It's one of the most brilliant, controversial and unproven ideas in all of physics: string theory. At the heart of string theory is the thread of an idea that's run through physics for centuries, that at some fundamental level, all the different forces, particles, interactions and manifestations of reality are tied together as part of the same framework. Instead of four independent fundamental forces -- strong, electromagnetic, weak and gravitational -- there's one unified theory that encompasses all of them. In many regards, string theory is the best contender for a quantum theory of gravitation, which just happens to unify at the highest-energy scales. Although there's no experimental evidence for it, there are compelling theoretical reasons to think it might be true. A year ago, the top living string theorist, Ed Witten, wrote a piece on what every physicist should know about string theory. Here's what that means, translated for non-physicists.
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Tuesday December 06 2016, @08:45AM
If you cannot use string theory to describe the universe, it does not work as a physical theory. It is no more useful than the theory that the universe behaves how it does because god told the universe to behave as it does.
So let me get this straight: string theory is how God told the universe, but string theorists, being those that understand God, can change the parameters so that we do not need God. God damn, in more ways than one.
But, yeah, not predictable experimental outcomes, and it is all dark matter from there on out. And of course this is the universe, since god would only have created the most perfectly perfect universe that was perfect. ( Spinoza channeled through Leibniz here) Thus, this is the most perfect universe, and everything in it is a vibrating string! (OK, original quote, from F. H. Bradley, everything is a necessary evil, close enough?)