Reaction to String Theory

The idea of string theory reminds me of the wave particle duality of light, which emerged when either wave or particle theories of light can only explain part of the phenomenon about light. Similarly, when two important yet incompatible paradigms of physics: relativity and quantum physics both had difficulties in explaining some phenomenon, people proposed string theory as a way to explain the world and unify the two.

However, as a new theory that aims at unifying forces of the nature, string theory encountered difficulty finding empirical evidence. Right now, it is almost impossible to test string theory. This leads to one of the basic problems in philosophy of science: does science need empirical evidence to be valid? On one hand, we do not want to be positivists who rely solely on proving; on the other hand, we need some evidence or new interpretation of already observed empirical data or facts to show that we are on the right track. Actually I am a little doubtful about existence of such a unified theory.

Another problem about string theory is how long we should wait till accepting string theory as a valid theory about the physical world? I think we are still waiting and a lot of efforts have been put into the research of this theory. However, if we just keep investing into it without continuously scrutinizing its validity, we may have wasted too much, as described in “What if string theory is wrong”.

Another article about string theory is http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/elegant/everything.html

-by Kang Zhao