String Theory

[Mercedes Benzene]

What does everyone think about string theory?
To me at least, I think the whole idea of String Theory is intriguing, but I have a hard time buying into it.
Also, does anyone have any outrageoud ideas for a "theory of everything". Sometimes I talk to people and they come up with some pretty interesting ideas for an "everything" theory. I just wanted to get an idea about what people here think.

[Jay-qu]

Yeah its all very interesting stuff and all I keep hearing is that the maths of it is far beyond us, so that all we can do is approximate.. but I havent even got a look at it yet anyone know any string equations? come on blow my mind

[alexander]

http://www.superstringtheory.com/basics/basic4a.html
there are some equations there for you too, Jay...

[Jay-qu]

Thats cool The first few are familiar.. but then it goes downhill

[Tormod]

Basically, string theory is very interesting but AFAIK it has yet to produce any predictions...

[Farsight]

I like the way String Theory moves us away from point particles, and brings higher dimensions into play. OK it doesn't always paint a picture that is easy to get a handle on, but I'm more satisfied with the concepts than those offered by the Standard Model of particle physics.

Are we sharing concepts here?

My own concept is that point particles involve intractable mathematical infinities, and messenger particles for things like Gravity have to be a red herring because they contradict General Relativity. So it's better to think of particles as "regions of space with properties". Then you can think of these regions of space as having their particular properties because of space being stretched or compressed, or bent or folded or knotted or creased. There's a natural link-up between particle physics where we're talking about small regions of space, and gravity, where we're talking about large regions of space.

Anyhow. By creased I mean like the creases down your trousers or round the bottom turnups of your jeans. These creases are the strings. They aren't "made" out of anything other than space. You can't take the creases out of your trousers and hand the creases over to me. And they're creases in more dimensions than we can see directly, and like the Flatlander creases experienced by Mr Square, we experience them as forces. Which rings so true compared to Einstein and Gravity.

OK, maybe String Theory (or "M" theory) has some way to go and might evolve or change or be renamed as Ten-Space Topology or something. I'm not sure. But I'm definitely interested.

[Mercedes Benzene]

You make some good points Popular.
To me, it's just soo incredibly hard to comprehend anything that does not have any physical proof whatsoever.
String Theory is especially hard because I suppose I do not fully understand what scientists mean by string theory?? I don't know. haha.

[Farsight]

It takes a while to get a grip on these string, Mercedes. Search Google and you find stuff like this:

http://library.thinkquest.org/27930/stringtheory1.htm

"For reasons that will later become apparent, the universe seems to incorporate closed strings, although open strings may also be present. Recent research has also revealed that "strings" may actually have many different dimensions, from the one-dimensional strings originally postulated to a two-dimensional membrane to many analogous structures in higher dimensions. Physicists have taken to calling strings "branes," and defining each's dimensional extent with a number, i.e a one-brane is a one-dimensional string..."

[TheFaithfulStone]

You'd like Kaluza-Klein and Heim Theory.

Heim Theory is bunk, but it's got one of those "duh" moments that so important to great breakthroughs.

I'm not up on my string theory, but it borrows the idea of a compactified dimension from KK.

TFS

[docbill]

Originally Posted by Mercedes Benzene

What does everyone think about string theory?
To me at least, I think the whole idea of String Theory is intriguing, but I have a hard time buying into it.
Also, does anyone have any outrageoud ideas for a "theory of everything". Sometimes I talk to people and they come up with some pretty interesting ideas for an "everything" theory. I just wanted to get an idea about what people here think.

The problem with string theory is it is not really a predictive theory. Basically, it is like fitting a polynomial to data. No matter how much data you collect, you can always find a polynomial that fits. The only predictive power comes in assuming you have enough terms in your polynomial. String theory is remarkably successfull, in that it yeilds what appears to be the natural form you need to fit high energy physics observations. Mathematically though it is a nightmare, in that you have to use intuition to subtract infinities to come up with constant values. Those "constant" values are what allows the theory to fit practically anything we experimentally observe. I think of it more as a form of mathematically day dreaming then actually calculating results.

Bill