Talk:String theory

String theory was one of the Natural sciences good articles, but it has been removed from the list. There are suggestions below for improving the article to meet the good article criteria. Once these issues have been addressed, the article can be renominated. Editors may also seek a reassessment of the decision if they believe there was a mistake.

Article milestones
Date	Process	Result
December 10, 2005	Good article nominee	Listed
June 8, 2009	Good article reassessment	Delisted

Current status: Delisted good article

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This article has a conspicuous lack of mathematical language, which is at the crux of String Theory . . . Many of the individuals who make edits seem ignorant of basic math concepts.

It's obvious that the prominent editors of this article are enthusiastic about the subject. That's good. But when someone tries to introduce formal mathematical concepts into the discussion, these contributions are removed. There is a sense of "math phobia" -- I have even seen mathematical contributions labeled as "vandalism". It is not enough to be interested in the subject of Sting Theory, the key editors must also understand the math behind it. The beauty of String Theory lies almost entirely in it's mathematical elegance; to be unaware of this is a big problem. The absolute goal of any TOE is comprehension, and a lack of it will always miss the mark.

A lack of mathematical language

I was pretty disappointed because I couldn't find any mathematical formula in this article. Bonaventura Radityo (talk) 11:49, 19 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Agree [Like wise] פשוט pashute ♫ (talk) 12:45, 11 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

One dimentional?

...then how does it have a "radius"? פשוט pashute ♫ (talk) 12:44, 11 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

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.

"Failure" claim appears unsupported

The statement "Some critics of string theory say that it is a failure as a theory of everything," is followed by 6 citations (after I removed one duplicate), but most of them do not make that particular claim, but rather only review some of the well-known points of contention – the large number of solutions and the high characteristic energy scale of quantum gravity. Few if any of them appear to go so far as to claim that string theory is a "failure" as a TOE. I do recall Peter Woit making this claim on his blog, so that reference is probably correct, but still lacking a precise citation. However the referenced John Baez blog post (John Baez weblog. Math.ucr.edu, 2007-02-25; Retrieved on 2012-07-11) clearly doesn't make this claim, for example. Both of the other Peter Woit documents also don't seem to make this claim explicitly either (correct me if I'm wrong).

Therefore I am moving these two Peter Woit references to after where his name appears in the listing of critics, because these documents are critical of string theory but do not claim it is a "failure". I will remove the reference to Baez's blog because it clearly does not support the claim in question. And I will add requests for page numbers to both the link to Woit's blog as well as Lee Smolin's book. I don't know if Lee's book makes this claim outright that string theory is a failure, (I don't think so, based on what I remember), but I will otherwise leave it in place in case somebody else can find the statements that support this claim. Otherwise this reference too should be listed after his name in the list of critics. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Isocliff (talk • contribs) 16:13, 5 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Hi, Isocliff. I just wanted to let you know that I will soon be making some major revisions to the article. I'm going to import material from the three featured string theory articles (AdS/CFT correspondence, mirror symmetry, and M-theory), and I'm going to completely rewrite the criticism section, adding more precise citations. So don't worry too much about the current issues -- soon this article should look much better! Polytope24 (talk) 19:00, 5 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

That's good to hear Polytope24, the article certainly looks like it could benefit from something like that. I'm looking forward to seeing these additions, and I'll hold off on any further edits until then. Isocliff (talk) 11:01, 6 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Lede, re gravity: Is "Besides this potential role..." redundant?

The lede as currently written says string theory naturally incorporates gravity and thus is a potential theory of everything, and then says that "besides this potential role", it has shed light on quantum gravity. Question: isn't that phrase redundant? Or does string theory incorporate gravity in ways that do not necessarily involve quantum gravity? --Middle 8 (contribs • COI) 07:53, 6 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]