads of physics and computing by TeknoHog · · Score: 1

      "Extra dimensions are the epicycles of Modern Physics" -- Mark Maughan

      --
      Escher was the first MC and Giger invented the HR department.
    2. Re:Cross roads of physics and computing by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      give me one parameter and i can model an elephant
      give me two and i can make him wiggle his tail
      wolfgang pauli

  54. Re:String theory is not science! by i+kan+reed · · Score: 1

    Yeah, and so have some of the predictions of string theory, since it asserts certain kinds of relationships that the standard model assert. The problem it has in meaningfully distinguishing itself, empirically, which only happens at scales that are either too large or too small for existing tech.

    Relevant wikipedia section

    I wouldn't say I assert any truth to the claims, only that they fit the mold of science.

  55. for the more mystically inclined by Cardoor · · Score: 1

    26 happens to be a very important number kabbalistically .. it is the numeric value of the 'name of god' (jehovah, for those not afraid of being stoned) which represents the complete manifested universe. im just saying - kinda neat.

    1. Re:for the more mystically inclined by TeknoHog · · Score: 1

      the 'name of god' (jehovah, for those not afraid of being stoned)

      Whoa. At first I thought you meant stoned as in a spiritual state, and only then I recalled that Brian movie.

      (If a man lies with a man as with a woman, they both must be stoned... :-P)

      --
      Escher was the first MC and Giger invented the HR department.
  56. Re:Oh it's not the only possibility /mathematicall by bluefoxlucid · · Score: 1

    Yes four-dimensional space-time, not three-dimensional space.

  57. Re:String theory is not science! by sjames · · Score: 2

    The issue there is that more parsimonious theories already predicted everything that has been tested in string theory.

    The problem is that practically any experimental outcome can be shown to be a 'prediction' of string theory. String theory predicts nearly anything and everything depending on where you set the constants. It is far more descriptive than predictive.

    It's not a total waste, it's just premature.

  58. Re:String theory is not science! by Actually,+I+do+RTFA · · Score: 1

    Are you proposing that all of physics is untestable because we don't know how to test it inside of a black hole?

    Yes. I'm saying the the total set of all physics is currently (and likely to remain) untestable. Which isn't to say that science cannot handle it. We use principles like Occum's Razor to say that if it is the best description of what we can observe, then we assume (pending further disproving) it is true.

    Which works out great. I mean, "truth" is a nebulous concept. One can construct a universal coordinate system that treats the earth as the unmoving center, and has the sun moving around it in strange shapes. And, in fact, that's the coordinate system we use through most of our daily life (folks at NASA, SpaceX, etc. excluded). But we recognize when it becomes more convenient to have a different truth. Also, similar to how I've never concerned myself (outside of class) with relativity, but GPS engineers had to.

    Heck, even relativity wasn't testable when postulated. It took like 40 years to conceive of a test.

    So I suppose my entire point was against the unreasonable goal of testability for all facts.

    --
    Your ad here. Ask me how!
  59. Re:String theory is not science! by i+kan+reed · · Score: 1

    Ah, but that's the question the string theory proponents claim to be working towards: parsimony. Fewer, more elegant equations for more of the universes' behavior.

    Is that better occam's razor material than the standard model that applies several different core mechanics more straightforwardly? Maybe. Maybe not. Tough question, and irrelevant if string theory doesn't hold up its end on predictive value.

  60. no no no by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    No! Time is not a dimension, at least not like the three spatial dimensions. The combo ct is convenient in e.g. the distance metric -c^2dt^2+dx^2+dy^2+dz^2 and related but tat's all.

  61. After all by X-Ray+Artist · · Score: 1

    It's what makes "Ludicrous Speed" possible.

    --
    I would have a sig but I am too busy updating programs and restarting my computer
  62. string theory, particles, and all that other stuff by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Well, 26 dimensions, a (string) theory, and no way to explain ANY of the simplest massive particles.
    Electron, Proton, Neutron, Meson.
    Nothing that accounts for their mass, stability, angular momentum, charge. Not withour some
    pretty questionable math (renormalization, time directions: t- tau + x - vt and t-tau + x + vt , subtract
    the infinities and plug in the experimental value...)
    and some really questionable connections to philosophy ( we have to do these operations in a
    certain order because... ).
    Math is fun, but should not be taken too seriously, especially when working with reality....
    Kindal like bad magic, twisted spells, and abnormal psychic phenomena...

  63. Re:String theory is not science! by AchilleTalon · · Score: 2

    Exactly, that's why the Standard Model is so resilient and unsatisfactory at the same time. A collection of facts glued together by bits of knowledge and mathematical modeling.

    --
    Achille Talon
    Hop!
  64. Re:String theory is not science! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Mathematical theories are the models, and they are tested for consistency against observations of the universe at large in hopes that they can accurately model the existential processes they describe.

  65. Re:String theory is not science! by Rosyna · · Score: 1

    Germany is shutting down all their nuclear reactors. Clearly they are the best at sciencing using logic.

  66. Re:String theory is not science! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The same ones that give out medical doctorates in homeopathy? Saying "the Germans do it" is an appeal to authority, and a questionable one at that.

  67. Re:String theory is not science! by radtea · · Score: 1

    but since when has any self-respecting scientist been led away from a beautiful hypothesis by pragmatism? Much less a physicist?

    More frequently than you might think.

    I highly recommend Lisa Randall's "Warped Passages" as a fairly recent meditation from a working physicist on the strengths and weaknesses of multi-dimensional theories, as well as some of the background on what motivates them.

    The short story is that higher dimensions make it easier to generate universes like ours, which are almost flat gravitationally and have this ridiculous difference in scale between gravity and everything else. Regular 3+1 dimension Standard Model physics requires a ridiculous level of fine-tuning for this to happen, so it is interesting to look for deeper theories where these features arise naturally.

    The problem with String Theories in particular--and as other posters have pointed out it really is a family of theories--is that they are almost useless for "model building", which is the activity of generating simplifications we can actually calculate with to describe the world as it is today vs the world as it was a few Planck times after the Big Bang.

    So while string theory is neither "untestable in principle" nor "designed to resist testing" it is "naturally test-resistant." Some simpler variants--including a rather elegant heuristic model that Randall herself co-created--have been killed off by the LHC, but the diversity of possible low-energy models enabled by String Theory is so large and heterogeneous that in practical terms they cannot all be falsified.

    In the meantime, String Theories continue to take up an inordinate amount of theoretical physicist's time and effort, and there have been fairly senior voices raised in concern about this, particularly because it has been going on for so long that we may end up with a generation of theorists who have never done anything but string theory and have come to the conclusion that it won't work.

    Rather than waiting for this Big Reset, it would be nice if we started spending more time looking at non-stringy alternatives.

    --
    Blasphemy is a human right. Blasphemophobia kills.
  68. What it says on the tin by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I can say without hesitation that he was not playing with a full deck.

    Well yeah; he was a theoretical physicist.

  69. String theory is voodoo physics by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Decades from now? Some of us are doing that now.

  70. Re:String theory is not science! by Zalbik · · Score: 1

    String theory is math. Math is not science. This should not be in the "science" section of /.

    General Relativity is math. Math is not science. General relativity should not be in the "science" section of /.

    Quantum Mechanics is math. Math is not science. Quantum Mechanics should not be in the "science" section of /.

    Thermodynamics is math. Math is not science. Thermodynamics should not be in the "science" section of /.

    See the problem?

  71. The Universe is Lisp meme by Tablizer · · Score: 1

    If you throw enough indirection and meta-ability into your model, it becomes analogous to a Turing Machine that can "run" and match just about any conceivable universe. It's almost at the level of Creationism in that instead of: it's that way because "God did it", you have "because my meta model (language) can be re-programmed to match that too". I smell a cop-out.

    Either that, old-fashioned parsimony perhaps should be downplayed and emergent-behavior explanations be considered. But "God did it" is then a valid candidate.

    1. Re:The Universe is Lisp meme by lucien86 · · Score: 1

      The 'Anthropic Question' answers this problem.. A simulation still needs a creator or 'God' so it doesn't achieve anything at all. And since the simulation itself would need to exist it would still need 'energy' and lots of it . . . . starting to build a nice tower of turtles under that disk world. I prefer my reality real.

      --
      Below the speed of light Special Relativity is one of the most accurate theories in physics - above the speed of light..
  72. but he ain't got rhythm by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    He attracted some attention
    When he found the 26th dimension
    But he ain't got rhythm
    So no one's with him
    The loneliest man in town

  73. Re:String theory is not science! by sjames · · Score: 1

    If it or any other theory can explain why the other mechanics are what they are, that would be an accomplishment, but it can't do that. There is nothing to suggest why the constants would be what they must be for the other mechanics to fall out of it.

    It may one day get there but right now it shouldn't be called theory.

  74. Re:Oh it's not the only possibility /mathematicall by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    when it's well-accepted that this is a consequence of inflation

    That is one marginally plausible way of connecting theory with observation, but there is no direct evidence for it (or any of the alternative models).

  75. Re:String theory is not science! by angel'o'sphere · · Score: 1

    For germany it is pretty logical to shut down 50 year old reactors.
    If you like to store our nuclear waste, please give us a call, perhaps we consider to extend the running time of the younger ones.
    Oh, you don't like 10,000ds of cubic yards of nuclear waste, mostly dangerous chemicals in your basement?
    So don't I!

    --
    Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
  76. Re:String theory is not science! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    math is the language through which the description is achieved...it includes both syntax (transformations, mappings) and semantics (abstract objects), but that described (the world) is a separate "given," the thing described, not implied by the language. some tractatus wittgenstein here..realize the challenge later wittgenstein, "Newtonian mechanics tells us nothing _about_ the world...it tells us only that the world can be described in a way which, in fact,it has been described." "Truth is the agreement between language and the world." some bohr, "the purpose of science is not to tell us what the world _is_, but merely to tell us what we can say about nature." heisenberg "electrons do not exist in time and space any more than they have color or a sense of humor."

  77. String Theory is not (very) Empirical by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    You're getting trapped in semantic games. Let's be clear about what we mean by "truth". The basis of empirical truth is observation. The basis of rationalistic truth is logic, as opposed to observation. Rationalism lends itself to exact proofs, which do not necessarily describe the real world. Empiricism is true only to the limits of our observational abilities. Science is empirical, mathematics is rational. You can prefer either system but you're not doing yourself or anyone else any good by conflating the two. To the degree that String Theories do not make real-world predictions, they are neither empirical nor scientific. The "whole of physics" is therefore testable by definition.

    Relativity was tested in 1919, fourteen years after Einstein's 1905 paper. Tests were immediately conceived for various aspects, the trouble of verification (i.e. observation) was precision. Observational evidence of relativity, notably Michaelson-Morley, predated the theoretical explanation. To some degree this is true of string theories, to some degree it is not. To the degree to which string theories do not refer to observations, or possible observations, they cannot be considered to be (empirically) true.

    If you have fuzzy definitions of truth, truth is a nebulous concept. This is not the case in either science or mathematics. Please spend some time reading about the subject.

  78. Re:String theory is not science! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    My high school offered String Theory, but I never took it. Since it was misclassified under the music department instead of the math department I figured the teacher was an idiot and the class not much better.

  79. It was subsequently proved in 24 dimensions by Boawk · · Score: 1

    by a Greek physicist. It's a matter of available labels.

  80. Huh? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    How did this dreck get up-modded?

  81. Did he invent or discover? by BobandMax · · Score: 1

    If he invented the 26th dimension, then it did not previously exist and probably still does not. If he discovered it, then it previously existed and probably still does. Both within reasonable uncertainty bounds, of course.

    --

    "Computers are useless. They can only give you answers."
    -- Pablo Picasso
  82. Link Broken by Crass+Spektakel · · Score: 1

    The link in the articel seems to be broken and show chaotically formated text.

    Please correct.

    --
    "Life is short and in most cases it ends with death." Sir Sinclair
  83. In OUR theory the dimensions go up to 11 ! by billstewart · · Score: 1

    But why couldn't you use 10 dimensions and just make them *larger*?

    Ours goes up to 11.

    --

    Bill Stewart
    New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
  84. Re:Procreate with corpses by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Well thank christ you're here to let us know. It's not like the very name "Einstein" is synonymous with genius or anything.

  85. Re:String theory is not science! by Sockatume · · Score: 1

    Well put.

    --
    No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
  86. Re:String theory is not science! by david_thornley · · Score: 1

    We have extensively tested the effects of applying a force to something and watching what speeds we get out of it at what times. We have a simple theory based on certain simple assumptions that says that isn't going to work, so any other evidence supporting Special Relativity is a test of the absolute speed limit.

    That being said, it only applies to trying to exceed lightspeed by acceleration, and all Special Relativity really has to say on FTL is that it's effectively the same as time travel. We have a design of something that might be able to exceed lightspeed provided we can get enough matter of negative mass* and a sufficiently powerful power source (and, really, producing enough antimatter to power it is more of an engineering than a scientific challenge), but provided we can use it for time travel also it doesn't violate Special Relativity.

    *I really don't know enough about physics to know if (a) we have some theories predicting such exotic matter, (b) we have a place for it in physical theories if we ever find some, or (c) we know how we could change physical theories to accommodate it.

    --
    "When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
  87. Re:String theory is not science! by david_thornley · · Score: 1

    Mathematics does not have theories in the same sense physics does (although it does use the word to apply to a number of related theorems, like number theory). Theories of physics do not actually have to use numerical math. We can have qualitative theories of physical systems (i.e., increase the temperature here and the temperature there decreases), although the numbers are usually not far below the surface. In fact, most theories of physics are mathematical models.

    General relativity is not a mathematical theory. It is a theory of physics that is usually expressed by a mathematical model and rules for applying it to the Universe. It cannot be fully tested, any more than (say) Newton's theory of gravitation. After all, we can't release objects of all substances in all points of even the solar system at all times. By simple observation we can't rule out the possibility of H.G. Wells' Cavorite, a material that blocked gravitation. By observation, we can't know (inside Newtonian physics) if the gravitational constant has changed slightly over the past billion years.

    Physicists, in my observation, do like to keep track of how precise their experiments are as compared to their theories. After all, there's very little evidence of quantum mechanics on normal human scale (black-body radiation is an exception), and so Newtonian physics breaks down on a sufficiently small scale. Similarly, General Relativity either requires observations on a much larger scale or extremely precise observations (like the time correction in GPS satellites).

    --
    "When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
  88. Universities teach dead stuff by justthinkit · · Score: 1

    Universities teach dead stuff. For example, Latin.

    --
    I come here for the love
    1. Re:Universities teach dead stuff by angel'o'sphere · · Score: 1

      Problem here are more the schools than the universities.
      For history, theology and medicine, perhaps other topics (law), latin is quite useful or even mandatory (medicine).

      --
      Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
  89. Music theory by gzuckier · · Score: 1

    ((Fifth Dimension) ^2) + One Direction

    --
    Star Trek transporters are just 3d printers.
  90. Re:String theory is not science! by gzuckier · · Score: 1

    Conversely, our view of reality is shaped by our brains, which are in some way wedded to mathematical analysis and constructs. Which would explain why even complex theoretical physics barely even scratches the surface of the world of mathematics.

    --
    Star Trek transporters are just 3d printers.
  91. Re:String theory is not science! by gzuckier · · Score: 1

    Or you could make the case that in fact no equation really models any natural phenomenon; they just provide asymptotically more accurate estimates. F=MA. No it doesn't, you have to correct for relativity. OK, now it does. Nope, you have to correct for dark matter and dark energy. And so on.

    --
    Star Trek transporters are just 3d printers.
  92. Re:String theory is not science! by gzuckier · · Score: 1

    That's an old argument. Did Newton invent F=MA? Or did he discover it, floating out there in some cognitive space waiting to be discovered?

    --
    Star Trek transporters are just 3d printers.
  93. K.I.S.S. - the Answer is 3 not 4 - or 26 by lucien86 · · Score: 1

    K.I.S.S. or Keep It Simple Stupid' - Occam's Razor. The solution isn't more dimensions its less. By using an FTL model you can reduce the four dimensions used by General Relativity to Three. The thing is that three works better and it fits better with actual observation. It can even be made to fit with the general relativity mechanic by allowing a physical dimensional time but only on quantum scales.. .
    They deduced dimensional time from the observation of dimension like time - and time like space in the dilation caused by travel at relativistic speeds. Unfortunately they didn't notice that the vector of movement defines a direction - giving a free dimension - so at the speed of light dimension like time is just an ordinary dimension of space. It can be generalised to say that the 'speed' of light is actually a 'velocity'. KISS wins.

    --
    Below the speed of light Special Relativity is one of the most accurate theories in physics - above the speed of light..
  94. Re:String theory is not science! by socceroos · · Score: 1

    Nice one. I actually appreciated that joke. :)

  95. Just askin' by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    What % of this is libel mmell http://slashdot.org/comments.p... ? 100% libeling others accusing them of pedophile activities perhaps? Do you work for, or own/have interests in, a marketing (or affliated with advertisers based company or consultancy) oriented capacity mmell? Answer those questions

  96. Search Origins-Cosmology Vedas interlinks by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    sub:Search Origins-Cosmology Vedas interlinks
    String theory has the origins-Cosmic Dance of Lord SiVA. Basic concepts :source,fields,flows,reflectors add to protective Index. The Prime Concepts offer higher Dimensional Knowledge. Search space cosmology vedas interlinks. Support East-West Interaction-Vidyardhi Nanduri