The Planck scale where string theory's distinctive physics should appear is around 10^19 GeV. The LHC operates at about 10^4 GeV. That's a factor of 10^15 which is a million billion times too weak. No foreseeable accelerator technology can bridge this gap. The proposed Future Circular Collider (FCC) would reach maybe 10^5 GeV. Still 14 orders of magnitude short.
Approaching 50 Years of String Theory
21–30 of 138 posts
Re: Approaching 50 Years of String Theory
#22The Planck scale where string theory's distinctive physics should appear is around 10^19 GeV. The LHC operates at about 10^4 GeV. That's a factor of 10^15 which is a million billion times too weak. No foreseeable accelerator technology can bridge this gap. The proposed Future Circular Collider (FCC) would reach maybe 10^5 GeV. Still 14 orders of magnitude short.
So the grift can continue
Re: Approaching 50 Years of String Theory
#23[flagged]
Physicist here. Would you like to enrich our world view by linking to counter-examples? My understanding was that string theory being more "hypothetical physics" than "theoretical physics" at this point is still a pretty legit criticism.
The legit criticism with a legit recommended change is even better.
A time and technological gap always exists between theory and a plan for experimental confirmation. Some gaps are fairly short. String theory's gap is undoubtedly long, not for lack of resources.
This gap justifies tapering the allocation of attention and research resources (funding, students, etc), which got lopsided following the strong marketing campaign driven by Greene.
Re: Approaching 50 Years of String Theory
#24An in half a century we still haven't found a single actually testable prediction.
But we've discovered a number of useful tools and techniques that are applicable to other areas of research have we not? The billions of dollars spent on string theory hype might have unlocked a strategy or technique that ends up being useful in a civilization changing way that we just don't know about yet. Maybe string theory and the hype it was able to generate was just the catalyst that we needed.
Re: Approaching 50 Years of String Theory
#25Earlier quoted context omitted.
Thanks for posting that; as soon as I saw the title here I was going to look that up if no one else had already. Sabine Hossenfelder too, though there's far too much content from her on this to put a list, but anyone interested might like some of her takes. A few debates between Brian and other notables; Hossenfelder, Eric Weinstein, and Roger Penrose to name a few; have popped up in my youtube feed lately which are…
Hossenfelder is not really comparable to Collier. Collier's video is critical of string theory as a testable framework but she ultimately still supports people who do research in string theory. Most of her criticism is with media coverage of string theory, not the research or the researchers. Hossenfelder has gone off the "the physics establishment is all idiots and they are suppressing the real physics" deep end and…
I'm not a fan of Hossenfelder, especially for casting quacks like Weinstein, but AFAICT she isn't about "suppressing the real physics" but more of a "establishment physics is wasting money and time, and a lot is equally bad/good as some alternative physics."
Re: Approaching 50 Years of String Theory
#26An in half a century we still haven't found a single actually testable prediction.
I think that's not quite right: it is reasonably certain that string theory can produce both the standard model and most extensions people have dreamt up, so the problem is rather that all the obviously "stringy" predictions are currently unavailable, while the string theory derived predictions for achievable experiments look like what we get from other theories we already have.
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Re: Approaching 50 Years of String Theory
#27Earlier quoted context omitted.
Thanks for posting that; as soon as I saw the title here I was going to look that up if no one else had already. Sabine Hossenfelder too, though there's far too much content from her on this to put a list, but anyone interested might like some of her takes. A few debates between Brian and other notables; Hossenfelder, Eric Weinstein, and Roger Penrose to name a few; have popped up in my youtube feed lately which are…
Hossenfelder is not really comparable to Collier. Collier's video is critical of string theory as a testable framework but she ultimately still supports people who do research in string theory. Most of her criticism is with media coverage of string theory, not the research or the researchers. Hossenfelder has gone off the "the physics establishment is all idiots and they are suppressing the real physics" deep end and…
I thought her rant about bullshit papers was pretty convincing and poignant.
Re: Approaching 50 Years of String Theory
#28Earlier quoted context omitted.
From the FAQ * Be kind. Don't be snarky. Converse curiously; don't cross-examine. Edit out swipes. * Comments should get more thoughtful and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive. * Please don't fulminate. Please don't sneer, including at the rest of the community. * Eschew flamebait. Avoid generic tangents. Omit internet tropes. * Please don't post shallow dismissals, especially of other people's work…
Wow their comment history isn’t much better, is there downside or anything that repeat low-value commenters face?
I've had dang on my case, threatening to ban me if I kept it up.
Re: Approaching 50 Years of String Theory
#29[flagged]
Re: Approaching 50 Years of String Theory
#30The Planck scale where string theory's distinctive physics should appear is around 10^19 GeV. The LHC operates at about 10^4 GeV. That's a factor of 10^15 which is a million billion times too weak. No foreseeable accelerator technology can bridge this gap. The proposed Future Circular Collider (FCC) would reach maybe 10^5 GeV. Still 14 orders of magnitude short.
So the grift can continue
Non-Euclidean geometry (geometric axioms in which one postulate is rejected such that the 3 angles of a triangle are not exactly 180 degrees) was considered a meaningless word game and fundamental mistruth.
Later, non-Euclidean geometry was actually essential to modern physics.
It's intellectually sketchy to judge future value by the present.