I bought Brian Greene's best-selling popular science novel, "The Elegant Universe: Superstrings, Hidden Dimensions, and the Quest for the Ultimate Theory" today.
Hopefully, I'll have something both philosophical and irrelevant to say about string theory after reading the book. But first off, let me say that string theory is really a fool's quest, and here's why:
String theory is touted as the explain-everything model that will reconcile general relativity with quantum theory. For those who are unfamiliar, quantum mechanics is about the smallest things we know about in physics, and general relativity is about medium- and large-sized objects (like bugs, apples, cars, planets, and stars) on up to the ungeblievagly engormous things (like black holes and galaxies.) The theories of quantum mechanics and general relativity, taken together, explain just about everything observable about the physical universe, but they are mutually exclusive - they can't both be right.
String theory posits the existence of zero-point, one-dimensional structures called "strings," which vibrate through precisely eleven dimensions, and from which emerge matter and the forces familiar to modern physics: gravity, electromagnetism, and the strong and weak nuclear forces.
String theory, so far (to my admittedly meager knowledge), doesn't predict anything that is observable - but it does seem to be able to unify quantum mechanics and general relativity.
If I were a professional philosopher of science, I might characterize string theory as a reductionist theory, meaning that it attempts to explain all phenomena by appealing to one, or a very few, fundamental phenomena, forces, particles, or kinds of things (the last phrase being deliberately vague.)
Anyway, let's cut to the chase, shall we? The truth is, string theory is bullshit when - huh, obviously - the universe is composed not of strings, but - DUH - little bitty snaarsisms, quivering their way through the universal ovoid, imbuing space itself with hyper-optional potentiality.
I can teach you all the Way of the snaars, by which you too can know the truth of these things.
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5 comments:
...and this is why i've been pregnant so many times.
ha ha!
funny Michelle.. funny.. funny..
Michelle has immaculate perception.
I would have lent you this book when you were done the Dwakins if you asked.
Nice too see a reading recomendation followed none the less.
If you haven't already you should read Steven Hawkings big book. For some reason the title is eluding me. I have this one somewhere, it is a good excuse to get together again.
Another interesting read is The Quantum and the Lotus by Mathieu Ricard & Trinh Xuan Thuan. A good general mishmash of physics & buddhism.
brian.murphy@(you know the company).com
Hi Brian. As you can see, new posts are slow in coming. But if you want to read my more recent work, check out Elegant Snaarsiverse.
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