Quantum gravity physics based on facts, giving checkable predictions

Saturday, October 01, 2005

http://motls.blogspot.com/2005/09/crichton-in-senate.html :

Nigel said...
Dear Lumo,

'He [the Jurassic Park author] explained some crucial features of the scientific method of inquiry: especially the requirement that the experiments and calculations must be repeatable - in principle by anyone - without silly comments that certain things are only allowed to priests or "experts".'

The problem here is that if you ask how big a string is, you can get at least two different answers: the black hole size (10^-58 m or so for string electrons), or Planck size (10^-35 m).

In order to justify using the larger unit, the Planck size, you have to be a high priest or expert.

I realise that the absolute string size is irrelevant to the use of M-theory to perfect the Standard Model, but you would think string theorists would worry about how big the strings are.

If you don't investigate the rationale for using the Planck length instead of the smaller black hole size, then you are just using an arbitrary [length-dimension] small number with no scientific basis.

It seems that the closer anything in string theory gets to hard facts, the less interested the string theorists become! I suppose, if you live in a 10/11 dimensional universe, you can't escape the problem of going crackpot (I just mean that you may tend to lose touch with reality).

I notice that in the latest issue of New Scientist, the editor Jeremy Webb (an electronics engineer ...) has allowed an article which quotes Dr Leonard Susskind proposing to 'outlaw' the use of the word 'real' by physicists. Do you subscribe to this new piece of Orwellian thought control?

Best wishes,
Nigel

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