String Theory

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Has String Theory been disproved? Or not? I can't seem to find the answer anywhere...

It isn't really testable yet. It's arguably not science, just a nice idea.

String Theory at this juncture cannot be tested experimentally. It makes no testable predictions. It is a very nice mathematical theory but unless it can be tested (and possibly refuted) by empirical means, it is not much of a scientific theory.

ruveyn

string theory is an idea that helps theoretical physicists try to figure out a quantum theory of gravity. So far there is no evidence to prove or disprove the existence of strings.

Oohh, it wasn't really a theory to start with? Whoops... Everyone acts like it's true but I couldn't agree....

String Theory does not qualify as science--at this point it is just a branch of mathematics, really. Supposedly elegant (to those few who can understand it), definitely difficult.

Hmm, this string thing sounds an awful lot like my this theory of mine I have been working on for years. It revolves around cakes and deserts, though, and not so much vibrating strings and whatnot.

actually there is a new amazon book out called Absolute Relativity - theory of everything. It explains a new vision of the universe which extends Newton & Einstein notions of relativity in easy to read text with lots of sketches. The author has created a new physical law which adds to the Euclidian spacial dimensions ut + x, y. z. This gives us 4 easy to comprehend dimensions and an opportunity for the string theorists to fit their mix of 13 into it. It is a natural and common sense vision of light and how atoms are able to form and dissociate. And an alarming vision on how the universe can destroy it self in its entirety in less than 1 second. Having read it i can visualise this situation and also - it finally concludes what causes the speed of light. It is a good read, i like it and answers a lot of questions.

A Euclidean space manifold is dead flat. No curvature, therefore no gravitation. The above is a bogus theory.

Our brains do not enable us to visualize semi-Riemannian manifolds. For that you need the tensors.

ruveyn

Not sure if this is anti-science of me, but aren't there more productive things these scientists can do with their time?

In principle, string theory can be tested but it's just very difficult. For example, if supersymmetry is not found by the LHC, that would weaken the case for string theory and there are other possible tests as well, like finding deviations from the inverse square law in newtonian gravity at small distance scales due to large extra dimensions.

Yes, supersymmetry can exist without string theory but is still a requirement for string theory as a whole. There is no evidence for any of those things yet but it is expected that if supersymmetry exists at least, it will be found the LHC because even outside of its role in string theory, it is mostly believed in the particle physics community that supersymmetry is also needed to stabilise the mass of the Higgs boson.

Last edited by Jono on 09 Apr 2012, 4:33 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Like what? Looking for explanations about the universe and nature is kind of what scientists do.

Yes. We should never have wasted time investigating fundamental principles like quantum mechanics. I mean, what good has that ever done anyone. I mean, all it's given us are transistors and lasers. Sure we've used them to build the computers with which we all access this forum, but it's not like that's useful at all. And the same for that bloody relativity. Yeah, we need it to make our GPS satellites work properly, but that's not important--it's not like anyone actually uses that.

You can not overlook pure science. I believe that it is worth pursuing simply for its own sake, as a human achievement. But even overlooking that, you never know what innovations could spring from it. (Mr. Harper, if you are reading this, that means that YOU MUST RESTORE PURE SCIENCE FUNDING TO NSERC!! !)

Without experimental corroboration there is no basis for accepting a physical theory. Mathematical Beauty is not substitute for being backed up by experiment. String Theory is currently built on a foundation of smoke and mirrors. Until solid experimental corroboration happens, it can be discounted as an effective theory. It could possibly be an inspiration to a theory that is actually corroborated. Maybe. Perhaps. Possibly.

ruveyn

You've kind of hit the nail on the head: there really isn't much else to do.

The goal of physics is to create theories that predict observations. So physics progresses when we get a new theory, or when we get a new observation. Well, how do we get new observations in physics? We have observed everything that can easily be observed. The only people who get fundamentally new observations are people who work with telescopes, or who work at CERN or somewhere like that. So if you're a physicist, and you don't work in one of those contexts, the only research task that you can do is mathematically fiddle with the space of potential theories.

The problem is, there is so much new theory and so few new observations that the theories get way ahead of the experiments. So there are lots and lots of new theories that can theoretically be falsified, but their falsifications would require equipment that we don't have yet.

As far as I know, only relatively few physicists work on string theory and particle physics. A far greater number of them work on solid state or condensed matter state physics.