Ping!
My cat is fascinated by the string theory and would toy with it for hours if I would let him.
Generally, the same old stuff.
This is a good point, though. “Attempts to prop up this theory in the face of increasing problems have led to many weird hypotheses invoking mysterious unseen forces known as ‘dark matter’ and ‘dark energy’ to basically hold the universe together or to push it apart.”
Whenever your theory requires undetectable forces to work, you might want to re-examine your theory. Doesn’t mean the undetectable factors might not exist, but assuming their existence isn’t very scientific.
Actually, most physicists are frustrated with String theory because it doesn’t predict anything that can be tested.
Until it can be tested even physicists will not accept it.
The authors apparently believe that Big Ban Theory assumes there is no God.
In fact, the theory itself says nothing of the kind. In fact, BBT is fully congruent with the idea of Creation. All it requires is the belief that God set off the Bang. What precipitated the Bang is not addressed in the theory.
String theory is just another useless theory that gives useless math professors addicted to working on endless equations something to do.
This “article” is an epic, Straw Man Wrestling Match.
Okay. But where was particle and who put it there?
If string theory is true, then why string theory rather than nothing? And why is string theory the way it is rather than some other way?
Thanks for the latest installment of how to be ignorant.
Usually an explosion creates disorder. Disaray. Winds down. What wound it up?
A gross mis-characterization. String Theory is not a “replacement” for the Big Bang, it’s more of a new physics/mathematics able to work in the conditions of the early universe, very early.
to read later
Those who support Intelligent Design should be reserved with either embracing on condemning physics at this level, because arguments can be made for many competing theories that are essentially neutral to the concept of Intelligent Design. Importantly, they are also neutral to the idea of their not being Intelligent Design as well.
For example, there are some very interesting parallels between universe creation theories in physics and the ancient Hebrew mysticism found in Kabbalah. Even in ancient days, accepting the axiom that JHVH created the universe, they strove to answer the question “How?”, and reached some impressive conclusions that might even be said to be more advanced than modern physics. That is, they also tried to answer the question “Why?”
That a modern physicist would try to justify his atheism with such theories is just silly. It reminds me of the story of the mathematician Leonard Euler, a brilliant and religious man in the court of Catherine the Great of Russia.
When atheist French philosopher Denis Diderot came to her court, he tried to convert the nobles he talked to into becoming atheists. This annoyed the queen, so she asked Euler to put him in his place. To do so, Euler wrote a closed algebraic equation, which he said proved that God existed. Then he demanded that Diderot refute it, to prove that God did not exist.
Of course Diderot could not, because the equation was closed, so it was inherently true. This caused the Russian court to laugh, but Diderot was wise enough to understand that his credibility was shot, and asked to return to France.
But the important lesson is how silly to try to prove or disprove God with some tiny part of things, even if they are universal laws. Gravity does not prove or disprove God. And whether or not God exists, it is insulting to even assert this, one way or another.
Have had enough "string" for the last few months, to last me for a while.
Just today finished going through a mile of swordfish driftnet. (Almost) two foot stretch measure mesh, 150 meshes deep, hung (suspended from the float line) at approx 50% open. That means it takes two miles of twine to make each half-mesh. Which means there is something like SIX HUNDRED MILES of string in that net.
Had enough string...was starting to have "netmares" where I'd be cutting and trimming ragged mesh and sewing it back into square & right, in my sleep. Don't want no more string theory. Have got your string theory hanging. ;^)
“String theory is presently completely unobservable and untestable. However, its advocates would also claim that it is not falsifiable, and therefore, it might be correct.”
—I would LOVE to see a single citation of an advocate of string theory who made such a claim.
One instance that string theory was tested was when the WMAP pics came in.
“Attempts to prop up this theory in the face of increasing problems have led to many weird hypotheses invoking mysterious unseen forces known as ‘dark matter’ and ‘dark energy’ to basically hold the universe together or to push it apart.”
—Neither dark matter nor dark energy were proposed by Big Bang cosmologists.
Dark energy was initially proposed by Einstein (or the cosmological constant as he called it) who was a Big Bang skeptic. In fact, he initially used it to OPPOSE Big Bang cosmology which had recently been proposed by a Christian physicist, Georges Lemaitre. After Hubble’s observations showed clear evidence of an expanding universe, Einstein called it his biggest blunder. The blunder, however, wasn’t in proposing dark energy or the cosmological constant (as such “negative pressure” of a vacuum is clearly predicted by his theory of general relativity) but in how he used it.
Dark matter was proposed by Zwicky, who likewise did not believe in the Big Bang, to explain some peculiar movements within galaxies. Galaxies were behaving as if there were certain regions of space exerting gravity, although no matter could be seen.
Today, using the movements of star clusters, we can actually map out and predict where blobs of dark matter ought to be. To test whether certain regions of space really are exerting gravity, and that we weren’t merely somehow miscalulating how the clusters should be moving, they recently tested to see if the proposed locations of globs of dark matter perform gravitational lensing. And, indeed, gravitational lensing does take place, and to the degree predicted.
The article makes a lot of bizarre claims about string theory. I’m not a string theory advocate or critic (as I really don’t know enough about it), but AFAIK it’s raison d’etre is as a way to reconcile relativity and QM into a single coherent theory. How is such a thing “bordering on the heretical”? There are a lot of Creationists that hate aspersions that they are anti-science - this article doesn’t exactly help their cause.
“there are an increasing number of secular scientists who are sceptical of this theory of cosmic evolution, and much of their scepticism has been caused by increasing discoveries that fly in the face of big bang theory. In May 2004 ‘An Open Letter to the Scientific Community’ signed by dozens of secular scientists was advertised in the renowned New Scientist. At the time of writing this article, the total number of scientists signing the letter who are sceptical of the big bang has increased to over 400.”
—Most of the signature’s are from those that have no background in cosmology, and of those that do I recognize many as the old few remaining guard of the steady-state theory (I was quite pleasantly surprised to see the signatures of Hermann Bondi and especially Thomas Gold as I didn’t think they were still among us. Then I saw that the signatures are from back in 2004 and found that Gold died the same year and Bondi a year later. They’ll be missed. A member of the same clique, and a personal hero of mine, Fred Hoyle, died in 2001, or he would have undoubtedly had signed as well.) The signatures are not from an “increasing number of secular scientists”, but a dying group (literally).
It’s a rather strange, disconnected, and unresearched article. I will say though that the picture of the alien was a cute touch.
The infinity of universes idea is driven by a recognition of what probability does to theory of evolution with just the one universe we observe to work with. It’s about lifestyles, and not about science.