10 ms·

All my life, they've been hawking string theory; what feels like 40-odd years of breathless articles in New Scientist and on "Horizon". I don't really understan

by b800h 3y ago

All my life, they've been hawking string theory; what feels like 40-odd years of breathless articles in New Scientist and on "Horizon". I don't really understand why it's still funded.

indy 3y ago
Sunk cost fallacy. A lot of people have spent a lot of their time developing this theory
- b800h 3y ago
  And I suppose given that it was exciting in the 1980s, these are the people in positions of power at the moment.
  - chongli 3y ago
    Tenure has its pluses and minuses. If a string theorist has tenure, they’re going to be string theorizing for a very long time. Sunk cost fallacy plays a role but so does specialization. If you’re leading string theorist and you walk away from string theory, what are you? A mathematician?
    - bumby 3y ago
      If you adjust your priors in response to data and end up walking away from a faulty theory, I think the term is “scientist”. It sounds like the problem from your perspective is they identify themselves as “string theorists” first and “scientists” second.
      - eep_social 3y ago
        And yet, “science advances one funeral at a time” probably because scientists are people.
      - runarberg 3y ago
        I can’t stop thinking about one the greatest scientific discoveries in this context. Kepler was convinced the planetary orbits around the sun were circular and could be described with the five Platonic solids. His theory was testable, and when he measured it against observation, it failed. He could have persisted, modified his theory, and continued on the wrong path, but instead, he discarded his theory and discovered elliptical orbits with his three laws of planetary motion. Kepler was a scientist.
      - chongli 3y ago
        Until now, there hasn’t been any data around string theory whatsoever. It’s been a purely mathematical exercise without even a hint of a possible experiment to test it. So walking away from string theory years ago, in my mind, would make you a mathematician.
        bumby 3y ago
        I agree, it’s impossible to completely divorce humans of their biases. One way is to create a system of diversity in rival ideas. So while a scientist is a noun, science should be viewed as a verb. The person may be biased, but the goal is that the process is not. (Still easier said than done).
        chongli 3y ago
        I didn’t really intend to convey the idea that I thought bias was the major factor. As a practical matter, if you’re an expert in a field and your foundational theories are seriously challenged, it challenges your foundation as an expert. It’s fun to talk about scientists as these staunch defenders of their theories and say “science advances one funeral at a time” but the reality of the situation is that sometimes scientists are faced with the realization that their entire life’s work is in ruins. It’s hard to imagine a more severe test of character than that. Harder still to imagine how one might pick up the pieces and move on to something else and still be able to contribute to science in a meaningful way.
kneebonian 3y ago
Science progresses one funeral at a time.
- rhacker 3y ago
  Pretty much. We can't get past the big wigs until the big wigs are no longer enforcing beliefs that make little sense.
  - candiddevmike 3y ago
    What causes them to do this?
    - some_furry 3y ago
      What causes dictators to cling to power? What causes political parties to prioritize their donors over their constituents? What causes corporations to disregard the safety and health of the public if the worst they'll face is a fine for negligence? These questions, while superficially unrelated, all point to the same underlying mechanism in the nature of societies.
    - tinideiznaimnou 3y ago
      Being apes, I guess.
    - pvaldes 3y ago
      A structure build painfully to get money. With enough time each scientist learns to became an entertainer or a politic.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
philipov 3y ago
And here I thought Hawking was a quantum field theorist.
alecst 3y ago
String theory has been pretty useful outside of string theory proper. There are analogies to lots of other systems which I think continues to breathe life into the research. See: https://www.quantamagazine.org/string-theorys-strange-second-life-20160915/ https://www.quantamagazine.org/string-theorys-strange-second... > “It’s hard to say really where you should draw the boundary around and say: This is string theory; this is not string theory,” said Douglas Stanford, a physicist at the IAS. “Nobody knows whether to say they’re a string theorist anymore,” said Chris Beem, a mathematical physicist at the University of Oxford. “It’s become very confusing.” I knew some string people who easily transitioned into other fields (like condensed matter) because the work was similar. I don't personally see it as a huge waste of time, and it's like the least expensive thing to fund.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- qubex 3y ago
  Of course they don’t know whether they’re string theorists! Nobody knows whether theorists are made of strings or not! That’s the whole point of lacking experimental verification! </humour>
- runsWphotons 3y ago
  I find this funny as well. A lot of complaints about all the funding for string theory, but it seems like just funding mathematicians, which is dirt cheap compared to anything else.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
nathan_compton 3y ago
The basic thing here is that 1) we can guess from pretty basic physics that black holes have an entropy. 2) in order for a black hole to have an entropy it must have microscopic degrees of freedom. 3) String theory is one of the few ways we've ever come close to actually calculating from microscopic degrees of freedom the entropy we "know" black holes should have. I think most physicists, even string theorists (perhaps them more than others) understand that there are physical and philosophical problems with string theory, but I think most folks also think its the closest thing we have to a working theory and that it is probably a useful language in which to cast certain calculations in lieu of a more complete or rigorous theory. I'd also like to point out that the actual total funding for string theory is extremely tiny compared to scientific research funding in general since it is a theoretical discipline with very few practitioners. If you want to attach inefficiencies in scientific funding, the LHC is a much better target. I'm a physicist and have an interest in theory, and even I think that we spend too much money on particle accelerators given what we stand to learn from them and the other pressing problems the human race has. I'd be delighted to see all that money re-allocated to large scale public works building solar panels and infrastructure or just giving it to poor people.
- d0mine 3y ago
  If we follow Pareto principle, then it doesn't make sense to optimize spendings that are close to zero if compared with something like military spendings. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pareto_principle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pareto_principle Even if string theory is just pure math with no base in reality, it still can be useful (any math domain for that matter).
  - _0ffh 3y ago
    I don't think the spending is really a problem, but possibly the many work-hours of brilliant minds that might be more fruitfully employed working on different problems.
    - dangerlibrary 3y ago
      Let's not pick on the LHC for that. How many gobsmackingly brilliant engineer-hours have gone into optimizing ad targeting or fine-tuning purchase attribution?
jjk166 3y ago
No one has come up with something demonstrably better yet.
gonzo41 3y ago
It's cheap. A physicist I work with says it was a cheap way to have clout in the 80's in a physics department. Fundamentally, paying for a couple of people to do math on paper all day is a lot cheaper than doing what they do at cern.
digging 3y ago
I don't understand why it wouldn't be? One of the most fundamental scientific facts is that quantum theory (the most precisely tested theory in human history) and general relativity are incomplete. There must be a bridge. And we have no idea what that bridge is. It's been this way for over a century; the lifespan of string theory is not so long in comparison. Until we find a way to falsify it, we have to keep trying, don't we?
- simcop2387 3y ago
  Yep, or at least until we find something else that is explaining things better and testing better and looks like a better path forward. As much as I dislike ST because of the ambiguity/vagueness that means it's so hard to nail down as a single concrete theory, the alternatives so far still also have a lot of those same issues (e.g. too many parameters, effectively impossible to test, etc.) so there's no reason to drop ST just yet as useless or an invalid theory.
- runarberg 3y ago
  Why do you assume there is a bridge? Or even if there is one, why do you assume that descriptions of that bridge in a mathematical language is at all possible? We do know that mathematical frameworks cannot be at the same time totally complete and internally consistent. Would it be a stretch to assume descriptions of our physical reality could have the same restriction? General relativity and Quantum mechanics are relatively complete in describing our physical reality, however they are not consistent with each other. Perhaps if we ever find a description that is consistent, it won’t be complete. Perhaps grand unified theories are simply a mathematical impossibility.
  - mr_toad 3y ago
    > We do know that mathematical frameworks cannot be at the same time totally complete and internally consistent. It would be troubling to think that physical reality was inconsistent.
  - GoblinSlayer 3y ago
    Mathematical completeness is a mathematical concern and is irrelevant for physics, because physics and mathematics have different notions of existence.
luxuryballs 3y ago
pun intended? :D
ftxbro 3y ago
> All my life, they've been hawking string theory I see what you did there. Also, Sabine Hossenfelder was trained as a particle physicist and she doesn't like it either. She explains why it's like that and how it's bad and what they should be doing instead (like actively trying to reconcile the contradictory theories of gravity and quantum mechanics). She has changed career to professional youtuber https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sabine_Hossenfelder https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sabine_Hossenfelder
- EddieEngineers 3y ago
  > like actively trying to reconcile the contradictory theories of gravity and quantum mechanics Isn't that exactly what string theory is trying to do?
  - ftxbro 3y ago
    She's mainly against research that tries to achieve naturalness for its own sake https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naturalness_(physics) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naturalness_(physics) If someone is actually trying to get to the bottom of some contradictions in physics experiments I don't think she would be against this. I think she has observed that string theory has failed at it for so long and maybe some other methods can get a chance for funding instead of spending a hundred billion dollars on string theory and ten thousand dollars on other methods.
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
ndsipa_pomu 3y ago
String theory is seductive as it is almost a natural progression to go from point-like particles to strings with different patterns of vibration. Also, it seems to have a natural handling of gravity and so promises the holy grail of unification. It's almost like a mathematical formula that's too beautiful to not be true (though there's plenty of examples of beautiful maths that fails).
- AmericanOP 3y ago
  What I find curious is the “observed” properties of the whirlwinds within each and every proton & neutron are so phenomenally complex, I would not be surprised at all if the mathematical abstractions of strings represent another quantum ecosystem we may never be able to observe
was_a_dev 3y ago
Most of the New Scientist is breathless articles. It's borderline science-fiction hooking in the very latest of publications

by b800h 3y ago

All my life, they've been hawking string theory; what feels like 40-odd years of breathless articles in New Scientist and on "Horizon". I don't really understand why it's still funded.

indy 3y ago

Sunk cost fallacy. A lot of people have spent a lot of their time developing this theory

b800h 3y ago
And I suppose given that it was exciting in the 1980s, these are the people in positions of power at the moment.
- chongli 3y ago
  Tenure has its pluses and minuses. If a string theorist has tenure, they’re going to be string theorizing for a very long time. Sunk cost fallacy plays a role but so does specialization. If you’re leading string theorist and you walk away from string theory, what are you? A mathematician?
  - bumby 3y ago
    If you adjust your priors in response to data and end up walking away from a faulty theory, I think the term is “scientist”. It sounds like the problem from your perspective is they identify themselves as “string theorists” first and “scientists” second.
    - eep_social 3y ago
      And yet, “science advances one funeral at a time” probably because scientists are people.
    - runarberg 3y ago
      I can’t stop thinking about one the greatest scientific discoveries in this context. Kepler was convinced the planetary orbits around the sun were circular and could be described with the five Platonic solids. His theory was testable, and when he measured it against observation, it failed. He could have persisted, modified his theory, and continued on the wrong path, but instead, he discarded his theory and discovered elliptical orbits with his three laws of planetary motion. Kepler was a scientist.
    - chongli 3y ago
      Until now, there hasn’t been any data around string theory whatsoever. It’s been a purely mathematical exercise without even a hint of a possible experiment to test it. So walking away from string theory years ago, in my mind, would make you a mathematician.
      - bumby 3y ago
        I agree, it’s impossible to completely divorce humans of their biases. One way is to create a system of diversity in rival ideas. So while a scientist is a noun, science should be viewed as a verb. The person may be biased, but the goal is that the process is not. (Still easier said than done).
        chongli 3y ago
        I didn’t really intend to convey the idea that I thought bias was the major factor. As a practical matter, if you’re an expert in a field and your foundational theories are seriously challenged, it challenges your foundation as an expert. It’s fun to talk about scientists as these staunch defenders of their theories and say “science advances one funeral at a time” but the reality of the situation is that sometimes scientists are faced with the realization that their entire life’s work is in ruins. It’s hard to imagine a more severe test of character than that. Harder still to imagine how one might pick up the pieces and move on to something else and still be able to contribute to science in a meaningful way.

kneebonian 3y ago

Science progresses one funeral at a time.

rhacker 3y ago
Pretty much. We can't get past the big wigs until the big wigs are no longer enforcing beliefs that make little sense.
- candiddevmike 3y ago
  What causes them to do this?
  - some_furry 3y ago
    What causes dictators to cling to power? What causes political parties to prioritize their donors over their constituents? What causes corporations to disregard the safety and health of the public if the worst they'll face is a fine for negligence? These questions, while superficially unrelated, all point to the same underlying mechanism in the nature of societies.
  - tinideiznaimnou 3y ago
    Being apes, I guess.
  - pvaldes 3y ago
    A structure build painfully to get money. With enough time each scientist learns to became an entertainer or a politic.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

philipov 3y ago

And here I thought Hawking was a quantum field theorist.

alecst 3y ago

String theory has been pretty useful outside of string theory proper. There are analogies to lots of other systems which I think continues to breathe life into the research. See: https://www.quantamagazine.org/string-theorys-strange-second-life-20160915/ https://www.quantamagazine.org/string-theorys-strange-second... > “It’s hard to say really where you should draw the boundary around and say: This is string theory; this is not string theory,” said Douglas Stanford, a physicist at the IAS. “Nobody knows whether to say they’re a string theorist anymore,” said Chris Beem, a mathematical physicist at the University of Oxford. “It’s become very confusing.” I knew some string people who easily transitioned into other fields (like condensed matter) because the work was similar. I don't personally see it as a huge waste of time, and it's like the least expensive thing to fund.

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
qubex 3y ago
Of course they don’t know whether they’re string theorists! Nobody knows whether theorists are made of strings or not! That’s the whole point of lacking experimental verification! </humour>
runsWphotons 3y ago
I find this funny as well. A lot of complaints about all the funding for string theory, but it seems like just funding mathematicians, which is dirt cheap compared to anything else.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

nathan_compton 3y ago

The basic thing here is that 1) we can guess from pretty basic physics that black holes have an entropy. 2) in order for a black hole to have an entropy it must have microscopic degrees of freedom. 3) String theory is one of the few ways we've ever come close to actually calculating from microscopic degrees of freedom the entropy we "know" black holes should have. I think most physicists, even string theorists (perhaps them more than others) understand that there are physical and philosophical problems with string theory, but I think most folks also think its the closest thing we have to a working theory and that it is probably a useful language in which to cast certain calculations in lieu of a more complete or rigorous theory. I'd also like to point out that the actual total funding for string theory is extremely tiny compared to scientific research funding in general since it is a theoretical discipline with very few practitioners. If you want to attach inefficiencies in scientific funding, the LHC is a much better target. I'm a physicist and have an interest in theory, and even I think that we spend too much money on particle accelerators given what we stand to learn from them and the other pressing problems the human race has. I'd be delighted to see all that money re-allocated to large scale public works building solar panels and infrastructure or just giving it to poor people.

d0mine 3y ago
If we follow Pareto principle, then it doesn't make sense to optimize spendings that are close to zero if compared with something like military spendings. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pareto_principle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pareto_principle Even if string theory is just pure math with no base in reality, it still can be useful (any math domain for that matter).
- _0ffh 3y ago
  I don't think the spending is really a problem, but possibly the many work-hours of brilliant minds that might be more fruitfully employed working on different problems.
  - dangerlibrary 3y ago
    Let's not pick on the LHC for that. How many gobsmackingly brilliant engineer-hours have gone into optimizing ad targeting or fine-tuning purchase attribution?

jjk166 3y ago

No one has come up with something demonstrably better yet.

gonzo41 3y ago

It's cheap. A physicist I work with says it was a cheap way to have clout in the 80's in a physics department. Fundamentally, paying for a couple of people to do math on paper all day is a lot cheaper than doing what they do at cern.

digging 3y ago

I don't understand why it wouldn't be? One of the most fundamental scientific facts is that quantum theory (the most precisely tested theory in human history) and general relativity are incomplete. There must be a bridge. And we have no idea what that bridge is. It's been this way for over a century; the lifespan of string theory is not so long in comparison. Until we find a way to falsify it, we have to keep trying, don't we?

simcop2387 3y ago
Yep, or at least until we find something else that is explaining things better and testing better and looks like a better path forward. As much as I dislike ST because of the ambiguity/vagueness that means it's so hard to nail down as a single concrete theory, the alternatives so far still also have a lot of those same issues (e.g. too many parameters, effectively impossible to test, etc.) so there's no reason to drop ST just yet as useless or an invalid theory.
runarberg 3y ago
Why do you assume there is a bridge? Or even if there is one, why do you assume that descriptions of that bridge in a mathematical language is at all possible? We do know that mathematical frameworks cannot be at the same time totally complete and internally consistent. Would it be a stretch to assume descriptions of our physical reality could have the same restriction? General relativity and Quantum mechanics are relatively complete in describing our physical reality, however they are not consistent with each other. Perhaps if we ever find a description that is consistent, it won’t be complete. Perhaps grand unified theories are simply a mathematical impossibility.
- mr_toad 3y ago
  > We do know that mathematical frameworks cannot be at the same time totally complete and internally consistent. It would be troubling to think that physical reality was inconsistent.
- GoblinSlayer 3y ago
  Mathematical completeness is a mathematical concern and is irrelevant for physics, because physics and mathematics have different notions of existence.

luxuryballs 3y ago

pun intended? :D

ftxbro 3y ago

> All my life, they've been hawking string theory I see what you did there. Also, Sabine Hossenfelder was trained as a particle physicist and she doesn't like it either. She explains why it's like that and how it's bad and what they should be doing instead (like actively trying to reconcile the contradictory theories of gravity and quantum mechanics). She has changed career to professional youtuber https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sabine_Hossenfelder https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sabine_Hossenfelder

EddieEngineers 3y ago
> like actively trying to reconcile the contradictory theories of gravity and quantum mechanics Isn't that exactly what string theory is trying to do?
- ftxbro 3y ago
  She's mainly against research that tries to achieve naturalness for its own sake https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naturalness_(physics) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naturalness_(physics) If someone is actually trying to get to the bottom of some contradictions in physics experiments I don't think she would be against this. I think she has observed that string theory has failed at it for so long and maybe some other methods can get a chance for funding instead of spending a hundred billion dollars on string theory and ten thousand dollars on other methods.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]

ndsipa_pomu 3y ago

String theory is seductive as it is almost a natural progression to go from point-like particles to strings with different patterns of vibration. Also, it seems to have a natural handling of gravity and so promises the holy grail of unification. It's almost like a mathematical formula that's too beautiful to not be true (though there's plenty of examples of beautiful maths that fails).

AmericanOP 3y ago
What I find curious is the “observed” properties of the whirlwinds within each and every proton & neutron are so phenomenally complex, I would not be surprised at all if the mathematical abstractions of strings represent another quantum ecosystem we may never be able to observe

was_a_dev 3y ago

Most of the New Scientist is breathless articles. It's borderline science-fiction hooking in the very latest of publications