# Is "String Theory" essentially just unprovable mathematical noodling? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [November 25, 2005, 10:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-string-theory-essentially-just-unprovable-mathematical-noodling/332737 "2005-11-25T22:29:54Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![RaftPeople](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/6f9a4e/32.png) [@RaftPeople](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RaftPeople)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2005, 6:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-string-theory-essentially-just-unprovable-mathematical-noodling/332737/21 "2005-11-26T18:37:38Z")
Is it possible the defficiency in being able to test string theory is not that the theory is un-testable, just that we do not have the means today to test it? I know a number of Einsteins predictions took a long time to be verified. ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2005, 6:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-string-theory-essentially-just-unprovable-mathematical-noodling/332737/22 "2005-11-26T18:49:40Z")
Once again, certain aspects are indeed testable. (See above.) There are also testable possibilities that open up if one allows for small extra dimensions that have not even been seriously discussed - for example, one set of open questions has always been why we see so little antimatter and why what we see of it is not the exact mirror image of matter. There have been lots of proposals suggested for it, but none elegant. One possible explanation once one supposes extra dimensions is that antimatter can move in these extra dimensions in a different orientation and with slightly different mobility than can matter. Most antimatter is there but can only be detected by its gravitational effects and what we can directly see is oriented differently than matter so looks asymmetric realtive to it. These are testable hypotheses. For example, at “antimatter factories” (such as at Fermilab) one can measure the half life of antiprotons. _If_ this speculation is valid, then some should inexplicable disappear without leaving a commensurate amount of energy behind as a certain amount drift off into other nonobservable dimensions. When gravity can be measured at that scale they should still be detectable as excess gravity. Perhaps such sort of studies will be done in Fermi’s waning days. In any case falsifiability takes a different flavor in particle physics. Physicists get most excited when their models fail to predict successfully. And in the regard the Standard model has failed gloriously on many an occassion. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2005, 8:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-string-theory-essentially-just-unprovable-mathematical-noodling/332737/23 "2005-11-26T20:56:47Z")
> [@](#): > > You seem to have it backwards. An entity isn’t scientific because we can prove that it exists. It’s scientific because we are able to prove that it doesn’t exist but have consistently failed to do so. I think I lost you on this one. Could you run through this again? > [@](#): > > Nobody has seen a graviton, but nobody has seen an atom or ionising radiation produce a mutation for that matter. We simply infer those things exist from the effects they produce. > > That’s one of the great strengths of science. We don’t need to observe anything directly to credit its existence. Instead we are able to credit an entity by observing the effects, and then predicting what the other effects we should see if such an entity does exist, or else what effects couldn’t exist in a universe without such an entity. > > Gravity itself, as mass attracts mass proportional to distance, is scientific because it can be easily tested and falsified. Relativistic explanations of gravity can also be tested to some extent through the observation of lensing, a predicted outcome. I’m not sure of the status of gravitons specifically but gravity waves are scientific because they have formed the basis of numerous falsifiable predictions. Those predictions have so far failed to produce the expected results, possibly because the equipment isn’t sensitive enough, but that’s irrelevant. The theory is scientific because it is open to falsifications and it makes testable predictions. It might be wrong, but it’s still scientific. > > You can see how that differs form positing supernatural unicorns as our entity. What predictions can you make regarding an IPU? How can you falsify the existence of an IPU? Even if the IPU theory is right, it still won’t be scientific if it can’t do either of those things. I think you’ve misplaced the cart and the horse here. The fact that objects attract each other based on their mass and their seperation is an observation not a theory. Nobody is disputed that things fall down. But that doesn’t necessarily make gravity the reason why things fall down. Aristotle, Le Sage, Newton, Einstein, and Sakhorov have all offered different theories on why things fall down. Einstein’s theory on gravity being an effect of the curvature of spacetime is currently regarded as the best explanation, but nobody has been able to prove that it’s correct (which is one reason why Sakharov was able to offer a different theory). Nobody has been able to bend spacetime in a lab setting and measure the resulting changes in gravity. The problem is that the generally accepted method of proving a theory is to use it to make a prediction about a previously unobserved phenomenon and then confirm the theory by observing the phenomenon. But how do you prove a theory that explains every observable phenomena? String theory “predicts” the existence of things like gravity, electricity, atomic particles, the universe, space, time, etc - but all of these things had already been observed before the theory was developed. What’s nothing unexplained left to predict. > [@](#): > > Can you explain to a layman like myself why string theory is simpler than IPUs at explaining why things happen? It seems to me that the IPU theory only needs to posit one additional entity to explain all observations. String theory seems to need to posit umpteen entire dimensions to explain the observations. Doesn’t that make IPU theory simpler? > > Of course if string theory is capable of making testable predictions then of course that trumps all. That makes string theory scientific. But if all we have are two competing non-scientific theories then you can’t claim that the one that seems most like science (and hence most psuedo-scientific) is simpler when it clearly isn’t. Volumes have been written explaining the various problems other theories have encountered and how string theory overcomes these problems. I don’t have the knowlege or the space here to try and repeat all of that. But let me repeat this - every other theory is provably wrong. There are observed repeatable facts that prove that every other theory about how the universe works has some area of error in it. String theory, while not yet proven right, is the only theory that hasn’t yet been proven wrong. As for invisible pink unicorns - I suggest you’re going to need a lot more work on how this theory works before you can offer it as an alternative. > [@](#): > > If you don’t think there’s a big difference between “genetics is nothing but a religion” and “the genetic explanation doesn’t appear to be any more scientific than a religious explanation” then you are beyond my help I think. Just don’t repeat your assertion that I claimed that string theory was a religion. It’s just a silly strawman. I’ll admit I also though the two statements were pretty much equivalent. (I assume your substitution of genetics for string theory was some kind of typo.) Can you explain what the difference is that you see between them? ---
**Author:** ![VegaBean](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/ee7513/32.png) [@VegaBean](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/VegaBean)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2005, 10:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-string-theory-essentially-just-unprovable-mathematical-noodling/332737/24 "2005-11-26T22:09:44Z")
String theory is worse than “essentially unprovable”. It “essentially wanting to believe something random _just because_ it is unprovable.” This is the “logic” that keeps simple people buying supermarket rags about alien babies. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2005, 11:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-string-theory-essentially-just-unprovable-mathematical-noodling/332737/25 "2005-11-26T23:28:39Z")
VegaBean, could you please share with us what you know about string theory? Because your post makes it appear you aren’t very familiar with the actual theory. ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2005, 11:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-string-theory-essentially-just-unprovable-mathematical-noodling/332737/26 "2005-11-26T23:35:30Z")
**Little Nemo** , Einstein’s explanation of gravity was falsifiable. It predicted gravitational lensing and subsequently such was observed. And that is the point. Einsten’s explanation is not thereby “proven”, it is not disproven despite experiments being done that could have disproven it if it was false. The more those data points are collected, the more confidence we have in a particular model. If a model fails to make unique predictions about future observations better than extant models then there is no reason to displace an extant model. And once again the same chances exist for string theory. Extra dimensions can be disproven if false because of predictions made about gravity. ---
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2005, 11:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-string-theory-essentially-just-unprovable-mathematical-noodling/332737/27 "2005-11-26T23:56:47Z")
Well said, DSeid. Yours is the classical philosophical position. Science is actually _defined_ by what you demand of it. Kudos to you. ---
**Author:** ![astro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9dc877/32.png) [@astro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astro)\ **Post date:** [November 27, 2005, 12:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-string-theory-essentially-just-unprovable-mathematical-noodling/332737/28 "2005-11-27T00:15:17Z")
> [@Liberal](#): > > Well said, DSeid. Yours is the classical philosophical position. Science is actually _defined_ by what you demand of it. Kudos to you. So… if ID/Creationists decided to be cute and held up String Theory as an example of something which is generally respected as “scientific theory”, but in empirical terms is largely (in essence) a near supernatural mathematical ontology that is impossible to test or verify in real world terms, would they have a point? ---
**Author:** ![Larry\_Borgia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/larry_borgia/32/156_2.png) [@Larry\_Borgia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Larry_Borgia)\ **Post date:** [November 27, 2005, 12:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-string-theory-essentially-just-unprovable-mathematical-noodling/332737/29 "2005-11-27T00:20:08Z")
> [@astro](#): > > So… if ID/Creationists decided to be cute and held up String Theory as an example of something which is generally respected as “scientific theory”, but in empirical terms is largely (in essence) a near supernatural mathematical ontology that is impossible to test or verify in real world terms, would they have a point? No, they wouldn’t. ID is _fundamentally_ untestable. The statement “God did it” can apply to any possible state of affairs. String theory is _practically and temporarily_ untestable. We simply haven’t thought of tests we can possibly do yet. And as DSeid points out, string theory may be tested sooner than the pessimists think. ---
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [November 27, 2005, 12:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-string-theory-essentially-just-unprovable-mathematical-noodling/332737/30 "2005-11-27T00:27:33Z")
> [@astro](#): > > So… if ID/Creationists decided to be cute and held up String Theory as an example of something which is generally respected as “scientific theory”, but in empirical terms is largely (in essence) a near supernatural mathematical ontology that is impossible to test or verify in real world terms, would they have a point? There has to be a prediction before there can be a test. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [November 27, 2005, 2:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-string-theory-essentially-just-unprovable-mathematical-noodling/332737/31 "2005-11-27T02:52:39Z")
> [@astro](#): > > So… if ID/Creationists decided to be cute and held up String Theory as an example of something which is generally respected as “scientific theory”, but in empirical terms is largely (in essence) a near supernatural mathematical ontology that is impossible to test or verify in real world terms, would they have a point? I certainly have not seen the math behind string hypothesis, but generally, if you start with a set of equations, and can explain known phenomena not built into the design of the equations without a lot of special cases, you think you have something. This is what elegance is all about. This certainly does not prove anything, but is a weak sort of falsifiability. The strong part is making a falsifiable prediction. Creationism makes all sorts of falsifiable predictions, all of which have been falsified. The dishonesty comes from creationists either denying the evidence or cooking up special explanations. Remember that the old style creationists from 225 years ago were honest enough to dump the Biblical explanation when the geological evidence of the age of the earth had become clear. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [November 27, 2005, 4:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-string-theory-essentially-just-unprovable-mathematical-noodling/332737/32 "2005-11-27T04:59:45Z")
Several people have refered to string theory as being religious or supernatural - this simply is not true. String theory makes no mention whatsoever of God, spirits, or magic. At worst, string theory will end up like cosmic aether or phlogiston or Lamarckian evolution - a reasonable attempt to explain observable effects that was later supplanted by a better explanation. ---
**Author:** ![astro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9dc877/32.png) [@astro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astro)\ **Post date:** [November 27, 2005, 5:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-string-theory-essentially-just-unprovable-mathematical-noodling/332737/33 "2005-11-27T05:07:48Z")
> [@Little Nemo](#): > > - a reasonable attempt to explain observable effects that was later supplanted by a better explanation. And “God, spirits, or magic” do _not_ fall into this category? ---
**Author:** ![threemae](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/5f9b8f/32.png) [@threemae](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/threemae)\ **Post date:** [November 27, 2005, 7:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-string-theory-essentially-just-unprovable-mathematical-noodling/332737/34 "2005-11-27T07:14:05Z")
I suppose that my, “objection,” (I’m not actually opposed to it, I just get annoyed with people beating it around as some sort of absolute truth or, “what physicists think”) to string theory is that I don’t quite understand how we can spend too much extra money on paying people to, “advance” string theory if it hasn’t been empirically validated yet. I mean, what about physicists that believed in ether prior to Einstein’s work? Weren’t they on the verge of coming up with mathematically consistent explanations for their contemporary level of observations? So, what if string theory turns out to be analogous to ether? I imagine that we’ll feel stupid for investing lots of time in “advancing” it only to have all of this later work invalidated by physical observation. I understand that it seems like the best shot that we have so far for explaining our universe to another level, but perhaps we just shouldn’t go too far afield before making sure that there are at least some levels of empirical support for the theory. Let’s all hope that experimental physics soon catches up with some of the theory and that we can either go forward with string theory from there or rethink our assumptions and get onto the right path. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [November 27, 2005, 7:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-string-theory-essentially-just-unprovable-mathematical-noodling/332737/35 "2005-11-27T07:29:53Z")
> [@threemae](#): > > I suppose that my, “objection,” (I’m not actually opposed to it, I just get annoyed with people beating it around as some sort of absolute truth or, “what physicists think”) to string theory is that I don’t quite understand how we can spend too much extra money on paying people to, “advance” string theory if it hasn’t been empirically validated yet. I mean, what about physicists that believed in ether prior to Einstein’s work? Weren’t they on the verge of coming up with mathematically consistent explanations for their contemporary level of observations? So, what if string theory turns out to be analogous to ether? I imagine that we’ll feel stupid for investing lots of time in “advancing” it only to have all of this later work invalidated by physical observation. I understand that it seems like the best shot that we have so far for explaining our universe to another level, but perhaps we just shouldn’t go too far afield before making sure that there are at least some levels of empirical support for the theory. My understanding is that theoretical physicists are cheap. The experiments are expensive. It seems a lot cheaper to fully develop the math before rushing into building big accelerators to check it. Of course, doing experiments on existing equipment is another thing. As for the aether, it is true that people tried to cook up explanations for the Michelson-Morley results - but none were very elegant or satisfactory. Einstein’s answer was so elegant that in 1908, when word came of an experiment that confirmed the aether, he didn’t believe it. He was right. I think that what people aren’t getting is that when a theory explains known results starting from a basic principle, without being warped to explain the results, that is support for the theory. Not total, but each result it explains elegantly is another piece of evidence for it. ---
**Author:** ![Larry\_Borgia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/larry_borgia/32/156_2.png) [@Larry\_Borgia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Larry_Borgia)\ **Post date:** [November 27, 2005, 7:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-string-theory-essentially-just-unprovable-mathematical-noodling/332737/36 "2005-11-27T07:32:27Z")
Lots of good science was done by people who believed in the aether. Maxwell developed his equations believing in the aether. Hell, Isaac Newton believed in the aether. Good science can be done under theories that are later proved wrong. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [November 27, 2005, 7:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-string-theory-essentially-just-unprovable-mathematical-noodling/332737/37 "2005-11-27T07:41:50Z")
> [@](#): > > I suppose that my, “objection,” (I’m not actually opposed to it, I just get annoyed with people beating it around as some sort of absolute truth or, “what physicists think”) to string theory is that I don’t quite understand how we can spend too much extra money on paying people to, “advance” string theory if it hasn’t been empirically validated yet. I mean, what about physicists that believed in ether prior to Einstein’s work? Weren’t they on the verge of coming up with mathematically consistent explanations for their contemporary level of observations? So, what if string theory turns out to be analogous to ether? I imagine that we’ll feel stupid for investing lots of time in “advancing” it only to have all of this later work invalidated by physical observation. I understand that it seems like the best shot that we have so far for explaining our universe to another level, but perhaps we just shouldn’t go too far afield before making sure that there are at least some levels of empirical support for the theory. There’s tons of empirical evidence for string theory - it’s just that all of the evidence was already known before the theory existed. As I’ve said, string theory fits all the facts. ---
**Author:** ![Apos](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/838e76/32.png) [@Apos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Apos)\ **Post date:** [November 27, 2005, 9:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-string-theory-essentially-just-unprovable-mathematical-noodling/332737/38 "2005-11-27T09:20:15Z")
Unfortunately, while string theory fits all the facts, there aren’t enough facts to nail down whether it actually describes reality in the details it purports to add to the picture. There are litterally thousands of different solutions within string theory to various problems and no real way to figure out which are right, which are relevant to our world, and so forth. The strong suspicion is simply that because we discovered mroe complete mathematical solutions to various equations we used to describe disparate parts of the physical world, that this MUST mean something. It indeed might. But mere beauty and _a_ solution just isn’t enough until we can do something with what we’ve discovered. The fascinating things about the history of string theory is that it’s plauged by completely different conceptual ideas that turn out to be mathematically related. That’s one reason people are convinced we’re on to something. But it’s equal reason to believe that we’re missing some pretty major pieces of the puzzle that would have helped us see those junctions coming instead of having to be totally surprised by them. ---
**Author:** ![threemae](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/5f9b8f/32.png) [@threemae](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/threemae)\ **Post date:** [November 27, 2005, 10:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-string-theory-essentially-just-unprovable-mathematical-noodling/332737/39 "2005-11-27T10:04:33Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > but none were very elegant or satisfactory And saying that an extra 10 or 20 or 99 extra dimensions exist on an incredibly small scale is? I understand that we don’t have experimental evidence which falsifies or goes against string theory, but there haven’t been any definitive hypothesis made and tested by string theory. Given the widely varrying number of extra dimensions thrown out by various proponents of string theory, in some ways, couldn’t you make string theory say almost anything? Still put me down as impressed by the idea but far from convinced, although I appreciate what you are saying about the cost of theroretical physicists vs. experiments and how, lacking a particle accelerator the size of Texas or the Milky Way, we might as well fool around with string theory a bit now. ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [November 27, 2005, 2:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-string-theory-essentially-just-unprovable-mathematical-noodling/332737/40 "2005-11-27T14:30:38Z")
Another fun article aimed at the general public in The New York Times and falsifiability > [@](#): > > When Dr. Randall and Dr. Sundrum published their first paper, describing the two-brane scheme, in 1999, she said that many physicists did not recognize itas a new idea and not just an elaboration on the large extra dimensions of the A.D.D. group. In fact, she said, the extra dimensions don’t have to be very large in the two-brane theory, less than a millionth of a trillionth of a trillionth of an inch. When they published their second paper, about the infinite dimension, she said, even some of their best friends, reserved judgment. But by the time a long-planned workshop on strings and particle physics at the Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics in Santa Barbara rolled around thatfall, string theorists were excited about the Randall-Sundrum work and the earlier A.D.D. proposal. The reason was simple: If they were very lucky and one of these versions of string theory was the one that nature had adopted, it could actually be tested inthe Large Hadron Collider, the giant particle accelerator due to go into operation at CERN near Geneva in 2007. Colliding beams of protons with a combined energy of 14 trillion electron volts, the collider could produce particles like gravitons going off into the fifth dimension like billiard balls hoppingoff the table, black holes or even the illusive strings themselves. “If this is the way gravity works in high-energy physics, we’ll know about it,” Dr. Randall said. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-string-theory-essentially-just-unprovable-mathematical-noodling/332737.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-string-theory-essentially-just-unprovable-mathematical-noodling/332737.md?page=3)