1. It's not possible to get the Standard Model of particle physics out of it.
2. It is possible to uniquely get the Standard Model out of it, to get it and no other possibility.
3. It is possible to get the Standard Model out of it, but also oodles of other possibilities.

Life wrote:Theoretical physicists claim that string theory makes astoningnishly accurate predictions but which cannot be tested in the laboratory, therefor do not follow the scientific method and are thus unfalsifiable(?).

num1cubfn wrote:

Life wrote:Theoretical physicists claim that string theory makes astoningnishly accurate predictions but which cannot be tested in the laboratory, therefor do not follow the scientific method and are thus unfalsifiable(?).

I'd like to know how one ascertains the accuracy of said predictions if they cannot be tested in the laboratory.

newolder wrote:

num1cubfn wrote:

Life wrote:Theoretical physicists claim that string theory makes astoningnishly accurate predictions but which cannot be tested in the laboratory, therefor do not follow the scientific method and are thus unfalsifiable(?).

I'd like to know how one ascertains the accuracy of said predictions if they cannot be tested in the laboratory.

For example, a prediction (by a theory) about a distance, z metres, to the 1042th significant figure cannot be tested currently in any laboratory. Such a distance is 10 million times smaller than the realm where stringy physics is argued to begin and 10-27 times finer than the lhc's, femtometre resolution.

num1cubfn wrote:

newolder wrote:

num1cubfn wrote:

Life wrote:Theoretical physicists claim that string theory makes astoningnishly accurate predictions but which cannot be tested in the laboratory, therefor do not follow the scientific method and are thus unfalsifiable(?).

I'd like to know how one ascertains the accuracy of said predictions if they cannot be tested in the laboratory.

For example, a prediction (by a theory) about a distance, z metres, to the 1042th significant figure cannot be tested currently in any laboratory. Such a distance is 10 million times smaller than the realm where stringy physics is argued to begin and 10-27 times finer than the lhc's, femtometre resolution.

Thanks for that, that's amazing lol. Are you then agreeing with me? I can understand that there are things that we can't test, but what I'm asking is, if we can't test it how can we know that it's accurate.

rEvolutionist wrote:Doesn't string theory have infinite solutions? That is, it relies on setting unknown constants that could have any value possible, to a predetermined value so as to give an accurate solution. I.e. it is made to fit reality after the fact.

LIFE wrote:
And last but not least, why isn't the mathematical logic of String theory convincing evidence for its validity?

twistor59 wrote:Newolder, is that picture actually a representation of the string landscape ? Is there any info on what the x, y and z axes are representing there ?

abstract wrote:We discuss systematic approaches to the classification of string/M theory vacua, and physical questions this might help us resolve. To this end, we initiate the study of ensembles of effective Lagrangians, which can be used to precisely study the predictive power of string theory, and in simple examples can lead to universality results. Using these ideas, we outline an approach to estimating the number of vacua of string/M theory which can realize the Standard Model.

Introduction wrote:... To explain our point, let us imagine the logically simplest possible discussion of “string phenomenology.” It would be to show that N different vacua of string/M theory lead to Standard Model-like physics, but with many different values of the couplings, uniformly distributed in the space of possible couplings (we will make this more precise in section 5). Now the basic number characterizing our observational knowledge of the Standard Model is the volume in coupling space consistent with observations, measured in natural units, O(1) for dimensionless couplings and O(Mnpl) for a coupling of mass dimension n. If we include as couplings the Higgs mass and the cosmological constant, this number is of order 10−120−40−10−9−9−50 ∼ 10−238, where we count as independent the probability for a model to realize the observed cosmological constant, Higgs mass, fine structure constant, electron and proton mass, and a product of all other Standard Model couplings (being generous in the assumed accuracy here). This is a very high precision, but suppose string/M theory led to 101000 vacua which matched the Standard Model gauge group and low energy spectrum. If so, it is likely that, in the absence of a selection principle, string/M theory would lead to no testable predictions at all.

newolder wrote:

This might help: The statistics of string/M theory vacua by Michael R. Douglas (Journal reference: JHEP0305:046,2003)

Nautilidae wrote:String theory makes testable predictions. They simply haven't been tested yet. For instance, if the extra dimensions that it predicts exist, physicists expect black holes and massive string-balls to be produced in LHC collisions. The LHC should shed a lot of light on string theory.

LIFE wrote:

Nautilidae wrote:String theory makes testable predictions. They simply haven't been tested yet. For instance, if the extra dimensions that it predicts exist, physicists expect black holes and massive string-balls to be produced in LHC collisions. The LHC should shed a lot of light on string theory.

Yes, I was thinking about that too. So once they discover the graviton particle actually does exist it should be evidence for at least another dimension?

Zubin wrote:There are many physicists who are afraid of mathematics and wish to obscure knowledge such that mathematicians are unable to understand their work and do anything meaningful with it. A lot of physicists complain that string theory introduces too much math into physics, and thus should either: A) be considered a branch of mathematics, or B) ultimately be ignored.