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41 Comments
- Smokeydabear, on 06/01/2009, -3/+58String theory #1: Cats enjoy string.
Status: Confirmed - Phocion55, on 06/01/2009, -3/+26http://xkcd.com/171/
- Lykil, on 06/01/2009, -1/+15"...several hundred string theorists joined in with a specially composed song, The Maldacena, to the tune of the then-popular dance hit The Macarena."
Good thing none of those prejudices about string theorists' tastes and sense of humor are true. - kukurio, on 06/01/2009, -0/+9String theory does make testable predictions. It's just that they're untestable with our current level of technology.
- Zoshchenko, on 06/01/2009, -2/+9As I continued to read this article, the words started to maik leess and leeass seencts and I fund meesoelf gittteng looosted.....
I feel stupid. - jgtg32a, on 06/01/2009, -0/+6I was thinking more of this one
http://xkcd.com/397/ - yttrstein, on 06/01/2009, -1/+7Actually string theorists and non string theorists alike agree that it adds quite a bit to mathematics, philosophy (in the form of causal logic) and physics. As youll find at any number of the harder-core seminars on the subject and related subjects, generally the people who are vehemently against string theory are the people who don't understand the math.
- inactive, on 06/01/2009, -0/+4You've been fooled. Space is very likely not infinite. It's most likely that space is curved in on itself. You know how in Asteroids if you wandered past the edge of the screen you'd show up on the other side? It's kinda like that. Except the distances are ***** huge and there's a lot of empty space.
- diggforworld, on 06/01/2009, -1/+5Dugg for posting appropriate XKCD.
- Jektal, on 06/01/2009, -0/+4"Many respectable physicists said that they weren't going to stand for this — partly because it was a debasement of science, but mostly because they didn't get invited to those sort of parties."
- subliminalurge, on 06/01/2009, -0/+3String... the perfect choice for those occasions when thread just won't do the job, but rope is complete overkill.
- jasdf, on 06/01/2009, -1/+4Isn't it funny how comedy often summarizes reality so well.
- cosworth99, on 06/01/2009, -0/+3Dugg for losing me at 11 paragraphs.
- lump1, on 06/01/2009, -0/+3This article is actually worth reading. Seriously - I'm not a real physicist, but I always suspected that string theory was more of a religion than science. Now I'm starting to think that it may be on to something. I strongly suspect that when this is done (when we figure out the theory of everything and have a few generations to digest what it means), we won't be saying that the universe is made of tiny vibrating strings - we'll find a much less spooky reformulation. Still, this AdS/CFT stuff is making me think that formal structures from string theory really will help pave the path to the final theory.
- TheMachine1, on 06/01/2009, -0/+2"dense fireball of quarks and gluons"
If I was cool I would walk away from it and never look back.
- SDM187, on 06/01/2009, -1/+3Knitting
- DivineMonkey, on 06/01/2009, -0/+2"A world without string is chaos" - From the movie mouse hunt, though it never made sense when i heard that as a kid, i guess it does now...
- impaKt, on 06/02/2009, -0/+1Superstring theory is obviously a search for the ultimate constitution of matter (which was the first question in the history of philosophy). But the ultimate substratum will not be a plurality (I refer to the plural: strings). It will be a continuum (and I do not refer to the space-time continuum, nor a quantitative continuum); for one would have to explain the discrete character of the "strings". Also, an equation presupposes number, and number is an organized multitude, which is identified and measured by unity. The unity is not itself a number (1 is not a number, but the principle of number). Number presupposes quantity, and quantity assumes unity (it is the condition for the possibility of number). So number is not fundamental, which is why it does not explain the nature of things. And the ultimate substratum of the universe that must be a continuum cannot itself be something subject to measurement. When we speak of "the nature of" something, we speak of a quality, not a quantity; a "what", not a "how much". The nature of something is prior to its quantity (quantity always refers to the quantity of some definite kind of thing). So mathematics and mathematical physics will not provide us with the answer to the question of the ultimate constitution of matter (which, incidentally, Heisenberg clearly understood). The equation for the theory of everything is simply the resurrection of the Pythagorean dream of explaining the substance of things by an appeal to number. - Doug McManaman
- ray4389, on 06/01/2009, -0/+1Binky: Best XKCD ever!
Me: Bink79, shut the ***** up.
Binky: Best advice ever!
Me: FML.
Digg: GMH - Nebarik, on 06/02/2009, -0/+1should i feel bad for digging you up?
- TrevorBradley, on 06/01/2009, -2/+3Get back to me when string theory predicts *anything* testable the existing theories already haven't.
I agree it's elegant, I'm just not convinced it adds anything to physics. - lincolnparkx, on 06/01/2009, -0/+1Someone write a story on chaos theory.. now that is interesting
- cyrusuncc, on 06/01/2009, -11/+12Absolutely nothing!
wait.. maybe that's War - digitalArtform, on 06/01/2009, -1/+2What have I got in my pockets?
String. Or nothing! - Shwaavay, on 06/01/2009, -3/+4The same thing came into my head when I read the title....
String... huh!... theory... what is it good for... absolutely nothin - say it again. - dvnt1, on 06/01/2009, -0/+1Did you read the article? It was explained that pieces of string theory are quite accurately describing superconductors on the quantum (extremely small) scale.
""I am flabbergasted," says Jan Zaanen, a condensed matter theorist from the University of Leiden in the Netherlands. "The theory is calculating precisely what we are seeing in experiments."" - Gankfest, on 06/01/2009, -0/+1String, string never changes...
- yngtimmy, on 06/01/2009, -1/+2Kites?
- gendou, on 06/01/2009, -1/+2I found this article very well written. It's quite informative and does a good job explaining the history of string theory for such a short article. Go New Scientist!
- Tuscanspeed, on 06/02/2009, -0/+0These are the important parts. Pretty sure it's a good thing when you can simplify the math.
"The paper by Hartnoll and his colleagues concerned the Nernst effect, which occurs when a magnetic field and a temperature gradient applied to a material produce a voltage at right angles to both. The effect is particularly pronounced in high-temperature superconductors. Conventional theory can predict the magnitude of the Nernst effect, but requires pages of laborious algebra. Hartnoll's team showed that AdS/CFT correspondence produces the same answer in just a few lines. It was the first time that AdS/CFT and normal approaches had been tested against a real experimental result in condensed matter physics - and the language of black holes came up with by far the more fluent answer."
"High-temperature superconductors are not the only useful materials that might benefit from the AdS/CFT approach. Sachdev has used the correspondence to compute properties of the plasma of electrons found in graphene - sheets of graphite a single atom thick that have been touted as a successor to silicon as the base materials of microelectronics." - Ramble, on 06/01/2009, -1/+1I think perhaps some of the CS majors here should stop with their opinions on string theory. I'm a physicist and until I'm able to comprehend the mathematics behind it I'm holding my opinion.
- CoD4, on 06/01/2009, -3/+2Beef with string beans, getting hungry!
- ByteMeAHole, on 06/01/2009, -3/+2String Theory is worthless, since there is no way to prove it, and predictions are non-unique - meaning you can get mutually exclusive results depending on the method used to come to a conclusion. You might as well label it as religion...
- diggmind, on 06/01/2009, -5/+3Interesting to see that many of the scientists or schools in this story are from the U.S. The lack of major breakthroughs in this field and others of physics can seem discouraging; and even more so as the U.S. educational system is falling behind countries like Japan in subjects such as science. Maybe string theorists in the U.S. will make physics popular again.
- sndream, on 06/01/2009, -7/+4"others portray it as anything from a mathematically obtuse minefield to a quasi-religion that has precious little to do with science."
If String Theory is a religion, then string theorists and physicist won't have to work on it over the last 20 years. They will just it is true, the "real deal" and demand you to provide proof that it's wrong and after you able to do it, they retreat from reality into faith. - clutchdude, on 06/01/2009, -3/+0Cheese!
- t0x2c, on 06/01/2009, -5/+2Actually the XKCD is misleading. String theory sucks at describing our universe, but the math behind it is extremely sound.
The anti-de-Sitter theory is more like what the comic jokes about.
"What if we encoded our universe into one dimension less than it is now"
"what would that imply"
"I dunno" - JimSartor, on 06/01/2009, -6/+2FTA: "In 2005, three theorists used these connections to calculate the viscosity of a quark-gluon plasma through the holographically equivalent problem of how a black hole in an anti-de-Sitter space absorbs gravitational waves."
What is String Theory good for? Absolutely nothing unless you are actually in the field. - Akraz, on 06/01/2009, -8/+3tying up little boys?
- inactive, on 06/01/2009, -5/+0Wake me up when someone figures out.
How space can be infinite (everything i see has a dimension, and inside and an outside, nothing appears infinite)
What is space (everything is expanding, expanding into what?) - diggforworld, on 06/01/2009, -10/+2I can haz a ball of strings?
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