Hello there,

The article appears to be saying that somehow string theory is going to go away (left wing extremist view). I dont think that is going to happen any time too soon because it appears to be too useful to just throw into the garbage. The original goal i think was to unify gravity and quantum physics, but just because it has not done that yet does not mean that it has failed entirely at this point in time. It still helps to enrich areas of physics which would be almost standing still if it were not for string theory. It gives the physicists a place to go with their work which is still promising.
So even if it could never unify gravity and quantum physics, it would still be used in other areas, or even perhaps in both of those areas independently.

It's like all of a sudden you find a new transistor die material that does not obey the rules of other transistors that already have spice models, what do you do. Do you say, "Oh well i'll never find a model for this", or do you say, "Well i better try to come up with a new model for this", and in the process you come up with a new model for several other devices instead...do you then scrap the whole new model or keep it for use with the older devices because it helps understand them better. Of course you keep it.

 

That's a bad example. If it doesn't obey the rules of known physics (spice models) then it's likely something is wrong in a very fundamental way. 'Material' science doesn't work the way some seem to think it does.

A better example is a transistor made from theoretical unobtainium crystals from the multidimensional planet Pandora.

 

A better example is a transistor made from theoretical unobtainium crystals from the multidimensional planet Pandora.

... and coated with a duranium shield, connected through adamantium filaments ...

 

That's a bad example. If it doesn't obey the rules of known physics (spice models) then it's likely something is wrong in a very fundamental way. 'Material' science doesn't work the way some seem to think it does.

A better example is a transistor made from theoretical unobtainium crystals from the multidimensional planet Pandora.

Hello,

That's a better example? Really?

You are declaring things about the original statement that were not there to begin with. A model that does not fit a particular transistor does not have to denounce the known laws of physics. A new model is formed, that's all.

But because all you did was mock the example i gave i cant be sure where you stand on the main idea which was the life of string theory. That's like hearing about a car that is really a truck and all you can do is comment on how bad the color was.

You should really state your position on string theory itself, unless you want us to believe that you think it has no place in physics because that's what your previous posts here and elsewhere seem to suggest.

 

Your example in the mode of mathematics string theories is creating a new model but that model can't be in 'pspice' because it (in this mystical example) lacks the capability (due to current testable physics) to predict a unknown possible transistor mode that causes bulk transistor substrates to become invisible in the known EM spectrum.

My position of the string science "hypothesis" is that it's a good framework for the exploration of theoretical physics using the mathematical computational universe of non-physical rules.

http://aitp-conference.org/2018/slides/MD.pdf

String theory cannot be modified – it is a single unified structure
(though with many limits which superficially look different). Thus, it is
either right or wrong as a candidate fundamental theory.
...
Theoretical physicists are experts in none of these fields and
would rather have the theorems, algorithms and mathematical
results provided to them. Of course once a construction is defined,
they are the experts at computing the resulting predictions.

Fortunately, pure mathematicians find these problems interesting, not
least because there have been very important returns to pure
mathematics:
Mirror symmetry: enumerative formulas, homological mirror
symmetry, Bridgeland stability,
etc.
New topological and geometric invariants: Gromov-Witten,
Seiberg-Witten, Donaldson-Thomas, Gopakumar-Vafa,
etc.
Topological field theory and topological quantum gravity,
etc.
And besides these conceptual developments, string theory has been a
valuable source of concrete problems and examples as well.
The contributions of string theorists to these developments have
generally not been rigorous mathematics but rather conjectures, new
relations, new connections, and new questions which are developed in
a loose collaboration between physicists and mathematicians.

 

Your example in the mode of mathematics string theories is creating a new model but that model can't be in 'pspice' because it (in this mystical example) lacks the capability (due to current testable physics) to predict a unknown possible transistor mode that causes bulk transistor substrates to become invisible in the known EM spectrum.

My position of the string science "hypothesis" is that it's a good framework for the exploration of theoretical physics using the mathematical computational universe of non-physical rules.

http://aitp-conference.org/2018/slides/MD.pdf

Hi,

Yeah sorry but you must not understand the meaning behind that example.
The whole idea is very simple, when you have a theory that can never include what you are looking at, you must create a new theory, you have no choice.

 

Sure, but your example is really off topic to the subject I'm talking about. It's not about 'new theories, it's about the type of theories and how to define science from philosophy and religion by the methods we use. To be scientific that theory must be testable, tested for correctness (falsifiability) and provide testable predictions. Every testable predicate for the original basis problem (the naturalness problem) that strings were designed to solve have so far been a negative result (no supersymmetry (SUSY)) while providing positive results for standard model theories.
https://www.quantamagazine.org/what-no-new-particles-means-for-physics-20160809/

“It’s striking that we’ve thought about these things for 30 years and we have not made one correct prediction that they have seen,” said Nima Arkani-Hamed, a professor of physics at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, N.J.

I hope that doesn't continue because String theory is just unsupported for now, it's not unsupportable, so one day it might be a valid way to understand physics but no physical theory can really be proven in the mathematical sense.

 

https://blogs.scientificamerican.co...sics-is-pointless-without-experimental-tests/

Another lame article. He talks about the "hubris" of theoretical physics "celebrating conjectures" -- wtf? There are precisely zero professional physicists who believe they've come even remotely close to figuring it all out. No one's walking around campus celebrating their theoretical conjectures. The author makes it seem like theoretical physicists are high-fiving each other, but from what I can tell it's the exact opposite -- there's a real sense of despair among the people actually doing theoretical physics that their field has hit a brick wall. Hubris? Laughable. It's only the pop-sci guys (Brian Greene, Michio Kaku and that ilk) that are happy, but they're not the ones doing actual physics; they're just celebrities.

The article's author attempts to make an awkward connection between mainstream physicists believing in "extra dimensions" but not believing in the SETI project, as if the two weren't entirely orthogonal. No doubt he's a bit envious of the media attention that theoretical physics tends to get; after all, black holes and multiverses make for eye-grabbing headlines, as opposed to "SETI has found nothing yet again". But only the celebrities care about that crap; the real physicists are too busy working. Surely he must realize that theoretical physics is a tiny, poorly-funded subset that in no way competes with SETI. In fact, I'd bet most theoretical physicists believe in and support SETI. So why does he make the comparison?

Smells like something decidedly unscientific to me.

 

Sure, but your example is really off topic to the subject I'm talking about. It's not about 'new theories, it's about the type of theories and how to define science from philosophy and religion by the methods we use. To be scientific that theory must be testable, tested for correctness (falsifiability) and provide testable predictions. Every testable predicate for the original basis problem (the naturalness problem) that strings were designed to solve have so far been a negative result (no supersymmetry (SUSY)) while providing positive results for standard model theories.
https://www.quantamagazine.org/what-no-new-particles-means-for-physics-20160809/


I hope that doesn't continue because String theory is just unsupported for now, it's not unsupportable, so one day it might be a valid way to understand physics but no physical theory can really be proven in the mathematical sense.

Hello,

Well what i was trying to do was to relate this situation to electronics buffs, who understand circuits and spice models. If we are looking for a model of the universe, it's almost like looking for a new model of a device we dont know much about yet. We have data, and we try to come up with a description from the data that will fit a wide class of problems. So far, string theory fits some problems very well, just not others, but that's no reason to condemn the whole theory. That's my main point.
I'd like to discuss this further, but unfortunately we're out of time

 

Another lame article. He talks about the "hubris" of theoretical physics "celebrating conjectures" -- wtf? There are precisely zero professional physicists who believe they've come even remotely close to figuring it all out. No one's walking around campus celebrating their theoretical conjectures. The author makes it seem like theoretical physicists are high-fiving each other, but from what I can tell it's the exact opposite -- there's a real sense of despair among the people actually doing theoretical physics that their field has hit a brick wall. Hubris? Laughable. It's only the pop-sci guys (Brian Greene, Michio Kaku and that ilk) that are happy, but they're not the ones doing actual physics; they're just celebrities.

The article's author attempts to make an awkward connection between mainstream physicists believing in "extra dimensions" but not believing in the SETI project, as if the two weren't entirely orthogonal. No doubt he's a bit envious of the media attention that theoretical physics tends to get; after all, black holes and multiverses make for eye-grabbing headlines, as opposed to "SETI has found nothing yet again". But only the celebrities care about that crap; the real physicists are too busy working. Surely he must realize that theoretical physics is a tiny, poorly-funded subset that in no way competes with SETI. In fact, I'd bet most theoretical physicists believe in and support SETI. So why does he make the comparison?

Smells like something decidedly unscientific to me.

Hi,

I think you will agree we see these extremists pop up now and then. They seem to take on the role of the "deciders" or should i say the "deciders of the universe" that believe that they have the ability to decide what works and what doesnt even in the face of extreme controversy among the truly knowledgeable. I guess we could lump it in with creative writing (ha ha) and artistic license (big chuckle) but in science it's just a one sided view.

 

Hi,

I think you will agree we see these extremists pop up now and then. They seem to take on the role of the "deciders" or should i say the "deciders of the universe" that believe that they have the ability to decide what works and what doesnt even in the face of extreme controversy among the truly knowledgeable. I guess we could lump it in with creative writing (ha ha) and artistic license (big chuckle) but in science it's just a one sided view.

Sadly, media exposure is a natural attractor, even in science. Outside of research journals, publishers and content providers feel enormous pressure to publish material that will draw clicks, as it were. Compounding this, pretty much every field of human scholarship has become so specialized that only a subject-matter expert can understand the current research.

This means that, typically, the only insight that "regular people" get is through non-experts. And by "regular people" I mean everyone outside of the field, including other scientists. All of that vast and demanding research is being filtered for public consumption by a handful of science journalists, ex-scientists, Youtube personalities, etc., most of whom can barely understand a single recent paper, much less coalesce the entire field's worth of latest research. In most fields, you literally have to be a professional in it to be able to keep up with the research in the field. Even a professional in one subfield will have neither the time nor the expertise to keep up with the research in another, related subfield. It's the nature of the beast.

What we end up with is lots of pop-sci content meant to dazzle and amaze, or opinion pieces that push populist buttons -- because people will click on that stuff -- but very little actual science. It's the same phenomenon that's festered in television talk shows: whether politics or sports, loud and flashy or loud and angry gets the ratings. So, when the chair of the Harvard astronomy dept publishes an editorial about the state of theoretical physics in Scientific American, it's a pretty sure bet that it's fluff. The Harvard guy gets a publishing credit, Scientific American gets a few clicks (maybe even a few letters to the editor), and the theoretical physicists keep doing what they're doing.

 

Media exposure is not always negative. Controversy (even the theoretical physics kind) breeds interest and interest generates new blood into fields.

Lame or not, it's a good thing overall if the information is factual.
https://www.cnn.com/2018/08/17/opinions/superstrings-dark-energy-opinion-lincoln/index.html

https://www.quantamagazine.org/dark-energy-may-be-incompatible-with-string-theory-20180809/

His conjecture has roused the community to action, with researchers like Wrase looking for stable de Sitter counterexamples, while others toy with little-explored stringy models of quintessent universes. “I would be equally interested to know if the conjecture is true or false,” Vafa said. “Raising the question is what we should be doing. And finding evidence for or against it — that’s how we make progress.”

 

https://www.quantamagazine.org/dark-energy-may-be-incompatible-with-string-theory-20180809/

More of the usual angst for string theorists. I still feel like I need to point out that theoretical physics != string theory.

 

https://blogs.scientificamerican.co...does-not-equal-truth-in-physics-or-elsewhere/

Hofstadter saw the world as “filled with anguish.” During the course of evolution, “trillions of creatures have suffered at the hands and claws of others. I don’t think of that as beautiful in any way, shape or form, I think of it as horrible.” He called evolution “horrendous,” “ruthless,” “violent.”

 

Hi,

A wise man once told me and i paraphrase:
"There is no greater deception than beauty".

The original quote was from someone in history, but i cant remember who.
I think it was also more descriptive too.
The main idea though was that beauty gives the impression that something is perfect, but that is a deception that is often hard to discern.

One thing i can mention though that is beautiful is when you analyze something and end up with a huge equation, then find a way to reduce it into a very compact yet still highly descriptive form. It is beautiful to see that happen.
There are many what i call beautiful equations of Nature in classical theory, yet most of that is rather old school in reality. What they accomplish with so little though is still beautiful to me. So some of the beautiful equations we retain even though there now exists more comprehensive successors.
Also, when we see an equation of Nature that can describe SO MUCH in one small form and has such wide application, i think that is also beautiful.

 

"There is no greater deception than beauty".

That's not a bad way of describing the allure and success of science. Humans seem prewired to crave explanations for things we observe in the natural world. When we lack an explanation, we make one up. So when math comes along and we find that a simple formula can describe an enormous range of observations, we see the beauty and order that our biology craves. For many it takes the place of religion in satisfying our cravings to 'understand'. I know I was blown away when I learned about F=ma, or when I later learned that I could derive on pencil paper the Arrhenius equation, a simple formula that approximates how every chemical reaction responds to temperature changes.

But I'd say the deception comes in thinking that we're done once we have the formula. History and experience has shown that many simple formulas - models - break down at different scales or otherwise are not as general as we thought. Nature ends up being more nuanced and complicated than we thought. In my own work I found plenty of cases where the Arrhenius equation failed, not because there was anything wrong with the concept, but because it wasn't possible to extrapolate too far away from where the data were collected. Climate modeling is another recent and spectacular example of placing undue reverence in our understanding of the natural world. Our desire to see the beauty blinds us to the niggling realities.

 

I've never been enamored to mathematical solutions because usually there are many mathematical descriptions to a problem based on good physics. The 'Beauty', if there is any 'Beauty' in physics or 'Nature' is in the fundamental principles of classical and quantum physics from experiment and observation that make it possible to have the understanding we can express with the conceptual tools of math.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mathematical_descriptions_of_the_electromagnetic_field#Discussion

 

https://blogs.scientificamerican.co...does-not-equal-truth-in-physics-or-elsewhere/

Hofstadter's quote is a good example of why "beauty" is a meaningless word in the context of scientific theories. From his perspective, the endless cycle of suffering caused by competition for resources makes evolution horrifying. But from another perspective, evolution is the wonderful molecular dance that brings order out of chaos. Is evolution beautiful or not? As Shakespeare would say, scientific theories are neither beautiful nor ugly; only thinking makes it so.

Of course, each field has its own aesthetic notions, a sense of craftsmanship in the work that can be recognized by other experts in the field. But there is no overarching, universal ideal of beauty: the intersection of all possible aesthetic goals across all fields of science is the empty set. Even within a single field, you'd have a really hard time nailing down a consensus definition of beauty. It's a meaningless word.

 

That's not a bad way of describing the allure and success of science. Humans seem prewired to crave explanations for things we observe in the natural world. When we lack an explanation, we make one up. So when math comes along and we find that a simple formula can describe an enormous range of observations, we see the beauty and order that our biology craves. For many it takes the place of religion in satisfying our cravings to 'understand'. I know I was blown away when I learned about F=ma, or when I later learned that I could derive on pencil paper the Arrhenius equation, a simple formula that approximates how every chemical reaction responds to temperature changes.

But I'd say the deception comes in thinking that we're done once we have the formula. History and experience has shown that many simple formulas - models - break down at different scales or otherwise are not as general as we thought. Nature ends up being more nuanced and complicated than we thought. In my own work I found plenty of cases where the Arrhenius equation failed, not because there was anything wrong with the concept, but because it wasn't possible to extrapolate too far away from where the data were collected. Climate modeling is another recent and spectacular example of placing undue reverence in our understanding of the natural world. Our desire to see the beauty blinds us to the niggling realities.

Hi,

Yes, and really it is a matter of detail ... how deep do you want to go and possibly how deep CAN you go.
The equations are still beautiful to me even though later equations prove more detail. The earlier set usually show the same view but at more of a macro level. The macro level does not take in the tiny differences but still shows the overall workings of the problem at hand. The simplicity is what seems beautiful to me.
As we get deeper there is still beauty, and it may just keep going like that. Each new viewpoint has its own beauty to discover.