The final theory

[meteor]

Which will gain the battle?

[Tyger]

one we don't even have a name for yet!

[drag]

Greetings !

Limmited choices you got there meteor...[;)]

I doubt we'll call any theory "final", if at all, for any
considrable amount of time. But, it's possible.
I almost certainly think that such a theory would not,
either way, actually offer any full solution and explanation.

Live long and prosper.

[Brad_Ad23]

Neither of those can be on its own. It will be some fusion of the two.

[Turtle]

M-theory, no theory is final it can be improved upon.

[Brad_Ad23]

but to all you M-theory people...it treats spacetime as an independent background. It doesn't have the necessary dependent background changes that LQG has.

[Mentat]

LONG LIVE M-THEORY!!!!

[Mentat]

Originally posted by Brad_Ad23
but to all you M-theory people...it treats spacetime as an independent background. It doesn't have the necessary dependent background changes that LQG has.

Expound please.

[Brad_Ad23]

M theory still treats spacetime as a fixed background in which interactions play out. But GR tells us otherwise. We know that interactions are shaped in part by the curvature of spacetime, and that in turn also is shaped by the interactions. LQG treats spacetime as something that is developed from the very basics and in which various interactions shape and are altered by it. Lee Somolin (sp) book The Three Roads to Quantum Gravity does a much better job at explaining it than I could right now.

[Mentat]

Originally posted by Brad_Ad23
M theory still treats spacetime as a fixed background in which interactions play out. But GR tells us otherwise. We know that interactions are shaped in part by the curvature of spacetime, and that in turn also is shaped by the interactions. LQG treats spacetime as something that is developed from the very basics and in which various interactions shape and are altered by it. Lee Somolin (sp) book The Three Roads to Quantum Gravity does a much better job at explaining it than I could right now.

Actually, String Theory (and of course, M-Theory) is dependant on the idea that the curvature of space is the cause of all interactions. Indeed, the purpose of any hyperspacial theory (including M-Theory) is to explain all of the "forces" as curvatures of spacetime.

[Brad_Ad23]

Right, I agree. It is the effect of spacetime. But notice that the spacetime is already there in M-theory. Hence it is a fixed background. LQG essentially 'creates' spacetime in its framework.

[I, Brian]

I vote against both - each can only relate to a fraction of observations. Tweaking them to death is the exact problem we already have with the standard model. The Final Theory should be able to relate to all observations without all that darn tweaking. Essentially, I say there are multiple unknown branches of science yet to be explored, without which there can be no suitable attempt at a final theory, let alone success with one.