“I just think too many nice things have happened in string theory for it to be all wrong. Humans do not understand it very well, but I just don’t believe there is a big cosmic conspiracy that created this incredible thing that has nothing to do with the real world.” -Ed Witten
So the cat is out of the bag, and has been for a long time: as far as theoretical physics ideas go, I think String Theory is a blind alley, a dead end, an idea for whom the fat lady has sung.
Image credit: Perimeter Institute’s Public Lecture series.
But all it takes is one prediction -- a prediction that's unique from the standard, accepted theories out there -- to be observationally or experimentally verified as relevant to our Universe to change that! And so, with a skeptical eye-and-ear, I'll be tuning into Dr. Amanda Peet's public lecture at Perimeter Institute later today on String Theory and Black Holes.
Image credit: Andrew Hamilton.
Come join me, watch the talk, and enjoy my live-blog as it happens: 7 PM EDT/4 PM PDT today!
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If Amanda Peet believes in string theory, then I'm in. She's got that girl-next-door vibe while smoking hot at the same time. I hope it is not just audio only.
Ask how to best protect astronauts from galactic cosmic rays on long space flights.
I need to know so I can pick up 29 large from NASA.
Not the Amanda Peet you're thinking of, I'm afraid.
http://individual.utoronto.ca/amandapeet/
@Ragtag Media #2: If you want the bucks, then you should figure it out for yourself, not steal someone else's idea. Oh wait...
One criterion; two or more criteria! #!#. It's of Greek derivation. Similar to one phenomenon; two or more phenomena!
@ Denier
don't know if you're thinking of the same Amanda Peet, but this Amanda is far from hot, in fact, she's trying desperately to look like a man. ... hair.. clothing.. body language...
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All in all.. not to thrilled about the lecture so far (20 mins..).... almost at a kindergarden level :( which is a bit weird when we're talking about Perimeter Institute.. Amanda is trying too hard to be funny for some reason (particles with smiley faces.. forced jokes etc..).. .. so far hasn't said anything new or interesting that you haven't heard a million times before. Will see what happens next...
Isn't a string just a different illustration of particle-wave duality?
@Michael Kelsey #3
Michael, It's not stealing if someone volunteers the infom that's business 101. Besides, I would pay a bird dog fee (provided I won).
Interested?
ETHAN, I HOPE YOU WILL CONSIDER A SEPARATE ESSAY ON THAT NUGGET ABOUT CALCULATING OR NOT AT ALL THE ATTRACTION BETWEEN TWO OBJECTS AND THE TITANIC EFFORT IT TOOK TO CALCULATE A SINGLE OBJECT BY THAT GUY WHOSE NAME I FORGET. AFTER YEARS AS AN INTERESTED LAYMAN I HAVE NEVER HEARD OF THE MATHEMATICAL MORASS ASSOCIATED WITH GEN RELATIVITY. IT IS WIDELY HAILED FOR ITS SUCCESS BUT AS WITH SO MANY THINGS IN THIS LIFE FAILURE IS AN ORPHAN AND WILL NOT BE PUBLICIZED OR THE SUBJECT OF SCIENCE CHANNEL DOCUMENTARIES . THANKS FOR THE GREAT LAYOUT AND IMAGES ON YOUR BLOG.
Whats wrong http://individual.utoronto.ca/amandapeet/ ?
Is it her knowledge and wisdom that scares you off ? There might be a possibility that not everyone agrees on your definition of hot!
Kindest regards
Johan
"It’s not stealing if someone volunteers the infom that’s business 101. "
Not if you're a big enough business.
See retroactive copyright extension for an example.
"Isn’t a string just a different illustration of particle-wave duality?"
Yes. It's as much a model as particle or wave (or their duality) is.
Hmmm the live blog keeps it polite and it sounds like the lecture was interesting in its own right (i.e., for what it covered, ignoring what it didn't cover). But the lecture seems to have failed to describe its implied subject: how observations of black holes might reveal the string theory 'legos.'
@ Eric
you are partly right. Partly, because observations were never in the title nor have we done any actual "visual" observations of BH.. The one in the center of our galaxy is primed for observation, but we need next generation of telescopes (radio.. etc) to have it.
But you are right that the talk was very slim on anything concerning current research and had even less to say about black holes..
Let down for me is you can type "black holes" or "string theory" in google, open the first link that comes up, read it for 15 minutes and know more about BH and string theory then she ever said during the 1 hour specifically for that topic.. And that's for a noob...
If you've spent any time on Ethan's blog where you can get a solid foundation, and then do some learning and research of your own (again, not as a scientist but as an interested average person), then Amanda's "lecture" was just a boring, watered-down, trying-to-be-funny-methaphors, recapitulation of what physics is. :/
The other Amanda Peet is the pro-vaccine one.
Did this one have anything to say about 13 TeV, or has that ship been towed out to sea already?
Since glueballs are extremely hard to detect maybe any higher energies at the LHC may only create gluon scattering processes that are too difficult to determine a particle signature. As such superparticles may not be found with the current technology meaning the additional Higgs bosons are there as well but not seen or are out of range. The Higgs at 125 GeV was an extremely difficult signature and it may mean that the level of difficulty is compounded greatly at higher energies with a machine like the LHC. Maybe the supercomputers will give us the third eye we need but I doubt it. I would be happy with a glueball find which could be considered a SM particle (or possibly evidence of supersymmetry as well).
"... as far as theoretical physics ideas go, I think String Theory is a blind alley, a dead end, an idea for whom the fat lady has sung."
Amen!
"But all it takes is one prediction,..."
M-theory has failed on 'string-unification'; that is, any success of one prediction could be just a luck, let alone to say that it got none.