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There can be lots of new alternatives. Why not fund those instead, by creating “moonshine physics departments”? (That is just a comment, not a suggestion). The

There can be lots of new alternatives. Why not fund those instead, by creating “moonshine physics departments”? (That is just a comment, not a suggestion). The problem with String Theory is it unfalsifiability and that it has not even grown to explain 3D phenomena AT ALL. 40 years later. Quantum Mechanics and Relativity (both special and general) gave results in a single decade.

mhh__ 4y ago
What do you mean by 3D phenomena? String theory is as far as I have ever read the only thing even close to a working theory in this area. That doesn't mean it's correct but in my admittedly limited understanding of the literature many alternatives are either dead or are similar to string theory only without the underlying principles. People do work on alternatives. there are a lot of smart people unhappy with string theory they just can't actually provide any alternatives. One thing I'd like to say as well is that if someone does provide an alternative there will be a large movement of minds. This always happens in science, people like to think of physicists as a kind of unionized cabal but this isn't true historically or today as far as I'm concerned. Certainly not with the physicists of tomorrow.
- jcranmer 4y ago
  Of all the post-Standard Model theories in existence, string theory has the best publicists and has (to a degree) sucked up all of the air out of competing theories, so that the lack of competing theories is less due to string theory being better and more due to being unable to get funding to work on competing theories. As far as I understand it, string theory has yet to provide a working model of quantum gravity despite focused work on it for ~30 years. That's not exactly a ringing endorsement.
- pfortuny 4y ago
  Newton explained interplanetary attraction. Plank explained the black-body radiation. Einstein explained too many things to say but predicted the precession of mercury which was unexplained. Witten has explained either everything (which is to say nothing useful) or nothing at all (it depends on your position). In any of both cases, after 40 years and several LHC unfulfilled “expectations” it is time to accept the facts.

mhh__ 4y ago

What do you mean by 3D phenomena? String theory is as far as I have ever read the only thing even close to a working theory in this area. That doesn't mean it's correct but in my admittedly limited understanding of the literature many alternatives are either dead or are similar to string theory only without the underlying principles. People do work on alternatives. there are a lot of smart people unhappy with string theory they just can't actually provide any alternatives. One thing I'd like to say as well is that if someone does provide an alternative there will be a large movement of minds. This always happens in science, people like to think of physicists as a kind of unionized cabal but this isn't true historically or today as far as I'm concerned. Certainly not with the physicists of tomorrow.

jcranmer 4y ago
Of all the post-Standard Model theories in existence, string theory has the best publicists and has (to a degree) sucked up all of the air out of competing theories, so that the lack of competing theories is less due to string theory being better and more due to being unable to get funding to work on competing theories. As far as I understand it, string theory has yet to provide a working model of quantum gravity despite focused work on it for ~30 years. That's not exactly a ringing endorsement.
pfortuny 4y ago
Newton explained interplanetary attraction. Plank explained the black-body radiation. Einstein explained too many things to say but predicted the precession of mercury which was unexplained. Witten has explained either everything (which is to say nothing useful) or nothing at all (it depends on your position). In any of both cases, after 40 years and several LHC unfulfilled “expectations” it is time to accept the facts.