Cool. I had skimmed that article but missed the part about the CERN collider. Let’s see what happens.
Actually, yes, since it might explain why we live in a universe with four visible dimensions. Inventing new things to solve a problem is different from explaining an experimental result by adding lots of kludges. Neutrinos got posited in just this way, before they were detected.
I would suspect not, since a theory that can explain anything clearly explains nothing. Good physicists would steer clear of such a theory, and the string theorists may be wrong, but they are competent.
But let’s be honest, I don’t think that a single participant in this thread can actually fully follow a complete evolution of any given flavor of string theory, and physicists are human beings with a lot of emotions and drives beyond just being good physicist. Consequently, I say we wait for some more evidence before lauding it as any sort of advancement.
String theory is falsifiable. If we built a particle accelerator having a circumference similar to the orbit of the planet Pluto, or of the entire galaxy, and we still couldn’t detect superpartner particles, string theory as currently formulated simply could not be correct, and would need radical reworking. Hopefully, those superpartners will be detected at much more accessible energies, perhaps even in the Large Hadron Collider in 2007.
String theory asks what if? Specifically, it asks what if 6 or 7 dimensional Calabi Yau space was compactified into our 3 dimensions? If that was the case, then the different harmonics of the same tiny, ultra-tense superstrings would (apparently) look exactly like the familiar particles we see around us. Having got this far, the search is on for some observable consequence of this which we can test in our everyday 3-D life. Just because the tests are not availbale yet does not, I think, condemn the entire enterprise to pseudoscientific irrelevence: the word I would use is protoscientific, which all eminent theories necessarily start out as.
Of course, a string theorist would say that its most successful prediction is that of gravity and that string theory, like relativity before it, really is too good to be false. When asked what he would think if the confirming tests for relativity came out negative, Einstein replied that God may be subtle, but He isn’t plain mean.
You’re kidding, right?
Sorry, am I using the verb incorrectly? The noun is Compactification.
Evidently you’re using it correctly. I never heard the term before - it just sounds a little bit too much like the mangled verbification of a certain President.
Heh heh. Let’s not talk about his Lies. 
Just think how long atomic theory had been around in one form or another before someone finally came up with a scientific way to test it–more than two millenia.
Look, I’m not being dismissive of string theory, I’m just saying that we shouldn’t hail it as the most important advance of the century until it’s been experimentally demonstrated. A lot of other good theories have fallen by the wayside under the face of experimental evidence, and the same may happen with string theory. Again, I acknowledge that it’s interesting and hopeful, but until it has empirical support, I just cannot get that excited about it. I still respect it and the people that are working on it.
Again, we’ll see what happens with CERN in 2007.
That’s a bad example. Democritus’ atomic theory was derived in a nonscientific way. He was kind of right, but for the wrong reasons. String theory, even if it is wrong, has a stronger basis.
I agree it is early to call string theory an advance, though it is an advance in theory. I suspect that even if something about it is falsified by an experiment, the insight gained by looking at things in this way will prove valuable. And I think protoscientific is an excellent description of it at the moment.
But Larry, I personally know some of these string theorists. They ALL hold, with crazy ambition, to the Copenhagen interpretation of Heinsenberg (as in QM). They do NOT believe that string theory is fundamentally testable/falsifiable. They just want a to build a simpler set of equations that takes care of more — String Theory, by their definition is just a universal mathematical model. If Oakum’s Razor works, that’s all the proof they need. They don’t care that it is not TRULY scientific, other than indirect verification through other theories that end up being subsets. That’s just the way they think -
I’ve argued til I was blue in the face, and that’s what I get from them in the end every time.
You may be right, Citizen Bob. As I said, I’m not really qualified to discuss this. Most of the math and physics in string theory is over my head, which extends only through basic calculus and a little college physics. Most of what I know about string theory comes from reading The Elegant Universe and following the debate in Scientific American and similar magazines. I wouldn’t be surprised if these sources overstate the case for string theory.
That being said, I’m wondering what you think of DSied’s posts and links. They seem to describe some plausible tests for string theory. Even if those tests are not practical, they would show that the theory is at least potentially testable.
Also, It was my understanding that the Copenhagen interpretation was just a philosophical approach to Quantum mechanics, that explained or dealt with some of the quantum weirdness like wavepacket collapse, but wasn’t really necessary to actually do or test QM itself. Again, I may very well be wrong here.
Finally, even if the most pessimistic slant is given to string theory, and it turns out that it can never be tested, I would still hold that it is worth study. It may indeed mean that science is returning to its classical greek roots, where we merely create hypotheses that explain the phenomena and preserve the appearences of things. But this need not be a worthless endeavour. A mathematical theory that resolves the contradictions between QM and Relativity would still be an impressive achievement, even if it never went beyond the realm of mathematical speculation. Mathematical consistency and explanatory depth would lift string theory beyond the level of some random ad hoc hypothesis.
Which theory of gravity may be partly false in its fundamentals. In fact, some of the key mechanisms are unknown in any case. Maybe perceptible gravity isn’t really strictly a function of concentrations of matter, & we’re just dealing with something we still don’t understand at all. But it works for us. We can at least apply the math successfully to do what we’ve been doing.
That doesn’t change the fact that science isn’t just there to invent new toys & engines of wealth. Understanding how the world works is a pretty cool thing in its own right.
That is the biggest load of malarkey I have read today. (Which is saying something since I just got here from the theOnion.com.)
I, also, know some of the physicists that work in string theory and have heard and had discussions with nobel laureates on this subject and all of them, bar none, want and are trying to devise tests to prove/falsify the string theory. Some of them feel that it may not be possible to test the theory, but none of them think what you have stated, “If Oakum’s Razor works, that’s all the proof they need.”
Your assertations go against all scientific inquiry and the standards/ethics of being a scientist. So, I am going to ask for a cite for your comments, or a retraction.
Among philosophies, science enjoys a wonderful and unique circular foundation: it is never wrong because potentially being wrong is part of what it is.
I’m glad you see my point! It goes against all scientific inquiry and the standard & ethics… but read the book - its what they hold to.
No, he said your assertations (sic) do so. String theory is falsifiable: if the supersymmetric partners of our familiar particles are not found in particle accelerators which should find them (and the LHC is not yet powerful enough to provide the test, nor even will it be in 2007), string theory would be demonstrably wrong since it relies on supersymmetry. I think you are constructing a strawman out of arguments you didn’t understand.
Your sarcastic comments are not improving your position.
I am not agreeting with you and your attempt to twist my words is a joke.
Please, provide a cite for your comments.
Yes, because he’s a drama queen, he just wants to start shit with physicists, and he comes in to threads on String Theory and lies his ass off to upset you. :smack: