I think that mistake is a kind of a typo. 10 to the 500th is often expressed in print as 10^500 and maybe that character got transposed to a comma at some point.
The bigger issue to me is the fact that everyone recognizes that string theory is currently untestable and un-falsifiable and then they get upset when this untestable, un-falsifiable theory claims that we are living in a universe that can’t exist.
Obviously the problem is in the theory. I don’t see anything earth-shaking here. They just need a better theory... and I think most physicists have known that about string theory for a long time... even most string theorists.
That we live in this one universe should prove the hypothesis false.
Logic dictates that if a person postulates a theory stating that the observable universe that we live in is an impossibility, then the flaw lies in this person's theory.
It is garbage and not worth bupkis.
“everyone recognizes that string theory is currently untestable and un-falsifiable and then they get upset when this untestable, un-falsifiable theory claims that we are living in a universe that can’t exist”
Isn’t that, in a way, a falsification? If your theory can describe a multitude of universes, but not the one we actually live in, then your theory is falsified as a description of the only universe that matters to us, no?
The bigger issue to me is the fact that everyone recognizes that string theory is currently untestable and un-falsifiable and then they get upset when this untestable, un-falsifiable theory claims that we are living in a universe that can’t exist.
So string theory is even more useless than before, because not only does it have no predictive/testable value, it doesn’t even model our own universe right? Wonderful.