20 Years Later - Hackdot

Re:20 Years Later by sampo on Tuesday December 29, 2020 @08:10PM (#25577160)

> These solutions turn out to have a very nice physical interpretation: they are the different ways in which we can compactify the extra dimensions of string theory. Regardless of this physical interpretation, the fact remains that there are many many distinct solutions of string theory at low energies, and in order to make predictions that are falsifiable, we need to know which of these solutions we're living in.

You have created a mathematical structure that is so flexible that it can fit any data. It is useless. You have abandoned the hypothetico-deductive model.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypothetico-deductive_model

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Re:20 Years Later by whatshisface on Tuesday December 29, 2020 @08:44PM (#25577380)

Isn't math itself a mathematical structure flexible enough to fit any data?

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Re:20 Years Later by damoe on Tuesday December 29, 2020 @09:36PM (#25577742)

Perhaps, but that would be one reason why mathematics is not physics.

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Re:20 Years Later by whatshisface on Tuesday December 29, 2020 @11:36PM (#25578602)

String theory is moreso considered a framework that may lead to physics than a physical theory. Physicists are interested in it because of its potential to lead to physics. Of course, both of these statements are contained in the original comment. That's why, as the original comment suggests, the absolute most important question about string theory is, "which string theory leads to our universe at low energies?"

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