Can We Prove String Theory? | David Albert | Big Think

Can We Prove String Theory?
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What will it take to test one of the most ambitious scientific theories of our time? At this point, even the grandest effort to establish its truth will be far from sufficient.
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David Albert:

David Z Albert the is Frederick E. Woodbridge Professor of Philosophy and Director of the M.A. Program in The Philosophical Foundations of Physics at Columbia University. He is the author of "Time and Chance," "Quantum Mechanics and Experience," among others. He received his B.S. in physics from Columbia College (1976) and his doctorate in theoretical physics from The Rockefeller University. He lives in New York City.
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TRANSCRIPT:

Question: What is string theory?

David Albert: String theory is a version of quantum mechanics. That is, quantum mechanics is less a completely specific theory than a class of theories, theories that involve this principle of superposition that we were just talking about, theories whose fundamental equations of motion have a certain particular kind of mathematical structure, so on and so forth. So one can enumerate five or six basic principles of quantum mechanics, okay, and these principles allow for a rather wide range of more specific claims of exactly what elementary systems the world is made of and so on and so forth. So string theory is one version of quantum mechanics, one version of a quantum theory. It's a theory whose fundamental ontological entities aren't particles, but these one-dimensional objects, these strings. And that fundamental ontology looks promising for all sorts of reasons, especially in regard to attempts to make a coherent quantum theory of gravitation and so on and so forth.

But in the context of our discussion here, it's one version of a quantum theory. It shares all of the weird properties that we were just talking about, the measurement problem, the principle of superposition, so on and so forth, with every other quantum theory. And these foundational problems, especially the measurement problem, come up in string theory in exactly the same way as they come up in older versions of quantum mechanics.

Question: How might we establish the truth of string theory?

David Albert: We need to smack particles together -- you know, this is of course a -- one doesn't want to anticipate what's going to happen, and maybe tomorrow somebody's going to figure out some much more clever and much cheaper experimental method of distinguishing between string theories and other quantum theories that we have -- but insofar as we know at the moment, the only way of getting a handle on whether or not string theory is true is going to be the very brute-force, very expensive project of building these huge accelerators that are going to smack particles together with such intensity, that is with energies reminiscent of the energies that the particles had in the very early milliseconds of the life of the universe, where the predictions of string theory are going to differ from the predictions of other interesting quantum theories that we have on the table. So it's going to be a matter of doing those experiments.

Question: Is the Large Hadron Collider capable of doing this?

David Albert: It's -- no, even that -- I mean, there may be -- the evidence that we would get even from that, as far as I understand the matter, would still be rather indirect, although there are things that could emerge from those experiments which would be a more comfortable fit for certain string theories than for other theories that we have on the table. But even that evidence is going to be rather indirect. You know, what most people say nowadays is, look, the best evidence we have for string theory is that there is a phenomenon of gravitation, and we don't know any way besides string theory of making gravitation compatible with quantum mechanics.

[vishalmishra]

All string theories (Bosonic and 5 super-string theories) are special cases of M-Theory (one cost of simplicity - an extra dimension). Special relativity (inertial frames) is a special case of General Relativity (non-inertial frames) - yes merging time-dilation, length-contraction and red-shift equations increases complexity so they are kept separate. Standard model, quantum mechanics and other quantum theories such as quantum chromo-dynamics. quantum electro-dynamics etc are special cases of Quantum field theory (QFT) which now includes special relativity too. Next step is to expand M-theory with additional simplifying assumptions (some possibly from Quantum Gravity) and describing experiments that verify them with investments under USD 10T ($10^13). This may require upgrading LHC to 10 PeV or building a new 100 EeV particle (string/membrane) accelerator with global support by 2025. There will still be no theory of "everything" because there will always be something more to explain, that is part of "everything" but it's still a good start.

[DarkMatter]

If you close your eyes he becomes Jeff Goldblum.

[GsPeter]

We don’t know any other way besides string theory, therefore string theory

[bohanxu]

as a first year physics graduate student...this is explanation is very good (at least for audiences similar to me). string theory is a specific quantum theory where the Lagrangian is a function of stuffs involving string like objects.

[infinitytoinfinitysquaredb]

Those who attack string theory as akin to a religion to be taken on faith are misguided:
1) String theorists do not assert that ST is a fact, merely that it is a promising theory ("theory" is in the title - Hellooo!) that still needs a lot of work.
2) It is impossible to say right now whether ST will ultimately be provable at some point in the future. Consider that relativity predicted gravitational waves and yet it took 100 years to prove their existence. Einstein and Bohr's debate over entangled particles ("spooky action at a distance") appeared to have devolved into the realm of philosophy until 1964 when a very smart physicist by the name of John Bell thought of an ingenious way to test the argument and others were able to devise experiments that could actually do that. 50 years later progressively better experiments were still being conducted and it now appears nearly certain that Bohr was right.

[فيديوهاتعلىاليوتيوب]

نتمنى منكم إستخدام برنامج ترجمه للفيديو.
نحتاج إلى فيديوهات مترجمه إلى اللغه العربيه

[leofricsvensson]

Umm umm uhhh umm and and um um um with energies um that um particles um have.

[christian]

"The best evidence we have for string theory is that there is a phenomenon of gravitation and we don't know anyway besides string theory, of making gravitation compatible with quantum mechanics." - David Albert (Can We Prove String Theory? | David Albert | Big Think).

[TheZooropaBaby]

if people complain about ums and uhs here, you obviously never heard of Nima Arkani-Hamed, another physics genius.

[tonevil]

Would you please be so kind to write subtitles on the videos for people who don´t fully speak your language (in spanish and/or english)? 
I would appreciate it very, very much because in that way I could share it with all of my friends

[happyhippo]

any idea on how to prove this?

SMACK PARTICLES TOGETHER MUHHAHAHHAHAHAHA

[sidewaysfcs]

you confuse scientists's "faith" in string theory with religion's version of blind faith

no scientist can say string theory is right, but intil it is prooven or disproven, we MUST prusue it, since this theory has the potential to unite all of physics into 1 coherent theory.

but no scientists out there will ever claim it's right, they will claim it must be studied.

religion on the other hand, offers no reason to be pursued...it's outdated and childish.

[drakegod]

It''s fitting to have a professor of philosophy talk about bullshit.

[amreshyadav]

string theory and standard model could not be true both at same time.
for the sake of good, one has to go.
but based on evidences and predictions, it seems balance has been titled in favour of SM.
specially after the discovery of higgs boson.

[brianlaudrupchannel]

If you can't prove it then it's faith

[Cheeseisgood]

And, ironically, both share the same fault that it's almost impossible to 100% prove either one (and survive). That's why I cant stand atheists, they assume knowledge that they cannot possibly have where the actual SCIENTIFIC approach is to assume that we don't know and that God may exist or may not exist. But even here we see scientists themselves using the words "belief" and "possibility" and doing this assuming that they are correct. That's not so different from religion.

[Fortran]

This talk about 'the predictions of string theory' at 2:57 is just nonsense. There currently are *no* predictions of string theory as a candidate theory to describe our universe. Any claim that the quantum fields investigated at the LHC have their origin in strings is 'faith based'.

[ze]

If we really wanted to prove string theory then you would need an alien microscope. Why? Because if you take a normal tree and compare it to the observable universe, the string is the tree and the universe is the atom. How powerful of a microscope would you need to just a see an atom.

[shawnmann]

Your wrong it's about the vessel caring the msg from the new testament and it is not what you think

[catherinefarrell]

It doesn't matter what they prove. All creation was done by God. No matter how infinitely small you can take apart any object or creature whether it is human, insect, or animal, it had to have a beginning. The being who created it had to be outside of time and space and was here before anything was made. How can we explain God? God is all powerful and is separate from His creation. That is a mystery. So you might say if God can be outside of time and space, then why can't creation be outside of time and space. Because God is not made of particles. He is all spirit. Jesus was given a body even though He is also God when He was born of Mary. The Holy Spirit came to rest on the apostles after Jesus died. The Holy Spirit was God but was separate from the Father or the Son. Therefore there were 3 beings but one God. That is what I believe. Of course, if you don't believe what the bible says, you will deny that. Only a spirit could be outside of time and space. As humans are born or start to exist such as in the womb, they are given a spirit. We are given a mind to think. We are given a body. We are three in one. We can not exist without a mind or a spirit within us with just a body. We can not explain all mysteries about God. We either accept them on faith or not. Scientists always want to say all creation came from whatever, but creation does not come from nothing. All creation has a beginning. It is sad that they can not accept God as its creator. We do not have the power to become gods. We can enter into the spiritual realm when we die. Our spiritual bodies will have more power to see or do things, but we will never attain what God is. There is only one God. All is lower than Him. Satan tried but failed even though he is very powerful and can do many things. God alone demands our worship. When we oppose Him as our Lord, we will be punished for doing so if not here than the afterlife. Spirits such as angels in the spiritual realm can enter into the earthly realm but only in certain circumstances. We might call that possession. We may also call it entering our minds with their thoughts. In the past and not sure now, they can mess with genetic makeup of mankind distorting it. The spirits of those outcomes do not remain good. Humans must remain perfect genetically speaking to enter heaven. If the spiritual realm that is evil lets us enter their spiritual realm with our thoughts, we must be very careful as we may become trapped into their world not with our bodies but with our minds. That is why we must not play around with the spiritual world. We may also become possessed by these same evil spiritual beings who take control over our minds and bodies. Belief in God is very simple and can explain many things. Why they exist to deny God is tragic. Probably to deny any wrong doing and that it will be punished is their reason for doing it. Why they want to believe that all we are is just a combination of particles and chemicals is very sad. To believe we are something greater outside ourselves is much better and that God created us to love and be with us can make us happier and feel worthwhile. For why would anyone want to believe that this is all there is and we have no purpose to exist?