{"id":20710,"date":"2010-06-11T08:09:41","date_gmt":"2010-06-11T08:09:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/world-science-festival-untangling-string-theory-discoblog\/"},"modified":"2010-06-11T08:09:41","modified_gmt":"2010-06-11T08:09:41","slug":"world-science-festival-untangling-string-theory-discoblog","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/astronomy\/world-science-festival-untangling-string-theory-discoblog.php","title":{"rendered":"World Science Festival: Untangling String Theory | Discoblog"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"string-theory\"On stage at the World Science Festival on Saturday night<\/a>, festival co-founder Brian Greene<\/a> recalled the early days of string theory–the theory that brings together competing ideas in physics by postulating that there exist six or seven extra dimensions beyond space and time.<\/p>

Greene was a graduate student in physics when string theory got its start, and remembers waking up early each morning to run to the mailbox in search of news of harmony and peace; that is, for signs that the long, obdurate conflict between general relativity and quantum mechanics was resolving itself into a beautiful universe of tiny vibrating strings.<\/p>

That was in the 1980s. Now, almost thirty years later, the conflict continues, and the strings—though beautifully imagined by artists and scientists—still haven’t made themselves apparent in the form of a testable prediction. This is a big problem for skeptics like Lawrence Krauss<\/a>, who insist that untestable scientific theories are—well, not really science.<\/p>

<\/span>But Krauss, presumably out of deference to his host, didn’t say that on stage on Saturday. Instead, he took a soft approach, presenting the audience with a picture of an anthropological find, a 33,000-year-old wood carving of a half-man, half-lion creature. “Who knows what the artist was thinking when he—or she—created this?” he mused. Perhaps the artist had seen a lion before, and had also seen people, and had imagined the existence of a combination-type-creature.<\/p>

“Maybe that’s what string theory will look like in another 33,000 years,” Krauss suggested.<\/p>

Greene said he thought string theory was “a touch more well-motivated than the lion-human,” but agreed that human understanding is a pitiful thing (especially when limited by the senses).<\/p>

The most effusive string theorist on the panel was Shamit Kachru<\/a>, who described himself as “still excited”–more like the young, mailbox-happy version of Brian Greene, ever optimistic for the arrival of proof.<\/p>

John Hockenberry<\/a>, the panel’s moderator, asked Greene if he thought experimental evidence would come during his lifetime.<\/p>

“I’d be surprised,” said Greene.<\/p>

“And in your<\/em> lifetime?” Hockenberry asked Kachru.<\/p>

“…I’d be surprised,” conceded the young physicist reluctantly.<\/p>

“I’d be surprised if we weren’t surprised,” concluded Krauss, before the lights went down.<\/p>

Related Content:
Discoblog: <\/strong>World Science Festival: Will Scientists Ever Know Everything?<\/a>
Discoblog: <\/strong>World Science Festival: Waiting for Einstein’s Gravity Waves<\/a>
DISCOVER: The Man Who Plucks All the Strings<\/a>, an interview with Brian Greene
DISCOVER: String Theory in Two Minutes or Less<\/a> (videos)<\/p>

Image: World Science Festival<\/em><\/p>

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On stage at the World Science Festival on Saturday night, festival co-founder Brian Greene recalled the early days of string theory–the theory that brings together competing ideas in physics by postulating that there exist six or seven extra dimensions beyond … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"limit_modified_date":"","last_modified_date":"","_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-20710","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-astronomy"],"modified_by":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20710"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20710"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20710\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20710"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20710"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20710"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}