Interesting that you say that you are not a troll and then perform the typical troll action of taking a quote out of context...
If you continue reading the interview you'll find the exact same response that I have been giving you. We will discard the theory when it gives a predication which Nature tells us is incorrect. Also if you continue reading the interview you'll find what people mean when they say that String Theory is a Theory of Everything. What they mean when they say that is: There are 4 fundamental forces (gravity, EM, Weak Strong), String Theory has the possibility to incorporate all of them. This is considered a huge strength as it is highly nontrivial (ie lots of really smart people spent many, many years trying to do it and have only succeeded a couple of times).
Skepticism is a large part of science, indeed it is the primary component to being a scientist. However, you will note that in general to actually be a skeptic you have to actually know what you are talking about. I did make the assumption that decidedly few String theorists or even particle theorists read/..
Mathematical beauty is considered a plus for any theory. It actually turns out that many of early successes of other theories (ie General Relativity) could be explained by much more mundane means, but the mathematical elegance of GR won over many scientists and convinced them that finding other predications from GR to test was worthwhile.
As I believe I have pointed out previously, there are other competing approaches to fixing the problems of the Standard Model. These approaches are taken seriously by many physicists, it is unfortunate that B. Greene's books and the Nova series have convinced you that String theorists and high energy particle theorists work on the basis of peer pressure.
Finally, I do not see why searching for predications from a very nice mathematical framework is not a pursuit of science as you are suggesting. Just because science as it is practiced in the real world does not fit your idea of how science is practiced does not mean that it is not science. The scientific method is a nice abstraction which exists to illustrate to people how science works, but it does have its short comings. I think your main stumbling block is the fact that we are attempting to connect string theory to nature and if it does not work then string theory will be modified or discarded whereas if string theory was a religion we wouldn't care if it described nature and would just revel in the inherent beauty of the theory. You are just seeing a field which is maturing, not a field which has matured.
I find it amusing that a certain subset of/.'ers commonly spout off about things which they know next to nothing, but you do not see me posting on the arXiv about how/. is no longer a news site and has devolved into a soap box for disgruntled computer types.
The scientific method is a generalized idealization of what happens. Ideas are not just pulled out of the air, but to a certain extent there is a prejudice towards pretty ideas. The spirit of the scientific method is intact, we still attempt to describe nature using theories and test those theories with experiment. The theories are still subjected to other criteria and do not just fit the data.
I don't see where I asked you to believe string theory. I think that it is hard to argue that it is possibily a description of nature for a certain set of circumstances, just like General Relativity is a possibily a good description of nature for a certain set of circumstances or Newtonian Mechanics for that matter.
String Theory has the advantage that it does fix many long standing problems in Quantum Field Theory and there's a good chance that one could construct a model which has the correct low and high energy behavior. It is even possible that the model will be valid to a very, very high energy scale. The fact that String Theory solves many of the long standing problems + is a very beautiful theory is the reason that many physicists feel it is worth their time exploring the consequences of String Theory.
Re:String theory is "religion" for scientists
on
The Fabric of the Cosmos
·
· Score: 3, Informative
I can't believe I'm feeding the/. science troll but here goes:
String theory is not a religion for scientists or for anyone else. It is an attempt to fix some of the many technical problems with the Standard Model, SM, (ie the current description of EM, Strong, and Weak forces). We know that the SM is incomplete (besides the fact it's a model and not a theory so it describes but doesn't explain) and there are various ideas of ways to complete (ie find the high energy theory for which the SM is the low energy limit) the SM.
Now, there are other ways to complete the SM including such ideas as Supersymmetry, Little Higgs, Technicolor, etc. Some of these like Technicolor have been ruled out, others like Supersymmetry have not been tested and do not have currently testable predications.
It turns out that String Theory is more ambitious than most of the attempts to complete the SM. Most of the approaches like Supersymmetry and the Little Higgs admit that they are not the fundamental theory and at some other energy scale they are incorrect just like the SM. String Theory does not suffer from this problem. This means that the energy scale of String Theory is very high (much higher than the other "easier" theories) and thusly it's implications for the physical regime that we can currently probe are much more subtle. There is lots of work trying to find what the implications are, but currently there is no concrete evidence for or against String Theory.
Now in 2007ish the Large Hadron Collider will come online and we will have lots of "high" energy data. It will still come from well below the String scale but it will be much higher than what we currently have. The economics of high energy physics are such that we have to now wait long periods of time before we get new colliders.
Strictly speaking the scientific method as taught in schools is not really correct anymore. The days of explaining why rocks fall are pretty much over for most branches of physics. Finding aspects of the universe which are not currently explained is no longer so simple. We need to have theories to figure out what the interesting experiments actually are. This means that having a theory is necessary. High energy Physics has progressed to the point where we have to pick and choose our experiments so in most cases we actually need theories.
The major difference then between String Theory and religion is, we will find observable consequences of String Theory and we will test them. If we find disagreement with theory the theory will be discarded/modified, if it agrees we will look for more consequences to test.
Isn't there a historical precedent for this? Just google for the Great Blackout of '65. This could just be a variation on that theme.
Things ARE actually making more sense...
on
Dark Energy Confirmed
·
· Score: 2, Informative
Actually, to be fair, particle theorists have been saying for quite a while that there should be a cosmological constant, (This is what Dark Energy essentially is). Unfortunately, particle physics currently has this constant many, many orders of magnitude too high. Really the major thing about Dark Energy is it is a reversal of the previously widely held contention in cosmology that the universe was decelerating, but this is not the first time that cosmology has been reversed like this however with the new precision of measurements like WMAP it might be the last time such a reversal occurs.
And while you're in Chicago, you should head up to Batavia, IL and see Fermilab. There's free range buffalo, oddly painted buildings, and the Tevatron (particle accelerator and is also claimed to be the other manmade structure which can be seen by the naked eye in orbit). Not sure about tour options for the general public.
The fact that neutrinos oscillate indicate that at least one of the flavors of neutrinos has a nonzero mass. However, I believe that the upper limits on neutrino masses and current theories on the number of neutrinos present in the universe still leave some mass unaccounted for, for a closed universe.
Slashdot Mirror
Interesting that you say that you are not a troll and then perform the typical troll action of taking a quote out of context...
/..
/.'ers commonly spout off about things which they know next to nothing, but you do not see me posting on the arXiv about how /. is no longer a news site and has devolved into a soap box for disgruntled computer types.
If you continue reading the interview you'll find the exact same response that I have been giving you. We will discard the theory when it gives a predication which Nature tells us is incorrect. Also if you continue reading the interview you'll find what people mean when they say that String Theory is a Theory of Everything. What they mean when they say that is: There are 4 fundamental forces (gravity, EM, Weak Strong), String Theory has the possibility to incorporate all of them. This is considered a huge strength as it is highly nontrivial (ie lots of really smart people spent many, many years trying to do it and have only succeeded a couple of times).
Skepticism is a large part of science, indeed it is the primary component to being a scientist. However, you will note that in general to actually be a skeptic you have to actually know what you are talking about. I did make the assumption that decidedly few String theorists or even particle theorists read
Mathematical beauty is considered a plus for any theory. It actually turns out that many of early successes of other theories (ie General Relativity) could be explained by much more mundane means, but the mathematical elegance of GR won over many scientists and convinced them that finding other predications from GR to test was worthwhile.
As I believe I have pointed out previously, there are other competing approaches to fixing the problems of the Standard Model. These approaches are taken seriously by many physicists, it is unfortunate that B. Greene's books and the Nova series have convinced you that String theorists and high energy particle theorists work on the basis of peer pressure.
Finally, I do not see why searching for predications from a very nice mathematical framework is not a pursuit of science as you are suggesting. Just because science as it is practiced in the real world does not fit your idea of how science is practiced does not mean that it is not science. The scientific method is a nice abstraction which exists to illustrate to people how science works, but it does have its short comings. I think your main stumbling block is the fact that we are attempting to connect string theory to nature and if it does not work then string theory will be modified or discarded whereas if string theory was a religion we wouldn't care if it described nature and would just revel in the inherent beauty of the theory. You are just seeing a field which is maturing, not a field which has matured.
I find it amusing that a certain subset of
The scientific method is a generalized idealization of what happens. Ideas are not just pulled out of the air, but to a certain extent there is a prejudice towards pretty ideas. The spirit of the scientific method is intact, we still attempt to describe nature using theories and test those theories with experiment. The theories are still subjected to other criteria and do not just fit the data.
I don't see where I asked you to believe string theory. I think that it is hard to argue that it is possibily a description of nature for a certain set of circumstances, just like General Relativity is a possibily a good description of nature for a certain set of circumstances or Newtonian Mechanics for that matter.
String Theory has the advantage that it does fix many long standing problems in Quantum Field Theory and there's a good chance that one could construct a model which has the correct low and high energy behavior. It is even possible that the model will be valid to a very, very high energy scale. The fact that String Theory solves many of the long standing problems + is a very beautiful theory is the reason that many physicists feel it is worth their time exploring the consequences of String Theory.
I can't believe I'm feeding the /. science troll but here goes:
String theory is not a religion for scientists or for anyone else. It is an attempt to fix some of the many technical problems with the Standard Model, SM, (ie the current description of EM, Strong, and Weak forces). We know that the SM is incomplete (besides the fact it's a model and not a theory so it describes but doesn't explain) and there are various ideas of ways to complete (ie find the high energy theory for which the SM is the low energy limit) the SM.
Now, there are other ways to complete the SM including such ideas as Supersymmetry, Little Higgs, Technicolor, etc. Some of these like Technicolor have been ruled out, others like Supersymmetry have not been tested and do not have currently testable predications.
It turns out that String Theory is more ambitious than most of the attempts to complete the SM. Most of the approaches like Supersymmetry and the Little Higgs admit that they are not the fundamental theory and at some other energy scale they are incorrect just like the SM. String Theory does not suffer from this problem. This means that the energy scale of String Theory is very high (much higher than the other "easier" theories) and thusly it's implications for the physical regime that we can currently probe are much more subtle. There is lots of work trying to find what the implications are, but currently there is no concrete evidence for or against String Theory.
Now in 2007ish the Large Hadron Collider will come online and we will have lots of "high" energy data. It will still come from well below the String scale but it will be much higher than what we currently have. The economics of high energy physics are such that we have to now wait long periods of time before we get new colliders.
Strictly speaking the scientific method as taught in schools is not really correct anymore. The days of explaining why rocks fall are pretty much over for most branches of physics. Finding aspects of the universe which are not currently explained is no longer so simple. We need to have theories to figure out what the interesting experiments actually are. This means that having a theory is necessary. High energy Physics has progressed to the point where we have to pick and choose our experiments so in most cases we actually need theories.
The major difference then between String Theory and religion is, we will find observable consequences of String Theory and we will test them. If we find disagreement with theory the theory will be discarded/modified, if it agrees we will look for more consequences to test.
Isn't there a historical precedent for this? Just google for the Great Blackout of '65. This could just be a variation on that theme.
Actually, to be fair, particle theorists have been saying for quite a while that there should be a cosmological constant, (This is what Dark Energy essentially is). Unfortunately, particle physics currently has this constant many, many orders of magnitude too high. Really the major thing about Dark Energy is it is a reversal of the previously widely held contention in cosmology that the universe was decelerating, but this is not the first time that cosmology has been reversed like this however with the new precision of measurements like WMAP it might be the last time such a reversal occurs.
And while you're in Chicago, you should head up to Batavia, IL and see Fermilab. There's free range buffalo, oddly painted buildings, and the Tevatron (particle accelerator and is also claimed to be the other manmade structure which can be seen by the naked eye in orbit). Not sure about tour options for the general public.
A little bit of a nitpick but what was actually observed was a violation of CP symmetry, NOT CPT. CPT is still a valid symmetry.
The fact that neutrinos oscillate indicate that at least one of the flavors of neutrinos has a nonzero mass. However, I believe that the upper limits on neutrino masses and current theories on the number of neutrinos present in the universe still leave some mass unaccounted for, for a closed universe.