Tuesday, February 5, 2008 | Science : Astronomy | print version

Exploding black holes could expose hidden dimensions

by NewScientist.com

Thanks to daddydowse for the link.

Reposted from:
http://space.newscientist.com/article/dn13279-exploding-black-holes-could-expose-hidden-dimensions.html

18:48 05 February 2008
NewScientist.com news service
Ker Than

Cosmic flares shot from exploding black holes could provide long-sought proof of extra spatial dimensions, new calculations suggest.

Theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking predicted that black holes evaporate through a quantum process known as "Hawking evaporation" and can explode in brief bursts of energy before vanishing completely.

Only mini-black holes roughly as massive as an asteroid or smaller would be able to evaporate completely within the lifetime of the universe. And such tiny black holes may have been created in large numbers within 1 second of the big bang, as elementary particles clumped together at extreme energies.

Now, researchers led by Michael Kavic of Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, US, say the evaporation of such "primordial" black holes could emit detectable radiation – if the universe contains additional dimensions beyond the familiar three of space and one of time. Such extra dimensions are predicted in some theories that try to unify gravity and quantum mechanics, such as string theory.

In the presence of extra dimensions, black holes would wrap around these extra dimensions to form "black strings." "You can envision this as a rubber band wrapped around a fire hose," Kavic told New Scientist. "As the black hole evaporates, it eventually becomes too small to wrap the extra dimension."

Unique pulse

He and colleagues predict that when a black string snaps, it will expose the extra dimension by creating a pulse of radiation with a unique electromagnetic signature. "We would know them if we saw them," Kavic told New Scientist.

By analysing the frequency of the pulse, scientists could calculate the size of the extra dimension, which could lend insight into which cosmological model best describes the universe. "The size of the black string is directly related to the size of the extra dimension at the time of the explosion," Kavic says.

The team says the light pulses could be detected by radio telescopes capable of scanning the entire sky in one sweep, such as Virginia Tech's Eight-meter-wavelength Transient Array.

"Traditional radio telescopes only focus on a very small part of the sky at any one time," Kavic said. "This means that they could easily have missed these kinds of pulses."

Good timing

The new test comes at an opportune time, says Charles Keeton, an astronomer at Rutgers University in New Jersey, US: "Our ability to observe exploding black holes is limited only by the sensitivity of our radio telescopes, and that is getting better."

But while much theoretical work has been done on primordial black holes and extra dimensions, their existence remains unproven.

"The big question is whether such black holes are produced in the first place," says Avi Loeb of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, Massachusetts, US. "In principle, it's possible to make such black holes, but in the standard model of cosmology, it is not natural."

"There are a lot of layers here of nonstandard assumptions," Loeb told New Scientist. "If nothing could be observed in this context, then it would not surprise me."

While definitely a gamble, the payoffs from such a search would be enormous, Kavic argues. The successful detection of the kind of black hole explosion the team predicts would confirm not only the existence of extra dimensions, but also of primordial black holes and Hawking evaporation.

"All three of these are quantum gravitational phenomena [and] would drastically alter our view of space-time and the fundamental nature of our universe," Kavic says.

The team has submitted the study to Physical Review Letters.

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1. Comment #122617 by The Schuermannator on February 5, 2008 at 4:23 pm

These great scientists once again go to great lengths (or rather very short ones) to show us all that the universe is more queer than we could ever imagine.

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2. Comment #122620 by marcomerlin on February 5, 2008 at 4:43 pm

through a quantum process known as "Hawking evaporation"

Cool. I wanna have my own name-branded physic-cosmic-apocalyptic process:
"The Marco Boiling."

Other Comments by marcomerlin

3. Comment #122623 by JerryD385 on February 5, 2008 at 4:54 pm

What an exciting time to be alive, when a potential grand unifying theory could be proved...err, I mean failed to be falsified.

Other Comments by JerryD385

4. Comment #122633 by Steve Zara on February 5, 2008 at 5:36 pm

Please don't be distracted by the String Theorists. Extra dimensions are required by String Theory, but extra dimensions don't support String Theory. They are just compatible with it.

String Theory has a big problem, in that it has come up with no testable predictions, after nearly 30 years. String Theorists are getting a bit desperate, so any aspect of experimental physics that shows anything compatible with String Theory will be spun as some kind of support for it.

We rationalists should know better than that. Respectable theories need to provide testable ways that their principles can be disproved.

Other Comments by Steve Zara

5. Comment #122635 by daddydowse on February 5, 2008 at 5:41 pm

Jerry, you almost took the words out of my mouth. I have a really good feeling that the next decade will bring about scientific advances and resolution to theory that may even bring the successful herding of cats. May we gently rise against faith and wisper softly in its ear "we're getting there and when we have the answers you'd better have a better reply than 'god did it'"

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6. Comment #122658 by Zakie Chan on February 5, 2008 at 6:36 pm

I agree with Steve Zara. As Richard Feynman said, "string theorists don't make predictions, they make excuses." (kind of like religious apologists haha)

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7. Comment #122669 by MPhil on February 5, 2008 at 7:12 pm

I share the reservations against string theory - being possibly non-falsifiable. But if the mathematical equations of String Theory alone were to predict a specific radiation at a specific event, and that exact type of radiation is then observed, that would corroborate the theory - as it would be a testable prediction. The fact that every event is only ever compatible with a theory that predicts it, not proof of the theory is universal. So, once the theory yields observable predictions, it can be corroborated or falsified... Sure, the above isn't the best example I guess, but if the specific characteristics of the radiation were actually predicted by string theory itself to extreme detail, then an observation of this would be corroboration (the first, - mathematical elegance aside, since it doesn't really count)

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8. Comment #122672 by Steve Zara on February 5, 2008 at 7:19 pm

But if the mathematical equations of String Theory alone were to predict a specific radiation at a specific event, and that exact type of radiation is then observed, that would corroborate the theory - as it would be a testable prediction

Indeed. However, as the current understanding of String Theory implies 10^500 different realities, the idea of any specific predictions that are falsifiable seems unlikely.

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9. Comment #122676 by Jason1083 on February 5, 2008 at 7:35 pm

Indeed. However, as the current understanding of String Theory implies 10^500 different realities, the idea of any specific predictions that are falsifiable seems unlikely.

This is an unfair point. I am not a string theorist myself, so I can't provide a detailed answer.

The fact that so many of the smartest physicists in the world (Witten, Maldecena, 't Hooft, Weinberg, Susskind) continue to work in string theory strongly suggests that there are still good prospects of it becoming a successful physical theory even if it does not uniquely determine the geometry of spacetime.

String theory remains a vibrant field with hundreds of papers published in reputable scientific journals every year. This is the only testament laymen should need to its potential validity.

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10. Comment #122677 by MPhil on February 5, 2008 at 7:36 pm

10^500 different realities? I have a vague recollection of Brian Greene's "The Elegant Universe", but it's been nearly 8 years since I've read it... and I cannot recollect anything about different realities, the multiple-worlds hypothesis is an interpretation of quantum mechanics besides the Kopenhagen-interpretation. I know string theory works with 10, 11 or 26 dimensions. But please elaborate on the 10^500 realities. Also, since a scientific theory is a coherent complex, wouldn't such an observation of specifically predicted radiation corroborate the entire theory, since the same math that predicts the radiation predicts the different realities?

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11. Comment #122679 by Jason1083 on February 5, 2008 at 7:40 pm

MPhil - Steve is referring to the landscape:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/String_theory_landscape

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12. Comment #122681 by Jason1083 on February 5, 2008 at 7:43 pm

Sorry, just read the link I posted and the description was very bad. Here is a much more intelligible discussion:

http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/susskind03/susskind_index.html

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13. Comment #122683 by Steve Zara on February 5, 2008 at 7:48 pm

But please elaborate on the 10^500 realities.

One of the hopes of the original formulation of String Theory was that it would explain why the physical constants of our universe had the values that they have - these values would have been inevitable. String Theory would have shown that our universe was the only one possible - as String Theory had no tunable parameters, that would have meant that our universe was inevitable. The problem is that String Theory did not result in just one universe.

Also, since a scientific theory is a coherent complex, wouldn't such an observation of specifically predicted radiation corroborate the entire theory, since the same math that predicts the radiation predicts the different realities?

No, as that kind of accuracy is not enough to distinguish between String Theory and other ideas.

Other Comments by Steve Zara

14. Comment #122684 by Steve Zara on February 5, 2008 at 7:51 pm

String theory remains a vibrant field with hundreds of papers published in reputable scientific journals every year. This is the only testament laymen should need to its potential validity.

I hope not. There are many theoretical physicists working on other areas, such as loop quantum gravity, than need support.

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15. Comment #122685 by MPhil on February 5, 2008 at 7:58 pm

Thanks - gonna read up on it.

Also, since a scientific theory is a coherent complex, wouldn't such an observation of specifically predicted radiation corroborate the entire theory, since the same math that predicts the radiation predicts the different realities?

No, as that kind of accuracy is not enough to distinguish between String Theory and other ideas.

Hmm... shouldn't it rather be that when several theories predict an observed event to the same degree of accuracy, that all these theories are corroborated to a small extent, but when there's only one theory predicting it, or predicting it to a much higher degree of accuracy, that it is corroborated more strongly?

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16. Comment #122686 by SPS on February 5, 2008 at 8:00 pm

Any research by honest scientific minds, in my opinion, comes with an air of excitement about the potential of their findings, whether or not their ideas or theories eventually pan out. I recently read about the Cyclic Universe model. Another interesting view of our universe.

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17. Comment #122687 by Steve Zara on February 5, 2008 at 8:05 pm

Hmm... shouldn't it rather be that when several theories predict an observed event to the same degree of accuracy, that all these theories are corroborated to a small extent, but when there's only one theory predicting it, or predicting it to a much higher degree of accuracy, that it is corroborated more strongly?

The problem is that String Theory predicts such a wide range of values, it is hard to come up with a value that would not fit String Theory.

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18. Comment #122691 by MPhil on February 5, 2008 at 8:08 pm

Thanks. Now I see the problem. So, this doesn't mean its non-predictive in general, but that very very specific observations based on extremely specific narrow-range-of-values predictions would have to be made - and it's not certain (or far from certain) that string theory can produce them.
Is that about right?

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19. Comment #122693 by Steve Zara on February 5, 2008 at 8:23 pm

Thanks. Now I see the problem. So, this doesn't mean its non-predictive in general, but that very very specific observations based on extremely specific narrow-range-of-values predictions would have to be made - and it's not certain (or far from certain) that string theory can produce them.
Is that about right?

Not really. There would be nothing about such narrow range predictions that would falsify String Theory. They might easily fit other models. The problem with String Theory is that it is very hard to falsify.

Other Comments by Steve Zara

20. Comment #122696 by MPhil on February 5, 2008 at 8:35 pm

I see I've got a lot of reading up to do. I've read Hawking's "brief history of time" and "The universe in a nutshell" at 15, "The Elegant Universe" at 16 (as I said) and a few not very technical articles since then. I'm very interested, always have been, but I don't have the knowledge or experience to handle the high mathematics of such elaborate theories.

I know I keep asking this, and I definitely don't want to get on your nerves, but do you know of any more recent books or papers that critically discuss (super)string theory, modern cosmology etc - which someone like me could understand without being able to handle the hard mathematics?

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21. Comment #122697 by Rational_G on February 5, 2008 at 8:40 pm

String theory has never made a single experimental prediction. It can't make a falsifiable claim. It has no predictive power. It therefore fails as a scientific theory.

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22. Comment #122699 by Jason1083 on February 5, 2008 at 8:47 pm

I hope not. There are many theoretical physicists working on other areas, such as loop quantum gravity, than need support.

That's true, and they should be given support in proportion to the level of excitement that their ideas generate within the community of their scientific peers as measured by the number of researchers / citations in major journals in the field. I've seen no evidence that the funding for string theory is excessive by this measure. If someone researching loop quantum gravity comes up with an exciting result that generates a large number of citations and motivates other researchers to enter the field, then funding for loop quantum gravity will increase. I just don't see any other basis for someone who isn't a theoretical physicist to prefer one to the other or any other criteria which are reasonable to consider from the prospective of policy-makers who must decide on funding decisions (at least in a field so esoteric that it has no foreseeable implications for social welfare).

I'm not too familiar with the way funding works in this case, but I'd guess most researchers in these highly theoretical fields have tenured positions where they could research whatever they wanted anyway since they don't need to run expensive experiments. I'm sure the presence or absence of grants exerts some force on the direction of research, but it wouldn't prevent someone from pursuing an idea they thought was truly groundbreaking.

As an aside, Steve - are you a theoretical physicist with the requisite mathematical training to understand and evaluate string theoretic models? I don't mean this to be insulting - but if not, why do you think your opinion about the matter should count for anything? I'm not a physicist and I think whatever appraisal I might make of string theory's scientific validity is completely irrelevant. This may be the most technical field on earth and we should rely on people with the wherewithal to evaluate the technical results to decide whether they are promising. Currently, most of those people seem to think string theory is worth pursuing although there are certainly notable exceptions and the matter is far from settled within the physics community.

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23. Comment #122701 by Steve Zara on February 5, 2008 at 8:49 pm

I know I keep asking this, and I definitely don't want to get on your nerves,

I don't understand the idea of "get on your nerves"

but do you know of any more recent books or papers that critically discuss (super)string theory, modern cosmology etc - which someone like me could understand without being able to handle the hard mathematics?

To be honest, I have nothing specific. But then, neither will the String Theorists. The mathematics is not only hard; they have had to develop new mathematics. There are few who can understand it, only geniuses like Ed Witten.

The beauty of Einstein's work was that it provided testable predictions, like the precession of the orbit of Mercury and the change in positions of stars during an eclipse. String Theory may well turn out to be nothing more than mathematical physcists playing around with ideas that can't be tested for the foreeable future.

Other Comments by Steve Zara

24. Comment #122703 by Steve Zara on February 5, 2008 at 8:54 pm

As an aside, Steve - are you a theoretical physicist?

No, I am not.

I don't mean this to be insulting - but if not, why do you think your opinion about the matter should count for anything? I'm not a physicist and I think whatever appraisal I might make of string theory's scientific validity is completely irrelevant.

Scientific funding is important. My view (as an outsider, and reading books by those who have been involved) is that String Theory has come up with very little after decades of funding.

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25. Comment #122705 by Jason1083 on February 5, 2008 at 9:01 pm

Scientific funding is important. My view (as an outsider, and reading books by those who have been involved) is that String Theory has come up with very little after decades of funding.

I think in this case the volume (and content) of popular books published on either side gives a misleading impression of the state of the debate in the scientific community. Yes, Peter Woit and Lee Smolin think string theory is overrated and Brian Greene thinks it's extremely promising. But I don't think any of us can be expected to really appreciate the arguments for and against string theory - Ed Witten seems extremely impressed by the fact that string theory "postdicts" gravity and Peter Woit seems less impressed. There's no way to judge between them except to look at the number of citations their work has received and the number of other researchers in the field who find their arguments convincing. I of course agree that scientific funding is important, but I don't see any other basis for deciding how to allocate it in technical theoretical fields other than the interest a theory generates among experts in the field.

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26. Comment #122707 by Rational_G on February 5, 2008 at 9:04 pm

I recommend "The Trouble with Physics" by Lee Smolin. No equations. Discusses the string theory controversy within the physics community.

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27. Comment #122708 by Jason1083 on February 5, 2008 at 9:09 pm

I recommend "The Trouble with Physics" by Lee Smolin. No equations. Discusses the string theory controversy within the physics community.

Not that you implied otherwise Rational_G, but while "no equations" means that a layman might be able to follow Smolin's arguments, it certainly doesn't mean that a layman who read Smolin's books would be well-equipped to evaluate those arguments. To do that would require a PhD in theoretical physics and a deep knowledge of "K-theory" and the other relevant branches of mathematics.

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28. Comment #122709 by Steve Zara on February 5, 2008 at 9:10 pm

Jason: a very good post. I think there is an independent way of assessing things, which is quantity of evidence. I recommend Woit's and Smolin's books. Surely we can only fund people like Witten exploring the borders of mathematics and physics for so long, unless they come up with some testable hypotheses?

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29. Comment #122711 by MPhil on February 5, 2008 at 9:12 pm

Nice, thanks... I see if I can get my hands on it.
I'm fine with a few equations btw... just no strange attractors, complex tensor-fields and such things. I'm interested in those also, but I can't handle them (yet - predicting at least 10 years, maybe never)

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30. Comment #122712 by Jason1083 on February 5, 2008 at 9:16 pm

Jason: a very good post. I think there is an independent way of assessing things, which is quantity of evidence. I recommend Woit's and Smolin's books. Surely we can only fund people like Witten exploring the borders of mathematics and physics for so long, unless they come up with some testable hypothesis?

Steve, thank you. I agree that quantity of evidence is important, it's just extremely difficult to assess as a non-physicist. Smolin can enumerate lots of objections to string theory, but if they're all weak objections, the quantity of evidence isn't on his side.

I think part of the difficulty is that string theory proponents freely admit that what they're doing is in some ways unprecedented in science. Physics has historically proceeded with a closer connection between theory and experiment. But they argue that the theory is so deep and powerful and manages to explain so much of what seemed previously to be unrelated truths that it must be right. It's just very hard to appreciate whether this is a strong argument or not without appreciating the details oneself.

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31. Comment #122715 by Jason1083 on February 5, 2008 at 9:20 pm

And one additional point - it's not as if string theory is exactly stagnant. There has been substantial progress in the past 10 years. Whether the theory is close to making sharp testable predictions is another matter - but I think to call it a failure one of two things would have to happen. Either 1) it would have to make wrong predictions, or 2) graduate students would stop entering the field because it was no longer regarded as promising. I think this is the usual way that unpromising avenues of scientific exploration die and if string theory deserves to die, I expect that it will in due course.

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32. Comment #122716 by MPhil on February 5, 2008 at 9:20 pm

Having studied philosophy of science, metatheory of empirical sciences... helps with the evaluation of arguments, at least a little.

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33. Comment #122717 by Steve Zara on February 5, 2008 at 9:27 pm

But they argue that the theory is so deep and powerful and manages to explain so much of what seemed previously to be unrelated truths that it must be right.

My feeling is that this may have been justifiable before the appearance of the "String Landscape". The incorporation of something that seems to be a graviton (the force transmitter of gravity) was encouraging, until the inability to predict the physical constants of our universe. That was the promise of String Theory - that a clear, mathematical framework, with nothing added, would inevitably lead to our reality.

It has failed.

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34. Comment #122719 by Rational_G on February 5, 2008 at 9:33 pm

Yes well I only make the recommendation because the book summarizes nicely the state of theoretical physics over the last 30 years and exposes some of the problems some people have with string theory. I found that useful.

I don't have to be a theoretical physicist to know that if you can't falsify a theory it's not very useful.

It will be interesting to see how this all turns out.

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35. Comment #122728 by sarah95 on February 5, 2008 at 10:00 pm

While definitely a gamble, the payoffs from such a search would be enormous, Kavic argues. The successful detection of the kind of black hole explosion the team predicts would confirm not only the existence of extra dimensions, but also of primordial black holes and Hawking evaporation.

"All three of these are quantum gravitational phenomena [and] would drastically alter our view of space-time and the fundamental nature of our universe," Kavic says.

This reminds me of when RD was on The Colbert Report. He explained that some people confuse him with Stephen Hawking, to which Colbert asked, "Is he going to hell too?...God doesn't like black holes." I guess he doesn't, especially if they "alter our view of space-time and the nature of our universe". I imagine such a phenomenon would be a pesky one to god.

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36. Comment #122729 by Roland_F on February 5, 2008 at 10:01 pm

In the 1980s there were already the promise of this great unifying theory and even the theory of everything to be available within a few years (also according to Hawking). Now so many years later indeed nothing of great unifying has come out, just 5 different 9D theories which had to be unified into a common 10D theory M/superstring theory.
Until now even the GUT havnâ€™t been confirmed by expirements (proton decay in 10**35 years average), possible the Vacum field, Higgs ocean or however you like to call it can be confirmed or falsified from CERN next year(s). For string theory tests energy levels must be magnitues higher â€¦ testable not in this century if at all.

About books for different universe models : I just finished reading Paul Davies >Goldilock Enigma< explanation of cosmology without much formulas. The first 2/3 of the book is scientific explanations the last 1/3 some strange subjective ideas about different universe models. Ok the book research was sponsored from Templeton, but for this Davies lash out quite a lot at the ID explanation variant (not the best investment for Templeton).
The other all explaining alternative to String theory would e Multiverse theory , both are somehow >everything is possible< and something which explains everything explains in the end nothingâ€¦

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37. Comment #122743 by mmurray on February 5, 2008 at 11:22 pm

That's true, and they should be given support in proportion to the level of excitement that their ideas generate within the community of their scientific peers as measured by the number of researchers / citations in major journals in the field. I've seen no evidence that the funding for string theory is excessive by this measure. If someone researching loop quantum gravity comes up with an exciting result that generates a large number of citations and motivates other researchers to enter the field, then funding for loop quantum gravity will increase. I just don't see any other basis for someone who isn't a theoretical physicist to prefer one to the other or any other criteria which are reasonable to consider from the prospective of policy-makers who must decide on funding decisions (at least in a field so esoteric that it has no foreseeable implications for social welfare).

I'm not too familiar with the way funding works in this case, but I'd guess most researchers in these highly theoretical fields have tenured positions where they could research whatever they wanted anyway since they don't need to run expensive experiments. I'm sure the presence or absence of grants exerts some force on the direction of research, but it wouldn't prevent someone from pursuing an idea they thought was truly groundbreaking.

Smolin makes a case that the usual self-correcting mechanisms are not working in the case of string theory. He also makes a case that even tenured staff have to get grants. If not after awhile the University starts to notice and comments are passed and after a little bit longer the Dean may start talking retirement packages ! It is awhile since I read the book but I think that was his argument.

Pursuing a ground breaking idea may also mean no publications for awhile or no publications in the high impact journals as you are not working in the `right' area. That also will be noticed.

Michael

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38. Comment #122745 by roach on February 5, 2008 at 11:31 pm

So what is the most promising theory since string theory appears to have failed?

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39. Comment #122750 by sent2null on February 6, 2008 at 12:13 am

My feeling is that this may have been justifiable before the appearance of the "String Landscape". The incorporation of something that seems to be a graviton (the force transmitter of gravity) was encouraging, until the inability to predict the physical constants of our universe. That was the promise of String Theory - that a clear, mathematical framework, with nothing added, would inevitably lead to our reality.

It has failed.

It is way to early to declare string theory a failure. I am not a physicists (engineer) but I have studied a small amount of mathematical physics (GR, tensor calculus) and there are several promising avenues from which testable hypothesis from the theory may soon be made. I agree that the long time since its inception lack of any concrete tests is troubling but that is a testament to just how difficult the work in this area is, not a signal that it is a dead end. The work of Ed Witten for example in explaining (partially) the relationships between the various "types" of String theories has led to a flood of research in the last 10 years. I think it shouldn't be surprising that as we get closer to "the answer" that it takes us a bit longer to figure it all out and that will include forming testable hypothesis. Given that the string theory solutions evolve entire universes it makes sense that tests of its validity will be necessarily found at the edges (either at its beginning or at its end) of our universe and what lies beyond. Even if falsifiable tests were to be conjectured we probably would never be able to practically test them since we are far from the edges of our universe or objects (like the singularities in black holes) that may allow us to test them.

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40. Comment #122761 by Steve Zara on February 6, 2008 at 2:12 am

It is way to early to declare string theory a failure.

I agree. What I mean is that it has failed to deliver that unique, inevitable universe that it seemed to promise in the early days.

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41. Comment #122779 by padster1976 on February 6, 2008 at 4:00 am

I thought string theory was not considered viable as a theory - the point like particles of matter are actually oscillating 3 dimensional objects that appear to be point like.

Too much like a faith position ie not empirical.

I've tried to read books like Brian Greene's 'The Elegant Universe', but it was too much like reading a sales pitch - he spoke about how great the theory was at uniting quantum and relativity theory, without actually explaining it. I didn't finish the book admittedly but the reason for that is that I felt I was being sold the idea and not really having it explained.

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42. Comment #122806 by ianmkz on February 6, 2008 at 5:48 am

I've tried to read books like Brian Greene's 'The Elegant Universe', but it was too much like reading a sales pitch - he spoke about how great the theory was at uniting quantum and relativity theory, without actually explaining it.

I recommend "The Trouble with Physics" by Lee Smolin. No equations.

My biggest beef with New Scientist is the number of pages devoted to sexy but incomprehensible schools of physics. I have a background in molecular biology, but not much in the way of physics beyond episodes of Horizon/Nova, so maybe I should just keep my mouth shut... But it seems to me that there is no way that more than 1% of the readership can possibly have the background to understand the physics being discussed, so we are left with argument by analogies such as black hole rubber bands around extra dimensional fire hoses. I don't doubt that the researchers understand the actual principles involved, but by and large the readership do not. And analogies should only be leaned on so much... wooter is a big fan of understanding via simple analogies.

It's a problem with all pop-physics, as far as I can see - either you get the book with no math, in effect shrugging off any pretense of understanding, or you get the one with the equations that you can only follow until page 23.

May it's just me, though.

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43. Comment #122824 by RonnieG on February 6, 2008 at 7:08 am

There is an interesting discussion over at Edge from a few months ago between Brian Greene, Paul Steinhardt, and Walter Isaacson. A lot of it is about Einstein, but a large part of the discussion is on string theory as well.

http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/einstein07/einstein07_index.html">Edge Discussion Link

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44. Comment #122934 by konquererz on February 6, 2008 at 9:30 am

I am a computer guy, so I don't really have the expertise or understanding to follow this kind of discussion. However, from someone who loves learning about the universe and science in general, I can tell you that articles like this do well to stoke the flames of curiosity in people. Whether it turns out that primordial black holes exist or don't is of no consequence. Getting people to study the subject is. Thus creating hype and excitement around science is a good thing. Agreed that I don't want people going around believing things that aren't true. But its exciting to hear of possibilities and possible future advancements. Thats why people what shows about future technology. Its fun.

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45. Comment #122940 by Steve Zara on February 6, 2008 at 9:32 am

May it's just me, though.

You are not alone. I find the lack of detail in such articles annoying too. I find that Scientific American does these things much better. The current one has a great article on the LHC.

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46. Comment #123069 by RickM on February 6, 2008 at 12:27 pm

Crap; I can't afford any more books!

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47. Comment #123128 by Duff on February 6, 2008 at 1:33 pm

Didn't I read something about Lisa Randall preparing an experiment on the LHC that if successful would be the first minor proof of string theory??

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48. Comment #123169 by tiikki on February 6, 2008 at 2:32 pm

Hmm... If I recall correctly there are now string theories which do give some predictions. They are connected to heavy ion physics (LHC

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49. Comment #123175 by Steve Zara on February 6, 2008 at 2:39 pm

Didn't I read something about Lisa Randall preparing an experiment on the LHC that if successful would be the first minor proof of string theory??

Hmm... If I recall correctly there are now string theories which do give some predictions. They are connected to heavy ion physics (LHC

The LHC is sure to show some interesting stuff (if nothing interesting is found, that would still tell us a lot, so would be .... interesting).

Things it may show include extra spatial dimensions and "supersymmetry" - the idea that all the particles we know have as yet unseen partners.

Now, String Theory predicts these. But finding these would not be a "proof" of String Theory. They would simply mean that String Theory was not to be thrown away (yet!). These findings would compatible with String Theory, nothing more.

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50. Comment #123232 by Rational_G on February 6, 2008 at 4:40 pm

No equations doesn't necessarily mean dumb. I agree golly gee whiz superficial accounts of scientific ideas do not serve the educated reader. But I think some "popular" physics books treat the subject at a fairly high level. A lot depends on the expertise and the writing skills of the author. I find it useful to hear the arguments from the horse's mouth, so to speak, ie from the Weinbergs and Feynmans and Greenes and Smolins of the world. At least then you are getting a first hand account of the issues and problems from workers in the field, not some journalistic hype. There are also a few non scientists that write well on the subject, like Tim Ferris for example.

Of course I'm not an expert and can't peer review the competing theories (I'm an aerospace engineer), but you can educate yourself as to the current ideas.

Of course no one is saying don't pursue string theory. Some of us just get a little concerned when the adherents prefer elegance over experimental verification. Gotta stay grounded in the real world - even a 10 dimensional one ;-)

Cheers all and again this is a great web site. Intelligent, witty discourse!

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