On 07/01/2011 10:00 PM, Warp wrote:

>    While I know virtually nothing about string theory (well, string theories,
> as there are many; the unified theory would be the so-called M-theory),
> I find it a bit "unlikeable" for one reason.

>    However, which observation or measurement is string theory based on?
> As I said, I know next to nothing about it, but it just sounds to me
> like string theory is based on *nothing* at all. It just throws a big
> bunch of extra dimensions from nowhere, based on no measurement,
> observation or other rational justification, and builds up a huge
> bunch of random hypotheses based on these unfounded assumptions.

It's in idea, a theory, and they're trying to see whether it plays out 
or not. Currently the math doesn't even work properly, but there's quite 
a lot of people working on fixing that. There have been plenty of 
scientific ideas in the past that people have come up with on a whim 
which turned out to be correct, or almost correct. And besides, I rather 
suspect that the basic assumptions of string theory aren't as arbitrary 
as they seem, it's just that string theory is so highly abstracted from 
the everyday world that most presentations of it for the general 
population get watered down to the point where it /seems/ arbitrary.

Then again, I know little about string theory (or should that be 
"theories"?) I'm content to just sit and wait to see if they eventually 
sort it out or not.

The fundamental idea of string theory is that each subatomic particle is 
actually a vibrating string (or possibly sheet), and each type of 
vibration corresponds to a different particle. Note that this is not the 
first time such an idea has been voiced; way back when the periodic 
table was discovered, Lord Kelvin suggested that perhaps each elemental 
atom was a different type of knot tied in the ether. The study of knot 
theory began because people thought that be enumerating all possible 
knots, they would discover the structure of the chemical elements. (But, 
apparently, it turns out atoms are different due to the combinations of 
subatomic particles they contain...)

And then, of course, there's Stephen Wolfram, who suggests that not just 
matter but time itself is quantum, and that the universe is actually a 
giant cellular automaton, and that the observed quanta are actually the 
cells of the cellular grid. (They guy probably needs to put down the CA 
simulator and go outside for a little while.)

Post a reply to this message