Make prediction just out reach -> get funding for a larger collider -> no evidence found -> admit the energy scale must have been incorrect -> make prediction just out of reach -> ...
ATTENTION: No matter how simpleminded the joke is, if it makes me literally laugh out loud so other people notice, I am ethically compelled to acknowledge that. I hereby do so acknowledge. That is all. You may return to looking at porn.
If the current administration can survive the next 8 years, I expect to see (at least southern) universities featuring creationism, lysenkoism, and string -theory- theorism dwelling in happy coexistence. And _that_ will be nothing to sneeze at 🤧.
At 3:07 you’ve reminded me of something I ran across the other day... this isn't quite right, but basically, "if you can't test it, don't bother me with it." 👍 ... Thanks, you are doing good stuff by clearing away the gobbledygook! (IMHO)❤
String theory is well past it's use by date but the theorists that have been working on it their entire careers do not want to run to the store to get a fresh theory.
@@MikeHughesShooter I'm with you on risk management vs curiosity. I generally have found that a direct discussion of risk solves the safety puzzles. My initial focus was on the assertion that's not testable, even at high risk. If we're willing to risk it, we can very quickly design a test for anything to do with nutrition or longevity. But sometimes the risk actually is too high for the "expected" benefit. (I say.) But yeah, I experiment on myself all the time. (... except now i have kids, so... less.)
Now you've got me thinking and I remember an experiment I've always wanted to do: 🤣 Let's assume doctors in each specialty are equivalent to drugs we want to test for efficacy. The best we can do is double blind and placebo controlled, assuming safety, with intervention, is about equivalent to placebo... My model here is imagining that I'm testing blood letting, which used to be a baseline intervention that was presumed to be safer than doing nothing. The design of experiment to prove efficacy for blood letting should work for all other interventions... I always explained this thought experiment to my kids' pediatricians when we met the first time. 😂 This way they'd start on the right foot if (when) I asked questions. (My best story is when I explained this to my wife's OB/Gyn...🫤) I assume we don't test for GP visit efficacy because we know what we're gonna get and it's going to be expensive to get it. And so on... but I do think we ought to do back surgery...
Could not agree more. I'm an atomic physicist and I'm annoyed we're still funding this sterile direction. There are many areas of physics that could put the money to much better use. You know... something that actually benefits humanity in the near future.
Like the atomic bomb? Physics created the thing most likely to annihilate mankind, a substantial number of physicists work for governments creating things that annihilate humans. Essentially, there is substantial evidence that physics will actually result in harm or annihilation of humans.
When you said " this sterile direction" I thought you were talking about sterile neutrinos, which may in fact never benefit humanity. No, you were referring to the sterility of string theory as a tool to describe real world physics, which is even less likely to benefit humanity than the study of a set of particles that interacts with almost nothing at all.
@@Zeuskabob1Studying particles that exist serves to increase our overall knowledge of the universe. String Theory is basically funding a fantasy, since there is no way to confirm any hypothesis the field generates.
@@Zeuskabob1 actually neutrino exist, and are needed to explain the nuclear reactions in the sun, so they are a fundamental part of our physical universe. Even if they are hard to detect.
@896 You failed to mention two things: 1. what are those 'areas of physics' that could put the money to much better use and 2. quantum gravity and information in black holes are just as useless to humanity as the theory of everything. You don't deserve these many likes 🤦🏽♂️...
Reminds me of the debate in the early 20th century over the energy source of stars: contraction vs Something Else. In 1920, Sir Arthur Eddington wrote: "Only the inertia of tradition keeps the contraction hypothesis alive - or rather, not alive, but an unburied corpse..."
How string theory works. Spin a yarn. Make it last as long as possible. When the audience tires, give it a different twist. Then, knit the whole thing into a pair of socks, one for each spin of the yarn. Lose one in the wash. The remaining sock must be true. Thank you.
In the 90's I decided *not* to pursue a career in Theoretical High Energy Physics because it was all focused on String Theory and M-Theory, which I regarded as horse pucky. Seeing where String Theory has gone and how little progress has been made on GUT, I'm thankful for my own precocious wisdom.
Recently, Dr. Peter Woit has done some work with "Twistor "Theory" first proposed by Sir Roger Penrose about 1967. Can it work by adding only one extra spatial dimension to construct a twisted 3D4D soliton, which is chiral and quantized with twist cycles?
I followed the same route but it was in the late 70's. Every mentor, every professor tried to outright FORCE me to jump on the string theory bandwagon, even though I knew it was based on a fallacy: You cannot have a 1-dimensional object in a 3-dimensional world. No depth and no width means no cross section which means no interactions with anything else. I switched to Civil Engineering and never looked back.
I always thought that God would never use something as contrived as String Theory to create the Universe. So loving math, I became an accountant. At least, I have spent my life doing something useful and satisfying. 😊
I could easily see that. Somehow, the English language takes a different direction. If "whence" became dominant over "where", some dialects and sociolects make have simplified/contracted form into "when". Kinda like an alternate vowel shift. @@ramorrisey
So did I. it was brilliant; Sabine is so good at understated humour. Good joke about the cat too. While we're at it. Might we now describe String Theory as "undead, zombie" physics (or maths or neither)?
As a woman who also loves pens and hates string theory (that's probably most of us) I hope she won't yell at you for spending week's worth of groceries on a pen 😭
The version I know of this is from Tim Minchin (Storm): "Science adjusts its views based on what's observed. Faith is the denial of observation so that belief can be preserved."
@@AndrewBlucher true. But its still apply to science and education as a whole. Let me explain. When you were young and you were taught about atoms, molecules etc. Your teachers didn't have to provide any evidence that these are real and exist. You simply trusted them until you were old enough to understand the experiments that will lead to the right conclusions. Most of the teachers that taught you couldn't have proved those things to you because they didn't have the knowledge and means to. The only way learning could have been successful was if you simple trust what your teacher taught you. At that point in your life you had faith in your teachers and the whole education system. If you didn't have faith then you couldn't have later in life relized the evidence. Its the same way faith works in religion. I believe what the bible says and then as I grow I begin to realize whether they are true or not. Now I agree with you that there is faith the denies reality but that is true for both science and religion. Not every science can be tested but yet many accepts the theories as true even though they themselves have no way of varifying those things
Typical values of tension for fundamental strings in string theory are on the order of the Planck scale, around 10^19 GeV / cm, or 1.6 x 10^11 Joules per metre ( 1.6 x 10^9 Joules per cm ).
As an experimentalist in another field (fluid dynamics), I also am staggered by the number of theoreticians and computationalists that run away from evidence as quick as they can so they don't need to face the reality that their models are incredibly flawed... I then come across as rude when I ask the tough questions...
Being challenged and criticised (professionally not personally ofc) is the only way to move forward. People should be grateful that you spent time and are willing to debate with them about their work.
I'm not really an expert on these aspects but I understand that even the origin of string theory is doubtfully rare. Apparently, it all starts after having found the mathematical research on Euler's beta function. A purely mathematical formula that existed for centuries but, accidentally, and I emphasize, ACCIDENTALLY, it was found that "it seems" that this function managed to explain several things in quantum physics. The funniest thing is that basically the origin of strings comes from isolated mathematical calculations that do not even have the intention of describing something real in the first place and it all starts when they wanted to give a geometric interpretation to these calculations and it turns out that they were in the form of vibrating strings and, apparently, it makes sense. That's all, there is no origin where mathematics was created on purpose to try to understand something, it is purely accidental and coincidental.
We should make a giant Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Measuring Antenna (LIGMA), consisting of many ball-like satellites that we would put dozens of AU apart. If it's still not enough to verify String Theory, then it would mean that our LIGMA Balls are not enough and we should use even bigger detector.
I understand more and more what got you to back away from stodgy, inflexible academia and research. Subjects like String Theory where the advocates try to maintain it no matter what. I remember reading about String Theory in Omni magazine in the 70's and absolutely no progress has been made except more complicated math's to explain something no closer to being proved than it was in the Omni article. Thank you for teaching me something each episode rather than bludgeoning me with math's about an unproved theory.
Was listening to this video with an earbud while out on a walk and literally laughed out loud at the "string theory is undead" joke and probably looked insane.
Physics once has become the poster child of the science because it had a tremendous predictability power. Now it's so close to the frontier of our research capabilities that it basically does what other branches of science do - create numerous post factum explanatory models with very limited predictability.
Basically everything about the modern world has devolved into a pitch meeting with the money people, getting funding is the ultimate goal, what could go wrong?
This is what happens when you make everyone's livelihoods entirely dependent on serving a Gilded Age 'investor class'. They end up deciding the direction of everything.
and for scientific validations a fun read is Refining Time of Flight and Energy Dynamics in GRB 221009A Using the Dodecahedron Linear String Field Hypothesis (DLSFH) #2811
Dear Sabine, Would it not be an idea in 2025 for you to show us calculations using a whiteboard or a chalkboard while explaining what you are writing? This could help a lot of us, myself included of course, to better understand higher maths and the subjects you are discussing. Perhaps this could even result in more cooperation between people as it will be discussed by the fans. Let's say, for the ease of it, a once per month session of 30 minutes or 1 hour?
This is what I call emotional investment syndrome. After investing years of research and decades of resources pursuing what initially seemed like a promising idea, its pursuit has become a self perpetuated fantasy because no one wants to admit that they’re chasing their tails. The idea had merit at one time, but now it’s a case of denial. Pride and ego often make otherwise rational people continue in their folly. That said, Sabine has made several rants against String theory and the state of science in general, so I think it might be better to take on some fresh ideas. Or propose some solutions or reforms. Identifying a problem is important, but it’s more constructive when you can provide a solution. Even if it’s not the best solution, it at least gets the conversation going.
Emotional investment syndrome seems to also reflect peoples behaviour when they know they are right but are proven wrong but won't accept that, instead they double down on what they believed was right in the first place.
I call it "Manufactured Significance". It's found in science and the arts, pretty much in all institutions. An art critic pontificating on the metaphorical meaning of a painting composed of 3 stripes or a physicist pontificating about string theory, it's the same thing. It's essentially flim flam men and women manufacturing significance on something that has no significance. They can generate a life time of income by pretending to have a unique understanding of a subject or thing that no one else can understand. The reason no one else can understand it is because it's manufactured by the "expert" and has no meaning. This con job can be sustained so long as the con artist can use the attributes of an expert (lab coat, published articles, and letters after their name) to keep the common man questioning his own intelligence.
@ It’s grifting if they know it’s a dead end, but are still asking for financing. I think many researchers are sincere, but having spent their lives working on this theory, they can’t let it go thinking the breakthrough is just within reach. This is not the only theory that has this kind of support. Dark matter and Dark energy have been elusive as well. It’s possible that Einstein’s general relativity isn’t quite right, but we know it’s been right at least on the level of our solar system even if galaxies aren’t cooperating with it. So you either add unseen mass or you modify the way gravity works. No decisive winners in this contest. But there is evidence supporting both sides.
I think Sabine's solution is to start from evidence to construct theory (epistemological theoretical physics), rather than the other way around (pure theoretical physics). I think this is a good idea: there are many more theories that don't fit the evidence than theories which do, so it's much more productive to limit our theory work to the subset of theories which fit evidence. It's also much more productive, in my estimation, to primarily research areas where evidence seems to be in conflict with theory.
I remember as a teenager in the 90s, being infatuated with the magic of String theory and M theory. Years later, no longer a teenager, this stuff definitely sounds like magic to me.
The reason string theory is viable is because it is part of the equation but not the whole equation. It's early in the creation of the universe. After the strings come the field and after the field come the particles. What is kind of mind blowing is that people get stuck on things being either this way or that way and they cant see that maybe just maybe all the data somewhat supports all the different ways of seeing the theory of everything but it doesnt complete it. But just like anything lets say water it has differnt properties depending on its state it is in. Maybe the energy that created this wonderful universe we live in had different properties at different "times" of development. Early universe it was a piont then started to spread out maybe in strings then possibly started to come together and form bubbles then more energy being pumped into the field because of saturation formed matter. Just saying. Ps in the early stages of the universe before matter the field would have been super semetric. And before that the strings would have expanded out using super symmetry. Otherwise we wouldnt be here to discuss it. Pss I'm not a string theorist apologist. But I do like micho kaku Pass I like you also sabine
But the Thunder Child had vanished forever, taking with her mankind's last hope of victory. The leaden sky was lit by green flashes, cylinder following cylinder, and no one and nothing was left now to stop them. The Earth belonged to the String Theorists -- Dot Dot Dah, (put on side 2)
"We're gonna build a whole new world for ourselves! You know where? In Striiiiing Theory..." "You should see it down there! Hundreds of miles of Branes! Sweet and cleaned out after the rain."
Hi, Dr. Hossenfelder. I could not agree more, for what that's worth. String "Theory" (hypothesis at best) arrived DOA in the '70s. Mathematicians with delusions of the grandeur of physics. And mathematicians don't understand the fundamental nature of Occam's Razor as applied to reality even at the quantum level. The whole thing reminds me of Ginsberg's "Howl"; "I saw the best minds of my generation descend into madness". Unfortunately madness seems very contagious nowadays.
String theory? Is that the groundbreaking research on how to slurp pasta so perfectly that not a drop of sauce escapes, or is it just a fancy term for my attempts to untangle armpit hair?
Tip from an audio engineer. To stop P's popping. Hold your hand in front of your face. Say pop pop pop and feel the burst of air. Move your hand to the side while not turning your head to where you can't feel the pop of your breath. That is where your microphone should go. The microphone can pick up extremely well from any location around your face. You do not have to be facing it. I find the best position is at the shoulder. But in order to keep my customers from turning their head and talking towards the mic as they are inclined to do I put a dummy mic in front of them and instruct them to talk into it. Also, for speech cut about 20dB from 100Hz and below. And raise 1k to 2k about 10dB. That gets rid of the low bass rumbling and accents the consonants making speech more intelligible. This is obviously not a suitable EQ for music but it is good for speech.
I have a question about quantum perturbative gravity. Is it necessary to express the divergent terms of loops as higher-order curvature terms like R_munuR^munu? Writing them as higher-order curvature terms implies that the corrections are incorporated through higher-order curvature dynamics at every loop. Since the loops are infinite, there will be infinitely many higher-order curvature dynamics to be combined. The bigger issue is that each loop's higher-order terms correspond to different renormalization constants because the higher-order terms for each loop are distinct. Thus, these constants cannot be directly applied to the lowest-order R, forcing us to use higher-order curvature terms like R_munuR^munu to utilize these renormalization constants. According to the traditional renormalization process, shouldn’t we directly express the divergent terms at the vertex as products of derivative metric tensors? Regardless of the loop order, they correspond to a fixed number of derivative terms in the multi-vertex product. By recursively reducing all divergent terms into lower-order derivative metric tensor products, the renormalization constants could then be directly applied to R, right? For example, terms like (partial g_munu)(partial g^munu) or (partial g_munu)(partial g_rho sigma) g^mu rho g^nu sigma could be used, and the corrections could focus on modifying the Lagrangian R, becoming sqar(-g)(R+deltaR). Wouldn't that solve the issue? Why isn't this approach taken?
You could do it this way, but it's easier to keep track of terms if you combine them to properly covariant contributions. Traditionally, you do this in terms of the curvature tensor and its derivatives and powers thereof. For the question of renormalizability it doesn't really matter though because the issue is that they produce increasingly higher numbers of derivatives. In fact, you don't need to know anything about the curvature tensor or what it's made of, the problem stems from the relation between the stress energy tensor and the metric and can be seen already on dimensional grounds: if expressed in canonical mass dimensions, the coupling constant has units -- same issue as with Fermi's theory of nuclear decay, but the solution doesn't work because we know graviton masses are either very small or zero.
I should add that you sometimes see people do it in terms of the Weyl curvature tensor (and related quantities) instead, which has some advantages if you want to analyze the structure of singularities. It's more common in some areas than others.
@@SabineHossenfelder Sabine, with all due respect, you are beating a dead horse with constant criticism. According to your recent video, even if we found 'new physics' there are likely no practical applications, why be so concerned about the stagnation in the foundation of physics? Assuming you are correct, independent of what new theories are being constructed, physics is a dead end with no likely practical applications. If this is true, why should you or anyone else care-- why not accept it and move on? Now, I realize that accepting the situation and moving on would make it harder for you to make your videos. But seriously, a dead end is a dead end. How many times do you need to flog people with that? Might it be better to use your talent to make more courses on Brilliant so that more people can understand what we already know? After all, you said it yourself, one area that has not stagnated in the last 50 years is education.... Criticism is a precursor for solutions, but it can only get us so far; therefore, we should not see it as an endpoint or something that "stands on its own." It is easier to destroy than to create. Criticism represents destruction, whereas new idea generation represents creation. If you destroy the old bridge because you think it is faulty, perhaps that is a necessary first step, but people will still need a way to cross the river...
The essence of theoretical physics is to probe and question beyond the known boundaries of science. If we don't challenge our current understanding and explore the possibilities that lie beyond what is already known, how can we hope to advance our knowledge of the universe? It is through imagining and rigorously testing these possibilities that science progresses and evolves. #SheldonCooper #GeekMakingScienceFun -n Resolving Lorentz Invariance Violation in Loop Quantum Gravity Using the Dodecahedron Linear String Field Hypothesis Paper #7307
String Theory should have been named "Isolated Math Problem Theory". After keeping up with this field for over 30 years, I haven't found a single use for it... Its like doing Sudoku puzzles. Challenging, but useless.
From Vincent: Now I understand What you tried to say, to me And how you suffered for your sanity And how you tried to set them free: They would not listen; they did not know how-- Perhaps they'll listen now. Now I think I know What you tried to say, to me And how you suffered for your sanity And how you tried to set them free: They would not listen; they're not listening still-- Perhaps they never will
@@MartinMosny How is it possible if they have an almost infinite number of solution (the so called "landscape")? There are zillion choices of Calabi-Yau manifolds and choices of generalized magnetic fluxes over various homology cycles, found in F-theory.
I'm so glad that when I got my degree, my professors were working on things like Manhattan and after or were also taught by those that had been working on Manhattan. What they taught involving nuclear physics were the tried and true work that came from Einstein, Bohr, Heisenberg, Fermi, and others.
I wonder how many people in here joking about string theory being dead actually understand why that is or have any idea what should happen next? Oh, how I love the era of social media and internet lynch mobs! Thanks for the info, Sabine, as always!
Have you not mulled over a precious joke and found a deeper beauty sometimes - hidden within? My dad used to just leave the driest commentary - in the room and one would have to reflect - and research even - until the real meaning - was revealed.
I like what string theory has been. It may have ultimately failed but the influence on physics theory I enjoy. I think several ideas from string theory will manifest
Funny. I recall from a PBS NOVA of the middle 90s, was it (?), the discussion of branes and how they might fit into the Standard Model. I liked the observations about how the Theory might aid in lucrative employment. That is much the point, a lucrative job. Maybe we all need more Theories such as that.
Im beginning to have a lot more empathy for crackpots when it sounds like at least half of research physicists have cracked. String Theory, Dark Matter, Multiverses. Just because you wrote an equation doesnt mean its not unscientific nonsense.
To be fair, Dark Matter arose from observation. So unlike string theory - which arose entirely from theoretical math - it is at least in response to something we can see and test. However, it's not the only possible answer, and the fact that it has evaded detection for this long does not bode well for it.
As a student that will start most likely start a master degree in String theory, I got to say I fell scared, but I also fell I am brave... Maybe I will at least become a good mathematician :)
If you have theoretical physicist friends, a perfect Christmas present would be a bunch of strings. For cosmologists give an empty box, and tell them it's full of dark matter.
I would like to introduce a new theory called yarn theory. There's a lot of math behind it, but you don't need to worry about that, I just need a few million dollars to fund my living expenses- I mean, build a detector. When it inevitably fails, I'll just say I need to try again with a different detector, until I can retire comfortably on that detector money. It will be a shame when I never contribute anything of value to science, but whoever comes after me will have a nice scam, I mean, research opportunity lined up
Penny: What‘s new in the world of physics? Leonard: Nothing. Penny: Really nothing? Leonard: Well with the exception of string theory not much has happened since the 1930s. You can‘t prove string theory. At best you can say, hey look my idea has an internal logical consistency.
You know, when I was in high school, it always shocked me how old is the videos that we saw on string theory were. I graduated just passed the turn of the century and clearly most of the stuff was from the 80s. Now, as I approached middle-age, it appears to me that no major breakthroughs have occurred in physics in my lifetime. Except for the strong possibility set everything since quantum Dynamics has been completely wrong
Yeah no. String theory is still highly constrained. It’s for example infinitely more constrained than quantum field theory for example (as it has a finite number of possibility, while the latter has an infinite number of them). And fun fact; the standard model is a quantum field theory.
Liebe Sabine, your amazing work continues to do a huge favor to humanity (no exaggeration) by enlightening minds, making some people think, and hopefully improving science and our lives in the future. Sadly, given the stupidity of our species, it will be a very very slow process, but such work needs to be done. It's also sad that for every Sabine there is a million of opportunistic short-sighted self-serving bull-sh**ter, but hey, that's again a nature of our species (by evolution or smth else) and smth we just have to live with. Thank you again for your tremendous work and value that you bring!
i know almost nothing about string theory....but.... i watch youtube🙂 my impression of it is that it's so variable/configurable that it could be used to explain anything but each iteration requires a lot of math, sweat, and tears (and funding) so searching the space seems an endless task.. but you mentioned something that sounds like one can make some assertions about ALL string theories and if so, that sounds super useful! because if one can show something is untrue for a feature common to all string theories then that would put to rest string theories...? which would help redirect human effort (if it turns out to be provably wrong)
True. After an exhaustive search we haven't managed to find any pigs that fly, and we can reach the conclusion that there are no flying pigs, advancing science.
Man muss die String-Hypothese nicht verstehen, um zu erkennen, dass erkenntnistheoretische Grundsätze dabei nicht angewendet werden. Sie ist wohl eher nur eine mathematische Spielwiese mit unüberprüfbaren Möglichkeiten.
How many String theories can dance on the head of a pin (the Standard Model)? It seems the answer is "way too many". Paul Krugman talks about Zombie theories too, but in economics - e.g. Trickle Down Economics to name one - that keep coming back from the dead despite having been disproven both with economic modelling and actual history. The motivation for these resurrections is always transparent, though.
1) There is no Nobel prize for Economics. 2) Krugman arranged to get a "Nobel" Memorial Gift from the Bank of Sweden, with permission from the Nobel committee. He is a first class hack 😊
As a synesthetic artist, I visualized string theory in the 80s and identified music as its formative vibration. When the effects of certain substances wore off, I thought: "too good to be true"... Thank you for the great videos!
Hah! What a trip! To imagine that all of behavior is a result of a small section of the brain involved in processing and synthesizing language seems pretty silly when posited that way. I wonder why they think this? Is it because when you question people with language, their responses will primarily involve language? Perhaps...
Lee Smolin’s Trouble with Physics introduced me to string theory. I bought it because the title was upside down, and later thought that was a reference to philosophical idealism where maths is the ideal.
M-Branes, P-Branes, Super Symmetry, Axions, Gravitons, Extra Dimensions. Trash them all! Brian Greene is the new Sisyphus and String Theory the new Rock. Occam's Razor means nothing to these dreamers.
I share a lot of that sentiment, but after a certain point, it becomes the responsibility of someone to make a positive contribution rather than just critiquing a situation. Do you have better ideas? It is easy to trash and destroy, but it is harder to create...
Ahh yes. So what’s your proposed solution to the String CP problem? To the hierarchy problem? To quantizing gravity? To dark matter? You have none? What a suprise!
It's a pity the time Einstein wrote General Relativity, hoverpen interstellar was not available. If it was, he would have unified Quantum theory with General Relativity and with the power of the Meteorite edition, String theory would have never existed...!
Hey Sabine, I love your videos. What's your opinion on String Phenomenology? It seems to be the most promising area regarding finding actual evidence for or against String Theory. For what I've read, they try to find general properties of the process of compactification, certain relations that must apply on every compactification of an effective theory that came from string theory. They have the annoyingly common problem of overrelying on conjectures, but I've read a paper a couple of years ago with a very interesting idea: Assuming the Standard Model is an effective theory of String Theory, then a compactification of the Standard Model to 2+1 dimensions must obey all the laws for compactification of String Theory, and ended up finding bounds for the lightest neutrino mass by imposing those conditions on the compactified theory
Yes, I was very interested in that at some point. Unfortunately, the closer you look at it, the less sense it makes. This is, in a nutshell, because you cannot actually derive predictions from string theory. You need to make additional assumption to get a "model". And these additional assumptions you can just select so that you predict whatever you want.
I may be speaking complete nonsense because Im not a phisics student but the stuff talking about a posible planet beetwen Mercury and the Sun to explain Mercury's orbit reminds me of dark matter. Like it sounds like we are just making stuff up to convince ourselves that everything makes sense until the next Einstein gives us an answer
Naaa they just need a bigger collider! Something in the range of Jupiter's orbit would do the trick (and if not goto 10 print "We need a bigger collider!")
Dark matter is an observable fact. Dark matter particles may not exist, but cryogenic detectors developed for the search of dark matter are used in material science and technology.
I have a theory that there is a giant diamond hidden in my backyard worth trillions. But it's buried so deep none of you can tell it's even there. Now give me a ton of funds so I can dig it up and write about how well the digging is going.
When I look at the sea, a calm sea, I don't think of individual particles- the molecules of h2o- i think of waves, a wave field. We've got bogged down in particles. We know from the 2-slit experiment an individual particle behaves like a wave in its own right, or part of a wave, until we try to measure it.
![แฉกลโกงงานวัด 2024 [ โกงมั้ยครับ ep.106 ] | DOM](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/taC5dpP3HXA/mqdefault.jpg)
"so string theory, you are not dead?" "Nope, I'm a frayed knot". Sorry...I couldn't resist.🤣🤣
Lovely!
'.... knot,' a vast chuckle.
There is always time/space for humour - in this universe
@@davidsanders5652 A TH-cam pun comment that I'd genuinely clever? This day will live on in the annals of history.
That's one of the best puns i ever seen in my _life_ !
Make prediction just out reach -> get funding for a larger collider -> no evidence found -> admit the energy scale must have been incorrect -> make prediction just out of reach -> ...
exactly like that
The next nearby supernova should be the right energy scale.
The biggest shell game around.
@@Avarua59when strings are turned into shells -- the game feature is already entangled within ✌🏼
Pretty sure that's what Sheldon Cooper tried to do in one of the big bang theory episodes
I now have images of Michio Kaku shambling around mumbling, “Branes! Branes! Branes!”
That is a scaringly accurate description of Kaku.
Reminds me of that old song that includes the phrase: "If I only had a brain."
ATTENTION: No matter how simpleminded the joke is, if it makes me literally laugh out loud so other people notice, I am ethically compelled to acknowledge that.
I hereby do so acknowledge.
That is all. You may return to looking at porn.
🧟♀🧟♀😆😆
I sneezed and Sabine's video closed. I will devote the rest of my life to pondering the deeper meaning of this miraculous event.
If the current administration can survive the next 8 years, I expect to see (at least southern) universities featuring creationism, lysenkoism, and string -theory- theorism dwelling in happy coexistence.
And _that_ will be nothing to sneeze at 🤧.
@@-danR No worse than the warmed-over Marxist garbage they spew now, is it? Cause physics is r-a-c-i-s-t.
Sounds to me like an antimiracle (that is, pretty much the same as a miracle, but with a negative charge)
You need higher energy sneezes to be able to rewatch the entire video. I believe you will be able to reach that higher level in the near future.
@solidreactor 🤣
“….each time it happened, physicists made the theory more complicated.” The word that sprung to mind was “epicycles” 😀
I guess it's because I was trained as a chemist that for me, the word that sprung to mind was "phlogiston."
At 3:07 you’ve reminded me of something I ran across the other day... this isn't quite right, but basically, "if you can't test it, don't bother me with it." 👍
... Thanks, you are doing good stuff by clearing away the gobbledygook! (IMHO)❤
Thank you!
String theory is well past it's use by date but the theorists that have been working on it their entire careers do not want to run to the store to get a fresh theory.
@@SabineHossenfelder perhaps “real string theory” hasn’t actually been tried yet like apologists for communism say
@@MikeHughesShooter I'm with you on risk management vs curiosity. I generally have found that a direct discussion of risk solves the safety puzzles. My initial focus was on the assertion that's not testable, even at high risk. If we're willing to risk it, we can very quickly design a test for anything to do with nutrition or longevity. But sometimes the risk actually is too high for the "expected" benefit. (I say.)
But yeah, I experiment on myself all the time. (... except now i have kids, so... less.)
Now you've got me thinking and I remember an experiment I've always wanted to do: 🤣
Let's assume doctors in each specialty are equivalent to drugs we want to test for efficacy. The best we can do is double blind and placebo controlled, assuming safety, with intervention, is about equivalent to placebo...
My model here is imagining that I'm testing blood letting, which used to be a baseline intervention that was presumed to be safer than doing nothing. The design of experiment to prove efficacy for blood letting should work for all other interventions...
I always explained this thought experiment to my kids' pediatricians when we met the first time. 😂 This way they'd start on the right foot if (when) I asked questions. (My best story is when I explained this to my wife's OB/Gyn...🫤)
I assume we don't test for GP visit efficacy because we know what we're gonna get and it's going to be expensive to get it. And so on... but I do think we ought to do back surgery...
Could not agree more. I'm an atomic physicist and I'm annoyed we're still funding this sterile direction. There are many areas of physics that could put the money to much better use. You know... something that actually benefits humanity in the near future.
Like the atomic bomb? Physics created the thing most likely to annihilate mankind, a substantial number of physicists work for governments creating things that annihilate humans. Essentially, there is substantial evidence that physics will actually result in harm or annihilation of humans.
When you said " this sterile direction" I thought you were talking about sterile neutrinos, which may in fact never benefit humanity. No, you were referring to the sterility of string theory as a tool to describe real world physics, which is even less likely to benefit humanity than the study of a set of particles that interacts with almost nothing at all.
@@Zeuskabob1Studying particles that exist serves to increase our overall knowledge of the universe. String Theory is basically funding a fantasy, since there is no way to confirm any hypothesis the field generates.
@@Zeuskabob1 actually neutrino exist, and are needed to explain the nuclear reactions in the sun, so they are a fundamental part of our physical universe. Even if they are hard to detect.
@896 You failed to mention two things: 1. what are those 'areas of physics' that could put the money to much better use and 2. quantum gravity and information in black holes are just as useless to humanity as the theory of everything. You don't deserve these many likes 🤦🏽♂️...
Reminds me of the debate in the early 20th century over the energy source of stars: contraction vs Something Else. In 1920, Sir Arthur Eddington wrote: "Only the inertia of tradition keeps the contraction hypothesis alive - or rather, not alive, but an unburied corpse..."
How string theory works. Spin a yarn. Make it last as long as possible. When the audience tires, give it a different twist. Then, knit the whole thing into a pair of socks, one for each spin of the yarn. Lose one in the wash. The remaining sock must be true. Thank you.
Wow! Clever! I love your comment. ❤️
Exactly what Rumpelstiltskin would do in the 21st century. What are a few kilos of gold compared to the funding that Big Science gets?
But only if you scrunch it up in just the right way.
Lots of experience - revealed here. Humorous.
5 socks* lol
In the 90's I decided *not* to pursue a career in Theoretical High Energy Physics because it was all focused on String Theory and M-Theory, which I regarded as horse pucky. Seeing where String Theory has gone and how little progress has been made on GUT, I'm thankful for my own precocious wisdom.
Very little progress has been made in multiple areas.
@@VeniceWashington Yep. That's why I switched to trading stocks. Plenty of progress. 🙂
Recently, Dr. Peter Woit has done some work with "Twistor "Theory" first proposed by Sir Roger Penrose about 1967. Can it work by adding only one extra spatial dimension to construct a twisted 3D4D soliton, which is chiral and quantized with twist cycles?
I followed the same route but it was in the late 70's. Every mentor, every professor tried to outright FORCE me to jump on the string theory bandwagon, even though I knew it was based on a fallacy: You cannot have a 1-dimensional object in a 3-dimensional world. No depth and no width means no cross section which means no interactions with anything else. I switched to Civil Engineering and never looked back.
I always thought that God would never use something as contrived as String Theory to create the Universe. So loving math, I became an accountant. At least, I have spent my life doing something useful and satisfying. 😊
No braner.
I'm also a no braner. I prefer corn flakes.
Omg my favorite baroque group 🫶
I’m sure there’s a universe where string theory works. Somewhere. Somewhen.
There's a universe where somewhen is part of common English usage, but I'm not sure it's this one.
😂😂😂
I could easily see that. Somehow, the English language takes a different direction. If "whence" became dominant over "where", some dialects and sociolects make have simplified/contracted form into "when". Kinda like an alternate vowel shift. @@ramorrisey
Yeah... in the string universe, where truth is stretched to strings.
It is called Platonic universe 🧮➕➖➗🟰
I loved that undead joke 🤣 it had me lmao! I feel the exact same way about it
So did I. it was brilliant; Sabine is so good at understated humour. Good joke about the cat too. While we're at it. Might we now describe String Theory as "undead, zombie" physics (or maths or neither)?
Yeah, that was legit hilarious!
Amen.
I really do appreciate the straight forwardness with which Sabine summarizes science.
Dont forget she is German. 😊
Summarising science or just stating an opinion?
@@kevconn441 Having fundamental physics BILLIONS of dollars in funds for the last half century without a breakthrough? A based opinion IMHO.
@@BlackRaven-w4e There have been many breakthroughs in the last half century. Some of them enabling this conversation.
@kevconn441 In fundamental physics? Really? 😅
String Theory Isn’t Dead. It just smells funny.
[... something about 'rung down the curtain and joined the choir invisible', I think ...]
We could certainly use Frank right about now.
No it's just, "Pining for the fjords."
You mean the fact the body wasn't moving, changed colors and was smelling funny means it's not dead but just relaxing?
It's just stunned.
My wife loves pens and hates string theory. This is the perfect gift, thank you!!
As a woman who also loves pens and hates string theory (that's probably most of us) I hope she won't yell at you for spending week's worth of groceries on a pen 😭
Give her a pen with no strings attached.
@@ani_n01 "It's okay, we can go hungry for a while."
I don't get it
The undead theory as documented in Plan 9 from Outer Space directed by Ed WItten...errr, Ed Wood.
Greatest movie ever made.
Wait, didn't Dr. Sheldon Cooper just get a Nobel for his Supersymetry paper..... 😂
Love you Sebina.
super-asymetry
No, but he went out with a big bang.
They should have ended with it turning out to be a nightmare Howard was having.
"A wise man changes his views to fit the facts. A fool changes the facts to fit his views." (I may be paraphrasing)
Or “You can change the equation to fit the universe, or change the universe to fit the equation.”
The version I know of this is from Tim Minchin (Storm):
"Science adjusts its views based on what's observed.
Faith is the denial of observation so that belief can be preserved."
@@artssanctuary He is wrong. Everything is based on faith. without faith even science won't progress
@@nanakojoFaith is belief without evidence. Since you provide no evidence ...
@@AndrewBlucher true. But its still apply to science and education as a whole. Let me explain.
When you were young and you were taught about atoms, molecules etc. Your teachers didn't have to provide any evidence that these are real and exist. You simply trusted them until you were old enough to understand the experiments that will lead to the right conclusions.
Most of the teachers that taught you couldn't have proved those things to you because they didn't have the knowledge and means to. The only way learning could have been successful was if you simple trust what your teacher taught you. At that point in your life you had faith in your teachers and the whole education system. If you didn't have faith then you couldn't have later in life relized the evidence.
Its the same way faith works in religion. I believe what the bible says and then as I grow I begin to realize whether they are true or not.
Now I agree with you that there is faith the denies reality but that is true for both science and religion. Not every science can be tested but yet many accepts the theories as true even though they themselves have no way of varifying those things
Typical values of tension for fundamental strings in string theory are on the order of the Planck scale, around 10^19 GeV / cm, or 1.6 x 10^11 Joules per metre ( 1.6 x 10^9 Joules per cm ).
As an experimentalist in another field (fluid dynamics), I also am staggered by the number of theoreticians and computationalists that run away from evidence as quick as they can so they don't need to face the reality that their models are incredibly flawed...
I then come across as rude when I ask the tough questions...
You're bursting their bubble meanie
Better rude than wrong. Keep up the good work.
Corona prediction models were also practically disconnected from reality. Seems to be a trend in several research fields.
Being challenged and criticised (professionally not personally ofc) is the only way to move forward. People should be grateful that you spent time and are willing to debate with them about their work.
I'm not really an expert on these aspects but I understand that even the origin of string theory is doubtfully rare.
Apparently, it all starts after having found the mathematical research on Euler's beta function. A purely mathematical formula that existed for centuries but, accidentally, and I emphasize, ACCIDENTALLY, it was found that "it seems" that this function managed to explain several things in quantum physics.
The funniest thing is that basically the origin of strings comes from isolated mathematical calculations that do not even have the intention of describing something real in the first place and it all starts when they wanted to give a geometric interpretation to these calculations and it turns out that they were in the form of vibrating strings and, apparently, it makes sense.
That's all, there is no origin where mathematics was created on purpose to try to understand something, it is purely accidental and coincidental.
We should make a giant Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Measuring Antenna (LIGMA), consisting of many ball-like satellites that we would put dozens of AU apart. If it's still not enough to verify String Theory, then it would mean that our LIGMA Balls are not enough and we should use even bigger detector.
I suspect that some Bi-directional Unified Low-Latency Super-Heterodyne Interactivity Tensors are at work here...
I understand more and more what got you to back away from stodgy, inflexible academia and research. Subjects like String Theory where the advocates try to maintain it no matter what. I remember reading about String Theory in Omni magazine in the 70's and absolutely no progress has been made except more complicated math's to explain something no closer to being proved than it was in the Omni article. Thank you for teaching me something each episode rather than bludgeoning me with math's about an unproved theory.
One of your best. Well done!
Happy you like it, makes it all worthwhile!
This video reminds me of the few latest Louis Rossmann videos.
"Hmm that's strange, every time I take a stab at String Theory, my income goes up".
My cats love the string theory I throw at them.
Schrodinger's cat wasn't sure he loved strings and didn't like getting in the box, either.
Poor thing should be freed😅 @@AstroGremlinAmerican
@@AstroGremlinAmerican The things science does to cats and the general public only goes on the air about mice and rats, which are PESTS.
@@AstroGremlinAmerican Then it wasn't a cat. All cats love boxes.
Was listening to this video with an earbud while out on a walk and literally laughed out loud at the "string theory is undead" joke and probably looked insane.
Physics once has become the poster child of the science because it had a tremendous predictability power. Now it's so close to the frontier of our research capabilities that it basically does what other branches of science do - create numerous post factum explanatory models with very limited predictability.
Basically everything about the modern world has devolved into a pitch meeting with the money people, getting funding is the ultimate goal, what could go wrong?
This is what happens when you make everyone's livelihoods entirely dependent on serving a Gilded Age 'investor class'. They end up deciding the direction of everything.
and for scientific validations a fun read is Refining Time of Flight and Energy Dynamics in GRB 221009A Using the Dodecahedron Linear String Field Hypothesis (DLSFH) #2811
That was such a good product integration. Thank you for that. You're a pro!
If David Graeber was still alive, he could include string theorists in his updated "Bull shit jobs" book.
"Eating people's Branes".... I see what you did there Sabine.
Ha!
@@SabineHossenfelder The undead joke and the cat joke were both great :-)
Thanks!
Thanks in return from the entire team!
Dear Sabine,
Would it not be an idea in 2025 for you to show us calculations using a whiteboard or a chalkboard while explaining what you are writing? This could help a lot of us, myself included of course, to better understand higher maths and the subjects you are discussing. Perhaps this could even result in more cooperation between people as it will be discussed by the fans.
Let's say, for the ease of it, a once per month session of 30 minutes or 1 hour?
Her wit is amazing and her tongue very sharp.
This is what I call emotional investment syndrome. After investing years of research and decades of resources pursuing what initially seemed like a promising idea, its pursuit has become a self perpetuated fantasy because no one wants to admit that they’re chasing their tails. The idea had merit at one time, but now it’s a case of denial. Pride and ego often make otherwise rational people continue in their folly.
That said, Sabine has made several rants against String theory and the state of science in general, so I think it might be better to take on some fresh ideas. Or propose some solutions or reforms. Identifying a problem is important, but it’s more constructive when you can provide a solution. Even if it’s not the best solution, it at least gets the conversation going.
Emotional investment syndrome seems to also reflect peoples behaviour when they know they are right but are proven wrong but won't accept that, instead they double down on what they believed was right in the first place.
I call it "Manufactured Significance". It's found in science and the arts, pretty much in all institutions. An art critic pontificating on the metaphorical meaning of a painting composed of 3 stripes or a physicist pontificating about string theory, it's the same thing. It's essentially flim flam men and women manufacturing significance on something that has no significance. They can generate a life time of income by pretending to have a unique understanding of a subject or thing that no one else can understand. The reason no one else can understand it is because it's manufactured by the "expert" and has no meaning. This con job can be sustained so long as the con artist can use the attributes of an expert (lab coat, published articles, and letters after their name) to keep the common man questioning his own intelligence.
As a matter of fact they are not investing (spending their money), they are grifting (getting money out of it). Very much like egyptian priests.
@
It’s grifting if they know it’s a dead end, but are still asking for financing. I think many researchers are sincere, but having spent their lives working on this theory, they can’t let it go thinking the breakthrough is just within reach. This is not the only theory that has this kind of support. Dark matter and Dark energy have been elusive as well. It’s possible that Einstein’s general relativity isn’t quite right, but we know it’s been right at least on the level of our solar system even if galaxies aren’t cooperating with it. So you either add unseen mass or you modify the way gravity works. No decisive winners in this contest. But there is evidence supporting both sides.
I think Sabine's solution is to start from evidence to construct theory (epistemological theoretical physics), rather than the other way around (pure theoretical physics). I think this is a good idea: there are many more theories that don't fit the evidence than theories which do, so it's much more productive to limit our theory work to the subset of theories which fit evidence. It's also much more productive, in my estimation, to primarily research areas where evidence seems to be in conflict with theory.
I remember as a teenager in the 90s, being infatuated with the magic of String theory and M theory. Years later, no longer a teenager, this stuff definitely sounds like magic to me.
Schrodinger's cat got tangled in string theory. 8:27
The reason string theory is viable is because it is part of the equation but not the whole equation. It's early in the creation of the universe. After the strings come the field and after the field come the particles. What is kind of mind blowing is that people get stuck on things being either this way or that way and they cant see that maybe just maybe all the data somewhat supports all the different ways of seeing the theory of everything but it doesnt complete it. But just like anything lets say water it has differnt properties depending on its state it is in. Maybe the energy that created this wonderful universe we live in had different properties at different "times" of development. Early universe it was a piont then started to spread out maybe in strings then possibly started to come together and form bubbles then more energy being pumped into the field because of saturation formed matter. Just saying.
Ps in the early stages of the universe before matter the field would have been super semetric. And before that the strings would have expanded out using super symmetry. Otherwise we wouldnt be here to discuss it.
Pss I'm not a string theorist apologist. But I do like micho kaku
Pass I like you also sabine
But the Thunder Child had vanished forever, taking with her mankind's last hope of victory.
The leaden sky was lit by green flashes, cylinder following cylinder, and no one and nothing was left now to stop them. The Earth belonged to the String Theorists -- Dot Dot Dah, (put on side 2)
The chances of anything coming from the string theory
Are a million to one, but still, they come
@@arctic_haze LOL
Damn I love that chapter. Ever since I was a little kid thru to today.
My fav on that album as well
"We're gonna build a whole new world for ourselves! You know where? In Striiiiing Theory..."
"You should see it down there! Hundreds of miles of Branes! Sweet and cleaned out after the rain."
Hi, Dr. Hossenfelder. I could not agree more, for what that's worth. String "Theory" (hypothesis at best) arrived DOA in the '70s. Mathematicians with delusions of the grandeur of physics. And mathematicians don't understand the fundamental nature of Occam's Razor as applied to reality even at the quantum level. The whole thing reminds me of Ginsberg's "Howl"; "I saw the best minds of my generation descend into madness". Unfortunately madness seems very contagious nowadays.
String theory?
Is that the groundbreaking research on how to slurp pasta so perfectly that not a drop of sauce escapes, or is it just a fancy term for my attempts to untangle armpit hair?
Tip from an audio engineer. To stop P's popping. Hold your hand in front of your face. Say pop pop pop and feel the burst of air. Move your hand to the side while not turning your head to where you can't feel the pop of your breath. That is where your microphone should go. The microphone can pick up extremely well from any location around your face. You do not have to be facing it. I find the best position is at the shoulder. But in order to keep my customers from turning their head and talking towards the mic as they are inclined to do I put a dummy mic in front of them and instruct them to talk into it. Also, for speech cut about 20dB from 100Hz and below. And raise 1k to 2k about 10dB. That gets rid of the low bass rumbling and accents the consonants making speech more intelligible. This is obviously not a suitable EQ for music but it is good for speech.
I have a question about quantum perturbative gravity. Is it necessary to express the divergent terms of loops as higher-order curvature terms like R_munuR^munu? Writing them as higher-order curvature terms implies that the corrections are incorporated through higher-order curvature dynamics at every loop. Since the loops are infinite, there will be infinitely many higher-order curvature dynamics to be combined.
The bigger issue is that each loop's higher-order terms correspond to different renormalization constants because the higher-order terms for each loop are distinct. Thus, these constants cannot be directly applied to the lowest-order R, forcing us to use higher-order curvature terms like R_munuR^munu to utilize these renormalization constants.
According to the traditional renormalization process, shouldn’t we directly express the divergent terms at the vertex as products of derivative metric tensors? Regardless of the loop order, they correspond to a fixed number of derivative terms in the multi-vertex product. By recursively reducing all divergent terms into lower-order derivative metric tensor products, the renormalization constants could then be directly applied to R, right?
For example, terms like (partial g_munu)(partial g^munu) or (partial g_munu)(partial g_rho sigma) g^mu rho g^nu sigma could be used, and the corrections could focus on modifying the Lagrangian R, becoming sqar(-g)(R+deltaR). Wouldn't that solve the issue? Why isn't this approach taken?
You could do it this way, but it's easier to keep track of terms if you combine them to properly covariant contributions. Traditionally, you do this in terms of the curvature tensor and its derivatives and powers thereof. For the question of renormalizability it doesn't really matter though because the issue is that they produce increasingly higher numbers of derivatives. In fact, you don't need to know anything about the curvature tensor or what it's made of, the problem stems from the relation between the stress energy tensor and the metric and can be seen already on dimensional grounds: if expressed in canonical mass dimensions, the coupling constant has units -- same issue as with Fermi's theory of nuclear decay, but the solution doesn't work because we know graviton masses are either very small or zero.
I should add that you sometimes see people do it in terms of the Weyl curvature tensor (and related quantities) instead, which has some advantages if you want to analyze the structure of singularities. It's more common in some areas than others.
@@SabineHossenfelder So I understand.
@@tommiest3769This is a physics TH-cam channel with String Theory and Loop Quantum Gravity major ideas in the foundations of physics. So . .. . . . .
@@SabineHossenfelder Sabine, with all due respect, you are beating a dead horse with constant criticism. According to your recent video, even if we found 'new physics' there are likely no practical applications, why be so concerned about the stagnation in the foundation of physics? Assuming you are correct, independent of what new theories are being constructed, physics is a dead end with no likely practical applications. If this is true, why should you or anyone else care-- why not accept it and move on? Now, I realize that accepting the situation and moving on would make it harder for you to make your videos. But seriously, a dead end is a dead end. How many times do you need to flog people with that? Might it be better to use your talent to make more courses on Brilliant so that more people can understand what we already know? After all, you said it yourself, one area that has not stagnated in the last 50 years is education....
Criticism is a precursor for solutions, but it can only get us so far; therefore, we should not see it as an endpoint or something that "stands on its own." It is easier to destroy than to create. Criticism represents destruction, whereas new idea generation represents creation. If you destroy the old bridge because you think it is faulty, perhaps that is a necessary first step, but people will still need a way to cross the river...
The essence of theoretical physics is to probe and question beyond the known boundaries of science. If we don't challenge our current understanding and explore the possibilities that lie beyond what is already known, how can we hope to advance our knowledge of the universe? It is through imagining and rigorously testing these possibilities that science progresses and evolves. #SheldonCooper #GeekMakingScienceFun -n
Resolving Lorentz Invariance Violation in Loop Quantum Gravity Using the Dodecahedron Linear String Field Hypothesis Paper #7307
String Theory should have been named "Isolated Math Problem Theory". After keeping up with this field for over 30 years, I haven't found a single use for it... Its like doing Sudoku puzzles. Challenging, but useless.
From Vincent:
Now I understand What you tried to say, to me And how you suffered for your sanity And how you tried to set them free: They would not listen; they did not know how-- Perhaps they'll listen now.
Now I think I know What you tried to say, to me And how you suffered for your sanity And how you tried to set them free: They would not listen; they're not listening still-- Perhaps they never will
String theory isn't dead, it just smells funny.
The zombie line got me. Well done.
I love the zombie apocalypse model of the string theory community. It has enough free parameters to be untestabke. Good!
Whatever happened to the Journal of Untestable Hypotheses? It was the sister publication of the Journal of Unrepeatable Results.
……branes.
@@theeniwetoksymphonyorchest7580
spoken in a growling voice by zombies trying to break in!
If we are going by free parameters, then compared to the 19 that the standard model has, string theory has.. oh yeah, 0.
@@MartinMosny How is it possible if they have an almost infinite number of solution (the so called "landscape")? There are zillion choices of Calabi-Yau manifolds and choices of generalized magnetic fluxes over various homology cycles, found in F-theory.
I'm so glad that when I got my degree, my professors were working on things like Manhattan and after or were also taught by those that had been working on Manhattan. What they taught involving nuclear physics were the tried and true work that came from Einstein, Bohr, Heisenberg, Fermi, and others.
I wonder how many people in here joking about string theory being dead actually understand why that is or have any idea what should happen next?
Oh, how I love the era of social media and internet lynch mobs!
Thanks for the info, Sabine, as always!
many laugh at jokes - they do maybe understand - and may get the point thereof later - delicious.
@@derekscanlan4641 I understand, but I do not know how to fix it. I left academia for a reason.
@@theostapel Come again?
@@DummyAccount-f1q Crunch ?
Have you not mulled over a precious joke and found a deeper beauty sometimes - hidden within? My dad used to just leave the driest commentary - in the room and one would have to reflect - and research even - until the real meaning - was revealed.
You have great comedic timing 😆. this video format is nice.
I like what string theory has been. It may have ultimately failed but the influence on physics theory I enjoy. I think several ideas from string theory will manifest
'don't predict anything that is in danger of being ruled out before you die' - could be a mission statement for Stephen Hawkins.
String theory + anthropic reasoning forms what I consider to be a math-based religion.
Google church of numbers
In science maybe but in music its alive and well
Wouldn't string theorists be more comfortable if empiricism were dead? Seems quite embarrassing.
Isn't that a case of the cure being worse than the symptoms?
Funny. I recall from a PBS NOVA of the middle 90s, was it (?), the discussion of branes and how they might fit into the Standard Model. I liked the observations about how the Theory might aid in lucrative employment. That is much the point, a lucrative job. Maybe we all need more Theories such as that.
Im beginning to have a lot more empathy for crackpots when it sounds like at least half of research physicists have cracked. String Theory, Dark Matter, Multiverses. Just because you wrote an equation doesnt mean its not unscientific nonsense.
That's what evidence is for. It seems 99% of the people on this planet don't have any.
Yeah I also find it amusing how poor crackpots are always dissed while there's absolute delusional bs in mainstream
Unfortunately, researchers have a lot of elegant mathematics to support their dying theory
To be fair, Dark Matter arose from observation. So unlike string theory - which arose entirely from theoretical math - it is at least in response to something we can see and test. However, it's not the only possible answer, and the fact that it has evaded detection for this long does not bode well for it.
Can we design a collider that proves Gene Ray’s Time Cube?😢
As a student that will start most likely start a master degree in String theory, I got to say I fell scared, but I also fell I am brave... Maybe I will at least become a good mathematician :)
If you have theoretical physicist friends, a perfect Christmas present would be a bunch of strings.
For cosmologists give an empty box, and tell them it's full of dark matter.
I would like to introduce a new theory called yarn theory. There's a lot of math behind it, but you don't need to worry about that, I just need a few million dollars to fund my living expenses- I mean, build a detector. When it inevitably fails, I'll just say I need to try again with a different detector, until I can retire comfortably on that detector money. It will be a shame when I never contribute anything of value to science, but whoever comes after me will have a nice scam, I mean, research opportunity lined up
A "Theory" that is untestable is not a theory. It's math play at best.
Is climate change testable?
So all theories.
@@HedonisticPuritan-mp6xv Yes, obviously. Time will pass, and we'll see what happens.
Penny: What‘s new in the world of physics?
Leonard: Nothing.
Penny: Really nothing?
Leonard: Well with the exception of string theory not much has happened since the 1930s. You can‘t prove string theory. At best you can say, hey look my idea has an internal logical consistency.
You know, when I was in high school, it always shocked me how old is the videos that we saw on string theory were. I graduated just passed the turn of the century and clearly most of the stuff was from the 80s.
Now, as I approached middle-age, it appears to me that no major breakthroughs have occurred in physics in my lifetime. Except for the strong possibility set everything since quantum Dynamics has been completely wrong
String theory sounds like the sort of reasoning that used to be produced to explain why the planets didn’t travel around the Earth in perfect circles!
Was string theory ever alive?
Q: Was it ever dead?
A: It was in suspended animation but very much alive.
I think it's spot on that the string theory is a theory of everything - in th sense that it can predict everything, be it real or otherwise.
Yeah no. String theory is still highly constrained. It’s for example infinitely more constrained than quantum field theory for example (as it has a finite number of possibility, while the latter has an infinite number of them). And fun fact; the standard model is a quantum field theory.
Liebe Sabine, your amazing work continues to do a huge favor to humanity (no exaggeration) by enlightening minds, making some people think, and hopefully improving science and our lives in the future. Sadly, given the stupidity of our species, it will be a very very slow process, but such work needs to be done. It's also sad that for every Sabine there is a million of opportunistic short-sighted self-serving bull-sh**ter, but hey, that's again a nature of our species (by evolution or smth else) and smth we just have to live with.
Thank you again for your tremendous work and value that you bring!
Thanks in return for the kind words!
i know almost nothing about string theory....but.... i watch youtube🙂
my impression of it is that it's so variable/configurable that it could be used to explain anything but each iteration requires a lot of math, sweat, and tears (and funding) so searching the space seems an endless task..
but you mentioned something that sounds like one can make some assertions about ALL string theories and if so, that sounds super useful! because if one can show something is untrue for a feature common to all string theories then that would put to rest string theories...? which would help redirect human effort (if it turns out to be provably wrong)
Negative results are still results. They're not as flashy as positive ones but they still advance science.
True. After an exhaustive search we haven't managed to find any pigs that fly, and we can reach the conclusion that there are no flying pigs, advancing science.
@@gibbogle MORE RESEARCH IS NEEDED! Increase the budget!
Man muss die String-Hypothese nicht verstehen, um zu erkennen, dass erkenntnistheoretische Grundsätze dabei nicht angewendet werden. Sie ist wohl eher nur eine mathematische Spielwiese mit unüberprüfbaren Möglichkeiten.
How many String theories can dance on the head of a pin (the Standard Model)? It seems the answer is "way too many".
Paul Krugman talks about Zombie theories too, but in economics - e.g. Trickle Down Economics to name one - that keep coming back from the dead despite having been disproven both with economic modelling and actual history. The motivation for these resurrections is always transparent, though.
Without the Nobel Prize, economics would be classified as new wive's tales.
1) There is no Nobel prize for Economics. 2) Krugman arranged to get a "Nobel" Memorial Gift from the Bank of Sweden, with permission from the Nobel committee. He is a first class hack
😊
'trickle down' is rich people pissing on your head.
As a synesthetic artist, I visualized string theory in the 80s and identified music as its formative vibration. When the effects of certain substances wore off, I thought: "too good to be true"... Thank you for the great videos!
Nice pen, Doctor
"String theory is undead, it walks around and eat people's branes."
Good pun.
I'm just a psychologist, but String Theory seems to be to physics what Lacanian Psychoanalysis is to psychology.
Psychology is not a science. Everything is a string theory in psychology
Hah! What a trip!
To imagine that all of behavior is a result of a small section of the brain involved in processing and synthesizing language seems pretty silly when posited that way. I wonder why they think this? Is it because when you question people with language, their responses will primarily involve language? Perhaps...
Well then, I got good news for you! String theory is a perfectly legit discipline, despite what Sabine claims. So don’t worry!
I love when she picks up the pen.
I am wondering, what cats are thinking of humans? Thank you Sabine!
Lee Smolin’s Trouble with Physics introduced me to string theory. I bought it because the title was upside down, and later thought that was a reference to philosophical idealism where maths is the ideal.
String theory is always one dimension away from the theory of everything.
"Eating people's brains" That's a great quote!
I still love cats.
I don't but no cat should be treated like that, even imaginary ones!
Would love to see you debate Brian Greene
7:06 Oh my God!😂😂
When my cat accidentally eats a string I don't need any theory to know how it would come out.😂
M-Branes, P-Branes, Super Symmetry, Axions, Gravitons, Extra Dimensions. Trash them all! Brian Greene is the new Sisyphus and String Theory the new Rock. Occam's Razor means nothing to these dreamers.
I share a lot of that sentiment, but after a certain point, it becomes the responsibility of someone to make a positive contribution rather than just critiquing a situation. Do you have better ideas? It is easy to trash and destroy, but it is harder to create...
@@tommiest3769 Yes lots. pretty judgmental for a...who are you? Brian has CREATED nothing except dreams. Jeez perspective dude.
Ahh yes. So what’s your proposed solution to the String CP problem? To the hierarchy problem? To quantizing gravity? To dark matter? You have none? What a suprise!
@@MartinMosny Well said.
It can't be dead, Sheldon got a Nobel Prize based on it.
Thanks for continuing to poke this.
It's a pity the time Einstein wrote General Relativity, hoverpen interstellar was not available. If it was, he would have unified Quantum theory with General Relativity and with the power of the Meteorite edition, String theory would have never existed...!
Hey Sabine, I love your videos. What's your opinion on String Phenomenology? It seems to be the most promising area regarding finding actual evidence for or against String Theory. For what I've read, they try to find general properties of the process of compactification, certain relations that must apply on every compactification of an effective theory that came from string theory. They have the annoyingly common problem of overrelying on conjectures, but I've read a paper a couple of years ago with a very interesting idea:
Assuming the Standard Model is an effective theory of String Theory, then a compactification of the Standard Model to 2+1 dimensions must obey all the laws for compactification of String Theory, and ended up finding bounds for the lightest neutrino mass by imposing those conditions on the compactified theory
Yes, I was very interested in that at some point. Unfortunately, the closer you look at it, the less sense it makes. This is, in a nutshell, because you cannot actually derive predictions from string theory. You need to make additional assumption to get a "model". And these additional assumptions you can just select so that you predict whatever you want.
1:52 pen vibrates. Brian Greene: this proves string theory
Trying to detect dark matter is another wild goose chase in science that has got no where!
I may be speaking complete nonsense because Im not a phisics student but the stuff talking about a posible planet beetwen Mercury and the Sun to explain Mercury's orbit reminds me of dark matter. Like it sounds like we are just making stuff up to convince ourselves that everything makes sense until the next Einstein gives us an answer
Naaa they just need a bigger collider! Something in the range of Jupiter's orbit would do the trick (and if not goto 10 print "We need a bigger collider!")
Ikr. They came up with umbrella term about something they don't understand then they decided to search for it fr😂
@@felipea1399you're smarter than lots of those $cientists
Dark matter is an observable fact. Dark matter particles may not exist, but cryogenic detectors developed for the search of dark matter are used in material science and technology.
Paraphrasing the great Frank Zappa: string theory is not dead, it just smells funny.
I have a theory that there is a giant diamond hidden in my backyard worth trillions. But it's buried so deep none of you can tell it's even there.
Now give me a ton of funds so I can dig it up and write about how well the digging is going.
When I look at the sea, a calm sea, I don't think of individual particles- the molecules of h2o- i think of waves, a wave field.
We've got bogged down in particles. We know from the 2-slit experiment an individual particle behaves like a wave in its own right, or part of a wave, until we try to measure it.
Es ist ein großes Vergnügen, Ihnen zuzuhören. Der Kaiser ist nackt - hier und in vielen anderen Fällen. Schön, dass Sie dies so deutlich aussprechen.
The pen looks really cool, but insanely distracting.