How well accepted is M-Theory?

[rorix_bw]

Lately popular science 'rags' have been selling M-theory especially after Stephen Hawking and Brian Green's recent books and tv shows.

Just how well accepted or widely rejected is M-theory?

Are we seeing a paradigm change or is just the media tying to sell papers?

[jedishrfu]

I think you should consider it a hotly debated subject with defenders and detractors arguing over it.

[torquil]

It hasn't provided any experimentally verified predictions, or been otherwise experimentally supported, so scientifically speaking it is about 0% accepted :smile:

Not rejected either, because it has not been experimentally tested.

[rorix_bw]

@torquil
I see your answer comes down to "Ahh! what is this! This is not science!" :-) But can I please ask for your opinion on the question below?

@all
Can anyone provide some kind of metric? Like "N% of scientists I know are working on it, vs T% of scientists punched me when I asked them about it, whereas W% are sitting on the fence"

[torquil]

@torquil
I see your answer comes down to "Ahh! what is this! This is not science!" :-) But can I please ask for your opinion on the question below?

@all
Can anyone provide some kind of metric? Like "N% of scientists I know are working on it, vs T% of scientists punched me when I asked them about it, whereas W% are sitting on the fence"

Although I don't know the answer to that, perhaps you could try to search Spires for the keyword M-theory like what is done in the second post here:

http://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=233600

The problem is that it might not be good enough to just count the yearly number of articles that mention the keyword "M-theory".

[tom.stoer]

@all
Can anyone provide some kind of metric? Like "N% of scientists I know are working on it, vs T% of scientists punched me when I asked them about it, whereas W% are sitting on the fence"
This is not how science works.

[rorix_bw]

@tom.stoer: paradigm is a religion? :-)