Dr. Sutter: I'm sure many of us here would very much like to see you and Dr. Sabine Hossenfelder do at least a one hour video. Both of you are "astrophysicists" and seem conservative in your philosophies. You are both brilliant. Why not?
Paul, you are the best at explaining complicated physics for laymen. Thank you! I really appreciate how you explain both difficulties and solutions, as well as the historical aspect. Your series on relativity was great, too!
I certainly enjoyed listening to your take on string theory. It's a great introduction for those physicists who are coming to the subject new and need to grasp a few ideas before getting stuck into the math. And for those of us who have a general interest in physics then it allows us to gain a deeper perspective of the issues and what to hope for in the future. Thank you!
When we talk about determining the "landscape" for string theory; is that not a bit like specifying values much the same as measuring electron weight and placing it into our current models?
Any good theory is a tool, and as a tool it has a purpose. So yea, its worth it if it helps to explain or shine some light on certain physics problems.
Even as a young boy in the early 60s I always wondered what the smallest part of matter was. I believed it was some sort of tiny energetic pieces of electricity like billions of tiny little "Jacobs ladders". So when I first read/heard Dr.Brian Green's books on String Theory, I was hooked. All those little Calabi-Yau manifolds really made sense with little pieces of twisted strings passing through them. But one day I saw a panel of experts on a TV show with Brian Green and Neil DeGrasse Tyson as members. When it came to the subject of "String Theory", Dr. Tyson leaned over his chair, raised his eyebrows and made a funny but demeaning remark about string theory to Brian Green. Since then I've wondered if its real. As Albert Einstein considered relativity when he remarked to his friend Michele Besso, "I wonder if its just God playing tricks with me"?
"I'm just a poor country astrophysicist" haha love it. Great series Paul! How about you move on to Quantum Field Theory, as it seems like that's more important/relevant/exciting. Thank you!
Good series. I don't want to put the cat among the canaries too much, but I wouldn't mind seeing something comparing string theory with quantum loop gravity. The only major difference I know is that ST is background independent (Newtonian) while QLG is background dependent (Relativistic). I haven't seen all of your videos, so you may have covered this already. P.S. String theory is definitely worth continuing to work on, for its natural inclusion of quantum gravity if nothing else. That makes it incredibly important.
Qft is like what happens when you solve quantum mechanics in the most general case. Quantum mechanics is just a set of rules and some equations. Like suppose you know magnets pick up iron that's magnetism right? But the Maxwell equations give you all the solutions to em. That's what it's like. In qft you work with the field equations for the forces electro weak and strong.
If it can’t be disproved, is it really a theory. M Theory is still a promise to deliver a theory. As a non physicist I think I’m best to treat it with skepticism.
Loop Quantum Gravity!!!! We need to give LQG a chance. I'm not an expert but I get the impression from things I've read and watched that LQG is more in the realm of things that could be tested in the not too distant future, or at least that it could be tested more easily then string theory.
Another thought, before shelving String Theory there are other, not unrelated, fields that require refinement. For instance the internal workings of protons, how their Quarks organise, and I’m claiming naming rights here, their Quarkitecture, to build the nuclei of the atoms that are the macro building blocks of the Universe. There is so much more to know at this scale, and I am dying to know!
An idea to simplify math; if in quantum string theory we replace the quantum string with a spherical quantum “rosebud”, then in the physical model we will show how it works; quantum gravity, entanglement of quantum particles, dark energy of the Universe, how to construct smooth Einstein space in the chaos of quantum fields ....
Thx for the great series, finally I understand a little bit what the string theory is in general. Could you please sort your videos in ordinal order? It is a little bit funny when so smart man can not sort his video playlist. :)
I may be incorrect but in string theory the constants of nature are based on the manifolds created by compactication of other dimensions. Since in theory there may be infinite shapes of these manifolds can you really say that the problem of the constants of nature has been resolved?
Frankly, 50 years is not an inordinate amount of time for a really fundamental problem of physics to remain unsolved. Virtually everything you said about string theory seems to apply to quantum field theory as well. We can't just give up on both. You say that string theory has no tunable parameters, but you then say that string theory has all these weird multiverses because it has arbitrary parameters. Umm, damned if you don't and damned if you do. Personally, QFT and ST seem to be making the same dodgy assumption. A particle, say a photon of a certain energy, is created at one point in spacetime and then is destroyed later at another point. How do we know that it's the same photon? Virtually all quantum strangeness seems to come from this assumption and I'm not certain that it has to be true. In QFT, aren't "individual" photons just manifestations of quantized changes in a field?
sometimes there are answers science isn't ready to solve. For instance, suppose you are in ancient greece and someone creates a theory of the types of crops that grow well in North America. And nobody has been to North American, nobody knows what grows there, and in fact nobody is even sure if there's a continent on the other side of the world. That's where string theory is. We need more experimental data so we can figure out if we are even in the right ball park. So the question is not really "What can we replace it with, what's the grand unified theory" but the real question is, "What kinds of questions can we even answer right now." And one question is what is dark matter. Another is what is dark energy. And then maybe in 10 years we can go back and work on a grand unified theory of everything. We just put the cart before the horse and were trying to run before we could walk You know einstein tried to create a grand unified theory. Except he didn't use the strong force. Didn't use the weak force. He was trying to unify electric and gravity and figured that would be the grand unified theory.
@@bonerici Game designers like to completely rebuild their games from scratch every time. Perhaps they are control freaks. It seems really inefficient to reinvent the wheel every time. Hopefully game designers and theoretical physicists can compartmentalize sub programs and draw from the ones that work and retool only the ones that need to be updated for advancements and new games and new theories.
LQP or Loop Quantum Gravity may have the answers to to unify quantum gravity with general relativity. LQP may also be able to make predictions were as String theory has failed to in providing evidence in searching for the graviton and other super symmetric particles using the particle accelerator. 🤔
I use strings to build NET with which to catch big fishy=CETUS(who is sh don't tell anyone Scorpio's spooky at a distance which is what is seen in ancient Sumerian symbolism which also shows a long ago version of my archetype). Man am I a long term planner or what LOL. OC~~~
For what String Theory has given us in 60 years, I don't think it is worth it. It would be worth more if we could use those strings to stitch other theories together.
Maybe there is no quantum gravity. Maybe gravity is just a curvature of space that exist only on macro level, for objects that are big enough, I don’t know I am not a physicist, it’s just a thought.
“How can you tell if you are right?” String theory to me is really energy theory, and the most fascinating mental endeavour under way today. The real trigger for the possibility of an understanding of everything came with Higgs field concept which reduced the “magic” nature of energy. The standard model as it stands has too many “magical” components (different forces, strange properties, etc) to be the final answer. There is just one primary component to the Universe if entropy is consistent, and that component has to be energy. So how does one component transition to form a complex Universe? That is the real quest, and I fully expect the secret to be Dark Energy and that is where string theorists will eventually be led. I think Science is examining the challenge of Energy Theory from the wrong direction.
Great stuff. But here's the thing. If string theory or some better theory of everything gives us the ability to morph weak nuclear force into gravity or just a better kind of velcro, it's done the job. But, if you come out the other side and find that all you made was a tool to solve NxN sudoku's and a Nobel prize, congrats but I still need that warp drive. I hope we don't lose the big one to Skynet and Cyberdyne, or the Chinese. Where is that whiz kid working in his dorm room or the low performing patent clerk that's going to get us to New Earth? Musk's SN99 ain't gonna do it.
Strictly-speaking, String theory is neither a theory nor a scientific endeavor. It’s not a theory because it has not resulted in any testable predictions, much less any experimental evidence/proof. And it’s not science, because so far it’s not even in the realm of being subject to falsifiability. What it is, however, is a philosophical take on the physical world, with an elegant and internally consistent mathematical framework. Nothing more, nothing less, for the time being. That said, one honestly hopes that anything with that much mathematical beauty and inherent elegance must embody at least a trace of the truth.
If I was going to invest in something for rich profitable returns, string theory wouldn't be it. Not until it can produce a practical application in a physical field of expertise useful for enhancing efficiency. It's fun and intriguing, but so far that's what it is.
@@domcasmurro2417 Expound, please. Who said "Electric Universe" and who is in a cult? Cults keep you from communicating with others who might disrupt the cult, and they indoctrinate people into their way. Where is this cult? Why can't you disagree with what I wrote instead of insulting me for sharing an apparent fact? Oh! Are you just lying to me because you think shouting insults at people who are smarter than you will make you smart? Try learning things and growing your intelligence; cutting down smart people doesn't make you smart, it makes the whole of humanity stupider. People are already reacting to reality in the stupidest way possible, like in a horror film. What exactly do you disagree with in my comment, and if the answer is: "Nothing", then shut up.
Dr. Sutter: I'm sure many of us here would very much like to see you and Dr. Sabine Hossenfelder do at least a one hour video. Both of you are "astrophysicists" and seem conservative in your philosophies. You are both brilliant. Why not?
String theory is fine I guess but what happens when you put a bunch of different string in a drawer? Entanglement.
Wow, Paul, THANK YOU so much for making this series! You’re amazing
Thank You. This series is one of best talks of big picture of modern physics I found. Keep going with talks like that.
Paul, you are the best at explaining complicated physics for laymen. Thank you! I really appreciate how you explain both difficulties and solutions, as well as the historical aspect. Your series on relativity was great, too!
I like your critical position. This is what makes science going.
I certainly enjoyed listening to your take on string theory. It's a great introduction for those physicists who are coming to the subject new and need to grasp a few ideas before getting stuck into the math. And for those of us who have a general interest in physics then it allows us to gain a deeper perspective of the issues and what to hope for in the future. Thank you!
When we talk about determining the "landscape" for string theory; is that not a bit like specifying values much the same as measuring electron weight and placing it into our current models?
I like your critical analysis of string theory , that is how Science progress.
Any good theory is a tool, and as a tool it has a purpose. So yea, its worth it if it helps to explain or shine some light on certain physics problems.
I thought you were doing a short series on it hahaha. Also, you deserve more subs.
Even as a young boy in the early 60s I always wondered what the smallest part of matter was. I believed it was some sort of tiny energetic pieces of electricity like billions of tiny little "Jacobs ladders". So when I first read/heard Dr.Brian Green's books on String Theory, I was hooked. All those little Calabi-Yau manifolds really made sense with little pieces of twisted strings passing through them. But one day I saw a panel of experts on a TV show with Brian Green and Neil DeGrasse Tyson as members. When it came to the subject of "String Theory", Dr. Tyson leaned over his chair, raised his eyebrows and made a funny but demeaning remark about string theory to Brian Green. Since then I've wondered if its real. As Albert Einstein considered relativity when he remarked to his friend Michele Besso, "I wonder if its just God playing tricks with me"?
String theory puts food on the table. But the feast is over.
I would really like to see Paul doing a talk at Royal Institution or at Science &
cocktails
I love diving down the quantum rabbit hole.
😂😂
"I'm just a poor country astrophysicist" haha love it. Great series Paul! How about you move on to Quantum Field Theory, as it seems like that's more important/relevant/exciting. Thank you!
Good series. I don't want to put the cat among the canaries too much, but I wouldn't mind seeing something comparing string theory with quantum loop gravity. The only major difference I know is that ST is background independent (Newtonian) while QLG is background dependent (Relativistic). I haven't seen all of your videos, so you may have covered this already.
P.S. String theory is definitely worth continuing to work on, for its natural inclusion of quantum gravity if nothing else. That makes it incredibly important.
I've heard about String Theory, ive not heard about Quantum Field Theory.
That’s the problem with string theory, it has taken away from the actual theories that have supporting observations and predictions.
Qft is like what happens when you solve quantum mechanics in the most general case. Quantum mechanics is just a set of rules and some equations. Like suppose you know magnets pick up iron that's magnetism right? But the Maxwell equations give you all the solutions to em. That's what it's like. In qft you work with the field equations for the forces electro weak and strong.
Yesterday I actually saw a string!! I used it in my shoes
Thank you Paul.
Paul, it's been pointed out before but your auto focus is misidentifying your microphone as your skull resulting in intermittent blurryness.
If it can’t be disproved, is it really a theory. M Theory is still a promise to deliver a theory.
As a non physicist I think I’m best to treat it with skepticism.
Loop Quantum Gravity!!!! We need to give LQG a chance. I'm not an expert but I get the impression from things I've read and watched that LQG is more in the realm of things that could be tested in the not too distant future, or at least that it could be tested more easily then string theory.
Paul, is it me, or did you just basically say that String theory is "Pop-Sci" for physicists? XD
Another thought, before shelving String Theory there are other, not unrelated, fields that require refinement. For instance the internal workings of protons, how their Quarks organise, and I’m claiming naming rights here, their Quarkitecture, to build the nuclei of the atoms that are the macro building blocks of the Universe. There is so much more to know at this scale, and I am dying to know!
An idea to simplify math; if in quantum string theory we replace the quantum string with a spherical quantum “rosebud”, then in the physical model we will show how it works; quantum gravity, entanglement of quantum particles, dark energy of the Universe, how to construct smooth Einstein space in the chaos of quantum fields ....
Thanks for the series on string theory. You make a lot of good points. Maybe it’s time for physicists to start looking elsewhere.
Thx for the great series, finally I understand a little bit what the string theory is in general. Could you please sort your videos in ordinal order? It is a little bit funny when so smart man can not sort his video playlist. :)
Great series. Thank you.
42!
Now let's see what the question was.
How about talking about loop quantum gravity? That seems to be the main competitor of string theory.
This was a great series. Thank you. String theory has got to go.
I may be incorrect but in string theory the constants of nature are based on the manifolds created by compactication of other dimensions. Since in theory there may be infinite shapes of these manifolds can you really say that the problem of the constants of nature has been resolved?
Perhaps our universe/reality is ultimately a composite of QM and GR layers.
It made Brian Greene and Lisa Randall some money.
This is a classical case where the solution is more complicated than its problem.
Hi there,
Does string theory fit with cosmic inflation or ideas of eternal inflation ??
Frankly, 50 years is not an inordinate amount of time for a really fundamental problem of physics to remain unsolved. Virtually everything you said about string theory seems to apply to quantum field theory as well. We can't just give up on both. You say that string theory has no tunable parameters, but you then say that string theory has all these weird multiverses because it has arbitrary parameters. Umm, damned if you don't and damned if you do.
Personally, QFT and ST seem to be making the same dodgy assumption. A particle, say a photon of a certain energy, is created at one point in spacetime and then is destroyed later at another point. How do we know that it's the same photon? Virtually all quantum strangeness seems to come from this assumption and I'm not certain that it has to be true. In QFT, aren't "individual" photons just manifestations of quantized changes in a field?
What would you replace it with? It seems like String Theory remains because there isn't anything else to replace it.
sometimes there are answers science isn't ready to solve. For instance, suppose you are in ancient greece and someone creates a theory of the types of crops that grow well in North America. And nobody has been to North American, nobody knows what grows there, and in fact nobody is even sure if there's a continent on the other side of the world. That's where string theory is. We need more experimental data so we can figure out if we are even in the right ball park. So the question is not really "What can we replace it with, what's the grand unified theory" but the real question is, "What kinds of questions can we even answer right now." And one question is what is dark matter. Another is what is dark energy. And then maybe in 10 years we can go back and work on a grand unified theory of everything. We just put the cart before the horse and were trying to run before we could walk You know einstein tried to create a grand unified theory. Except he didn't use the strong force. Didn't use the weak force. He was trying to unify electric and gravity and figured that would be the grand unified theory.
@@bonerici Game designers like to completely rebuild their games from scratch every time. Perhaps they are control freaks. It seems really inefficient to reinvent the wheel every time. Hopefully game designers and theoretical physicists can compartmentalize sub programs and draw from the ones that work and retool only the ones that need to be updated for advancements and new games and new theories.
time for kacu to get a real job! :p
Holy Hell.
There is only ever a full spin boson exchanged between two half spin fermions.
Is that really so hard to see?
Holy Hell!
Very good!
Did Paul Sutter just break up with string theory?
LQP or Loop Quantum Gravity may have the answers to to unify quantum gravity with general relativity. LQP may also be able to make predictions were as String theory has failed to in providing evidence in searching for the graviton and other super symmetric particles using the particle accelerator. 🤔
Hmmmm 🤔 Good stuff, good stuff!
I use strings to build NET with which to catch big fishy=CETUS(who is sh don't tell anyone Scorpio's spooky at a distance which is what is seen in ancient Sumerian symbolism which also shows a long ago version of my archetype). Man am I a long term planner or what LOL. OC~~~
For what String Theory has given us in 60 years, I don't think it is worth it. It would be worth more if we could use those strings to stitch other theories together.
Leo susskind left the chat
Maybe there is no quantum gravity. Maybe gravity is just a curvature of space that exist only on macro level, for objects that are big enough, I don’t know I am not a physicist, it’s just a thought.
Thanks for the series but the conclusion is sad
If quantum field theory has a future then please tell us about it. I have never heard of it
How can we find strings if they are million times smaller than everything we know? I didn't understand this...
this must be the last episode of the string theory .
Oscar prize:.. and the winner iiiiizzzz... 😂👏👍🤘🖖
Support Spring Theory the Slinky is an obvious clue
“How can you tell if you are right?” String theory to me is really energy theory, and the most fascinating mental endeavour under way today. The real trigger for the possibility of an understanding of everything came with Higgs field concept which reduced the “magic” nature of energy. The standard model as it stands has too many “magical” components (different forces, strange properties, etc) to be the final answer. There is just one primary component to the Universe if entropy is consistent, and that component has to be energy. So how does one component transition to form a complex Universe? That is the real quest, and I fully expect the secret to be Dark Energy and that is where string theorists will eventually be led. I think Science is examining the challenge of Energy Theory from the wrong direction.
Great stuff. But here's the thing. If string theory or some better theory of everything gives us the ability to morph weak nuclear force into gravity or just a better kind of velcro, it's done the job. But, if you come out the other side and find that all you made was a tool to solve NxN sudoku's and a Nobel prize, congrats but I still need that warp drive. I hope we don't lose the big one to Skynet and Cyberdyne, or the Chinese. Where is that whiz kid working in his dorm room or the low performing patent clerk that's going to get us to New Earth? Musk's SN99 ain't gonna do it.
One is a physicist when one is doing physics.
String Theory is not uniquely predictive.
String Theory is a mathematical creation of the human mind.
That's old, and we wrote all these texts to get off them
No views, but one like?
go home youtube...you're drunk
Early release for Patrons.
Strictly-speaking, String theory is neither a theory nor a scientific endeavor. It’s not a theory because it has not resulted in any testable predictions, much less any experimental evidence/proof. And it’s not science, because so far it’s not even in the realm of being subject to falsifiability. What it is, however, is a philosophical take on the physical world, with an elegant and internally consistent mathematical framework. Nothing more, nothing less, for the time being. That said, one honestly hopes that anything with that much mathematical beauty and inherent elegance must embody at least a trace of the truth.
If I was going to invest in something for rich profitable returns, string theory wouldn't be it. Not until it can produce a practical application in a physical field of expertise useful for enhancing efficiency. It's fun and intriguing, but so far that's what it is.
String "theory" is philosophy.
Surface tension and electromagnetic attraction bind microscopic objects, larger objects have inertia and just push smaller things through space.
Grow up. "Electric universe" is a cult for retards.
@@domcasmurro2417 Expound, please.
Who said "Electric Universe" and who is in a cult?
Cults keep you from communicating with others who might disrupt the cult, and they indoctrinate people into their way.
Where is this cult? Why can't you disagree with what I wrote instead of insulting me for sharing an apparent fact?
Oh! Are you just lying to me because you think shouting insults at people who are smarter than you will make you smart?
Try learning things and growing your intelligence; cutting down smart people doesn't make you smart, it makes the whole of humanity stupider.
People are already reacting to reality in the stupidest way possible, like in a horror film.
What exactly do you disagree with in my comment, and if the answer is: "Nothing", then shut up.