I love these type of articles. I need to be awestruck by God's work to start off this year.

Actually, the article describes the work of humans, not God. If you are awestruck, then you should acknowledge that it is because of the work of physicists.

who were made by God (mwhaaa ha ha ha)

It's interesting that Greene in his article uses belief in the Genesis version of Creation to assert that "our willingness to place unjustified faith in immediate perception or received wisdom leads us to an inaccurate and starkly limited vision of reality," and then to see comments citing God's work in these posts.

Oh, so now physicists are gods who are to be awed? Theoretical physicists don't create anything concrete--they are just attempting to map existence. According to Brian Greene:

[The challenge to scientists is] to allow carefully reasoned and experimentally verified investigations of the universe, however discomfiting their conclusions, to inform our lives with the same force as experience.

Dirtbrain, I merely implied that physicists are responsible for discovering these awe-inspiring things about the Universe. I never said that they should be awed.

"I don't want to perpetuate the stereotype of the mad scientist, but bad things happen when scientists don't show reverence to that which is bigger than they."

What a crock. Physicists are reverent to the very thing that dominates their lives -- Nature. "Bad things" happen when politicians use good science to do bad things.

Sorry, that's "Dirtgrain."

Yah, that "awed" comment was a cheap shot, but I couldn't resist. Of course, things get murky when scientists try to line up their theories with their religion. Religion, the word, has the Latin root "lig," which means to connect. Religion is reconnecting--with the world and nature. In this way, and obviously not by conventional understandings of the meaning of the word, science is a religion--a way to make sense of the world. As to how the religion of Christianity and the religion of science are to line up, let's leave it up to individuals to decide. Let's not criticize some for linking them. Remember that much of theoretical physics is as unproven as a belief in a god. Black holes may not exist as we theorize that they do. Our systems of measuring the world often fall short of the real thing.

I am currently reading The Elegant Universe... and this is the first time I have read someone who can clearly explain these different concepts. Which is major for me, someone who couldn't get any grade above a C in any Highschool science class.

Even if Greene's String Theory isn't correct, this book will have been a great assistance in just getting me to realize that "these science things" *are* understandable.

That's quite a recommendation, The Theory. I could point out that "these science things" are actually "these physics things," and are quite distinct from, say, geology or biology, which have their own complicated underpinnings. Physics is often "understood" only in a mathematical sense. It's straightforward enough to understand special relativity, for example, through the mathematics of Lorentz transformations. But physicists, as Greene admits, cannot not naturally grasp relativity at an intuitive level, since it manifests itself only under conditions with which we have have no direct experience. At the intuitive level, you might understand these things just as well as Greene and his contemporaries.

For instance, I had to clean my room two weeks ago for Christmas and I ran across some old notes from school. Chemestry, I believe. At the time I took them I had no clue what the teacher or book was talking about. But since I had been reading The Elegant Universe... and understood what he was saying... and I remembered it and could apply it to the notes.

As far as math goes, I was always a bit stronger in the math line than science. My grades didn't nessisarly reflect that (my math grade always corrolated with how well I clicked with my teacher), but there was a greater understanding there.

Dirtgrain, you say the following:

"...science is a religion -- a way to make sense of the world."

Don't you think that the concept of faith enters into the definition of religion?

"Remember that much of theoretical physics is as unproven as a belief in a god."

What would constitute "proof" in your mind? Why do you say that belief in a god is unproven? Won't you take a believers word for it? Or did you mean "unproven as the existence of a god"?

"Black holes may not exist as we theorize that they do."

What makes you think that?

"Our systems of measuring the world often fall short of the real thing."

How do you know that?

Good point: belief (and faith) is not necessarily based on proof. I don't think that faith has the same role in every religion. For example, I was recently at a Christmas concert at an non-denominational evangelical church. A preacher gave a speech about accepting Jesus, taking him into your heart, letting Jesus full the gap that is in you, and so on. That is one type of faith in Jesus being God (as opposed to a historical figure who could be a good role model). In Buddhism, I don't see the same need to accept Buddha into your life as an act of faith (although I do see a lot of Buddha statues, I don't think he is iconized like Jesus is). Rather, the religion is more about being compassionate (faith may play a role here) and about finding your own path to enlightenment (I am being general here, of course--many variants of Buddhism exist--belief in enlightenment is an act of faith).

That many people believe in a certain religion is not proof of its validity (although it may well serve worthy purposes).

I don't think that black holes necessarily exist in a different way than theoretical physicists believe--but I believe that it is possible. The progression of physics and science can be viewed as sequences of disproving what was previously believed. The universe is expanding. Wait, no it's contracting. I don't think that there is a problem with operating under the assumptions and beliefs of the day in order to attempt to progress our understanding of the nature of things--in science and in religion. But in both cases, one is investing a certain amount of faith.

As for measuring, if you continually halve the distance between you and an object, then theoretically you will never get there--it is an infinite task--this relates to the theoretical notion that there are an infinite number of points between two finite points. However, this is the theoretical system of measurement. It does not match up with our real world systems of measurement in that we will never be accurate enough to carry out this task of continually halving the distance (nor would we have the time to carry it on infinitely). I believe this to be true, and yes, this points out the difficulty in differentiating between knowing something based on proof and believing something based on faith. You could even say that one's visual perception of an object is an act of faith--our sense of vision is imprecise, and it's only one way of perceiving the object, a way that may have little to do with the actual essence of the object (consider that a desk looks solid, but it really consists of atoms that are made of tiny particles and a relative huge amount of empty space (according to a scientific belief)--the solid desk is something like an illusion).

I have a comment and a question.

First. Greene says that the tensile force in strings is thought to be 10^39 tons. If strings are one-dimensional, this seems to imply a tensile stress that is infinite (since division by zero is disallowed, this has to be demonstrated with limits). Where he finds other such contradictory calculations he suggests that they are a clue to flaws in the underlying theory. Why isn't this a similar red flag?

Secondly, I'm not sure I understand what source of energy strings "tap" to maintian their eternal vibration. Can anyone help me with this?

David