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Why String Theory Is Both A Dream And A Nightmare
Forbes ^ | February 26, 2020 | Ethan Siegel

Posted on 02/27/2020 6:32:04 AM PST by C19fan

String theory is perhaps the most controversial big idea in all of science today. On the one hand, it's a mathematically compelling framework that offers the potential to unify the Standard Model with General Relativity, providing a quantum description of gravity and providing deep insights into how we conceive of the entire Universe. On the other hand, its predictions are all over the map, untestable in practice, and require an enormous set of assumptions that are unsupported by an iota of scientific evidence.

For perhaps the last 35 years, string theory has been the dominant idea in theoretical particle physics, with more scientific papers arising from it than any other idea. And yet it has not produced even one testable prediction in all that time, leading many to decry that it hasn't even risen to the standard of science. String theory is simultaneously one of the best ideas in the entire history of theoretical physics and one of our greatest disappointments. Here's why.

(Excerpt) Read more at forbes.com ...


TOPICS: Science
KEYWORDS: physics; science; string; stringtheory
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To: BDParrish

I’ve always wondered why more people don’t use ad-blocker software.


21 posted on 02/27/2020 7:49:07 AM PST by Excuse_My_Bellicosity (Liberalism is a social disease.)
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To: BipolarBob
Is your cat alive or dead?😎
22 posted on 02/27/2020 7:51:07 AM PST by 6ppc (If preteens acted like Democrats they would be grounded for life!)
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To: thoughtomator

Same with particle physics in the last 40 years and the bogus “discovery” of the Higgs boson. It’s all about getting govt. money and when the peasants that fund them start asking annoying questions, their answer is that we’re too stupid to understand it. I’m against further funding until they can coherently and provably tell us what we’re getting for our money.


23 posted on 02/27/2020 7:52:02 AM PST by Excuse_My_Bellicosity (Liberalism is a social disease.)
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To: C19fan

I have a gut feeling that string theory is junk math.


24 posted on 02/27/2020 7:56:04 AM PST by GingisK
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To: Getready

It is difficult to push knowledge past intellect.


25 posted on 02/27/2020 7:57:32 AM PST by GingisK
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To: HangnJudge
...Relativity was testable.:

Yes well sort of, in that we could see the stars that were behind the sun during an eclipse, and we could fly an atomic clock around the globe and check it against one that was still on the surface, they were different by exactly the amount the math predicted. But all those tests only established that Newton was out as far as a cosmology was concerned and Relativity took its place. Once Quantum mechanics was understood, no one allowed it to falsify the theory. A unified theory is important and string theory seemed to do it.

Relativity is true, but it contradicts Quantum Mechs.

Quantum theory is true but if followed to its logical conclusions, it falsifies Relativity, if it can be said that Einstein falsifies Newton.

String theory can unite them! Too bad it contradicts the observations.

A theory that can be used to prove anything and its opposite can only have value to the "math is beautiful" people. Newton is so beautiful and works so well right up to the point it doesn't, just like Quantum Physics, just like Relativity, just like String Theory.

Delighted for someone to correct me, but not please with the "electric universe"...(sigh.)

26 posted on 02/27/2020 7:58:35 AM PST by BDParrish ( Please correct me! I never learned anything from anybody who already agreed with me.)
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To: olepap

The Mice.


27 posted on 02/27/2020 7:58:37 AM PST by GingisK
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To: BipolarBob

Our cat prefers yarn theory.

L


28 posted on 02/27/2020 8:06:22 AM PST by Lurker (Peaceful coexistence with the Left is not possible. Stop pretending that it is.)
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To: Excuse_My_Bellicosity

I have a problem with my laptop freezing up, not the website’s fault. It is the videos on the margins doing it and my adblocker does not stop those. Trying to avoid spending the moola to upgrade the computer.

If you could read and explain the article better than I please do correct me with my thanks!

FReegards!


29 posted on 02/27/2020 8:08:19 AM PST by BDParrish ( Please correct me! I never learned anything from anybody who already agreed with me.)
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To: 6ppc

I’m afraid to open the box.


30 posted on 02/27/2020 8:09:52 AM PST by BipolarBob (I asked my cat who his favorite socialist was. He looked at me and said Mao.)
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To: olepap

“Cogito ergo sum”


31 posted on 02/27/2020 8:15:28 AM PST by BDParrish ( Please correct me! I never learned anything from anybody who already agreed with me.)
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To: 6ppc
...Is your cat alive or dead?😎

My cats don't like boxes, especially closed ones

32 posted on 02/27/2020 8:15:57 AM PST by HangnJudge (Kipling was right about humanity)
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To: HangnJudge
At least Einstein’s General Relativity was testable....

I've read that the strings in string theory are theoretically so small, that you would need to build a super collider about the size of the diameter of the solar system in order to test for them.

33 posted on 02/27/2020 8:17:04 AM PST by Right_Wing_Madman
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To: 6SJ7; AdmSmith; AFPhys; Arkinsaw; allmost; aristotleman; autumnraine; bajabaja; ...
Thanks BenLurkin.


· List topics · post a topic · subscribe · Google ·

34 posted on 02/27/2020 8:25:31 AM PST by SunkenCiv (Imagine an imaginary menagerie manager imagining managing an imaginary menagerie.)
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To: C19fan
As it has been rather famously said: "String Theory isn't even wrong!"

I think our understanding of the universe is missing a few fundamental things. This is why we can't bridge Relativity and Quantum Mechanics.

If you can't test something, it's not science, it's philosophy, or worse. There might well be some useful concepts in string theory, but it doesn't seem to describe the actual universe we live in. As such, it's not useful except as a form of masturbation for math geeks.

IMO, the Electric Universe has much more going for it than string theory ever has. It has at least made predictions that have been tested.

35 posted on 02/27/2020 8:28:51 AM PST by zeugma (I sure wish I lived in a country where the rule of law actually applied to those in power.)
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To: BipolarBob

“Did God devise this to see if we are grown up enough to live in the real world?”

Well, God would have to exist outside of any universe, so none of them would be the “real world” to Him.

Compare God to a person making up stories. We’re the characters in the story. If He makes up a story in which there is a character who made up another story with other characters, then the characters in the first story are still no more “real” than the ones in the “story within a story”.


36 posted on 02/27/2020 8:31:54 AM PST by Boogieman
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To: BipolarBob; Getready

I say “cogito ergo sum” because the philosophical question as to the reality of knowledge is answered to my satisfaction by Descartes.

I admit that it is easier to imagine that the world is imaginary, than to accept that we don’t know or that we can’t know how it really works.
Why do I even wonder?
When I wonder, why don’t I question the reality of myself as the asker?
Cogito ergo sum...cogitaremus!

When Morpheus tells Neo about the matrix, he suggests that there are ways to know that it is not real. “Have you ever had a dream that you thought was so real...” But what if the matrix works so well that there is no way to tell it is a matrix? In other words, granting that the world is real is the start of a process of satisfying scientific discovery though it leads to this, an unsatisfying destination.


37 posted on 02/27/2020 8:39:15 AM PST by BDParrish ( Please correct me! I never learned anything from anybody who already agreed with me.)
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To: Boogieman

Because He is inter-dimensional, He makes reality. He made the universe and without Him, there is no reality. That plus the fact he is beyond our understanding makes for an exercise in futility to know anything with certainty.


38 posted on 02/27/2020 8:41:04 AM PST by BipolarBob (I asked my cat who his favorite socialist was. He looked at me and said Mao.)
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To: BipolarBob

Is that Schrodenger’s Cat?


39 posted on 02/27/2020 8:46:47 AM PST by mad_as_he$$
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To: C19fan

I’ve come to the conclusion that we are in a universe deliberately designed to create intelligent life, but also to make sure that it stays contained. Therefore I’d be disappointed if String Theory was an easy problem to solve. Solving String Theory means we have figured out how to get out of the box and likely to result in a counter action we are not going to like.


40 posted on 02/27/2020 8:51:15 AM PST by Nateman ( Unless the left is screaming you are doing it wrong.)
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