String Theory, at 20, Explains It All (Are There 10 Dimensions Of Space and Time?)

NY Times ^ | 7 December 2004 | By DENNIS OVERBYE

[shrinkermd]

I appreciated this well written article on a subject difficult to understand but important in a field I am completely ignorant of. NYT has many faults but many accomplishments we would be poorer without.

[Red Badger]

The NYT WYTs get it right every now and then. Even a stopped clock is right in two or three dimensions of the space-time continuum......

[steve8714]

Yes, but only twice a day.

[Sinner6]

A good book about the subject

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0393058581/qid=1102691824/sr=8-1/ref=sr_8_xs_ap_i1_xgl14/103-3406403-9374245?v=glance&s=books&n=507846

[Deaf Smith]

So where can we buy the T-shirt?

[ProudVet77]

Not to be a poop but the 10+ dimensional requirements for things to work remionds me of the Ptolomey model for the solar system. Full of complex gyrations to make up for knowledge of something we learned later.

[Red Badger]

In one theory, time does not flow like a river, but is static, like a clothesline. To go from one place to another on the timeline simply exit and re-enter at the desired time. Therefore, if your clock is "stopped" it will always be right......

[BikerNYC]

Science is making it more and more clear that Men in Black was right...our universe really does exist in a gym locker in some sports facility belonging to those living in a higher dimension.

[SirChas]

Interesting... bump for later.

[TX Bluebonnet]

bump to read later

[truthfinder9]

That is a great book. See also his new book The Fabric of the Cosmos.

See also the Nova special based on the The Elegant Universe.

And for a look at the implications of this science for religion, see Beyond the Cosmos.

[The_Reader_David]

Yeah, but this isn't one of them. String theory has produced no predictions confirmed by observation beyond those offered by the union of general relativity and the standard model of particle physics. It purports to calculate quantities by summing over all possible embeddings of Riemann surfaces in certain spaces (10 or 11 dimensional), but once one is dealing with higher genus surfaces (imagine more and more handles on your coffee cup) there is no proceedure for 'regularizing' the infinite sum to produce a finite quantity. (Such procedures exist for low genus surfaces only up to 'two loops' in the physicists term of art.)

My closest colleague has tried to pin them down: string theorists assert with near clockwork regularity that string theory is 'perturbatively finite', but when you ask them where this is proven, most can't point to a source, and those who can point to a paper in which the methods only work up to two loops. . .or they give bogus arguments based on misunderstandings of a mathematical construct called Teichmuller space. And, to date string theory can only be done in a 'flat background' space-- but general relativity tells us gravity is equivalent to certain kinds of curvature on space. If it's not perturbatively finite, or can't be done in a realistic space-time, string theory isn't even a theory much less a theory of everything.

Of course, neither the popular science press nor the National Science Foundation seem to have noticed this, not even when Edward Witten, one of the leading lights of string theory over its 20 year life has given up on it to turn to work on loop quantum gravity--which according to the string-theorist quoted in the times (who has no basis in either physical or mathematical fact for his assertion) 'must be part of string theory'. It isn't.

[tet68]

Science is making it more and more clear that Men in Black was right...our universe really does exist in a gym locker in some sports facility belonging to those living in a higher dimension.

So that accounts for the funny smell...

[Alouette]

our universe really does exist in a gym locker in some sports facility belonging to those living in a higher dimension.

I think everyone's washer and dryer are portals to another dimension, the Galaxy of One-footed sock wearers.

[linear]

Yes, but this article would be quite different if either the GOP or the Dems adopted belief of string theory into their party planks.

Thankfully, that hasn't happened yet. lol.

[Squawk 8888]

the proverbial "theory of everything" that could be written on a T-shirt.

42.

[eagle11]

Fantastic, but over my head. It's nice to know we may not be limited by relativity and C in exploring the universe in the near future.

[al baby]

whats the speed of dark?

[Dogrobber]

It purports to calculate quantities by summing over all possible embeddings of Riemann surfaces in certain spaces (10 or 11 dimensional), but once one is dealing with higher genus surfaces (imagine more and more handles on your coffee cup) there is no proceedure for 'regularizing' the infinite sum to produce a finite quantity.

Huh?