Has string theory been totally written off?

[Fra]

Thanks for the link Demystifier.

I read Max Tegmark's essay and I share some questions but I'm not sure I like his from what it seems apparently strong reductionist approach. But I haven't read any other of his papers.

If I am not mistaken he wants to find the birds view, and then find the projection onto the frogs view. The problem is that we are the frogs, and he then advices the frog to resort to some kind of antrophic principle? I question to what extent the frog can even properly relate to probabilities of a particular birds view? This doesn't quite make sense to me at least. It seems to contain some subtle circular reasoning I'm not sure how he breaks?

Is anyone reading this the same or is it just me beeing a frog? :)

/Fredrik

 

[marcus]

We get polls like this from time to time.
In this one to date 10 people said it could not be written off (Yes it had a chance at eventually developing into the final all-encompassing theory.)

And 25 people said it could be written off (No it could not turn out to be the final theory.)
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Basically what do polls and discussions about them communicate? I think the main thing is that the situation did change around 2003, with the KKLT paper and Susskind's Anthropic Landscape. The mood changed. Research output has declined since then and, more importantly, citations have declined markedly.

Another signpost was the Edge interview with Brian Greene (and Paul Steinhardt) where he changed his tune considerably----talk in the 1990s about a unique final inclusive theory was "youthful exuberance"---the claim now is to SOME relevance to nature, not to being the unique fundamental theory. Brian Greene was clearly reacting away from the earlier overhype.

Some people don't realize the mood has changed. Or they sense this in others but wonder why. they ask about it. Polls and threads can help answer those questions.

however, it is worth repeating that we cannot know the future of research and we can't answer these questions. all we have is hunches, impressions, guesses about the future.
When you don't know what is going to pay off, it can be helpful to diversify and have some people continue with string while others branch off in other approaches.

So I'd say "totally written off" would be an exaggeration unless you just mean as a final Theory of Everything. But I guess that is what Pivoxa was asking, and what the poll is about. His poll question was:

Can string theory (still) be the final theory?