when joseph conlon As an undergraduate in the early 2000s, I avoided typical scientific explanations of string theory because I wanted to approach it on a technical level without preconceptions. A few years after the “second string theory revolution,” theoretical physicists felt that they might be able to unravel the deepest mechanisms of reality and perhaps even publish a theory of everything. While studying mathematics, Conlon became fascinated.
String theory famously suggests that everything is made up of one-dimensional strings (' “String Theory: An Introduction”, below.), which also predicts a huge number of possible universes (about 10)500, For note-takers. No matter how you think about it, it's safe to say that string theory hasn't produced the testable predictions that many people expected. Today, it has a reputation of being unverifiable and possibly unscientific. One archstring theory critic called this “not even wrong.''
But for Conlon, now a physicist at Oxford University, the thrill never faded. String theory, he argues, remains a potential route to unifying our contradictory ideas about gravity and the quantum world and creating a unified theory of quantum gravity. He also claims that his field has been unfairly maligned and that his detractors are applying double standards. He even claims that string theory actually makes predictions that future astronomical observations can explore.
Conlon says here new scientist The enduring joy of string theory, why it's too early to abandon it, and how we…
Source: www.newscientist.com
