Skip to content

Surprising Science — January 15, 2010

The Loose Ends of String Theory

Sign up for the Smarter Faster newsletter

A weekly newsletter featuring the biggest ideas from the smartest people

String theory has been one of the most famous ideas to emerge from physics in the past 50 years, yet a vocal minority of physicists have criticized its failure to provide testable experimental predictions. In an interview this week, Columbia University’s Peter Woit untangles a fundamental model of nature his book calls “Not Even Wrong” and voices skepticism that it will turn out to be the long-sought-after “theory of everything.”

Woit goes on to explain the nature of the elusive Higgs particle and the role the new Large Hadron Collider (LHC) will play in proving its existence or nonexistence. Having tied the viewer’s mind into some intricate theoretical knots, he then discusses his experience as a physics blogge r, and the unintentional comedy that results when the average Internet commenter pits his wits against Nobel-winning scientists.

Sign up for the Smarter Faster newsletter

A weekly newsletter featuring the biggest ideas from the smartest people

Related

A person is giving a presentation at a podium with a large abstract, colorful light pattern displayed on a screen behind them.

Starts With A Bang

Inflation and dark matter are not like string theory

Inflation, dark matter, and string theory are all proposed extensions to the prior consensus picture. But what does the evidence say?

Interior of a particle physics laboratory showing a complex particle accelerator setup with multiple cables, detectors, and machinery designed to study glueball particles.

Starts With A Bang

What do unexpected experimental results actually tell us?

Scientific surprises, driven by experiment, are often how science advances. But more often than not, they’re just bad science.

A worker in a hard hat and safety vest adjusts equipment in a facility alongside large red machinery labeled "Jefferson Lab." The scene fades into concentric circles, as if drawn by the powerful collider, leading to a bright light.

Starts With A Bang

Ask Ethan: Could we build a collider bigger than Earth?

The largest particle accelerator and collider ever built is the Large Hadron Collider at CERN. Why not go much, much bigger?

symmetric

Starts With A Bang

The big idea of Grand Unified Theories of physics

If the electromagnetic and weak forces unify to make the electroweak force, maybe, at higher energies, something even grander happens?

Four earth-like planets from a multiverse, in varying colors, aligned in space against a starry background.

Is the multiverse real? Here’s how physicists approach the theories

Some physicists are besot with the multiverse, but if we can’t detect these other universes, how seriously should we take them?

Up Next

Culture & Religion

Tomorrow will mark the first anniversary of the passing of American painter Andrew Wyeth. Love his work or hate it, it’s hard to argue that he didn’t leave a significant […]