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--- theories:speculative_theories:string_theory [2017/11/03 14:05]
jakobadmin [Criticism]
+++ theories:speculative_theories:string_theory [2019/02/03 09:36] (current)
jakobadmin [Criticism]
@@ Line 1: / Line 1: @@
 ====== String Theory ======
-<tabbox Why is it interesting?>
-<blockquote>String theory, for vacua with non-compact dimensions, ‘predicts’
-gravity and at least one neutral scalar, the dilaton, antisymmetric tensors of different ranks and
-usually also charged matter, and supersymmetry (see for instance [1]). <cite>A Comment on Continuous Spin Representations of the Poincar´e Group and Perturbative String Theory by Anamarıa Font et. al.</cite></blockquote>
-See also: [[http://inspirehep.net/record/456943?ln=de|Duality, space-time and quantum mechanics]] by Edward Witten
+<tabbox Intuitive>
-<tabbox Layman>
+[{{ :theories:speculative_theories:stringtheory.png?nolink&150|[[https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:String_theory.svg|Image by MissMJ]] published under the [[http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0|CC BY 3.0 licence]]}}]
+The basic idea of string theory is that all fundamental particles are not really pointlike, but rather tiny vibrating strings. We only perceive them as pointlike because we are with our current technology too far away to see that they are actually string.
+Different particles correspond to different vibration modes. In this sense the hope is to understand the observed spectrum of elementary particles.
+//Legend for the image on the right-hand side://
+  - Matter
+  - Molecular structure (atoms)
+  - Atom (protons, neutrons, electrons)
+  - Electron
+  - Quarks
+  - Strings
+----
+**Recommended Layman Resources:**
+  * [[https://arxiv.org/abs/hep-th/0111237|The world in eleven dimensions: a tribute to Oskar Klein]] by M. J. Duff
   * [[http://www.ams.org/notices/199809/witten.pdf|Magic, Mystery, and Matrix]] by Edward Witten
-<tabbox Student>
+<tabbox Concrete>
+  * Ron Maimon, [[https://physics.stackexchange.com/q/14504|What is a brief formulation of string theory?]]
+----
 **The best introductory textbooks are:**
@@ Line 18: / Line 40: @@
   * [[http://www.damtp.cam.ac.uk/user/tong/string.html|Lectures on String Theory]] by D. Tong
+----
 ** The standard textbooks are:**
@@ Line 25: / Line 47: @@
   * Superstring theory by Green, Schwarz, Witten
   * String Theory and M-Theory: A Modern Introduction by Becker, Becker, Schwarz
+----
+**Further Resources**
+  * www.superstringtheory.com - "The official String Theory website"
+  * www.stringwiki.org - the String Theory Wiki
-<tabbox Researcher>
+<tabbox Abstract>
 <note tip>
@@ Line 33: / Line 63: @@
-<tabbox Examples>
+<tabbox Why is it interesting?>
+<blockquote>String theory, for vacua with non-compact dimensions, ‘predicts’
+gravity and at least one neutral scalar, the dilaton, antisymmetric tensors of different ranks and
+usually also charged matter, and supersymmetry (see for instance [1]). <cite>A Comment on Continuous Spin Representations of the Poincar´e Group and Perturbative String Theory by Anamarıa Font et. al.</cite></blockquote>
---> Example1#
+----
+See also:
-<--
+   * [[http://inspirehep.net/record/456943?ln=de|Duality, space-time and quantum mechanics]] by Edward Witten
+   * [[https://arxiv.org/pdf/1512.02477.pdf|String theory to the rescue]] by Joseph Polchinsky
---> Example2:#
+<tabbox Criticism>
-<--
-<tabbox History>
-<tabbox Criticism>
+[{{ :theories:speculative_theories:string_theory.png?nolink&400 |Source: https://xkcd.com/171/}}]
+----
+<blockquote>„String theorists hoped to uncover a theory of everything that would contain both the standard model and general relativity. But starting in the late 1980s, it became increasingly clear that the theory cannot predict which particles, fields, and parameters we have in the standard model. Instead, string theory gives rise to a whole landscape of possibilities. In this landscape every point corresponds to a different version of the theory with different particles and different parameters and different laws of nature.
+If one believes that string theory is the final theory, then this lack of predictability is a big problem: it means the theory cannot explain why we observe this particular universe. Hence, to make the final theory claim consistent with the lack of predictability, string theorists had to accept that any possible universe in the landscape has the same right to existence as ours. Consequently, we live in a multiverse. The string theory landscape conveniently merged with eternal inf“
+<cite>Lost in Math by Sabine Hossenfelder</cite>
+</blockquote>
 <blockquote>I do feel strongly that this is nonsense! … So perhaps I could entertain future historians by saying I think all this superstring stuff is crazy and is in the wrong direction. … I don’t like it that they’re not calculating anything. … why are the masses of the various particles such as quarks what they are? All these numbers … have no explanations in these string theories – absolutely none! … I don’t like that they don’t check their ideas. I don’t like that for anything that disagrees with an experiment, they cook up an explanation—a fix-up to say, “Well, it might be true.” For example, the theory requires ten dimensions. Well, maybe there’s a way of wrapping up six of the dimensions. Yes, that’s all possible mathematically, but why not seven? When they write their equation, the equation should decide how many of these things get wrapped up, not the desire to agree with experiment. In other words, there’s no reason whatsoever in superstring theory that it isn’t eight out of the ten dimensions that get wrapped up and that the result is only two dimensions, which would be completely in disagreement with experience. So the fact that it might disagree with experience is very tenuous, it doesn’t produce anything. <cite> Richard Feynman in an

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