Imagining the Tenth Dimension
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JasonASmith
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In the words of Professor Gumby:
"My brain hurts!"
"My brain hurts!"
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Well, while string theory has produced some extremely important mathematics, it might just be-and, without doing all the math, I hope to show here how it probably is- a theoretical dead end as far as physics goes, almost
an academic equivalent (and antithesis to) intelligent design.
String theory, at its most basic, is an attempt to weave together general relativity and quantum mechanics-it is not just untested, but untestable-incapable of ever making predictions that can be experimentally checked. With no means to verify its truth, superstring theory may prove to be, in the words of Burton Richter, director emeritus of the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center (and my doctoral advisor) a kind of metaphysical wonderland. It is pursued as vigorously as ever, though, and as such a dominant position in the field it is practically career suicide for young theoretical physicists not to join the field. A counterargument may be that it is dominant because the majority of theorists sense that it is the most promising approach-the vision of it something so beautiful that is has to be true, but once one starts learning the details of ten-dimensional superstring theory, anomaly cancellation, Calabi-yau spaces, etc., one realizes that a vibrating string and its musical notes have only a poetic relationship to the real thing at issue The contortions required to hide away the seemingly nonexistent extra dimensions result in structures that that are exceedingly complex.
Back in the 70s,unable to fit the four forces of nature under he same roof, a few theorists began adding extra rooms: the seven dimensions of additional closet space that unification seems to demand. With mathematical sleight of hand, these dimensions are curled up (compactified) and hidden inside the cracks of the theory, but there were an infinite number of ways to do this. One of the arrangements might describe this universe, but which one? In the mid 90s, the infinite number were reduced to five, and then funneled into something called M Theory, which promised to be the one true way-there were even hopes of experimental verification. That was six years ago, and recent research now suggests that the field is back to square one, with something like 10 to the 500th perfectly good M theories, each describing a different physics, and a different universe-all existing simultaneously-and just try a goodgle of that 10 to the 500th, youll be amazed. The theory of everything has become a theory of anything, and some string theorists are now concluding that there is no unique theory, that the universe is not elegant, but accidental, and there is no cosmological constant.
There are two books out now, eminently accessible by the layman-except, perhaps, for my mom the shrink (snicker) that elucidate this counterpoint trend to superstring theory: The Trouble With Physics: The Rise of String Theory, The Fall of Science, And What Comes Next, by Lee Smolin, a physicist at the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics, and Not Even Wrong: The Failure of Sting Theory and The Search For Unit In Physical Law, by Peter Woit, lecturer in mathematics at Columbia University ..
What do I think? Its not exactly my field-I am a reluctant applied physicist, an engineer who was forced to choke down an advanced degree, but these things interest me, somewhat, if only in a science-fiction sort of way., and, of course, their peripheral relationship to the work that I occasionally do in support of the theoretical fellas. I think that sting theory is a sort of academic midpoint, with all the validity of the aether theory of the early days of physics, but that may yield good fruit, just as the aether theory yielded the Lorentz transforms that led to Einsteins theory of Relativity, itself an academic midpoint-a stepping stone on the way to further understanding.
an academic equivalent (and antithesis to) intelligent design.
String theory, at its most basic, is an attempt to weave together general relativity and quantum mechanics-it is not just untested, but untestable-incapable of ever making predictions that can be experimentally checked. With no means to verify its truth, superstring theory may prove to be, in the words of Burton Richter, director emeritus of the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center (and my doctoral advisor) a kind of metaphysical wonderland. It is pursued as vigorously as ever, though, and as such a dominant position in the field it is practically career suicide for young theoretical physicists not to join the field. A counterargument may be that it is dominant because the majority of theorists sense that it is the most promising approach-the vision of it something so beautiful that is has to be true, but once one starts learning the details of ten-dimensional superstring theory, anomaly cancellation, Calabi-yau spaces, etc., one realizes that a vibrating string and its musical notes have only a poetic relationship to the real thing at issue The contortions required to hide away the seemingly nonexistent extra dimensions result in structures that that are exceedingly complex.
Back in the 70s,unable to fit the four forces of nature under he same roof, a few theorists began adding extra rooms: the seven dimensions of additional closet space that unification seems to demand. With mathematical sleight of hand, these dimensions are curled up (compactified) and hidden inside the cracks of the theory, but there were an infinite number of ways to do this. One of the arrangements might describe this universe, but which one? In the mid 90s, the infinite number were reduced to five, and then funneled into something called M Theory, which promised to be the one true way-there were even hopes of experimental verification. That was six years ago, and recent research now suggests that the field is back to square one, with something like 10 to the 500th perfectly good M theories, each describing a different physics, and a different universe-all existing simultaneously-and just try a goodgle of that 10 to the 500th, youll be amazed. The theory of everything has become a theory of anything, and some string theorists are now concluding that there is no unique theory, that the universe is not elegant, but accidental, and there is no cosmological constant.
There are two books out now, eminently accessible by the layman-except, perhaps, for my mom the shrink (snicker) that elucidate this counterpoint trend to superstring theory: The Trouble With Physics: The Rise of String Theory, The Fall of Science, And What Comes Next, by Lee Smolin, a physicist at the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics, and Not Even Wrong: The Failure of Sting Theory and The Search For Unit In Physical Law, by Peter Woit, lecturer in mathematics at Columbia University ..
What do I think? Its not exactly my field-I am a reluctant applied physicist, an engineer who was forced to choke down an advanced degree, but these things interest me, somewhat, if only in a science-fiction sort of way., and, of course, their peripheral relationship to the work that I occasionally do in support of the theoretical fellas. I think that sting theory is a sort of academic midpoint, with all the validity of the aether theory of the early days of physics, but that may yield good fruit, just as the aether theory yielded the Lorentz transforms that led to Einsteins theory of Relativity, itself an academic midpoint-a stepping stone on the way to further understanding.
While I agree that the theory at this point in time
is unmeasureable and untestable, it is quite interesting how I used a similiar type of explanation to teach arrays and multi-dimensional arrays to students in college. (* Being a student my self at the time. *) It does allow for less then 10 dimensional tables to be looked at and also to be understood using this type of explanation. So I think we agree it is a good stepping stone to try to model or look at certain events within our limited understanding (* Not an insult, just a comment that we cannot explain it at the moment *), and be able to make some progress. Thanks for the link.
I've been contemplating the "non-testable" aspect of things. Of course, we won't be able to measure things in the 10th dimensions, however, we should be able to measure the effects of the 10th dimension on our 3rd/4th dimension reality. If string theory is true, it should be able to make certain predictions about 3rd/4th dimensional effects or at least explain some previously unexplained phenomena...
just a thought...
just a thought...
