String theory is what?

[Nautilidae]

The Strings 2010 conference is an annual symposium on string theory and high energy physics. Some of the most influential concepts in string theory have unveiled at this conference, including M-theory and ADS/CFT correspondence. Some of the world's greatest physicists are attending, including:

Leonard Susskind
Edward Witten
Juan Maldacena
Andrew Strominger
Joseph Polchinski
Ashoke Sen
Michael Green
John Schwartz
Stephen Weinberg

The conference began yesterday. A free webcast of the lectures is viewable on this page: http://winstream.kamu.tamu.edu/txms20

A talk schedule is available here: http://mitchell.physics.tamu.edu/Confer ... rence.html

A list of the names of the talks is available here: http://mitchell.physics.tamu.edu/Confer ... Talks.html

- Nautilidae

[AshtonBlack]

FANTASTIC!!!

Great find!

[Nautilidae]

FANTASTIC!!!

Great find!

The webcast is audio only, but if you take the time, you may be able to find some of the PDF files used for visual aid via Google. I discovered the file Ed Witten used during his talk not very long ago.

As of now, everyone is taking a lunch break, but the webcast should be continuing soon!

[The Dagda]

Reminds me of a religious symposium. I don't like String Theorists or their theory not because it isn't useful or hasn't a chance of being right. Hell that would be great if it was right as well as being useful to complex systems. The problem I have is that it is as it stands pure philosophy and relies on an interpretation being falsified more or less to make it science. That is not scientific method, that is philosophy. I therefore don't agree that String theory is a theory no matter how many people say it can be falsified, because a it doesn't matter if it can (and it can't, it's background independent and so no matter what field of physics is proven wrong it is unfalsifiable) it simply would given the potential to be falsified only be a hypothesis, not a theory, theories need facts and evidence not arm waving mathematics. String theory doesn't IMHO even qualify as a hypothesis it is pure maths. Is it worth studying hell yes, does it belong in a physics department, as yet no.

[The Dagda]

A theory, no I don't think so, show me how I am wrong.

I like this thread topic as the adherents are like fanatics and the counterargument is fundamentally logically untouchable. So what makes science and the scientific method? Maths or evidence and maths?

[hackenslash]

It's a hypothesis. I would tend to call it something like a 'metatheory' except that I run away from the 'meta' prefix as it makes anything sound like wibble.

I'm neither a supporter nor a detractor, but I do think it has the potential to explain a great deal, and at bottom it's actually quite parsimonious, although the mathematics is quite esoteric. At the moment, I'm happy to wait for the experimental evidence arising from the first predictions.

[The Dagda]

It's a hypothesis. I would tend to call it something like a 'metatheory' except that I run away from the 'meta' prefix as it makes anything sound like wibble.

I'm neither a supporter nor a detractor, but I do think it has the potential to explain a great deal, and at bottom it's actually quite parsimonious, although the mathematics is quite esoteric. At the moment, I'm happy to wait for the experimental evidence arising from the first predictions.

See now that is what I think. Although I'm a detractor so I see it from the other perspective. I think other "theories" or theories are more likely to be true, but don't discount it out of hand.

[Nautilidae]

Reminds me of a religious symposium. I don't like String Theorists or their theory not because it isn't useful or hasn't a chance of being right. Hell that would be great if it was right as well as being useful to complex systems. The problem I have is that it is as it stands pure philosophy and relies on an interpretation being falsified more or less to make it science. That is not scientific method, that is philosophy. I therefore don't agree that String theory is a theory no matter how many people say it can be falsified, because a it doesn't matter if it can (and it can't, it's background independent and so no matter what field of physics is proven wrong it is unfalsifiable) it simply would given the potential to be falsified only be a hypothesis, not a theory, theories need facts and evidence not arm waving mathematics. String theory doesn't IMHO even qualify as a hypothesis it is pure maths. Is it worth studying hell yes, does it belong in a physics department, as yet no.

1. I think that you are being a bit unreasonable. It seems to me that you think that anything that has yet to be falsified isn't physics. Using this logic, the following things don't belong in the physics department:

All theories of spontaneous symmetry breaking (including Higgs and technicolor)
All quantum gravity theories (String theory, Horava-Lifshitz, LQG, and other canonical quantum gravity theories)
All grand unification theories

Spontaneous symmetry breaking mechanisms have yet to be falsified, yet they a cornerstone of quantum field theory. Just because something has yet to be falsified doesn't mean that it isn't physics; you need hypotheses before you are able to test them.


2. String theory is background-dependent, not background-independent.

3. How on Earth does background independence show that theories are unfalsifiable? General relativity is background-independence and it is supported by much physical evidence. Unless you are suggesting that general relativity is unfalsifiable, I suggest that you rethink your argument.

[Nautilidae]

String theory is a hypothesis. However, this isn't a criticism; many theories today are technically hypotheses:

Spontaneous symmetry breaking (Higgs mechanism, Technicolor mechanisms)
Grand Unification
Quantum Gravity theories

None of the above have been experimentally tested, yet they are cornerstones in physics. Anyone who suggest that string theory is "religious arm waving" is either A) uninformed, or B) unable to understand scientific hypotheses.

String theory has the potential to be tested; it simply, as of now, hasn't been. If string theory isn't science, then neither are most of the concepts for which we built the Large Hadron Collider to test.

[Koss]

http://www.subwaysheerness.co.uk/shop/i ... akfast.jpg[/imgc]

[hackenslash]

Exactly right. Furthermore, religious arm-waving has not, last time I checked, made massive contributions to mathematics.

[Xamonas Chegwé]

I honestly don't understand enough about it to give an opinion on its likelihood of ever being more than an hypothesis. I really need to get my head around QM before I start messing with silly string.

The graphics on Horizon are nice though.

[Feck]

I love the idea M-Space Multi -verses No big bag just a ripple shuts up creotards too

[hackenslash]

Special Relativity wasn't even maths when it was begun to be taken seriously. Even after that, it was still only maths until Eddington's (faulty) observation.

Again, and I have to say this every time I post about M-Theory, I'm neither a supporter nor a detractor yet, but given that predictions have arisen from it, it is science, not least because it is falsifiable as a result of those predictions. It is also, at root, an extremely simple idea, and has a degree of parsimony. I think it has excellent potential as a GUT, and for those reasons alone should be pursued.

[hackenslash]

I honestly don't understand enough about it to give an opinion on its likelihood of ever being more than an hypothesis. I really need to get my head around QM before I start messing with silly string.

If you need to get your head around QM first, you're not going to bother. Nobody can get their head around QM.

Brian Greene's The Elegant Universe is an excellent introduction to M-Theory, and covers a good deal of QM and GR as well.