Is String Theory a Theory Of Everything?

[Jake]

Is String Theory a Theory Of Everything? Or just a theory to unify the four fundamental forces. But not a theory of everything. A theory of everything, I would say, would explain just about everything. String theory defines everything down to the strings, but doesn't explain strings other than 1 dimensional objects. I would think a theory of everything would explain what something IS made out of even if it is infenitesmally small.

What do you guys think?

* Note: Please don't bash or flame me for my possibly anti-string theory statement. Just want to know your opinions on this. Also, I am new to string theory so anything stupid sayed is most likely a result of acknowledged ignorance :)

 

[Gecko]

if its right, then it has the potential to be a t.o.e. i think they still need to find out the problem with the beginning of the universe.

 

[RingoKid]

without defining consciousness, the means by which we distinguish objects and concepts, a theory of EVERYTHING will always be incomplete

one dimensional objects vibrating in 11 dimensions of which only 4 are detectable by observation does provide options for...

...a wellspring of consciousness

but let's not go there...yet

 

[DivineNathicana]

Can a THEORY ever be FINAL?

Hmm... I have read much about the aforementioned, ill-defined phantasm of a theory (forgive me for the A. C. Clarke quote, couldn't help it, it fit so well)... This theory is, of course, very intriguing. I for one favor it, probably because of my dissatisfaction with the Standard Model, and because I am of a curious and optimistic nature, not because I believe that all of its aspects are indeed more than philosophy. But whether or not it will be able to predict and describe what it claims to be able to predict and describe once we are able to circumvent a perturbative approach, I don’t think that any theory will ever be the “final theory of everything” that so tormented Einstein in his final years, even as he was aeons ahead of the rest of us. There can simply be no end to discovery, no natural obstruction beyond which the universe cannot be probed, be it a physical or theoretical boundary - all it takes is the right mind to pry open the hinges placed upon us by the monotonous drilling of school teachers, preaching to us the Bohr model of the atom, calling it a “perfect little mechanism” and so on. It seems that every time we think that we have come up with The Theory, a new discovery or even a simple, pre-existing equation utilized in a different scenario, shatters our entire effort at turning the perfect chaos of physical law into a neatly arranged set of rules, compacted and understood by our brains. I think that this process is deeply rooted within the very genes of humanity – to always keep learning, but never come up with the ultimate truth, for this truth, I believe is beyond human nature to comprehend. Perhaps I am wrong about the latter. But I still hold a firm belief in my former statement – there can be no TOE! (In the sense of a complete, FINAL, and absolute theory - which actually contradicts itself haha) Anyone care to argue? = )

 

[mathlete]

Yes. The vibration of the strings don't only explain the four forces, but how matter and energy is made up of as well (think the violin part in the show). Basically if you know the "entire" sheet music, you can figure out everything.

 

[Tom McCurdy]

String Theory if proved correct will be a theory of everything.

 

[Tom McCurdy]

I would suggest reading the elegant universe or watching the dvd... it explains the true potential of string theory...

Also gave a lecture on string theory and its possiblity in becomming a toe... you can find the transcript at www.quantumninja.com/toe[/url] (soon to be [url]www.utoe.org[/URL] as soon as I learn how to configure my new url)

you can watch the entire 3 hour show here from NOVA [url]http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/elegant/program.html[/url]
there is also an link in a thread somewhere to where you can actually downlaod the files instead of stream them

 

[DivineNathicana]

Oh, I have read the Elegant Universe. But that isn't the point... If there's one thing that the history of science has taught us, it's that every time we think that we have a complete picture, there's always one crummy discovery that proves all of our previous ideas wrong. In fact, I believe that Brian Greene included the latter in his book, did he not? The Universe always seems to find a way to misguide us and veil her true nature... Do you think she finds it amusing to lead us all the way down a wrong path until we hit our heads on the Truth? Do you think she also finds it amusing that we cannot see the Truth we hit our head on? Or am I the only one who reasons so?

Oh and to answer you, I'm not saying that string theory isn't theoretically a complete theory... I'm just saying that somewhere along the way, we will probably find some evidence against it, right at the dawn of a fourth revolution. And as ironic as you may find it, I am for string theory. I find it to be the most complete, and above all, the most interesting "quantum gravitational" theory out there. It is also, in my view, the most aesthetically pleasing.

But all this does not prevent me from recognizing a certain pattern. Don't you see it?

 

[Jake]

If string theory is a complete TOE than how come there's no explanation for the existence of strings? Obviously string theory explains everything UP FROM strings but not strings themselves. Or mabye I'm wrong, that's just what I've picked up so far.

I really have to read elegant universe, I even had the book but haven't gotten the chance :tongue2:

 

[cosmoboy]

hi !
can some body write down the testable predictions of string theories ..

 

[Wave's_Hand_Particle]

I think we are floating into 'air-on-G-String' here!

For instance can String Theory explain my objections to String Theory?

 

[DivineNathicana]

Well, if you read what was said earlier, I have already gotten into that subjects with someone else.

As for the other question, there are so far pretty much no testable predictions of string theory. That's why it's so unpopular with "fundamentalists" physicists.

P.S. Do you guys see my font really huge?! 'Cause I put it in size 2, but I just opened this page from someone else's computer, and it looks huge! Is it really?

- Alisa

 

[selfAdjoint]

It's huge all right. A few other posters have it too.

 

[marcus]

Well, if you read what was said earlier, I have already gotten into that subjects with someone else.

As for the other question, there are so far pretty much no testable predictions of string theory. That's why it's so unpopular with "fundamentalists" physicists.

P.S. Do you guys see my font really huge?! 'Cause I put it in size 2, but I just opened this page from someone else's computer, and it looks huge! Is it really?

- Alisa

I do not see it as huge, but this is, i suppose, because i am a fundamentalist and lack the New Age imagination.
To me, RoyalBlue is acceptable only against a White background and then it excites my nostalgia for the Romanovs.

Naturally, as a traditionalist, I admire the use of a Serif font such as the Courier. In this modern age the glories and elegance of the past are all diminished and even the serifs have been eroded from our letters.

 

[Gecko]

i thought there where predictions of string theory, like the graviton, that is a prediction (postdiction actually) of string theory. and supersymmetry came from string theory although it was also incorperated into the standard model as well, but it would be a huge discovery for string theory if supersymmetry is right.

 

[DivineNathicana]

I'm so sorry! Because I guess with the setting on my computer (I HATE large letters and large settings and stuff) it looks small. My window is actually set on "Medium" at the moment, so maybe you guys set it to that as well. However, if it really does look that big (which sucks because I love that font), I shall cease to use it.

I don't believe that the graviton was a direct prediction of string theory. It is also part of the Standard Model, no? Despite this, it would of course advance the theory as it is as you mentioned a post-diction.

I really really hate large fonts. >.<

- Alisa

 

[DivineNathicana]

Alright, I just went and tried out all of the settings... Put your text size on medium! It's almost the same but my font looks normal. Until then, I'll stick with this one.

- Alisa :tongue:

 

[Gecko]

it was a postdiction because we already knew (think we know) that there is a graviton. the thing is, in the standard model, there was nothing that said a graviton existed, it was just thought to exist because that's the only force that we haven't found a messenger particle for. string theory predicts it as a closed string.

if I am getting this wrong, please tell me lol.

 

[marcus]

i thought there where predictions of string theory, like the graviton, that is a prediction (postdiction actually) of string theory. and supersymmetry came from string theory although it was also incorperated into the standard model as well, but it would be a huge discovery for string theory if supersymmetry is right.

Here are some relevant PF posts by Peter Woit, who teaches at Columbia.

https://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?s=&postid=128657#post128657

https://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?s=&postid=148450#post148450

https://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?s=&postid=159335#post159335

https://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?s=&postid=159596#post159596

https://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?s=&postid=276970#post276970

https://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?s=&postid=277038#post277038

 

[Gecko]

hahah, well, that settles that, i take back what i said lol.

 

[marcus]

hahah, well, that settles that, i take back what i said lol.

Gecko, I wish everything were that simple, so that one could say "that settles that". but there is contention about this very thing.
they have great arguments over at Peter Woit's website about this.
he has a blog called "Not Even Wrong"

http://math.columbia.edu/~woit/blog/


The name is because he says that to even be wrong a theory has to predict some definite outcome of some future experiment----such that it bets its life on the outcome of at least one experiment that hasnt been done yet----otherwise the theory has no new content (doesnt imply anything new about nature that we don't already know).

So, he maintains, String is so far an immature theory in the sense that it does not make any definite prediction (that would refute the theory if it turned out wrong) and therefore it is scientifically empty----it is not even wrong.

It is a quote from Wolfgang Pauli, who said the same thing about another theory---"this theory stinks, it is so bad that it is not even wrong!"---or words to that effect.

Well.
All that means, finally, is that they have great arguments over at Peter's website. In the comments to his blogs. He knows the major string people and goes to their talks and emails with them and reads papers by Douglas and Dine and Banks etc. and so on. And then he comments on his blog. and then string theorists like Lubos Motl come and comment back.

It does not mean that these issues are "settled" in the sense of not being controversial. I don't want you to get that impression!
They may be settled for you---when you make up your mind one way or another---or settled for me, but there is no easy-to-describe consensus
AFAIK.

 

[Gecko]

i always thought it made more sense to start with an observation, then build a theory from that. when we dont, we get string theory. it seems as though string theory won't be proven true of false in a very long time, or maybe never proven at all. i mean wouldn't the only way that we could prove it right now be to see a string (which are WAAAAAY to small for us to see with current technology, and i don't think one of these giant strings floating around from the big bang is going to pass by earth) or to see a calabi yau (which i just recently learning we can't because it has no dimensions in our 4 dimensional space). so how do you prove a theory like this?

plus, they don't even know the shape of the calabi yau that the strings need to vibrate in the correct patterns to create the particles we see. nor do they know anything about these strings except what WOULD be the vibration patterns of a gravition which we have yet to see. hopefully the new particle accelerator being built will clear up some of these problems.

its kinda like when your reading these books in string theory, and you see the problems that even the author states (although in Brian Greene's book, to me it seems as though he didnt think it was a big deal lol) but you just kinda brush them off. then, when someone tells you that these problems are really big, its kinda like a slap in the face and makes you relize how many problems there are in the theory.

 

[DivineNathicana]

Yeah, I can totally see where you're coming from. A lot earlier on, I posted to this thread my idea of why no THEORY can ever be FINAL. But I'm just now starting to realize that maybe the only theory that can ever be "final" is one that can't be proven or disproven. So perhaps I will be forced to take back my words and let string theorists bask in their well-earned glory, for if the final theory is to be so obscure it cannot be proven OR disproven, they have surely hit the jackpot. = )

- Alisa

 

[selfAdjoint]

I'm just now starting to realize that maybe the only theory that can ever be "final" is one that can't be proven or disproven.

While Popper's falsification is a weak reed in sorting out good (for the moment) physical theories, it is as an angelic sword of flame in driving out hogwash. Hogwash cannot be proven or disproven, or falsified. Away with it!

 

[DivineNathicana]

Well then string theory just happens to be "hogwash"! Since there is obviously no way we are going to be probing anything to the Planck's length! What kind of waves would be needed to do that? Waves smaller than the Planck length? Wouldn't that sort of disprove the theory in itself? And what kind of a particle collider? One as big as the Universe? That's not so practical...

No one really expects to see one of those gigantic strings supposedly created by the Big Bang floating around by Earth, do they?

So, are you against string theory then, selfAdjoint?

- Alisa

 

[selfAdjoint]

First, the string scale is not the Planck scale but larger, how much larger is not clear.

Second, string physics is not untestable in principle, ony in practice. It is falsifiable, we just can think of a way to try to falsify it. For example if we could prove the extra dimensions don't exist, that would falsify it. Actually one of the things bothering string physicists these days, aside from the landscape, is that supersymmetry looks to be in trouble. The newly revised mass of the top quark and other experimental results have pushed up the bottom edge of a window for the mass of the lightest supersymmetric particle, where the top edge of that window is fixed by theory. The window hasn't quite closed yet, but it's getting mighty narrow...

No supersymmetry, no superstings.

 

[DivineNathicana]

Yes, I suppose that makes sense, selfAdjoint. BUT, is there any do-able way of actually proving string theory (as far as "proving" any theory goes)? Am I not correct in saying that being able to falsify or not falsify a theory is nothing if you can't prove it?

- Alisa

 

[selfAdjoint]

I don't think you are going to get any nice results like the super accurate predictions of QED out of string physics. But note; super accurate or not, QED is not regarded as a true theory of electrodynamics by physicists. Dyson, who cast the theory in its present form from the pioneering work by Schwinger, Feynmann, and Tomonaga, thought for a while that QED was the real deal, an accurate description of what is. But then he discovered that the perturbation series of QED is probably divergent, and had to accept that QED is only a very good model. This and other history had led physicists to have a nuanced view of "true"; often they will just settle for "useful".

 

[marcus]

Yes, I suppose that makes sense, selfAdjoint. BUT, is there any do-able way of actually proving string theory (as far as "proving" any theory goes)? Am I not correct in saying that being able to falsify or not falsify a theory is nothing if you can't prove it?

- Alisa

My understanding is that no scientific theory is ever proven correct. A scientific theory is not meant to be "believed in" but to be tested and used to make predictions.

I agree with what selfAdjoint says about QED and would extend that to GR.

General Relativity and Quantum Electrodynamics both make astonishingly accurate predictions, checked out to unprecedented many decimal place accuracy.

Neither has been proven right. they just have not been proven wrong yet.

I don't think it is logically possible to prove a theory right, it would involve the infinite future-----saying that it would always check out, to no matter what accuracy, in no matter what future experiment----we don't know the future.

GR rivals QED in its accuracy, I think of them as the two most successful theories ever, in that sense-----but GR is obviously not right because it predicts singularities: the Big Bang and Black Hole singularities for example. Therefore the rules of the physics game say to find a (probably quantum) version of GR that will be just as accurately predictive (of GPS satellite clock differences, of binary pulsar spin-down, of frame drag...) but which has the singularities fixed. And it might be better in other ways too, predict some little detail about the CMB, say, that GR doesnt.

 

[abbott]

Observation is the core necessity of an existence that operates as a balance of opposites. Our powers of observation will always end in unpercieveability (time or space "before" the big bang, the meaning of time or space in the face of the infinity we observe them approach).

 

[marcus]

... (time or space "before" the big bang,..).

hello abbott, and welcome to the forum
You can take the quotes off before
Time and space before the big bang are alive and well
http://arxiv.org/gr-qc/0402053
(Moreover useful, since they get rid of the socalled horizon problem, which I'm told would otherwise require some fine-tuning or hard-to-swallow assumptions about inflation)

that link is to a review article, it has a bibliography with references to
a bunch of articles about the discovery that there isn't a bigbang singularity after all---spacetime doesn't have a boundary there

popular articles for general audience are harder to find
the German science-writer Rudi Vaas has some ScientificAmerican-type articles, tell me if you would like to see them. Maybe i can find the links anyway.

Here's one
http://arxiv.org/physics/0407071

 

[abbott]

thanks for the refernce, it's giving me lots of new questions

first I'll try and explain what i think it says (I passed high school physics with a b- so a lot of the paper was sandscrit to me)

It sounds like they are looking past the big bang by inverting spacetime? and they discovered that when we look at the big bang from one perspective direction of time (backwards) it appears to be the point right before a singularity is reached. And then by inverting time its direction changes to forwards, which changes is description to a point of expansion right before a singularity is reached?

if I am right about this then what it calls to my mind is the inversion of what both directions of time seem to be about to describe. there is no square root of infinity or 1 (if 1's square root is itself, its square root cannot exist for the same reasons singularities can't exist).

anyways, so what i was thinking was if we uninvert? our description of time before the big bang doest that describe what's at the end of the "forward" direction of time. wouldn't then time become what comes out of a singularity and what goes into a singularity?