[snarks_when_bored]

Even if string theory turns out to be mistaken or only a stage on the way towards a more fundamental physical theory, Ed Witten will still be recognized and remembered as one of the smartest men to ever walk this planet.

[snarks_when_bored]

Ping

[Constitution Day]

Bump to read later...

[satchmodog9]

stringy bump

[RobRoy]

Actually, the Bible first introduced string theory. Where do you think Heaven is? 8^>

[Sola Veritas]

When reading about string theory it is easy to become strung out and lose the thread of the discussion. :-)

[VeritatisSplendor]

He's as smart as they come at science and math, but politically he's a conventional liberal and he's a relatively poor chessplayer. (I live nearby and know this stuff....)

[RightWhale]

There have been over 10,000 papers on string theory. Everyone is either writing on string theory or desperately trying to learn string theory. In less than 150 years there will not be a sane Westerner left.

[CasearianDaoist]

I would say that if he turns out to be right, or, as you say, it is stage on the way to something else, then Witten will go down in history has an equal of folks like Einstein and Newton. On the other hand, if he is totally wrong he will go down as one of the biggest smart-alexes (sp?) in history.

What would be really funny would be to find out that the energy levels at the LHC are not even close, that noting new happens, but there is no definitive disproof of anything. We shall know soon enough.

[AdmSmith]

If you want some fun read what Peter Woit http://www.math.columbia.edu/~woit/blog/ (not a fan of strings) and Lubos Motl http://motls.blogspot.com/ are writing on strings and each other. Both are nice chaps, but they have strong feelings about strings

[SunkenCiv]

Is String Theory Even Wrong?
by Peter Woit
American Scientist
March-April 2002

It is best described by Wolfgang Pauli's famous phrase, "It's not even wrong." String theory not only makes no predictions about physical phenomena at experimentally accessible energies, it makes no precise predictions whatsoever. Even if someone were to figure out tomorrow how to build an accelerator capable of reaching the astronomically high energies at which particles are no longer supposed to appear as points, string theorists would be able to do no better than give qualitative guesses about what such a machine might show. At the moment string theory cannot be falsified by any conceivable experimental result... With such a dramatic lack of experimental support, string theorists often attempt to make an aesthetic argument, professing that the theory is strikingly "elegant" or "beautiful."

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[SunkenCiv]

Note: topic is from 2005.