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That seems unlikely, because for that to hold they also need to show that there is nothing better than relativity and QM to describe the known universe. Then, y
by coliveira 12y ago
That seems unlikely, because for that to hold they also need to show that there is nothing better than relativity and QM to describe the known universe. Then, you are back to square one, finding a better unifying theory, or even worse, proving that no such theory exists.
- Steuard 12y agoI don't think that you've really understood the sort of limits that the previous commenter (and the original article) were trying to describe. To a very good approximation, QM does describe our universe: any "better" theory must necessarily be equivalent in the appropriate limits (to many decimal places of precision, I might add). In the same way, relativity does describe our universe, and any "better" theory must be equivalent in the (different) appropriate limits. As I understand it, that is the level at which those are being assumed in this argument. The whole point of the theorems that these groups are trying to prove is that any "better" theory that matches both of these limits must be equivalent to string theory.
- coliveira 12y agoI think that would be even harder to achieve than a simple unification of QM and Relativity. Who knows what kind of phenomena we don't know about? There could be millions of theories that are consistent with current physics and still possible, given particular observations. In a few words, nobody can anticipate the kind of phenomena that could be observed by future physicists.