Video wird geladen...
Video konnte nicht geladen werden
Everyone assumed string theory was finally dying. It's not dying. It's worse. Physicists have written more papers on string theory than on any other idea in the field's history. Fifty years of work. It has never once produced a testable prediction. Last week an essay asked the question directly:... show more
38,340 Aufrufe • vor 19 Tagen •via X (Twitter)
59 Kommentare
Sicim teorisi ve diğer teoriler çöpe gidecek. Her şeyin teorisi burada! Tek temel kuvvet ve fizik yasası ile tamamı test edilebilir, gözlenebilir ve/veya analojisi mevcut sayısız önerme ve hipotez üretilir.
I think your critique is generally accurate for string theory as such, but I’d nuance one thing: not every “string‑adjacent” framework is equally prediction‑free. For example, celestial holography does have testable predictions — gravitational lensing signatures at the Λ→0 boundary where expansion begins, and even the Great Attractor regime where gravitational flow dominates over expansion. Those are concrete observables, not metaphysical extrapolations. String theory itself is still mandatory in university, but mostly because it teaches a way of working with dimensions, moduli and consistency conditions — not because it has delivered empirical results. One thing I’ve always found striking: string theory can’t give us a dynamic universe. It gives us a landscape, not an evolving cosmology. That’s why I personally lean toward frameworks that actually produce observables instead of infinite vacua. Also, urbal moonshine is underrated.
Fair distinction, and noted on celestial holography. But that's a prediction from AdS/CFT-adjacent math, not from string theory's own particle content — which was the original 50-year promise. 'String-adjacent math produced something testable' kind of proves the post's point rather than answering it."
It's not physics nor solid science. It is science fiction and fantasy, built upon unproven assertions and mathematical imagination.
It ain't just physics and string theory. Almost an identical problem in biology with the gene centric model for development. Same issue for people transitioning from thinking in terms "thing/events" to "relations" or fields. Our common sense is slipping away.
String theory, a mixture between: 👉Math 👉Physics ideas 👉Religion alike (We believe it is true!) ? What is string theory exactly? Is it (even) a theory?
I don't believe that failing is as bad as it seems. How can we not try to unify the four fundamental forces and two pillars of modern physics given that unifying everything else has turned out so well? Assume we don't try at all, that would be a waste. We must try and risk fails.
Average Humist will pretend tk be a skeptic but swallow the likes of string theory rubbish wholesale Can't stand 'em
The idea behind string theory is that if you like maths a lot and physics a little bit, but have zero useful skills, you have to make up some weird shit to make sure you can stay in academia.
@pangram ai?
You just perfectly diagnosed the ultimate "Math First" failure of modern physics. String Theory isn't physics; it is a 50-year mathematical ghost chase. When an entire industry assumes space is an empty void, they are forced to invent imaginary 11-dimensional "strings" just to make their abstract ledgers balance.
String Theory was never physics, it's mathematical masturbation
So like most of our physics is done through actual evidence and measurement. Most of it is lab level provable. String theory is basically what you get when you try and do the rest of quantum physics on paper only, with pure math.
This needs a lot more nuance. String theory is a theory of quantum gravity, and works in regimes that are difficult to test (not a lot of empirical predictions have been made by other theories of quantum gravity either). Testing is hard at the Planck length.
Appreciate the honesty here — 'we look to other features of the theory to inspire confidence' is basically the mechanism the post is describing, just stated more carefully. Consistency and mathematical fertility are real virtues, but they're the same virtues you'd expect from a beautiful piece of math that has no obligation to describe our universe. That's the whole tension: at what point does 'inspires confidence' stop being physics and start being taste?
I got the impression (which may be incorrect) that the phrasing of the post implied some ad-hoc criteria for confidence. Infact, such criteria have guided the development of many physical theories. General Relativity is one such example.
I should also clarify that by consistency, I mean that perturbative string theory successfully avoids divergences. This is stronger than simple mathematical consistency, I believe. We also have non-trivial results such as Black Hole microstate counting which offer credence.
I should emphasize that I don't disagree with your overall idea. We need experiments, and no theory stands without them (and shouldn't). My only point is that in the process of theory construction, we don't always have experimental observations to guide us, as is the case in QG.
Good clarifications, genuinely — this is the exchange the post was hoping for. Two things though: GR's 'ad-hoc' criteria (the equivalence principle) cashed out into a falsifiable, checkable prediction — Mercury's perihelion, then light bending — within a few years, not decades. The point was never that starting from elegance is illegitimate. It's how fast elegance turned into a number nature could check. Black hole microstate counting is real and non-trivial, but it's internal: string theory's count matching the Bekenstein-Hawking formula is two theoretical frameworks agreeing with each other, not with an observation. Promising, sure. Not the same thing as cashing the check.
I agree with your assessment of the microstate result. I would present it only as the sort of "reasonable" criteria that string theorists presents in their favour. With GR, the empirical "returns" came much quicker than they have in string theory that is true, but —
Is that a flaw of the theory, or a difficulty associated with the sorts of questions it is trying to answer? As of now, we may say its a mix of both. However, the case is more extreme than GR. Astrophysical pheomena are, after all, easier to test than anything at Planck Scale.
People like you may have a problem with both pure mathematics and mathematical physics entirely, even mathematical finance perhaps because it's continuous unlike real world markets.
Zero problem with pure math — it doesn't need empirical results to justify itself, that's the whole point of it. The problem is calling something 'the leading theory of everything' while playing by math's rules but claiming physics's authority.
I think that's more to do with media, this nonsense 'leading theory of everything' claim is not actually proposed by actual working mathematical physicists. This Higgs Boson as god-particle narrative was also not started by physicists. So, you need to blame the media & pop culture which unnecessarily hypes theoretical research.
The working mathematical physicists' are pretty clear that string theory is primarily a mathematical theory only at this point of time. String theorists themselves know pretty well that it doesn't have empirical validation currently and they don't claim otherwise. It's the media & science pop culture who tries to wrongly hype it.
@AlexCarten_ A few string theorists are responsible for this. Popularity means funding. More students wanting to pursue it. While effectively equivalent to any other topic in pure maths, string theory receives far, far more attention within and outside academia. And most students often don't
@AlexCarten_ Those who popularized it on TV, etc. like Brian Greene, etc. perhaps.
@AlexCarten_ Yes 😹 I did not wish to take names, but yes There was a point in time when it was almost a religion, a cult amongst the young enthusiastic students. Our super-seniors. Amongst my peers, a few handful are like that, which is fine I believe as it is indeed worth researching in
@AlexCarten_ I think, in physics, this has happened a lot. It happened once with GR, QCD, etc. too, don't you think? So, it's pretty normal to have one field becoming hot temporarily among students & researchers.
A theory can be mathematically beautiful and still owe physics a test
Wait - so Sheldon was right to quit?
Sheldon quit over a string theory paper. This post is basically him being vindicated 15 years later.
Fair at the framework level: a landscape can't be falsified. A construction inside it can and there's a clean test for tautology: change the free choice and see if the prediction moves. If the main outputs don't depend on it, it's physics. If everything does, it's fitting.
It was a way to distract the top talent to prevent us from destroying ourselves.
It is written:"Let the dead bury the dead". It doesn't say: "Chase the dead as if the future of physics depended on it."
"theory of observed patterns" - that is what is needed Here, strings will just reduce down to just a specialised pattern for the space-time we exist in. If you assume the universe doesn't exist, it means even dimensions, observer etc don't exist! shUnya!
People aren't ready for the real answer so we get String Theory to distract us
A theory survives as long as enough people buy into it—figuratively and literally.
Yes, so much esoteric fantacising. Ditto the multiverse hypothesis.
String theory chooses an analogy [= like a string] for its explicative concept. Any description of that which exists requires an explanation as of itself, not as of "something else something like it" [an analogy]. POV
Even more on dark bs, quantum nonsense and horizon hogwash😎
The passengers on the gravy train now run the gravy train.
That's the whole post in one sentence, honestly.
Btw, electromagnetism is perfectly described by formula. It is the only force we've more or less completely mastered. Maxwell's equations describe it perfectly.
isn't it M-theory now? 11 dimensions or something
You do know that we only sense less than 5% of Universe. It is like speaking about Jungles , by looking at your cat.
String Theory has been called the Perfect Religion in that it cannot ever be tested much less proven. As in any Religion it has it's hierarchy of Clergy who can never be questioned either.
Most papers on “string theory” nowadays are of essentially mathematical nature, and not even particularly related to string theory per se. Things like mirror symmetry and integrable systems are super popular, but their relation to string theory is very tangential at this point.
Fair — and that's kind of the point, no? If most 'string theory' papers today are really just math with the label still stapled on for the grant application, that's not a defense of the physics. That's the tautology getting bigger, not smaller.
First, it’s not a tautology. there’s some really serious research going on there. Secondly, mathematical physics has been around for a very long time. Euler, Lagrange, Hamilton and others were primarily mathematicians who solved toy models and developed theory for its own sake. There’s no problem that string theory has become an area of mathematical physics, and is very popular as such. Fortunately, it doesn’t require much money (unlike LHC etc).
Euler and Lagrange were doing math for math's sake too, sure — but their formalism kept plugging back into physics that was already being tested elsewhere: orbits, mechanics, real measurable stuff. String theory's formalism has had 50 years and nothing external to plug back into. Being cheap and popular as pure math is fine by me. Calling it 'our best hope for a theory of everything' isn't a math claim anymore — that's the sleight of hand the post is about.
About math: yes, I think it’s true, but math in general become so vast and abstract nowadays. Theory is just so much ahead of practical questions, and practical questions are mostly so mathematically boring that not so many people want to work on them. I generally don’t know many interesting mathematical questions arising in modern physics that relate to actual experiments etc. Confinement problem is perhaps one example, but this is precisely where “string theory” research becomes relevant, and actual physicists in the other hand don’t seem to be particularly interested. About the second point: yes, it’s clearly not a theory of everything, or a candidate for such.
That last line is honestly the whole post — 'not a theory of everything, or a candidate for such.' If more of the field said that plainly instead of citing it as our best hope for one, this conversation doesn't need to happen. The confinement point is genuinely interesting though: the one place the math actually touches something physicists care about, and the people who could use it aren't reaching for it. That's a real, specific gap — a lot more precise than 'string theory failed.
Do physicists really care about it though?
Fair check. Confinement itself — yes, hugely, it's basically its own Millennium Prize problem (Yang-Mills mass gap). What most of the field reaches for to attack it is lattice QCD, not string-theoretic holographic methods. So 'do physicists care about the problem' — very much yes. 'Do they reach for the string theory angle on it' — a lot less than the math would suggest they should. That's the more precise version of the gap I was pointing at.
Well, thats... cool, but I litterally made a Characterization Theorum for Quantum Gravity from causality... with actual formulas, and im calculating superconductivity, quantum mechanics, galactic curves, predicting all JWST anomalies and every unexplained artifact found.
Btw, this idea of "not touching anything" and a denial of the experienced world, leads directly to the meaning crisis and the collective nihilist tendencies we have. Your love isn't "real"....just a fever dream of sorts. Your missing the boat.
Self certification is a thing, but not a theory.
A pseudo science.
![What String Theory Does That Classical Physics Doesn’t Classical Physics begins with a point particle. Its position is described by one function of time x = x(t) As time passes, that point traces a curve through Spacetime called a worldline. String theory changes the starting object. A string has length, so time alone is not enough. We also need a coordinate along the string Xᵘ = Xᵘ(τ, σ) Here τ is worldsheet time, and σ labels position along the string. As the string moves, it sweeps out a surface called a worldsheet. The action measures the area of that surface S = -T ∫ dτ dσ √[-det hₐᵦ] This is where string theory begins. #StringTheory #ClassicalMechanics #TheoreticalPhysics #Worldsheet #QuantumGravity #MathematicalPhysics #Spacetime #PhysicsVisualization #ScienceEducation](https://image.24vids.com/tw-2071782653909434562/amplify_video_thumb/2071782297662115840/img/9RLCJpQTdf_RlcY5.jpg)
![String Theory Lecture 1 A String Does Not Move Like a Point A point particle traces a line through spacetime. A string traces a surface. This is the first geometric shift in String Theory. Particle mechanics asks where one object is at time t, so its history is a curve. String Theory asks where every point of an extended object is at worldsheet time τ, so we need another coordinate telling us where we are along the string. For a point particle x(t) So, for one input of time we get a position in Spacetime. For a string Xᵘ(τ,σ) Here τ plays the role of time on the worldsheet, while σ labels position along the string. Freeze τ and vary σ, and you see the string at one instant. Let τ move, and that curve sweeps out a two-dimensional surface... the worldsheet. The same comparison appears in the action. For a relativistic point particle, the geometric action measures worldline length S = −m ∫ ds If we parameterize the path by t, the action has one integral, one parameter, and one tangent vector dxᵘ/dt For a string, the same idea grows by one dimension. The action measures area, not length. In Nambu-Goto form, S = −T ∫ dτ dσ √[−det hₐᵦ] Here T is the string tension. It plays a role similar to mass, but for an extended object. It weights the area of a surface rather than the length of a line. The particle action has ∫ dt because the history is one-dimensional. The string action has ∫ dτ dσ because the history is two-dimensional. We are no longer summing along a path, we are summing over a surface. The geometry changes for the same reason. For the particle, one derivative is enough dxᵘ/dt For the string, the geometry is built from two derivatives: ∂τXᵘ and ∂σXᵘ The first tells you how the string changes as worldsheet time flows. The second tells you how the embedding changes as you move along the string. Together they define the induced worldsheet metric hₐᵦ = ∂ₐXᵘ ∂ᵦXᵤ In plain terms, hₐᵦ measures tangent lengths and tangent angles on the worldsheet. From it, the area element is dA = dτ dσ √[−det hₐᵦ] This, the Nambu-Goto action is the direct analogue of the point-particle length action. The point particle extremizes length and the string extremizes area. For calculations, people usually switch to the Polyakov action: S = −(T/2) ∫ dτ dσ √[−γ] γᵃᵇ ∂ₐXᵘ ∂ᵦXᵤ This describes the same classical string dynamics, but the algebra is cleaner. After choosing conformal gauge, varying with respect to Xᵘ gives (∂²/∂τ² − ∂²/∂σ²) Xᵘ = 0 This is the first real dynamical payoff... a two-dimensional wave equation on the worldsheet. For a point particle, the equation of motion tells you how one position evolves along one path. For a string, it tells you how an entire curve evolves, with waves traveling along it. The term ∂²Xᵘ/∂τ² measures acceleration in worldsheet time, while ∂²Xᵘ/∂σ² measures curvature along the string. The time evolution is balanced by how the string bends along its own length. This is why strings have oscillation modes. A point particle has one trajectory. A string has many possible vibration patterns, each one a normal mode of the worldsheet wave equation. For a closed string, σ wraps around the loop Xᵘ(τ, σ + 2π) = Xᵘ(τ, σ) For an open string, one standard free-end condition is ∂σXᵘ = 0 at the endpoints. Solving the wave equation gives waves moving in opposite directions along the string Xᵘ(τ,σ) = Fᵘ(τ + σ) + Gᵘ(τ − σ) A function of τ + σ moves one way. A function of τ − σ moves the other. Therefore, a particle has a worldline, its action measures length, and its geometry uses one tangent. The string has a worldsheet, its action measures area, and its geometry uses two tangent directions. #StringTheory #TheoreticalPhysics #MathematicalPhysics #Physics #Spacetime](https://image.24vids.com/tw-2047925796963004514/amplify_video_thumb/2047925638485753856/img/d0IV19m4OAIfEf0I.jpg)
