Why string theory persists — despite the knotty physics

[Admin]

String theory is a powerful idea, unfinished and untested, but one that has persisted for decades despite inauspicious beginnings.

Why string theory persists — despite the knotty physics : Read more

 

[rod]

String theory is a powerful idea, unfinished and untested, but one that has persisted for decades despite inauspicious beginnings.

Why string theory persists — despite the knotty physics : Read more

I enjoyed reading this report. A note here from what was said "And as for string theory, it mostly faded into the background. It would be revived in the 1970s, once theorists realized that it could describe more than the strong force and after they found a way to get rid of the tachyon predictions in the theory. The theory still needed extra dimensions, but physicists were able to reduce the number to a more reasonable-sounding 10. And with the realization that those dimensions could be tiny and curled up below the scale at which we could directly observe it, string theory didn't seem to wacky after all. And today, that string theory also remains, still attempting to explain the strong force — and so much more."

My note, here we see 10 extra dimensions vs. the 4 in Special Relativity that was discussed. However, there is another recent report on string theory that shows there could be 1E+200 extra dimensions, The Universe May Be Flooded with a Cobweb Network of Invisible Strings

This report concerned axions.

 

[William Pennat]

It also required the existence of particles that travel faster than the speed of light, called tachyons. That was a major problem for early string theory, since tachyons don't exist, and if they did they would flagrantly violate the incredibly successful special theory of relativity. -- Quote from article

Actually, tachyons don't violate Special Relativity (exactly). Special Relativity only says that nothing with mass can travel AT the speed of light because mass increases with speed and becomes infinite at the speed of light. But the only thing possibly preventing objects with mass from traveling faster than light (once they somehow get to such a speed) is the fact that mass then becomes mathematically imaginary. And whether "imaginary mass" is physically possible or not is a whole different question. It's hard to know what it would be like or even measurable. But tachyons (if they exist) would have imaginary mass, which could account for why they've never been detected. This might also be a case where the ordinary sense of "imaginary" and the mathematical sense of "imaginary" (square root of a negative number) combine!...

 

[Outcast]

If ya gimmee six or eight extra dimensions for wiggle room, and everybody promises to never ever look at them....I could also be a smart SOB....

 

[LMAJdS]

It also required the existence of particles that travel faster than the speed of light, called tachyons. That was a major problem for early string theory, since tachyons don't exist, and if they did they would flagrantly violate the incredibly successful special theory of relativity. -- Quote from article

Actually, tachyons don't violate Special Relativity (exactly). Special Relativity only says that nothing with mass can travel AT the speed of light because mass increases with speed and becomes infinite at the speed of light. But the only thing possibly preventing objects with mass from traveling faster than light (once they somehow get to such a speed) is the fact that mass then becomes mathematically imaginary. And whether "imaginary mass" is physically possible or not is a whole different question. It's hard to know what it would be like or even measurable. But tachyons (if they exist) would have imaginary mass, which could account for why they've never been detected. This might also be a case where the ordinary sense of "imaginary" and the mathematical sense of "imaginary" (square root of a negative number) combine!...

The question of the speed of light as being a limiting speed could be opened.
The decision by BIPM (Bureau international des Poids et des Mesures) to make it a constant of nature might be a little premature.
It has not been measured everywhere in outer space.
Forcing the speed of light to be a constant of nature might introduce unnecessary hardships on
space geometry modelling.
The problem is that nobody is going to measure the speed of light anymore since it is being declared
a constant.
If it is not really a universal constant then it introduces all sorts of complication in experimental and theoretical physics.

 

[rod]

There is the fine structure constant that plays a critical role here about velocity of c in stellar spectrums. New Quasar Studies Keep Fundamental Physical Constant Constant

 

[ross beukes]

The question of the speed of light as being a limiting speed could be opened.
The decision by BIPM (Bureau international des Poids et des Mesures) to make it a constant of nature might be a little premature.
It has not been measured everywhere in outer space.
Forcing the speed of light to be a constant of nature might introduce unnecessary hardships on
space geometry modelling.
The problem is that nobody is going to measure the speed of light anymore since it is being declared
a constant.
If it is not really a universal constant then it introduces all sorts of complication in experimental and theoretical physics.

yeah, you're right...the speed of light has been treated as a constant since Einstein deemed it to be. but he didn't take into account the existence of ultra-high-energy gamma rays, as they were confirmed in 2019, and their existence on the spectrum, makes it a possibility that the speed of light is actually relative to the photons frequency...maybe? of course the higher spectrum gamma now being confirmed messes with the whole theory of relativity and makes my physics classes all the more complicated

 

[Atlan0001]

Why is there insistence that we can know all there is to know about the universe from the myopic gravitational well and scope of Earth, even up to including just our solar system (still a look and a perception from a localized insular hole in the universe)? We will not know more than a fragmentary bit -- a distorted fragmentary bit -- about the universe until we've literally reached in physical travel farther and ever farther out into it away from our isolated microscopic island in it.

No matter the physics of the greater universe, the universe brought to the observer down a funneling scope can never be any kind of universe but a wholly closed systemic universe. A radical premise.

 

[Atlan0001]

Cosmologists Close In on Logical Laws for the Big Bang | Quanta Magazine

I give 'time' two dimensional constants and a third dimension of encapsulated [pasts(-)-futures(+)]. Altogether, a 'tri-state' dimensionality out of a binary base dimensionality.

Background or 'Infinity' constant, (t=1).

Foreground or 'Now' constant, (t=0).

('Unitary': "Having the character of a unit : an undivided whole")
The [Planck Big Bang Horizon (E) | Big Crunch (M) | Big Vacuum (C^2)], as I see it, is dimensionally "unitary," binary, time constant, Infinity (t='1') and/or Now (t='0') ... and place constant, (c='1' (infinity ((+/-)300.000kps)) and/or c='0' ('uncertainty')).

 

[Atlan0001]

When Albert Einstein took his mind trip up to the speed of light, it was to a one way destination (+300,000kps (closed systemically)). Standing by the railroad track, all his observer ever observed was positive (+) velocity to his stand by the railroad track. But to the universe that stand by the railroad track is strictly relative . . . the observer in that inertial rest frame is in no way standing still with regard to the universe, nor is the ground he stands upon inertially at rest as far as the universe is concerned. There is velocity in the universe negative to his zero of velocity in his inertial rest frame. Negative velocity all the way to (-300,000kps (closed systemically)).

Einstein at +300,000kps is infinite in mass, sort of infinite in all space-time. Einstein at -300,000kps is, therefore, infinitesimal in mass, sort of infinitesimal in all space-time. He possibly contracted the closed system universe absolutely one way, he possibly expands the closed system universe absolutely the other. Except to finite, to relativity, though, there is no real difference between infinitesimal and infinite. They are both infinite, and infinity. But to "finite", to "relativity," he did no more than move universe plane to universe plane, relativity to relativity, uncertainty to uncertainty, in both directions (infinity = '1' (constant)). That is, providing he survived the closed systemic gravitational-like acceleration up and out into the then apparently contracting universe around him, one way, and deceleration down and in into the then apparently expanding universe around him, the other way.

But the very concept of a negative of space-time in the negative of velocity (a velocity negative to Einstein's observer on Earth) all the way to a potentially negative speed of light value (-300,000kps) -- the duality existing ((+/-) 300,000kps) then infinitizing the speed of light --may have some sort of kinship to other possible negative entities and dimensionalities:

PowerPoint Presentation (nasa.gov)
--------------------------------

It's a Multiverse Universe.