The Trouble With Physics: The Rise of String Theory, The Fall of a Science, and What Comes Next | 
|  | | | Title: | The Trouble With Physics: The Rise of String Theory, The Fall of a Science, and What Comes Next | | Author: | Lee Smolin | | Publisher: | Mariner Books | | Type: | Book / Paperback | | Publication Date: | 04 September, 2007 | | ISBN / ISBN-13: | 061891868X / 9780618918683 | | List Price: | $15.95 | | You Save: | $5.10 | | Amazon Price: | $10.85 | |
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Product Description
In this illuminating book, the renowned theoretical physicist Lee Smolin argues that fundamental physics -- the search for the laws of nature -- losing its way. Ambitious ideas about extra dimensions, exotic particles, multiple universes, and strings have captured the public's imagination -- and the imagination of experts. But these ideas have not been tested experimentally, and some, like string theory, seem to offer no possibility of being tested. Yet these speculations dominate the field, attracting the best talent and much of the funding and creating a climate in which emerging physicists are often penalized for pursuing other avenues. As Smolin points out, the situation threatens to impede the very progress of science. With clarity, passion, and authority, Smolin offers an unblinking assessment of the troubles that face modern physics -- and an encouraging view of where the search for the next big idea may lead.
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Customer Reviews:
• Good Book, Alternative View 21 August, 2008
Lee Smolin presents his case not for why string theory should be dropped, but why other theories should be pursued more vigorously. Rather than demonizing string theory, Smolin looks at the theory's successes and failures and then moves beyond that to discussing the sociology of science in general, and this is his main issue. Smolin says the system is set up to keep alternative theories out, while the fashionable theories get all the attention, and that this system is perhaps the reason why theoretical physics has been stuck for so long. Great book.
- Reviewed by customer ID: A3MJSAAIAB84KX
• A Priesthood Under Attack? 03 September, 2008
For those of us non-physicists looking into what has been going on in string theory for something close to three decades, things just look curiouser and curiouser. No doubt the problem is that only physicists can comprehend the science itself. Still it is enormously frustrating that not a single shred of experimental evidence has come to light supporting string theory. What this suggests is that string theory, as beautiful as it may be, is art not science, or perhaps it is pure mathematics.
Lee Smolin, who is a real physicist, has come to a similar conclusion in this insider's look at the sorry state of particle physics today. Once the undisputed master of the sciences, physics has become--it is downright dreadful to acknowledge this--the butt of jokes from--are you ready for this?--the social sciences! Even professors of literature are having their way with physics. The inability of the string theorists, who have dominated particle physics lo these many years, to accomplish anything substantial, has so damaged the prestige of physics that something called postmodernism has been able to declare that all of science and mathematics constitutes merely an arbitrary "social construction" with no more claim to objective truth than utterances from a creationist's convention.
Say it isn't so, Brian Greene. Well Professor Greene has said it isn't so, but entrenched scientists tend to have entrenched ideas, just like global warming deniers, and so what we need are some hard facts derived from experiments or at least some predictions that can be identified and confirmed. Alas, as Smolin is at pains to point out, we have more like the opposite.
Take the reincarnation of Einstein's cosmological constant. Not predicted by string theory. Take the discovery of dark energy. Not predicted by string theory. Take the seven additional dimensions required by M-theory (an offshoot of string theory), and the old phobia about infinities in the equations seems rather mild. No one has yet seen, tasted, smelled, felt or heard even a fifth dimension (putting aside the once popular band) let alone six others. We cannot even imagine such a thing.
Well, yes, the fact that we can't imagine them doesn't mean they don't exist. However, one of the leading reasons that physicists like string theory's extra dimensions is that they do away with the infinities. Talk about going from the frying pan into the fire, or from the deep blue sea to the devil!
Philosophy was once the most prestigious academic discipline. Could the same thing happen to physics? And if so, why?
Part of the problem is the great success and power that physics has enjoyed since the days when Newton stood on the shoulders of giants. Even more so, since the days of James Clerk Maxwell, vast has become our knowledge of the physical world. Indeed physics and physicists have constructed much of the modern world. Their ideas and discoveries and understanding have led to enormous advances in technologies that have increased the standard of living of people, at least in the developed nations. So much success has led to great expectations. The sad fact for physics may be this: the next great discovery may be centuries away, or worse yet, beyond the reach of humans.
Smolin certainly isn't so pessimistic. The tone of "The Trouble with Physics" is that of a father urging his children to great accomplishments while warning them that they have been wayward. He is blunt but bends over backwards to be fair. The trouble with the book for non-physicists is that it is really impossible to follow the various arguments for and against string theory in any concrete detail. The truth is in the equations, and Smolin doesn't give any, and rightly so since this is a book aimed at the educated general reader. We educated general readers are left skimming the bewildering details of the history and current state of string theory to focus on the broad implications while being guided by Smolin's expert opinion. But even in reading somebody like the aforementioned Brian Greene, who is a proponent of string theory, this reader at least was left with the sense of watching a wild goose chase from a distance.
It isn't just in particle physics that physicists have gone over the deep end, so to speak. Take cosmology where some physicists are postulating a large, possibly infinite number of universes in addition to the one in which we live. As Smolin points out "The existence of a population of other universes is a hypothesis that cannot be confirmed by direct observation..." He adds, "...the fact that we are in a biofriendly universe cannot be used as a confirmation of a theory that there is a vast population of universes." (p. 163)
Although there is nothing wrong with Smolin's writing style, and he does write with a minimum of jargon, some of this is impenetrable, at least for me. Those more versed in physics will do better I'm sure. However particle physics is per force about things we can't see and can't even visualize.
Near the end of the book Smolin presents some alternatives to string theory. As a non-physicist I have no ability to evaluate these approaches, which brings up an important point. How can any non-physicist pass any kind of judgment on the validity of string theory? We can't. We can only count noses--physicists' noses. When we do we find that most theoretical physicists believe in string theory despite the dearth of experimental support. Why? Perhaps because string theory is what they have been doing all their working lives, and string theory is what they have been taught and are teaching.
My question is, have string theorists become a sacred priesthood? Smolin doesn't use this term, but his book suggests as much.
- Reviewed by customer ID: ABN5K7K1TM1QA
• How Should Physics Be Governed? 30 August, 2008
What shocked me most about Smolin's account of string theory is his claim that many of its leading lights have paid too little attention to mathematical rigor or even to a clean mathematical specification of their theory. If true, this is a major scandal. In most professions, this sort of sloppiness would be grounds for losing a job or even being prosecuted if something goes wrong. To hear that string theorists are perhaps not always intellectually sound is discouraging. They have raised exaggerated expectations about what their framework accomplishes (hype), and their methods have not always been sound (malpractice). Smolin is of course much more polite, and recognizes that many of the ideas advanced by string theory needed to be explored even if they prove fruitless or wrong. But his book does show clearly that something has gone seriously wrong with the internal governance of the physics profession.
Brian Green, a leading string theorist, says the following in his contribution to "The New Physics" (2006): "It might be argued that string theory has so far failed [] since it has not yet made very detailed connections with experiment." He goes on to hold out the hope that "Ultimately, the tests of the theory are likely to come from cosmological observations that detect the state of the Universe during the first moments after the Big Bang." Anyone who has read the cosmology literature knows how often inferences have to be piled on top of inferences in an attempt to arrive at a consistent explanation of what is observed from humanity's single vantage point and with our imperfect instruments. The kind of cosmology that would be needed to test string theory is not exactly around the corner. Moreover, I always had the impression that cosmologists are looking more to other branches of physics to help them make sense of their observations than the other way around.
Aside from his criticism of string theory, Smolin makes an inspiring argument for new and more diverse approaches to unsolved problems in physics, among which he includes unifying general relativity and quantum theory, establishing sounder foundations for quantum mechanics, unifying all particles and forces as manifestations of a single fundamental entity, explaining the constants used in the theory, and resolving the puzzle of dark matter and energy in cosmology. The book helpfully names and discusses a number of theorists the author thinks are currently making the most interesting contributions to solving these problems. Without Smolin's expert guidance, it is unlikely that a reader would independently come across these fascinating contributions.
The chapters on the sociology of physics will be unsurprising to anyone who has worked in academia. However, if Smolin's revelations about groupthink and sloppy mathematics in the physics profession are even half true, they raise concerns about other areas of physics as well. Given the importance of physics to the fate of mankind, at least since the invention of the atom bomb, it is clearly time to develop new principles for the governance of this essential group of brilliant, but still human and imperfect, thinkers.
- Reviewed by customer ID: A2Z5UBRTCCTTDW
• The Trouble With Physics 31 August, 2008
I am still wondering why theoretical physics is behaving like it is doing...losing the essence that characterizes the scientific method. After reading this delightful and incisive book, my only concern is to know how long it will take to string theorists to accept we are following the wrong way...as physicists. I just wish this book captivates as many honest people as the honest author desires.
- Reviewed by customer ID: A334HD9T6GH5WN
• Absolutely Superb... 20 August, 2008
So many reviewers have said so many things, let me just add this: During the past thirty years, we have seen the rise of religious ideology and its disastrous effects on our political system, not to mention our national finances and national reputation.
How interesting that science has experienced the same things, the same disasters born of the same focus on ideology rather than factuality, in the same time period.
This book is the first BIG public demonstration that this period may be coming to an end.
The disaster of string theory, and the Irag war, both prove the same thing: ignoring the dictates of reason, and setting aside facts for fantasy, always leads us to the same place: nowhere we want to be!
Thank you Lee Smolin.
A must-have for anyone interested in their world. And an instant classic.
- Reviewed by customer ID: AI6WGAJ8Z92NL
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