Talk:String theory/Archive 4

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I don't really get how strings work.

Anything that is infinitely thin like a string and has mass seems strange, because the smaller the volume of it that you look at, the more dense it appears. The smallest point of it would be so dense its escape speed would exceed the speed of light and it would become a black hole, losing its material properties since black holes only have gravity and rotation. 154.20.194.233 (talk) 06:19, 15 June 2010 (UTC) ...

It is possible on subatomal levels to go faster than speed of light. Mass is the string property which depends of the wave level.

Basecaly, string is a fast moving source (which can even be in more than one place at the same time) which is a source of the wave-particle field. All the properties of the coresponding particle depend on the oscilations on that source string.Čeha (razgovor) 09:01, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

I don´t like the first picture

It puts me off reading. I would remove the picture or change it with another one. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 190.188.3.11 (talk) 01:24, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

What's new ?

Anything new in string theory in the last 10 years? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Alphachapmtl (talk • contribs) 20:31, 5 August 2010 (UTC)

Critical dimension and consistency

The article currently states that the critical dimension of string theory is not fixed by any consistency condition. This is pretty much orthogonal to what I know about string theory. My understanding is that the critical dimension follows from the requirement that the conformal anomaly present in string theory is absent, and that this only happens if there are 26 (or 10 for superstrings) spacetime dimensions. Of course, my info on this may be dated, but my gut feeling is that the work on super-/subcritical string theories is getting WP:UNDUE weight.TimothyRias (talk) 15:35, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

What?

This needs to be simplified greatly. I'm an university student who is used to tackling complex academic texts (granted, mostly humanities related), but this makes no sense to me. Layman's terms simplified explanation would be useful. The way I see it encyclopedia is aimed at general public, it is not reference tool for theoretical physicists. 203.206.49.48 (talk) 15:50, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

only amenable to a mathematical explanation. --Dc987 (talk) 05:46, 31 March 2010 (UTC)

I agree with the OP, its not like its impossible to explain string theory in "layman's terms"; there's plenty of sources where such explanations can be found. We shouldn't force users to research the theory off-site to understand it. What's the point of putting an article in language that only a person who already knows about the subject can understand? Deliberately phrasing the description of a theory to make it seem complicated and advanced should violate some Wikipedia standards about giving undue weight. You don't see the evolution or gravity theory pages expressed in such complicated terms, at least not within their respective headers. --IronMaidenRocks (talk) 03:39, 15 May 2010 (UTC)

I agree as well. I can read msot of it fine, but it sometimes requires me to re-read sentences. I think that has to do with the terrible word placements rather than "difficult words." 64.234.0.101 (talk) 17:49, 31 July 2010 (UTC)

Definition of 'science' - theoretical physicists have to realise that experiment is not the criterion for science. In geohysicsa, astronomy and in many fields of human sciences (history, political sciences) events occur only once and cannot be repeated: you cannot experiment of various possible leads of Sarajevo shots that started the WW I. You cannot experiment with Tungusta impact. You cannot experiment with WTC attack. You can only observe them. That's why I modified the end of the first chapter. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Martti Muukkonen (talk • contribs) 19:58, 30 October 2010 (UTC) ÷

Testable does not mean just laboratory experiments, it includes observations of events such as astronomical ones and historical ones. So if someone came up with a new theory of comets, which could be confirmed by examining past impact records including the Tungusta impact. The text you added seemed to confuse this somewhat: yes, repeatable laboratory experiments are better from the point of view of proving something, but that's not always possible. Often science has to be done after the event, for a whole number of reasons. Nor is this a particular property of physics, it's a property of all science.

The weakness of string theory is it makes no predictions at all, or at least none that are different from existing theories such as QM and relativity at energies we can measure. But this well understood b←y all scientists, and as this article is intended for quite an advanced readership I don't think it needs elaborating further. It is explained further down at some length, as it's an important aspect of the theory, but much of that is too advanced for the introduction.--JohnBlackburne^words_deeds 20:31, 30 October 2010 (UTC)

there is no reference to other sources that can help the reader clarify the concepts, linear algebra works with multiple dimensions, but it is not even mentioned as a starting point for clarification. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 130.76.64.117 (talk) 02:01, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

Cutting the lead

While the lead was clear and very nice in wording, it was way too long, so I cut it so it has max. 4 paragraphs and should fit in 1 screen. It can be still shrinked a bit, however I don't think simply removing more content from the lead would be any good. In my opinion the better approach would be to put more work into enlarging "Overview" section, so some informations just won't be needed in the lead anymore. So if someone is inclined to make a longer general introduction, please do it in this section. I will happily make further compactification of the lead. -- kocio (talk) 14:54, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

One thing to be aware of is that WP:LEAD also requires that the lead reflects the content of the article.TimothyRias (talk) 15:37, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

For me "how long is the lead?" and "is it a good summary?" are two somehow orthogonal questions. The {{Lead too short}} template currently includes the summary problem, however in my opinion "may not adequately summarize its contents" doesn't always mean "expanding the lead to provide an accessible overview of the article's key points". It's rather a problem of consistency with the rest of the article, not the length of the lead, even if it's related most of the time. In case of such a big and non-obvious article someone really should overlook the whole article and make a new lead out of it to satisfy both rules, which is unfortunately far beyond my skills. kocio (talk) 10:48, 8 September 2010 (UTC)