Talk:String theory

Explanations

It may be beneficial to readers to provide a brief explanation of other concepts that are used to describe string theory, including pointlike particles, rather than relying on the reader to obtain information from its respective link or an alternate source.

First and Second Revolution? What was overthrown? Who was anointed to coin these exaggerations?

I think the labeling of these two "Revolutions" is hyperbolic and not properly supported, except by some obscure paper by "Rickles". Is that Don? Very little in this article concretely supports any important contributions by string theory. Perhaps it is useful for some math, but that is because it is purely a mathematical theory, not based no physical evidence. I also find the "compaction" example here of the 1-D garden hose to be overly simplistic. The idea is that extra dimensions disappear and become unmeasurable. The x dimension doesn't disappear. I can see it clearly in the picture. The hose is just narrower in that dimension and perhaps our gauge to measure it (pixels) is not statistically capable. That doesn't make that dimension "go away" in space. I think that String Theory is dying out yet this article pretends it is still a very important line of research because it could "potentially" lead to a theory of everything. The use of that weasel word "potentially" is telling. Maybe it's just me that thinks this. 76.93.48.190 (talk) 17:03, 10 July 2022 (UTC)

Agreed. This article lends credibility to a theory that has exactly zero empirical or experimental evidence to support it. It should at least mention that fact, that it is purely theoretical, with no physical scientific evidence whatsoever behind it. 67.4.71.16 (talk) 06:13, 18 February 2023 (UTC)

The usage of "revolutions" is a pretty standard term utilized in the history of string theory to refer to the two developments. Dean Rickles is a well established historian of modern physics, so he is a very reputable source. For more work by him, see his book "A Brief History of String Theory".

The article literally goes into some details on the important contributions that string theory made. Just one example, AdS/CFT correspondance has had a massive impact on research in theoretical physics over the last two decades; the original paper by Maldacena has had almost 20,000 citations. It is also pretty much the only theory of quantum gravity we have, so is an invaluable theory for the study of this. You also clearly do not understand the concept of compactification.

String theory is a very active area of research, so it is not dying out. Just a cursory glance at papers published in theoretical physics every day (say on arXiv [hep-th]) shows this.

As for the second reply; string theory does not claim to have acquired any experimental evidence. Hence why literally the first line refers to it as a "theoretical framework". OpenScience709 (talk) 16:10, 20 February 2023 (UTC)

Title should be "String hypothesis"

It's more scientifically accurate 64.32.102.24 (talk) 20:52, 7 September 2022 (UTC)

Agreed. Please rename. 2001:9E8:460D:A500:55E7:84B9:AB8:4A71 (talk) 13:22, 25 October 2022 (UTC)

Yeah no. Theory in this context refers to "framework", not "scientific theory". This is pretty standard and the usage of "theory" to refer to a "framework" is also widespread across science. OpenScience709 (talk) 16:12, 20 February 2023 (UTC)

Thanks for this explanation, as this is always a point of contention and contemplation..

Just to make this space more accessible to nubies, can you point to the source on this varried interpretation of "theory"?

thanks

Kaveinthran (talk) 06:42, 31 January 2024 (UTC)

Any connection to matter waves?

I am curious whether in any sense there is a connection here to matter waves. That page is being reconstructed, so some link/connection (if it exists) could be added. Whether that is appropriate, or anything else in higher-level QM is far beyond my expertise. Please let me know, better with text to include. Ldm1954 (talk) 16:11, 23 May 2023 (UTC)

This is a late reply but I think it's a good question to be answered. The answer is, fundamentally, no; string theory most prominently affects physics at the string scale, which is the scale at which particles stop being zero-dimensional quantum objects and start being eleven-dimensional "strings". Matter waves technically still exist at the string scale but the string scale is so much smaller than even ordinary quantum mechanical scales that matter waves as we know them aren't significantly affected by the truth or falsity of string theory. OverzealousAutocorrect (talk) 13:59, 8 March 2024 (UTC)

Dead Link

Under the Websites section of External Links, the URL for "Why String Theory", whystringtheory.com, is no longer functional, it redirects to a spam site, navypilotsecrets.com. 24.128.41.222 (talk) 20:37, 4 September 2023 (UTC)

“whystringtheory.com” appears to have been active at least in August 2023 but it has apparently been hacked. Looks like a good non-technical introduction to string theory; hopefully it will be restored. "The String Theory". Why String Theory A Layman’s Journey to the Frontiers of Physics. August 2023. Retrieved October 31, 2023. Tachyon (talk) 13:15, 31 October 2023 (UTC)

This article unrealistically hides string theory weakness

String theory is not a theory but a theory that a theory could exit. There is no string theory. That is what Voit means by "Not even wrong." There are 10^500 string theories. 40 years of work have gotten physics no closer to finding the right one.

Five different string theories can be combined in any ratio to each other to form the resulting string theory. This allows for 10^500 or an infinite number of string theories. After 40 years of trying, they have no possible way of telling which one is correct. It is often remarked that string theory gives no testable results. String theory is not testable because there is no theory but 10^500 candidate theories and no one can do that many calculations or that many experiments.

Leonard Susskind illustrates string theory failure in his own creative way. An avid string theory supporter, Susskind introduces the landscape, multiple universes and the anthropic principle. The landscape is the collection of 10^500 possible string theories. Each of the 10^500 theories is true in its own universe. The anthropic principle uses human existence as the only way to tell which theory is true in our universe. Nothing proves string theory wrong more than Susskind's abandonment of the scientific method.

Physics get null results all the time. Nothing is catastrophic about theory failure. But string theory completely dominates theoretical physics. Edward Witten, the god of physics, and 20 of the 22 top Princeton's top theoretical physics are string theorists (Voit). Mikio Kaku says it took 2000 years to prove Democratus right. String theory is firmly on track to be proven correct in 2000 years. String theory steadily goes on despite its clear failure.

This wikipedia string theory article is highly misleading by obscuring string theory weaknesses. 108.51.46.105 (talk) 15:56, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

So what? Wikipedia cannot reform major universities. It's not our business telling them they're wrong. tgeorgescu (talk) 16:16, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

There is an entire section on "Criticism". The title is String Theory because that's what the framework is called. Sgubaldo (talk) 10:10, 31 January 2024 (UTC)

I agree with the points made, and would even argue that mention of this should be included in the lead section of the article. JackTheSecond (talk) 13:09, 9 February 2024 (UTC)