Isn't String Theory just a cop out?
Saying the universe is made up of tiny little strings you can't see which can oscillate and vibrate whichever way they want, it's all a little bit convenient and could be used to explain anything.
Sounds like too much of a convenient explanation for what things are made of. Unfortunately most experimental science seems to be complete guesswork which sometimes throws up some of widely varying results which are never conclusive. E.g. Where the Moon came from
Sounds like too much of a convenient explanation for what things are made of. Unfortunately most experimental science seems to be complete guesswork which sometimes throws up some of widely varying results which are never conclusive. E.g. Where the Moon came from
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If it's true then it's true, not really a cop out. That said though, I'm not sure exactly how much evidence there is suporting this theory, if any.
Original post by Pindar
Saying the universe is made up of tiny little strings you can't see which can oscillate and vibrate whichever way they want, it's all a little bit convenient and could be used to explain anything.
Sounds like too much of a convenient explanation for what things are made of. Unfortunately most experimental science seems to be complete guesswork which sometimes throws up some of widely varying results which are never conclusive. E.g. Where the Moon came from
Sounds like too much of a convenient explanation for what things are made of. Unfortunately most experimental science seems to be complete guesswork which sometimes throws up some of widely varying results which are never conclusive. E.g. Where the Moon came from
String theory has made many predictions over the years....
...all of which turned out to be wrong.
yes, it is a copout. Its a scandal, frankly. Unfortunately, so many people have wasted so much time on it now that its now impossible for them to admit that its complete nonsense.
What I'm trying to say, is that it's a cop out because little strings which can contort and vibrate into pretty much anything they want could be used to explain anything.
It's just like using a God which can be omnipresent, omniscient and all powerful to explain everything. Mathematically it might work some of the time, but any number except 0 can be divided by 1 or itself.
It's just like using a God which can be omnipresent, omniscient and all powerful to explain everything. Mathematically it might work some of the time, but any number except 0 can be divided by 1 or itself.
“Some string theorists prefer to believe that string theory is too arcane to be understood by human beings, rather than consider the possibility that it might just be wrong.” Lee Smolin
"For the last eighteen years particle theory has been dominated by a single approach to the unification of the Standard Model interactions and quantum gravity. This line of thought has hardened into a new orthodoxy that postulates an unknown fundamental supersymmetric theory involving strings and other degrees of freedom with characteristic scale around the Planck length. […] It is a striking fact that there is absolutely no evidence whatsoever for this complex and unattractive conjectural theory. There is not even a serious proposal for what the dynamics of the fundamental 'M-theory' is supposed to be or any reason at all to believe that its dynamics would produce a vacuum state with the desired properties." - Peter Woit
"For the last eighteen years particle theory has been dominated by a single approach to the unification of the Standard Model interactions and quantum gravity. This line of thought has hardened into a new orthodoxy that postulates an unknown fundamental supersymmetric theory involving strings and other degrees of freedom with characteristic scale around the Planck length. […] It is a striking fact that there is absolutely no evidence whatsoever for this complex and unattractive conjectural theory. There is not even a serious proposal for what the dynamics of the fundamental 'M-theory' is supposed to be or any reason at all to believe that its dynamics would produce a vacuum state with the desired properties." - Peter Woit
Original post by Pindar
What I'm trying to say, is that it's a cop out because little strings which can contort and vibrate into pretty much anything they want could be used to explain anything.
It's just like using a God which can be omnipresent, omniscient and all powerful to explain everything. Mathematically it might work some of the time, but any number except 0 can be divided by 1 or itself.
It's just like using a God which can be omnipresent, omniscient and all powerful to explain everything. Mathematically it might work some of the time, but any number except 0 can be divided by 1 or itself.
Many physicists argue that string theory is not science, it is the conscious and deliberate abandonment of the scientific method.
String theory tries to reconcile two models that we pretty much know are true, but are incompatible with one another. There has to be some way of reconciling the two, and string theory seems to make the most sense at the moment. I don't think there are any way of testing it that we have at the moment though.
Am I right in saying, quantum theory cannot be tied to general relativity because time does not exist in the quantum world. We have the uncertainty principle because we are trying to observe something from spacetime in a place where space and time have no meaning.
It not existing because for time you need space, at the quantum level there is very little of either
Hence we are living in quantum spacetime
It not existing because for time you need space, at the quantum level there is very little of either
Hence we are living in quantum spacetime
There are many (highly complex) reasons to believe that string theory might be true, but most of them are a little beyond the scope of a student forum. One of the easier reasons to comprehend is that it explains the relative weakness of gravity compared to the other forces. It does this by suggesting that the force of gravity could be spread out over 11 dimensions rather than the 3 spacial dimensions we observe.
On a related note, check out this string theory version of Queen's Bohemian Rhapsody that one of my brother's friends made, it's amazing, I promise!
[video="youtube;2rjbtsX7twc"]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2rjbtsX7twc[/video]
On a related note, check out this string theory version of Queen's Bohemian Rhapsody that one of my brother's friends made, it's amazing, I promise!
[video="youtube;2rjbtsX7twc"]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2rjbtsX7twc[/video]
(edited 10 years ago)
Original post by DaveSmith99
String theory tries to reconcile two models that we pretty much know are true, but are incompatible with one another. There has to be some way of reconciling the two, and string theory seems to make the most sense at the moment. I don't think there are any way of testing it that we have at the moment though.
Quantum theory is definitely not true, its full of stupid contradictions and paradoxes.
Original post by cole-slaw
Quantum theory is definitely not true, its full of stupid contradictions and paradoxes.
Quantum mechanics is very well evidenced, we even have computers that are built upon it. All the difficulties arise when we try to make sense of it.
Original post by DaveSmith99
Quantum mechanics is very well evidenced, we even have computers that are built upon it. All the difficulties arise when we try to make sense of it.
As a mathematical model of subatomic interactions its perfectly functional, but that doesn't mean its "true".
People who try to make sense of quantum mechanics are missing the point. Its a series of equations that happen to be a good approximation of the behaviour of our measurements of the real world. Its not some mysterious insight into the nature of reality.
Original post by cole-slaw
As a mathematical model of subatomic interactions its perfectly functional, but that doesn't mean its "true".
People who try to make sense of quantum mechanics are missing the point. Its a series of equations that happen to be a good approximation of the behaviour of our measurements of the real world. Its not some mysterious insight into the nature of reality.
People who try to make sense of quantum mechanics are missing the point. Its a series of equations that happen to be a good approximation of the behaviour of our measurements of the real world. Its not some mysterious insight into the nature of reality.
It's not just mathematical, it really happens and that has been confirmed by experiment thousands and thousands of time.
I think you're missing the point of science if you don't understand why people try to make sense of the world.
Original post by cole-slaw
Many physicists argue that string theory is not science, it is the conscious and deliberate abandonment of the scientific method.
Is it possible that we will never be able to determine once and for the all the reality, using the scientific method. As we are talking about interactions at scales and distances which are too small.
Original post by Pindar
Am I right in saying, quantum theory cannot be tied to general relativity because time does not exist in the quantum world. We have the uncertainty principle because we are trying to observe something from spacetime in a place where space and time have no meaning.
It not existing because for time you need space, at the quantum level there is very little of either
Hence we are living in quantum spacetime
It not existing because for time you need space, at the quantum level there is very little of either
Hence we are living in quantum spacetime
The problem is essentially that QM says that the spacetime metric is quantized (broken into discrete chunks), whilst general relativity requires that spacetime is continuous. Morevoer, it turns out that whilst most studied fields are renormalizable (their quantum corrections can be controlled), the metric field (spacetime) is non-renormalizable (their quantum corrections require infinitely many parameters to be put in by hand). Thus, unless those parameters are filled by another source (which is were string theory comes in), then renormalization of the metric is impossible.
Original post by cole-slaw
As a mathematical model of subatomic interactions its perfectly functional, but that doesn't mean its "true".
People who try to make sense of quantum mechanics are missing the point. Its a series of equations that happen to be a good approximation of the behaviour of our measurements of the real world. Its not some mysterious insight into the nature of reality.
People who try to make sense of quantum mechanics are missing the point. Its a series of equations that happen to be a good approximation of the behaviour of our measurements of the real world. Its not some mysterious insight into the nature of reality.
Stephen Hawking addresses this point eloquently in one of his books.
Scientists cannot provide answers to what is objectively real; their assignment is simply to produce a model-dependent reality. For example, a goldfish in a spherical bowl could observe an object moving in what would be a straight line to us, and create a physics to explain it that perfectly agrees with what it observes (like 'an object moves in a parabola unless acted on by an external force' etc). There is no sense in saying our view or model is any sense 'truer' than the goldfish's - as long as both models get the job done, they are both acceptable views of reality.
Another example: quarks are something that most scientists agree exists, but they cannot be isolated individually. Initially there was consternation at accepting the existence of particles which we may theoretically be unobservable, but this has receded as the predictions of the model have proved accurate. Certainly an alien race could touch down tomorrow and describe the same experimental outcomes we have without quarks, but it is a matter of opinion as to what is truly reality.
Note that this does not mean that you can build a model such as 'God pushed that electron at precisely 1330:54.535624 for a distance of 2.526436 planck' etc, since any model must make detailed and falsifiable predictions about future events.
Original post by DaveSmith99
It's not just mathematical, it really happens and that has been confirmed by experiment thousands and thousands of time.
I think you're missing the point of science if you don't understand why people try to make sense of the world.
I think you're missing the point of science if you don't understand why people try to make sense of the world.
That doesn't mean it isn't a mathematical model. All the evidence we have simply shows that the model is sufficiently accurate to approximate reality within the scale and scope of the experiment, nothing more and nothing less.
Original post by Pindar
Is it possible that we will never be able to determine once and for the all the reality, using the scientific method. As we are talking about interactions at scales and distances which are too small.
It is more than just possible, it is a certainty.
All models will ultimately be found to be wrong on some level. Some models are yet to show up any problems like GR, some have had obvious problems ever since they were invented, like QM.
Some models are so pathetic and pointless they're not even science, they're just a bunch of nerds ****ing with symbols. String Theory is such an example.
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