Antidote For String Cheese

See: https://www.math.columbia.edu/~woit/wordpress/ and the piece entitled “Lost In Math”.

Relevant blurb:

“Her next interviewee is Frank Wilczek, who she finds in Tempe, Arizona. His take on string theory unification is rather negative:

“… it’s not clear what the theory is. It’s kind of miasma of ideas that hasn’t yet taken shape, and it’s too early to say whether it’s simple or not–or even if it’s right or not. Right now it definitely doesn’t appear simple.”

Asked about the argument that string theory could reproduce gravity, Wilczek responds:

“If your standards are low enough, yes. But I don’t think we should compromise on this idea of post-empirical physics. I think that’s appalling, really appalling… If there was any bit of experimental evidence that was decisive and in favor of the theory, you wouldn’t be hearing these arguments. You wouldn’t. Nobody would care. It’s just a fallback. It’s giving up and declaring victory. I don’t like that at all.”

The truth is that after over 4 decades of hype, string theory’s relevance to physics is still a pipe-dream. While it has played an interesting role in mathematics, there is no credible connection with the physical world. It requires a gross number of unobservable dimensions. It leads to the even more grotesque “multiverse” of 10⁵⁰⁰ different “universes”, each with different physics. It has never generated definitive predictions by which it could be critically tested. It cannot reproduce the Standard model. It cannot unify General Relativity and the Standard model.

So far, for over 4 decades it has only been hyped promises, and no delivery of the goods.