
Physical reality of string theory demonstrated - ph0rque
http://esciencenews.com/articles/2009/07/06/physical.reality.string.theory.demonstrated
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pfedor
I am not an expert and it's been a while, so please feel free to correct me.

There are two contexts the string theory is talked about. First, it is by most
considered the most promising theory of fundamental interactions (a.k.a. the
theory of everything in press and blogs.) Second, it has been shown about ten
years ago that there is an equivalence between some version of string theory
and some field theories. The second part makes it possible to use string
theory for calculations in quantum field theory. It is not related at all to
whether string theory is indeed the correct fundamental theory. (It also means
you can't kill string theory: even if some other theory, say loop quantum
gravity, is the correct fundamental theory, you can still use string theory
for calculations in the quantum field theory.)

As far as I understand, the new results the OP mentions are derived using the
latter technique, i.e., applying string theory to obtain results in regular
field theory. As such, it has nothing to do with demonstrating physical
reality of string theory, at least not in the most obvious sense.

The original article: <http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/1174962>

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Retric
My limited understanding of String theory suggests it is closer to a scripting
language for describing possible universes than a unified theory. It's
interesting as a branch of mathematics, but you can make it say just about
anything by playing around with some assumptions.

IMO, saying string theory applies to some process is closer to saying you used
Pearl to model fluid mechanics instead of discovering a fundamental law of the
universe.

PS: Which is not to say it's useless. Having a better model for high
temperature super conductors opens many doors. With proper verification this
could easily be Nobel Prize worthy.

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wrinklz
God hacked a lot more than fluid mechanics in perl. <http://xkcd.com/224/>

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DanielBMarkham
It says the phenomenon was explained, not predicted. It's an interesting
choice of terms.

I wonder if there is a difference?

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sgk284
There is quite a difference.

Einstein swore that his very own equations dealing with quantum mechanics had
to be wrong because it described a phenomenon known as quantum entanglement,
which goes against all logic and seems impossible. This led him to believe
that the equations were almost right, but with an error somewhere. To quote
him, ""I find the idea quite intolerable that an electron exposed to radiation
should choose of its own free will, not only its moment to jump off, but also
its direction. In that case, I would rather be a cobbler, or even an employee
in a gaming house, than a physicist"

It wasn't until a few decades later that we observed quantum entanglement in a
lab... showing that the equations had in fact been right, even though Einstein
had thought they were wrong.

The story in the op is a little different. A weird phenomenon is observed but
unexplained... now an equation explains it, but you have to wonder if the
equations were made to fit the observation. The best way to test this is to
use the equations to predict some unknown and unobserved outcome, then see if
the actual result meets the expected result.

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jacquesm
Quite amazing! Thank you for that, string theory starts to look more and more
like it has 'legs'.

To have actual physical phenomenon explained by string theory (and apparently
not in any other way) gives it a lot of weight.

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tspiteri
Explaining phenomena is only one step. What I think is more important for a
theory to have legs, is the ability to make predictions using the theory.

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pbhjpbhj
It's not a theory until it can make testable predictions.

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gnaritas
I wouldn't quite say that because it implies we must have the ability to test
it. A better thing to say is that a theory must provide falsifiable
predictions, even if we don't have the ability to actually test it today.

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jpwagner
Just throwing this out there: is it the first time a calculation based on
string theory has been published in Science because the string theory
community prefers arXiv?

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sneakums
It's certainly interesting that mathematics created in the course of the
string theory research program are finding application in the real world.

