There's a huge debate concerning String Theory in the physics world at this time. Lee Smolin gave a very good argument against it in his book "The Trouble With Physics", in which he showed that String Theory is resting on much less mathematical evidence (I won't say "proof" because almost no physical theory has actually been proven) than its proponents would lead one to believe. In fact, it has also devolved to the point of hypothesizing an enormous landscape of possible physical realities, only one of which is actually observed because we are here to observe it (a.k.a. the anthropic principle). Hence String Theory is at once not falsifiable (does not expose itself to being disproved) and does not make unique predictions (which would then be shown as evidence for its correctness). Finally, it does not address many of the fundamental outstanding problems in physcis (e.g. dark matter/energy and why the physical constants in the Standard Model have the values that they have) any better than other theories (e.g. loop quantum gravity). But don't take my word for it... Smolin does a much better job of explaining it...
P.S. I don't actually roam the internet looking to debunk String Theory, but I just happened upon a series of books about this very topic so please forgive my diatribe! :-)
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There's a huge debate concerning String Theory in the physics world at this time. Lee Smolin gave a very good argument against it in his book "The Trouble With Physics", in which he showed that String Theory is resting on much less mathematical evidence (I won't say "proof" because almost no physical theory has actually been proven) than its proponents would lead one to believe. In fact, it has also devolved to the point of hypothesizing an enormous landscape of possible physical realities, only one of which is actually observed because we are here to observe it (a.k.a. the anthropic principle). Hence String Theory is at once not falsifiable (does not expose itself to being disproved) and does not make unique predictions (which would then be shown as evidence for its correctness). Finally, it does not address many of the fundamental outstanding problems in physcis (e.g. dark matter/energy and why the physical constants in the Standard Model have the values that they have) any better than other theories (e.g. loop quantum gravity). But don't take my word for it... Smolin does a much better job of explaining it...
P.S. I don't actually roam the internet looking to debunk String Theory, but I just happened upon a series of books about this very topic so please forgive my diatribe! :-)
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