Further to: Article in Nature defends integrity of physics against multiverse, string theory, we learn from Brian Greene in the Smithsonian mag:
Looking back, I’m gratified at how far we’ve come but disappointed that a connection to experiment continues o elude us. While my own research has migrated from highly mathematical forays into extra-dimensional arcana to more applied studies of string theory’s cosmological insights, I now hold only modest hope that the theory will confront data during my lifetime.
Even so, string theory’s pull remains strong. Its ability to seamlessly meld general relativity and quantum mechanics remains a primary achievement, but the allure goes deeper still. Within its majestic mathematical structure, a diligent researcher would find all of the best ideas physicists have carefully developed over the past few hundred years. It’s hard to believe such depth of insight is accidental.
I like to think that Einstein would look at string theory’s journey and smile, enjoying the theory’s remarkable geometrical features while feeling kinship with fellow travelers on the long and winding road toward unification. All the same, science is powerfully self-correcting. Should decades drift by without experimental support, I imagine that string theory will be absorbed by other areas of science and mathematics, and slowly shed a unique identity. In the interim, vigorous research and a large dose of patience are surely warranted. If experimental confirmation of string theory is in the offing, future generations will look back on our era as transformative, a time when science had the fortitude to nurture a remarkable and challenging theory, resulting in one of the most profound steps toward understanding reality.
More.
Did you note this?: “I now hold only modest hope that the theory will confront data during my lifetime.” Data used to be a starting point for science, not a wistful modest hope.
I have been hearing this kind of thing since I started the beat a dozen years ago. The string monster doesn’t die because it can’t.
Look, can we just be honest about something for once?
If string theory had any backing at all, given its possible promotion of the multiverse, it would be court-ordered in the compulsory school system now, and there would be National Center for Science Educations and BioLogos’s getting funding to defend it, to gullible atheists and gullible Christians respectively.
Darwinism settled in early and has taken a long time to disconfirm. But this sucker never even got off the ground once. Still, there are still a bunch of people running along the runway, supporting the wings and hoping the oomph! lift will be enough. I expect that to continue indefinitely. – O’Leary for News
See also: The multiverse: Where everything turns out to be true, except philosophy and religion
As if the multiverse wasn’t bizarre enough …meet Many Worlds
In search of a road to reality
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