re: Dark matter and dark energy.

Well, from my strict reductionist perspective I see quantum physics as the source of an answer for every question with which we are presently perplexed. Reductionism commands a person to look for the base of everything.

Physics is currently stalled in two areas of study, quantum physics and relativity physics. Roughly speaking, quantum physics is the study of the extremely small and relativity concerns gravity and the macro world.

Frustration abounds in the physics community because these two areas of study can't be united. Of course, String Theory does seamlessly unite them on the blackboard but in the physical world it's a no go. Edward Witten is the leading string theorist and his work will most likely solve this problem.

So, the deeper we go into the micro world the more answers we find for macro world questions. That's why I'm such a strong reductionist. I think of science and reductionism as synonyms. We can't understand anything unless we know and understand its parts.

Of course, there's a limit to what we can see as we go deeper into the micro world. Our ability to detect the very small is currently limited to the Planck Length, or 1.6 x 10 to the -35 m or about 10 to the -20 times the size of a proton.

From Wikipedia: The strings of string theory are unimaginably small. Your average string, if it exists, is about 10 to the -33 centimeters long. That's a millionth of a billionth of a billionth of a billionth of a centimeter. If an atom were magnified to the size of the solar system, a string would be the size of a tree.

We may never be able to detect something so small. And strings themselves may be composed of even smaller units. However, we may be able to detect their effects. Using Edward Witten's math we may be able to understand their roles in the quantum world and then the quantum world's effects on our classically sized environment.

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I hate string theory. It is just a way to get around mathematical singularities. I don't get why we waste our time with a make believe world of 10 or more dimensions.

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Okay, I get where you're coming from. String Theory does seem ridiculous at first blush. The idea that each particle type is determined by a certain string vibration seems ludicrous.

However, the earth's most powerful minds have gravitated to that field of study because of the potential for understanding both quantum and relativistic physics more thoroughly. And it's precisely because String Theory does get around mathematical singularities that makes it so appealing.

Now that Edward Witten and other theorists have worked through the math and have linked quantum mechanics with relativity the challenge is to somehow observe the effects of strings and prove their existence. Recall that only observation counts as a discovery in science. String Theory will remain philosophical until this happens.

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Those two comprise 96 % of the entire universe. Everything our physics understands only applies to 4% of the universe

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How is this found out and proven? Seems like made up bullshite that someone had hidden behind numbers and everyone who doesn't "understand" acts like its genius because they don't want to be the only one in the science community to not understand the "theory" or "formula".

I think it's insane that 96% of all the matter in all of existence would completely obliterate existence if it came into contact with the other 4. Really makes you wonder where the frick it is

it was my understanding that dark matter contained anti matter but i may be completely off base

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but i may be completely off base

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Hell, there really are no bases to get on. We have no clue what it is, we only know it's there. Speaking of antimatter, could you imagine the weapons that could be built with the stuff? One day it may power starships but knowing the nature of man, we will also be a button away from annihilation much like the problem we face with atomic weapons today.

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Ha ha. Thought this would have been posted quicker...

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#darkmattermatters =)

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Kentucker, it scares me to death that our brightest minds in the field are dedicating their time and brilliance on a field that is bunk.

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Bunk? My good man!

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Lots of young minds are afraid to speak out on it and think it to be career suicide to not take part it.

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Where are you getting that idea? It's the most exciting subject in physics. Brilliant young minds are orienting to it like moths to a bright light in Summer.

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I see no way to ever test string theory.

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There's no way to test it right now. We haven't detected dark matter either but that hasn't stopped scientists from finding its effects. Hopefully the same will happen for strings. The more we discover about the quantum world, the more likely we are to see the effects of strings. That's just a logical progression.

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It is beautiful on the math blackboard but new theories always replace older, inadequate theories such as relativity replacing newtonian physics. String theory has not done that.

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Sure, that's the way science works. Newton was the authority until Einstein came along with general relativity. General relativity didn't have all the answers either, however. It is completely lacking regarding quantum mechanics.

String Theory does explain quantum mechanics and general relativity. Want a Theory of Everything? Well, it has to include strings.

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young physicists are flocking to the field because there is a ton of funding and it's not popular to speak against it.

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Yes, funding has risen because of the breakthroughs recently. Gravity waves have been discovered, the Higgs boson has been observed, the String Theory has united the quantum and relativity worlds and many more achievements in science have been documented. In fact, advances are coming so fast it's hard to keep up. If I was just entering college I'd definitely major in physics and pursue a job in the field after graduation.

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It's like they found a math that explained or avoided singularities and began to fill in the theory around it.

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String Theory is much more straight forward than that. There's no need for filler.

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I mean do you really believe in all these supposed extra curled up dimensions of spacetime that are undetectable to three dimensional beings that live on our tiny speck of a planet?

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I don't use the word "believe" because it indicates acceptance without evidence.

Yes, the theory predicts 10 dimensions, 11 if you count spacetime. We experience four of them in our macro world, the three classic dimensions plus spacetime.

The quantum world is subject to the other 7, no doubt. They probably explain entanglement and quantum tunneling, for example. Work is ongoing.

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Just look at how many versions of string theory are out there.

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There's only one string theory that's generally recognized by the scientific community since Edward Witten blew away the competition by showing that the five competing string theories were all the same.

It's as solid as the theory of gravity now. Of course, we still don't know what gravity is but we know it exists. The same can said for strings now that the theory is explaining more and more about the quantum world.

The article you linked says that an experiment to detect strings would require an investment equal to the GDP of the entire earth. That's the situation at this time only. More progress in the field will bring the cost down as it has for gravity waves and every other scientific mystery that once seemed out of reach.

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I doubt it much like I doubt inflation theory but who am I to argue with the brightest minds in the world?

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Yeah, you're definitely swimming against the stream in science.

But that's okay. A lot of people are and that's what keeps science honest. Pity that it doesn't work as well in religion and politics.

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We have for a long time been desperate to understand gravity so much so that anything that works mathematically seems to be easily accepted to the point that some really believe our universe is just a brane floating on another infinite brane world of universes or some shite like it.

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It's called M Theory. No one knows how the name for the theory originated but it deals with circumstances outside our Universe. According to the theory, our Universe originated as the result of two branes, short for membranes, bumping together.

It's strange, but physicists are finding that they must set aside any built-in human biases if they are to understand the cosmos. They must think outside the human box. That's very difficult but I personally find that reductionism helps very much.

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Mathematics in general relativity predict that white holes are theoretically possible but just because the math is there doesn't mean we should predict an impossible object to actually exist.

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Math is a great tool for predicting and describing the physical world. We must recognize, however, that everything it predicts is not necessarily real or possible. For example, math says that time travel is possible both forward and backward. Travel into the future has been proved but going back in time is not possible.

Neither are white holes. Once thought to be the "other end" of black holes, they have fallen out of favor since Leonard Susskind won his battle with Stephen Hawking about whether or not information is conserved or lost in a black hole. Hawking argued that information is lost forever when an object enters a black hole. Susskind successfully argued the opposite, that the laws of physics prevented a loss of info.

Amazingly, when Hawking accepted his defeat and viewed black holes from Susskind's perspective, he discovered that black holes actually leak radiation and will evaporate over trillions of years.

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We may never understand gravity and maybe singularities are really there and we will never know what lies beyond.

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One of the rules of physics theories is that when you come up against a singularity, your math is off. It's a dead end. Like a rat in a maze, you have to go in a new direction. That's why Edward Witten's work is so astounding. He is not hitting any singularities.

Perhaps there aren't any singularities in existence. That seems logical. Maybe there's no smallest or largest. I like to think that existence is some weird version of a circle; that when you get to a certain point there's no difference in large and small. Existence is strange but hopefully not stranger than we can imagine.