It's important to avoid conflating string theorists with all theoretical physicists. Plenty of people in particle physics either don't believe in string theory or don't think it can make useful predictions any time soon, even if it were assumed true. Furthermore, the vast majority of people called "string theorists" don't even work on traditional string theory day to day, but on more concrete ideas that have been partly inspired by it, such as holography and amplitudes.<p>This needs to be pointed out because there is a huge narrative bias out there. Science popularizers will endlessly frame things like "this whole field has no idea what they're doing, and only I, the brave contrarian outsider, can see through the fraud", even though they're only pointing out things that are already well known in the field. These narratives are completely wrong, but uncritically eaten up by people who think of themselves as contrarians.<p>Despite what the current top comment claims, you're not reading this article about Horgan because he was the first to think string theory would have trouble making predictions. Physicists have made this criticism since the beginning. Feynman pointed it out continually, and Glashow, one of the architects of the Standard Model, tried to bar string theorists from Harvard for the same reason.<p>You're reading Horgan's take, and not Feynman's or Glashow's, because Horgan is popular, and that's because he <i>puts all his energy into expanding his popular reach</i>. Only nonphysicists can do that, because physicists spend the majority of their time doing, well, physics.
Michio Kaku has long been my least favourite of the celebrity talking head scientists. And he has some good competition for that label. His pop-science books tend to read more like coming from a Hollywood screenwriter than a careful and thoughtful scientific mind.
"It would culminate the ancient human quest for knowledge, which began when the first of our ancestors asked, "Why?""<p>I'm always baffled when I read these kind of quotes, especially coming from such smart people. Do they just forget that our theories are models of reality? I personally believe that there are no wave functions or vibrating membranes out there, as there are no "triangles". These are just names for our mental models on which we map reality the best we can. Fitting models are very useful, but they certainly don't answer the big "Why?" and are doomed to be superseded by more accurate ones, when progress is made. Is it just me thinking this?
Two weeks ago I heard a very interesting EconTalk podcast[1] by Sabine Hossenfelder on <i>Physics, Reality, and Lost in Math</i>.<p>Hossenfelder herself is a theoretical physicist, and researches quantum gravity. And a Research Fellow at the Frankfurt Institute for Advanced Studies. She has a refreshing tone and frankness, and I appreciated learning about her work.<p>Quoting the podcast's abstract:<p>"Hossenfelder argues that the latest theories in physics have failed to find empirical confirmation. Particles that were predicted to be discovered by the mathematics have failed to show up. Whether or not there is a multiverse has no observable consequences. Hossenfelder argues that physicists have become overly enamored with the elegance and aesthetics of their theories and that using beauty to evaluate a model is unscientific. The conversation includes a discussion of similar challenges in economics."<p>[1] <a href="https://www.econtalk.org/sabine-hossenfelder-on-physics-reality-and-lost-in-math/" rel="nofollow">https://www.econtalk.org/sabine-hossenfelder-on-physics-real...</a>
It's very likely a unified theory will win a prize maybe even the Nobel Prize but it isn't going to happen anytime soon. FWIW I'm about as convinced of the truth of string theory as I am of the truth of General Relativity. Sure a better version of M-theory or something else is sure to be discovered but it will be an outgrowth of the current enterprise. The problem is even if we had the correct theory right now it probably would not do us much good at all. It would be a puzzle box we couldn't even open or get answers from it. People underestimated the difficulties involved and the theory was over hyped. Now begins the long "string theory winter". Decades from now, some diehard whose career is foundering will make a significant breakthrough, enough to compel everyone's attention. Until then, there's plenty of interesting physics problems to work on that have been unjustly neglected for too long.<p>Einstein's theory of GR could end up being "wrong" but it would live on as a very good approximation to a more fundamental theory.<p>String theory could very well turn out to be completely wrong but it would fail in a very different manner. If ST is wrong, it's no longer useful. If GR is "wrong" people will still use it.<p>For various reasons which are by no means proof or even evidence I think ST is basically correct but we're simply unable to make proper sense of it.<p>Anyway, we're here at the string theory winter. Careers are ruined, people disappointed etc. That's just how it goes. Sometimes, things work out and sometimes they just don't. We didn't exactly walk away from all of this with ZERO but we're very far from the ultimate PRIZE or GOAL. In hindsight we'll probably look back on this and realize we were hopelessly unable to succeed given the tools and ideas of the day. Expert systems were simply unable to deliver and people were crushed. Careers were ruined. Hopes dashed. Naysayers vindicated then along comes this crazy guy who just won't give up on neural networks.<p>I think the future looks much brighter for unified physics now that string theory as we knew it has clearly failed. I don't want to leave these guys out too so let me add that loop quantum gravity has failed too, much more gracefully I might add. I think these guys were on to something and their ideas aren't going to completely disappear.<p>I've thrown away about 10,000 hours of my life on this stuff. Thanks for spending 3 minutes on my meager insights.
This can happen in academia. I went through Stanford CS, finishing in 1985. That was about when it was clear that "expert systems" were not going to lead to Strong AI Real Soon Now, or, indeed, much of anywhere. But many faculty were in deep denial about that. The "AI Winter" followed. There was little progress until machine learning finally took off about two decades later.
"The Nobel prize judges have always been sticklers for experimental proof."<p>One of the big challenges of devising a grand-unifying theory of everything is that, if it doesn't make different predictions than existing theories do in any context, it's experimentally unverifiable. We can hope for a unifying theory that makes everything simpler, but it's far more likely that a theory that deals with all things at once will makes dealing with special cases harder. If such a theory is harder to work with and does not differ from special case theories that are easier to apply, why bother?<p>Of course, a unifying theory probably <i>will</i> differ from existing theories in at least some contexts. They may be extremely high energy, gravity, etc. contexts that are beyond our current technology to test. String theory likely falls into this category. The question is, how much resources should we pour into developing a theory before demanding that its differences with currently accepted theories become <i>testable</i>?<p>Quite frankly, answering this question is above my pay-grade. Scientific history is full of both dead-ends and things that were initially thought to be useless that have since become the foundations of entire fields. How do we know which string theory is? If we cut funding to string theory development, are we cutting off a field that will one day be essential? By continuing to pour funds into string theory, are we funding a dead end and starving several other things that might have been revelations?
Whether you get it right or wrong, I really appreciate people making verifiable predictions about the future publicly.<p>On the other hand, I am less and less interested in post hoc analysis done by journalists and academics judging after the fact, what should've happened.
><i>Gaining access to the infinitesimal microscales where superstrings supposedly wriggle would require an accelerator 1,000 light years around.</i><p>Has anyone ever proven that there aren't any better accelerator technologies left to be discovered? What about natural accelerators like the charges that build up and produce cosmic rays?
Other than for fun and to donate to a good cause, I'm not sure why anyone would ever take the other side of a bet like this or the follow up one for the case of wine. The author is basically betting against an unlikely outcome and the challenger is betting on it, with no adjustment for the likelihood. This would be like offering a bet that a particular college football team won't win a national championship and getting even money that they will.<p>I realize this is outside the scope of the article, but I think it's worth noting because the author gets outsized credit for being correct despite not really offering an alternative. To be fair the author should have had to bet an alternate area that <i>would</i> win a Nobel prize before 2020, otherwise it's a push and each person's stake goes to charity.
As a long-time antagonist of Kaku and string theory / supersymmetry, Peter Woit naturally has a blog entry[1] on this that's worth a look.<p>He points out Prof Gordon Kane upped[2] the ante:<p>> By 2020 there will be a Nobel Prize for a string- or unification- or supersymmetry-based theory or explanation or experimental discovery.<p>And goes on to give us some insight into Kaku's current point of view. Spoiler: he thinks string theory will give us the "God Equation" when it reaches its final form!<p>1: <a href="http://www.math.columbia.edu/~woit/wordpress/" rel="nofollow">http://www.math.columbia.edu/~woit/wordpress/</a><p>2: <a href="http://longbets.org/12/#comment-166313625" rel="nofollow">http://longbets.org/12/#comment-166313625</a>
Correct me if I am wrong. i think string theory is searched not just because of its beauty, but also because of existing problems in general relativity. For example, the center of black hole is predicted to be `infinite` in terms of many metrics . But the center is also part of the spacetime, it should bear some measurable values. The answer might require quantum physics since it is microscopic. Therefore, the unifying of general relativity and quantum mechanics is asked for.
String theory is probably the one scientific topic I spend the most of my free time learning about. It is fascinating. I have read Brian Greene's 'The Hidden Reality' over five times, I think.<p>I recently watched his conversation with Sam Harris and was intrigued by a point Brian made, albeit about quantum mechanics and the 'many worlds' theory.<p>Brian claims that he doesn't think the many worlds theory holds water because it makes an assumption about what happens before some object is measured (A) and after that same object is measured (A'): while many worlds claims that all possibilities are indeed realized, Brian claims that we just don't know for sure what happens between events (A) and (A'); he claims that a unified theory would explain what happens between those events.<p>In any case, that's just me rambling about it. Thanks for the post :)
> characteristic radiation from black holes and Creation<p>Wait, did the author just refer to the Big Bang as "Creation" with a capital 'C'? Since when did Judeo-Christian mythology (or whatever mythology you think "Creation with a capital 'C'" means in the author's culture, inferring some creative agent in the "beginnings" of the known universe) become relevant in this article's context?
So is all this about the fact that String Theory just didn't turn out to be practically useful? Or is the theory no longer believer to hold weight given current observations?
the whole time I just kept thinking, "but... when they put up their money in 2002 it was invested right?? The charity got something more like $2880? why aren't they telling us!?"
Mandatory string theory introduction for the novice <a href="https://xkcd.com/171/" rel="nofollow">https://xkcd.com/171/</a>
FWIIW, Horgan is a well known science writer and author of a 1996 book called "the end of science" which pointed out that science in general and physics in particular has reached a point where there is no appreciable forward progress and is obsessed with non falsifiable woo like string theory. It's a provocative book; and people have raised the issue that Kelvin said something similar 120 years ago, but it's really worth reading.<p>He was 100% on the money that Noodle Theory was a lot of non-scientific mathematical baloney; a super unpopular position at the time (1996); pretty much the only prominent person in agreement with him was Nobel Prize Winner Phil Warren Anderson, who disagrees with him in many other respects. Ultimately many other writers came out in agreement on this issue at least; Woit and Smolin most notably, though others agreed. At this point I'm pretty sure even the physics establishment is a little nervous about hiring new noodle theorists. He's basically right about stuff like "complexity theory" as well.<p>I had a couple buddies who were prominent string theorists; some involved in its inception. One in particular retired a very disappointed man.
Can it even win a Nobel? I thought the Nobel is not awarded for math, and string theory is just math, with no verifiable real-world side effects or consequences that I'm aware of.
I can't wait until String Theory dies. As a couch scientist it seems to very clearly be a dead end.<p>They keep massaging it to make it fit any new objective discoveries but an accurate theory matches new data, it doesn't need to be forced to fit with it constantly.
Quantum computers might be able to perform simulations which will be indistinguishable from reality. Many theories can be tested that way once we have a sufficiently powerful quantum computer.