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from the unterminated-strings-cause-inflation dept.
Submitted via IRC for SoyCow1984
Our universe: An expanding bubble in an extra dimension
According to string theory, all matter consists of tiny, vibrating "stringlike" entities. The theory also requires there to be more spatial dimensions than the three that are already part of everyday knowledge. For 15 years, there have been models in string theory that have been thought to give rise to dark energy. However, these have come in for increasingly harsh criticism, and several researchers are now asserting that none of the models proposed to date are workable.
In their article, the scientists propose a new model with dark energy and our Universe riding on an expanding bubble in an extra dimension. The whole Universe is accommodated on the edge of this expanding bubble. All existing matter in the Universe corresponds to the ends of strings that extend out into the extra dimension. The researchers also show that expanding bubbles of this kind can come into existence within the framework of string theory. It is conceivable that there are more bubbles than ours, corresponding to other universes.
Journal Reference:
Souvik Banerjee, Ulf Danielsson, Giuseppe Dibitetto, Suvendu Giri, Marjorie Schillo. Emergent de Sitter Cosmology from Decaying Anti–de Sitter Space. Physical Review Letters, 2018; 121 (26) DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.121.261301
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday December 31 2018, @08:01AM
I have a PhD in math (area was QFT) and I mostly agree with AC. There's a difference between fundamental research and useless research.
WRT string theory, there's two things to keep in mind. First, it's incredibly cheap as far as research goes and does have some utility on the math side. On the former, the world-wide effort of string theorists is probably a couple of orders of magnitude cheaper than the LHC. Even if it never pans out as a physical theory, it's still making a positive contribution to our understanding of math approaches to this situation.
Second, where's the testable predictions? It's not fundamental physics research, if it doesn't have those predictions!
If only that were true. The cool hipsters seem to be on the other side of that particular argument. I've never seen a lot of people criticize the way science is done. It should be more than it is.
Back at you on that. This is the "throw money at the wall and find out in a few decades whether any of it stuck" strategy.
My view on this is that if you can't show any sort of near future benefit - which can include merely bettering our understanding of the problem, its math, etc. - then you're not doing research, fundamental or otherwise, you're just cashing checks.