String Theory Debunked?

[MoreGentilythanU]

Check out this article in a recent New Yorker

web page (http://www.newyorker.com/printables/critics/061002crat_atlarge)


Synopsis: String theory has made no testable predictions.

"the theory formerly known as strings remains a seductive conjecture rather than an actual set of equations, and the non-uniqueness problem has grown to ridiculous proportions. At the latest count, the number of string theories is estimated to be something like one followed by five hundred zeros."

[evank15]

"Synopsis: String theory has made no testable predictions."

This is new?

That's why a lot of physicists refuse to recognize string theory. "Physics" is necessarily testable.

[CityFan]

I wouldn't exactly say it was "debunked". If string theorists had made any claims about it, maybe it could be debunked.

I think string theorists are pretty realistic about what exactly it is that they're studying.

[MidGe]

[ QUOTE ]
I think string theorists are pretty realistic about what exactly it is that they're studying.


[/ QUOTE ]

They are not studying, they are theorizing. Just to make sure: the 'String "theory"', is nothing like 'Evolution "Theory"'. The latter is falsifiable, the former isn't. They are very different claims, one is factual, the other is prospective.

[FortunaMaximus]

[ QUOTE ]
I wouldn't exactly say it was "debunked". If string theorists had made any claims about it, maybe it could be debunked.

I think string theorists are pretty realistic about what exactly it is that they're studying.

[/ QUOTE ]

Agreed. I find Brane theory to be fascinating. Debunking a theory is part of scientific inquiry. Sample, chew, discard. Does that mean we should only investigate correct theories to begin with? /images/graemlins/grin.gif

[Phil153]

No, but we should heap ample scorn on theories that are the mental equivalent of self-stimulation. Physics is sex. The rest is for the mathematicians.

[FortunaMaximus]

No argument with that. If it's crap, treat it as such and move on.

[luckyme]

[ QUOTE ]
Synopsis: String theory has made no testable predictions.

[/ QUOTE ]

Wouldn't a theory-killer be that it can't make a testable prediction, not that it hasn't yet?
Not claiming any equivalance but when the light was measured bending around the sun, did that prove that relativity was the Only explanation? Or just the only current explanation.
It's way beyond my pay scale, I just have a problem understanding why the multi-explanation problem is enough to stop anyone from pursuing the possibility. In any area, how would you ever get to a single theory if when you run into multiple potential ones you stop?
I agree at this stage it should be called String Conjecture, but can it never be cleaned up?

luckyme

[FortunaMaximus]

It's a knotty business, string theory, in general, but at least you eliminate absurd possibilities.

To call the whole business as a whole bunk and punt it so goes against the grain of scientific inquiry.

[pzhon]

[ QUOTE ]

Synopsis: String theory has made no testable predictions.


[/ QUOTE ]
String theory may not have made testable physical predictions, but it has generated testable mathematical predictions for areas of mathematics not obviously connected to string theory, such as enumerative algebraic geometry (http://www.amazon.com/Enumerative-Geometry-String-Theory-Sheldon/dp/0821836870).

It's absurd to call string theory "bunk" at this point. I agree with many of the criticisms of string theory (I attended some talks supposedly aimed at 1st year graduate students which were unintelligible to me and to the other postdocs attending), but string theory is very far from nonsense.

[thylacine]

[ QUOTE ]

String theory may not have made testable physical predictions, but it has generated testable mathematical predictions for areas of mathematics not obviously connected to string theory, such as enumerative algebraic geometry (http://www.amazon.com/Enumerative-Geometry-String-Theory-Sheldon/dp/0821836870).

It's absurd to call string theory "bunk" at this point. I agree with many of the criticisms of string theory (I attended some talks supposedly aimed at 1st year graduate students which were unintelligible to me and to the other postdocs attending), but string theory is very far from nonsense.

[/ QUOTE ]

Could it be that what has actually been found is a deep connection between two or more interesting areas, none of which is string theory?

[Metric]

I wouldn't call it bunk, but I do think it's a shame that the "string theory culture" has managed to monopolize the entire fundamental theory program in the physics community over the last 20 years. If it turns out to be wrong or ambiguous (and it is taking on a distinct look of sickness about it right now), it will have been the greatest waste of theory resources of all time -- untold amounts of research funding, professorships, and an entire generation of theorists having committed their life's work to an idea that might just simply have been wrong-headed from the beginning.

[FortunaMaximus]

Would you expect otherwise, Metric, from a field that went on a 4-decade heater?

[Metric]

First, I certainly wouldn't consider string theory's progress "a heater." Self consistency is all fine and dandy, but real triumph demands some successful sticking-out-of-the-neck in making predictions.

I don't blame the string theory community for wanting to study string theory. I blame the major theory centers for devoting very nearly 100% of their theory resources (professorships, funding) into string theory for the last quarter of a century. Now the theory begins to look sick, and the entire field of theoretical physics flies into crisis -- not exactly a pretty picture.

[FortunaMaximus]

No, I wasn't referring to string theory in general. Physics as a general rule has really exploded since the dawn of the 20th. As such, it's going to be a field that expands and has too much dead wood. And you get politics into the mix, it's easy to see where marginal arguments can get far more credence than they should. Especially when it's difficult to rule them out using scientific rigor.

No, the system of academics is in need of serious pruning, but at least there are institutes and some departments that focus on the different aspects of theortical physics. So with all that excess, there's hope yet another patent clerk will emerge and take the field another rung up the ladder.

[surftheiop]

Synopsis: String theory has made no testable predictions."

Synopsis: EVOLUTION has made no testable predictions.

[MidGe]

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Synopsis: EVOLUTION has made no testable predictions

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I guess you have a very low level of education /images/graemlins/confused.gif

[surftheiop]

Acually i do, 9th grade biology is it as far as evolution goes, and all we talked about was plants.