{"id":3098,"date":"2012-11-21T10:00:10","date_gmt":"2012-11-21T15:00:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/?p=3098"},"modified":"2012-11-17T15:15:06","modified_gmt":"2012-11-17T20:15:06","slug":"string-theory-hubris-on-life-support","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/?p=3098","title":{"rendered":"String Theory Hubris on Life Support"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>it turns out that string theory and super-symmetry and dark matter are now <a href=\"http:\/\/www.realclearscience.com\/blog\/2012\/11\/string-theory-in-deep-trouble.html\" target=\"_blank\">on &#8216;life support&#8217;<\/a> from Large Hadron Collider results that far (or lack thereof).  <\/p>\n<p>Supersymmetry and string theory start from the philosophy that in order to further understand the mysteries of the cosmos and the crazy things happening in the sub-quantum world, and to reconcile them with the theories of relativity and gravitational dynamics developed by Albert Einstein, we need to further extend and develop the body of physics dedicated to sub-atomic particles (currently known as the Standard Particle Model).  I.e., our starting place must be the particle and the physics describing the particle.  <\/p>\n<p>But if supersymmetry and string theory get ruled out by dogs that don&#8217;t bark at the Large Hadron Collider . . .  then <!--more-->modern physicists and cosmologists need to find a whole new starting point for their thinking.  I myself would suggest that they hone in on the nature of &#8220;the field&#8221; and &#8220;the vacuum&#8221; (given the current views that our Universe started through a vacuum fluctuation that caused the &#8220;inflation field&#8221; to condensate some of its potential energy into the creation of spacetime and the birth of billion-trillion-zillions of quantum energy particles to fill it, i.e. &#8220;the Big Bang&#8221;.  <\/p>\n<p>Physicists talk about these vacuums and fields, and have a lot of descriptive equations and data on how they act and interact; but as to what they are on a more fundamental basis, how they relate to space and time and the particles that represent all the little rolling waves across them . . .  Yes, it will be a humbling moment for physics.  But perhaps a very necessary one, something that will eventually lead (possibly beyond my lifetime) to terrific new understandings of what it&#8217;s all about.  For now, though . . . so much for the hubris that string theory is the physics of the 22nd century that dropped by accident into the late 20th and early 21st century, recall the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.daviddarling.info\/encyclopedia\/S\/stringtheory.html\" target=\"_blank\">quote on that<\/a> from leading string theory physicist Edward Witten.  <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>it turns out that string theory and super-symmetry and dark matter are now on &#8216;life support&#8217; from Large Hadron Collider results that far (or lack thereof). Supersymmetry and string theory start from the philosophy that in order to further understand the mysteries of the cosmos and the crazy things happening in the sub-quantum world, and [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,23],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3098"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3098"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3098\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3100,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3098\/revisions\/3100"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3098"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3098"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3098"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}