String Theory

Discussion in 'Physics & Math' started by Beer w/Straw, Dec 15, 2017.

  1. Write4U Valued Senior Member

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    20,069
    In trying to maintain the flow of the conversation I responded with another question, did you note the (?)
    That is not a statement, that's a question. And in my post it was a specific question in what context the term was used, to which I never received an answer except from you..
    String theory is part of quantum theory, including quantum gravity, so any strides in quantum theory would also have to affect string theory and vice versa.
    Except I never called it mathematical strides.

    Nevertheless, I am pleased that now this snafu has been cleared up, we are in agreement.
     
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  3. NotEinstein Valued Senior Member

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    No, those were not questions, as they are not fully formed sentences. And they are disambiguous at best; they can be interpreted as an incomplete list of answers as well, which is (obviously) how I interpreted them, and you wasted so much time before correcting me.

    Then please explain why you didn't say so in response to post #31. Are you admitting to being deliberately obtuse?

    False. A cow is an animal. Things that affect cows affect (some, not all) animals, but things that affect (some, not all) animals do not necessarily affect cows. Strides made in the parts of quantum theory that are not string theory are by construction not strides in string theory.

    Please stop being intellectually dishonest. You clearly insinuated that in your post #19. You clearly suggested a couple of things in direct response to the question. Or are you admitting to deliberately trying to derail the thread?

    Apparently (according to you) we always were, except you somehow couldn't make that clear. Might I suggest you try improving your communication skills so that we won't waste such large amounts of time in the future?
     
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  5. Beer w/Straw Transcendental Ignorance! Valued Senior Member

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    Anyway, if I call the calculus Newton developed a stride in math, regardless if his ideas in physics being testable or not, the math has applications by itself.

    I don't have the budget to test string theory by experiment, but has the math it potentially has developed have other applications?

    This awkwardly-worded question doesn't seem to have a magic answer like "calculus". I looked at the wiki page, scrolled all the way down to the footnotes and said to myself: "Heck no, I ain't lookin' for a magic answer here - I'll make a post and ask".
     
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  7. Write4U Valued Senior Member

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    I also look forward to a response to your question.

    In the mean time, I did some searching myself and it appears that the math's which allowed us to make the Higgs boson observable, allowed us to make several subsequent secondary deductions, if not applications.
    http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/c...gs-boson-now-where-the-heck-did-it-come-from/
     
  8. RainbowSingularity Valued Senior Member

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  9. Write4U Valued Senior Member

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    Apparently Nature does. Then it's called evolution. If you win, you survive, if you lose, you die!
    An extreme case of Anthropic morphism.
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthropic_principle
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morphism
     
    Last edited: Feb 19, 2018
  10. Schmelzer Valued Senior Member

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    5,003
    Yes, it has. AFAIU the history, it seems quite funny. The original string idea was one used in QCD to compute something. The strong force tends to form not the picture of EM force lines, but concentrate (because of the non-linearity) in a thin channel similar to a string. So, no wonder that computations using strings may be useful to compute something for QCD.

    This has given something, but not much. But then it appeared that in these string theories there appears some spin 2 particle, which started the hype that this may give a theory of quantum gravity. So, now, what I have heard, the new successful application of string math was - in QCD. Back to the origins or so. (Disclaimer: I have not made any research about this, it is simply what I have heard by the way.)
     
  11. socratus Registered Member

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    57
    “ String” is mathematical not physical searching.
    ===…
    April 7, 2016 12:00 pm JST
    Superstring theory is inspiring practical applications
    http://asia.nikkei.com/magazine/201...ng-theory-is-inspiring-practical-applications
    ====…
    The post is optimistic but doesn’t have examples of “string’s”
    practical / experimental applications.
    Today some famous physicists think that “string particle”
    can be a primary particle of nature and “string theory” can offer
    a new description of nature. But to observe “string-particle”
    would require a LHC roughly the size of the solar system.
    Obviously that such “solar- LHC” cannot be created .
    #
    Experiment and mathematical analysis, taken together, they are serving
    as the backbone of science. Experiment without mathematical analysis
    is unclear, and mathematical analysis without experimental support is
    only mathematical play.
    ===…
    “Without a direct test for string theory, skeptics argue,
    it should be classified as mathematics rather than physics . . . .”
    / Dan Falk /
    “I don’t think it’s physics yet. It’s beautiful mathematics,
    which has a chance of becoming physics”
    / Glenn Starkman /
    “String theory says nothing about the real world”
    / Sheldon Glashow”
    =======…
    “String” doesn’t have practical applications / observation and therefore
    it is only a pure “ beautiful mathematics”. “ String” is only mathematical
    not physical searching because practically is impossible to observe
    “string particle” ( length = 10^-33cm, without thickness)
    String particles don’t have physical-mathematical laws “X”, “Y” or “Z”
    that confirm their geometrical form “string”. They are only private
    invention of theoretical thought.
    ========...
    Mathematics is a “queen of science”
    But she is a “queen” only because she married the
    ” king of science ” – physics
    Without “king” she can be a ” mad woman”
    On the other hand, sometime “she” can make her “husband ” crazy
    Therefore Josiah Willard Gibbs wrote:
    ” Mathematician may say all that he wants,
    but physicist must maintain at least some spark of common sense “.
    And Feynman had the same opinion:
    ” Since the mathematical physicists have taken over, theoretical
    physics has gone to pot. The bizarre concepts generated out of
    the over use and misinterpretation of mathematics would be funny
    if it were not for the tragedy of the waste in time, manpower, money,
    and the resulting misdirection”
    =======. ..
    Not scientific joke.
    A little boy was asked what he wants.
    The boy answered: I want the Moon as big as the Sun,
    then I will not afraid of darkness.

    Scientific no- joke.
    A young scientist was asked what he wants.
    The young scientist answered: I want a LHC roughly the size
    of the solar system then the „ string particle“ will be observed and then
    I will exactly know in which dimension I live , in 11-D or i n 27-D
    or , maybe, in the middle between them, (M-string theory).
    =======...
     
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  12. Write4U Valued Senior Member

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    20,069
    I totally disagree with Feynman. He has it exactly backward.

    If you were to choose between watching an atom bomb explode and the simple equation
    E = Mc^2, knowing the implications of those maths and what that means, which would you choose?

    It is the mathematics that keeps theoretical physics honest. Which is why there are but a few great theoretical physicist left.

    It's the theorist with the flights of fancy (and knowledge), its the maths that determine the values (probabilities) involved, the applied sciences falsify or confirm the maths that support or oppose the flights of fancy.
     
  13. Beer w/Straw Transcendental Ignorance! Valued Senior Member

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    6,549
    er... This is actually a Feyman quote: It doesn't matter how beautiful your theory is, it doesn't matter how smart you are. If it doesn't agree with experiment, it's wrong.
     
  14. Write4U Valued Senior Member

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    20,069
    Ok, that redeems the earlier statement. The experiment is applied physics, based on the mathematics required to apply the theoretical physics.
    If the theoretical physics cannot be translated into mathematics which allow for the experimental stage to be designed, then the experiment (falsification or confirmation) cannot be confirmed, and thus can never be Theory.

    Actually, I believe that Mathematics is not a narrowly defined discipline. It has enabled us to establish a symbolic system which can be assigned to values and the interaction of values. And everything in the universe can be broken down into specific (if not variable) values.

    Mathematics is the term we have given to the study of "values" , which come in all forms, such as in Cosmology, which in the main is still theoretical physics and Nanology, which we are just beginning to explore, with theoretical physics and the mathematical "values" that they represent.
     
    Last edited: Mar 2, 2018
  15. socratus Registered Member

    Messages:
    57

    math + physics = science
    math + math = string theory
     
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  16. Write4U Valued Senior Member

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    20,069
    math + applied math = Higgs Field "Theory"
     
  17. socratus Registered Member

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    57
    Ha . . . .
    To find Higgs boson was needed deep vacuum and high energy
    The Higgs boson is not first (!) and not last (!) an elementary particle
    in the Standard Model of particle physics
    The modern ''scientific'' idea says: more deep vacuum and more
    high energy and then we can find new particles . . .
    Where is the border of such way of particle's discovers ?
    No answer.
    Somebody wrote:
    ''Sorry to announce: There will be no more new particles,
    the Higgs completed the Standard Model ''
    Question: is LHC a museum now ?

    =====
     
  18. Schmelzer Valued Senior Member

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    5,003
    Unfortunately, you argue here with one of the guys who has done a lot of mathematics in theoretical physics. Essentially, the main, standard approach to compute something in modern particle theory is based on what this guy has proposed, which is named "Feynman diagrams".
    Not necessarily. One can always hope that a little bit more energy will lead to some new, completely unexpected results.

    The point is that there are now no reasonable theories which predict something different from the standard model in the energy range accessible to the LHC.

    (Ok, this is a little oversimplification. One can, say, invent some supersymmetry theories all the way down, so that the next LHC experiment with a little bit more energy would show a new particle. But this theory would be something completely arbitrary. The original gain which could have been reached, which has made these theories interesting and plausible, is no longer accessible. So there is now no point believing that supersymmetry has some point. Given that one can always add, without any motivation, a few more particles to the theory, supersymmetry is today no more plausible that "f... Occam's razor, let's simply add some more particles". )
     
    Last edited: Mar 2, 2018
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  19. Write4U Valued Senior Member

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    20,069
    Thanks for that info. But I wasn't arguing the mathematics, just the the importance of maths in the process of falsification of an hypothesis. So that actually puts me in his corner..........way in the back.......

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    But now you have forced me to study the Feynman's diagrams , which is a good thing......

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  20. RainbowSingularity Valued Senior Member

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    supersymmetry ... unified field theory ... ?

    i have read a couple of times that general science is not sure how the sun manages to stay in 1 piece...
     
  21. Write4U Valued Senior Member

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    20,069
    Oh I was not commenting on his work.

    I was commenting on his subjective statement; ” Since the mathematical physicists have taken over, theoretical physics has gone to pot".

    I just disagreed with that statement .
     
  22. Schmelzer Valued Senior Member

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    5,003
    I know. I simply wanted to suggest you that you have probably deeply misunderstood this statement. I simply wanted to give you some context. Feynman was not attacking mathematical physics in any way, in particular not in the form he has himself developed it, but only a particular perversion of mathematical physics, which has already not much to do with physics at all.

    I would not take this too seriously. This sounds more like a polemical over-exaggeration, say, of some technical problems with computations of instabilities or so.
     
  23. RainbowSingularity Valued Senior Member

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    Thanks. i had read a few times something that suggested it was a bit of a mystery. i just found this and i think maybe it was this which they 'might' have been refering to.
    it is way over my head mathamatically.

    http://large.stanford.edu/courses/2011/ph241/olson1/
     

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