Credit: (left, Greene) Lumidek: (right, Krauss) Lawrence Livermore National Laboratories
Posted on 03/31/2007 7:21:41 PM PDT by SunkenCiv
Michael Turner... the University of Chicago cosmologist had the unenviable task of trying to crown a winner in a match-up between Brian Greene and Lawrence Krauss, two physics heavyweights duking it out over the merits -- or lack thereof -- of the so-called Theory of Everything... Last night's debate did little to settle the argument, but a packed house of academics, physics geeks, and just-curious laypeople seemed to enjoy themselves nonetheless. Krauss threw the first punch. A professor at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio, and an expert on black holes, dark matter, and dark energy, Krauss said he has grown tired of string theory's hyped but hollow antics. In 37 years, he noted, the hypothesis has explained little while confusing a lot. "It doesn't make predictions," he said. "It usually makes excuses." Greene shot back: Although string theory's successes can't be experimentally verified at the moment, that doesn't mean they aren't there. Mathematically, the hypothesis appears to resolve a decades-old problem of merging the "two pillars" of physics: gravity and quantum mechanics. And, noted the Columbia University theoretical physicist, mathematician, and darling of public television, string theory might also account for the origin of disorder in black holes, which has stumped physicists for decades. String theorists are eagerly awaiting the results of the Large Hadron Collider, as it might show subtle details about the strings themselves.
(Excerpt) Read more at sciencenow.sciencemag.org ...
Credit: (left, Greene) Lumidek: (right, Krauss) Lawrence Livermore National Laboratories
String Theory's Extra Dimensions Must Be Less Than Half the Width of a Human Hair
Scientific American | January 16, 2007 | JR Minkel
Posted on 01/17/2007 1:06:00 AM EST by SunkenCiv
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1768742/posts
Large Hadron Collider: Does every particle in the universe consist of points, strings, or loops?
iTWire | Thursday, January 18, 2007 | William Atkins
Posted on 01/18/2007 4:15:35 AM EST by SunkenCiv
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1769410/posts
Physicists Develop Test for String Theory
Space Daily | Jan 25, 2007 | Staff Writers
Posted on 01/25/2007 12:01:26 PM EST by Ben Mugged
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1773567/posts
New particle accelerator could rule out string theory [ Large Hadron Collider ]
New Scientist | February 1, 2007 | David Shiga
Posted on 02/03/2007 4:18:18 PM EST by SunkenCiv
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1778727/posts
String Theory Explains RHIC Jet Suppression
Physics News Update | Number 813 #2, February 27, 2006 | Phil Schewe, Ben Stein, and Davide Castelvecchi
Posted on 02/28/2007 11:44:44 AM EST by SunkenCiv
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1792700/posts
UC Riverside Researchers' Discovery Of Electrostatic Spin Topples Century-old Theory
Science Daily | 4-3-2003 | Editorial Staff
Posted on 04/03/2003 7:14:50 PM EST by vannrox
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/884438/posts
Meet the Indian who took on Stephen Hawking
Rediff.com | August 03, 2004 10:06 IST | Rediff.com
Posted on 08/03/2004 1:16:56 AM EDT by CarrotAndStick
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1183887/posts
First speed of gravity measurement revealed
NewScientist.com | 01/07/2003 | Ed Fomalont and Sergei Kopeikin
Posted on 01/07/2003 9:23:34 PM EST by forsnax5
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/818623/posts
"One important consequence of the result is that it places constraints on theories of "brane worlds", which suggest the Universe has more spatial dimensions than the familiar three... [T]he assumption of light-speed gravity has come under pressure from brane world theories, which suggest there are extra spatial dimensions rolled up very small. Gravity could take a short cut through these extra dimensions and so appear to travel faster than the speed of light - without violating the equations of general relativity..."
BFL, sounds like a good read.
Boson Football League?
Bump for Later
String theory actually makes evolution sound intelligent by comparison.
[and he's spreading physics to the arts!]
Friday, March 23rd... Saxophonist, electronic musician & composer Krauss presents Lensing.
[and from our "who knew?" dep't]
Thursday, March 22nd -- Kevin Davis (improviser, composer & cellist) makes work that bares his emotions, challenges his body and forces together structural rigor with the danger of the moment. He also likes quiet. Tonight he presents an evening of solo cello work interested in the synthesis of the compositional/improvisational space. Kevin applies internal logic or structural devices to improvised performances, using indeterminate elements in compositions and working with extended, often timbre-oriented cello techniques. Collaborators range from Arnold Dreyblatt to Mike Pride and influences include the extensive study of architecture and sculpture.
Bookmarking...
String Theory attempts to make two mutually exclusive theories (General Relativity and Quantum Mechanics) compatible.
It's silly. It's absurd.
It's probably a great way to obtain "research" grants.
String Theory is lost in a wilderness of mathematical confusion. The things it "explains" may be true, but it is not the case that string theory adds any new understanding. The problem is a combination of the mathematics being too hard and the physics being too high-energy to be experimentally accessible; but the first of these is the more fundamental. There are plenty of things that experiment already measures that a proper fundamental theory ought to explain, namely the 17 or so arbitrary parameters currently necessary to stick in to the "standard model". If Greene, Witten, et al could just derive the fine-structure constant or the quark and lepton mass ratios from string theory using pure mathematics, it would completely justify string theory and they would be the most deserving Nobel Prize winners since Einstein; but they can't, and in fact the later versions of string "theory" are getting further and further away from being able to do this.
Thanks.
If you are a theoretical physicist, as opposed to an experimental physicist or a philosopher, those alternatives are not really sensible.
GR and QM contradict on such major points as energy, with one saying that energy is everywhere and infinite and the other saying that Gravity is energy. Combining the two theories would yield infinite Gravity everywhere...which we don't see (nor could we, life couldn't exist).
The two theories are mutually exclusive. They could both be wrong or just one might be wrong, but both can't be correct...which makes String Theory's attempts to unite the two theories absurd.
You misunderstand. String theory does not attempt to unite both theories so that they both keep their complete validity, but to do so in such a way that they appear as limiting cases of a more general theory, so that one or both are technically "wrong" but not in a way that contradicts current experimental evidence.
This is a good thing to try to do, but the string theorists, having failed to do it, refuse to admit it.
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