- #1
Stringyguy0788
- 6
- 0
Will string theory ever be proven wrong?
can string theory ever be proven wrong? will or do we have the equipment to find out?
can string theory ever be proven wrong? will or do we have the equipment to find out?
Originally posted by Stringyguy0788
can string theory ever be proven wrong? will or do we have the equipment to find out?
Originally posted by selfAdjoint
Yes it is falsifiable. There is astrophysical work going on right now to confirm or falsify some of its predictions.
...It's ironic that the SST critics have resurrected the old "unfalsifiable" canard just when actual falsification of SST theories becomes possible.
Originally posted by marcus
please share whatever links you have about ongoing astrophysical work able to make some substantial part of SST fall by the wayside (as you say)
when I have heard people worry about falsifiability it has sounded like a sincere concern and not just a phoney distraction ("canard").
please give us a link or two to some paper showing how
SST has become falsifiable. It seems to me to be an urgent and legitimate concern to have about such an extensive body of
theorizing.
I wonder if you are thinking about the possibility that LHC, soon to produce data, may discover evidence of SUSY? If it does that would be a great boost for string theory. But if it does not, where is it written that string theory would collapse (as meteor says) "like a house of cards." If the approaching LHC data is relevant, or even decisive, please explain a bit for those of us who don't know what different scenarios to expect.
Originally posted by notevenwrong
The problem with string theory is not that
"all they have is the math formulas".
M-theory/non-perturbative string theory is
a purely conjectural theory, it is not known
what the dynamical degrees of freedom or
equations governing them are.
There are no predictions of string theory,
astrophysical or otherwise, since there
is no theory. Anyone who claims otherwise
doesn't know what they are talking about,
or is using a non-standard definition of
"prediction" (as in "string theory
predicts that X may happen, but then
again maybe it won't")
You're not going to find string theorists who
know what they are talking about claiming
predictions of the theory. People like Ed
Witten and David Gross are quite explicit
that the present state of the theory is such that it can't predict anything. They hope
this will change and they will find a
way to make predictions. They have been
hoping this without success for 20 years.
Originally posted by selfAdjoint
... failures of low energy SUSY (and remember LHC will be ultra low energy wrt SST) wouldn't be fatal to SST.
It won't get a great deal of a credit even if SUSY is discovered! Although i do believe that strictly from this vantage point, LQG is a much safer bet, since it quite elegantly subsumes and extends the much appraised GR framework.Originally posted by meteor
Yes, it can be proven wrong. If they're not able to find the supersymmetric particles (gravitino, gluino, etc), the theory will collapse like a house of cards
Originally posted by selfAdjoint
I wish someone who knows a lot about string physics would address this cosmological constant issue, or give a link to a competent discussion of it. I've never seen it covered on s.p.r, for example.
It just seems to have fallen into a black hole. Even Smolin, in his recent essays, doesn't seem to refer to it.
Originally posted by notevenwrong
The problem with string theory is not that
"all they have is the math formulas".
M-theory/non-perturbative string theory is
a purely conjectural theory, it is not known
what the dynamical degrees of freedom or
equations governing them are.
There are no predictions of string theory,
astrophysical or otherwise, since there
is no theory. Anyone who claims otherwise
doesn't know what they are talking about,
or is using a non-standard definition of
"prediction" (as in "string theory
predicts that X may happen, but then
again maybe it won't")
You're not going to find string theorists who
know what they are talking about claiming
predictions of the theory. People like Ed
Witten and David Gross are quite explicit
that the present state of the theory is such
that it can't predict anything. They hope
this will change and they will find a
way to make predictions. They have been
hoping this without success for 20 years.
PSR B1706-44, M87, NGC 253, BL Lac, Mrk421, GRB04mmdd, ... goodness, even M1 (the Crab Nebula)! All of them better than the most souped-up LHC you could ever dream of.Originally posted by IooqXpooI
*SNIP ...At least not in this century, unless I can get around to a decent particle accelerator...
fffbone said:As far as proof is concerned, it can't even be proven right. All they have is the math formulas, that's why some physicians consider it a metaphysics theory rather than physics theory.
meteor said:Yes, it can be proven wrong. If they're not able to find the supersymmetric particles (gravitino, gluino, etc), the theory will collapse like a house of cards
pessimist said:If they( I assume you mean particle physicists) are not able to find super symmetric particles, string theorists can simply claim or re-modify their theories to claim that they occur at higher energies not accessible by today's particle accelerators!
pessimist said:But String theory depends on the existence of supersymmetric particles.
Lost in Space said:If it's impossible to either prove or disprove string theory, won't the theory survive because it is impossible to prove? Can standard models as well as those theories beyond them ever be ditched because we will always lack the means to prove them outright, or do we continue to search for the evidence they predict which may or may not exist or be possible to find to support them?