The second half of the book contains the major dissection of string theory. The central argument is that string theory it really isn't a theory at all, but more a framework that many hope will one day lead to a theory. We find that string theory, and its later derivatives, don't actually posit anything which is falsifiable. In what the author views as an act of desperation, this fact is now considered to be an advantage, and could (or already has) led to a detrimental shift in how physics is studied. The universe is now a "multiverse."
When attempting to solve string theory equations, if one equation doesn't result in something which agrees with experimentally proved fact, than it is said that this must apply to another universe, and another version would surely work in ours. The only proof that is provided behind this idea is the anthropic principle. This basically means that since we're here and alive, there must be a version of the equations which work. However, so many assumptions are made in the theory that this is more of a leap of faith than science. And since any version could be true, string theory loses all predictive power in our universe, and so one is left to wonder what use it has.
While the author is not afraid to go after the current direction of physics, and point out what he thinks is wrong, he also shows much praise to those who are espousing these wrong views. He goes to some length to explain the new directions and discoveries that have been made in advanced mathematics that have come as a direct result of investigating string theory. Although he feels that string theory itself if a bust, much of the math that has come about attempting to prove string theory could lead to new discoveries in and of itself. This may be the saving grace that string theory has in the annals of history.
Article comments
1 - Natalie Bennett
This article has been selected for syndication to Advance.net, which is affiliated with newspapers around the United States. Nice work!
2 - Nick Schweitzer
Thanks Natalie, I appreciate it!
3 - duane
Nice to see a post about string theory. Read it. Got it. Don't have much to add. Quite the dilemma.
4 - Kevin Kohout
String theory. What's coming up next?
5 - Leeter Smoit
Reader, please pair this book in your minds with Lee Smolin's "The Trouble with Physics," a cri de coeur by a working physicist who reaches a quite similar conclusion.
In a book first published in German in 1934 and in English in 1959, Karl Popper argued that scientific theories are valid and useful to the extent that they are falsifiable. String theorists patronize Popper and his devotees as outdated. Physics stands at the crossroads. Readers should make up their own minds about which fork in the road to take.
Theoretical physics is the hardest puzzle there is. Solving that puzzle is unlikely, unless we make use of clues supplied by experimentalists. Smolin and Woit are arguing that string theorists have turned their backs on that wisdom.