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posted by Fnord666 on Tuesday December 06 2016, @06:01AM   Printer-friendly
from the my-cat's-favorite-theory dept.

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 theoryHere's what that means, translated for non-physicists.


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  • (Score: 2) by dlb on Tuesday December 06 2016, @04:46PM

    by dlb (4790) on Tuesday December 06 2016, @04:46PM (#437824)
    String Theory is also testable...just like Einstein's theories were, but the "...technology to actually test them had to come along after the fact". Unlike previous theories, unfortunately, String Theory involves energies beyond our ability to produce and control. Probably for some time to come. And that's the rub. The scale of ST could well be reaching the fundamental building block(s) of existence...space, time, matter/energy. When the low-hanging fruit are gone, and all that's left is hanging at the very top, it'll take some cleverness and time to reach it.
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