astro
08-28-2006, 08:48 PM
from: http://www.math.columbia.edu/~woit/wordpress/?p=451#comments
Peter Woit (http://www.math.columbia.edu/) Says:
August 28th, 2006 at 2:08 pm (http://www.math.columbia.edu/~woit/wordpress/?p=451#comment-15205)
TheGraduate and tg,
Both my books and Smolin’s contain very detailed answers to your questions, I don’t want to try and rewrite a lot of this here. As for the Smolin-Greene radio show, it’s really not possible to sensibly debate these issues in a few minute long radio program for the general public. About all you can get off in that time are quick sound bites which will be highly misleading in one way or another. The quick answer to tg’s summary is that:
1. string theory does not have a high degree of mathematical consistency, actually no one knows exactly what the theory is.
2. the problem with string theory is not that it needs experimentation. The problem is that it can’t predict anything, at any energy, including being unable to retrodict things being studied in current particle physics experiments.
3. the theory is more than 30 years old, has been intensively studied for 22 years, with the result that it now looks a lot less likely you can get physics out of it than people thought 22 years ago. The problem is not that progress is slow, it is that progress is negative.
--from http://www.math.columbia.edu/~woit/wordpress/?p=451#comments
ROCK ON!!!!!!!!!!!
Peter Woit (http://www.math.columbia.edu/) Says:
August 28th, 2006 at 2:08 pm (http://www.math.columbia.edu/~woit/wordpress/?p=451#comment-15205)
TheGraduate and tg,
Both my books and Smolin’s contain very detailed answers to your questions, I don’t want to try and rewrite a lot of this here. As for the Smolin-Greene radio show, it’s really not possible to sensibly debate these issues in a few minute long radio program for the general public. About all you can get off in that time are quick sound bites which will be highly misleading in one way or another. The quick answer to tg’s summary is that:
1. string theory does not have a high degree of mathematical consistency, actually no one knows exactly what the theory is.
2. the problem with string theory is not that it needs experimentation. The problem is that it can’t predict anything, at any energy, including being unable to retrodict things being studied in current particle physics experiments.
3. the theory is more than 30 years old, has been intensively studied for 22 years, with the result that it now looks a lot less likely you can get physics out of it than people thought 22 years ago. The problem is not that progress is slow, it is that progress is negative.
--from http://www.math.columbia.edu/~woit/wordpress/?p=451#comments
ROCK ON!!!!!!!!!!!