String Theory and Career Prospects

I want to be a theoretical physicist. With string theory so ubiquitous nowadays, what options do I have that don't involve string theory? I know them, but most are basically career suicide?

Sorry if I havent used the search feature, but what do you all think of string theory?

 

The string theory has become the proverbial red herring because it can't be proved or disproved. the only hope left in the physics community is the Large Hadron Collider being built at Cern in Geneva.


It may be powerful enough to at least suggest the string theorists are on the right track.



Hotwater

 

There's a theory to string. Well there is kind of a trick to using it at Christmas when you use it to tie the tree to the ca....well it might be a theory now that I give it some thought.

 

Currently in the eyes of some leading scientists, your theory on strings is just as good as the current superstring theory, with cat's cradle coming up a distant third



Hotwater

 

I say a load, because its not the top one. String theory is notoriously hard to solve any of the equations and make predictions. It has been said of string theory that the true miracle will be if it can not be made to fit our universe. The standard model has been fantastically successful at describing the particle world. We have electroweak theory (soon to be confirmed or proved wrong, it will stand or fall with the Higgs) there is also QCD describing the strong interaction. This is all done under the umbrella of quantum field theory, gravity is described by general relativity and fundamentally different model. String theory is a very tidy theory of many dimensions (don't be fooled many of these are in phase space not real space) but currently it is so far beyond out experimental scope is shares many things in common with a religion philosophically. A scientific theory should be falsifiable, string theory with our current knowledge can be made to describe just about anything.

 

Tony, cheers to you, not too many others are bold enough to claim that string theory is more philosophy. I remember in a later chapter of "Not Even Wrong" by Peter Woit that he suggests that string theory reclassify itself as a religion so it can recieve funding from George Bush's faith-based initiatives program. I have a grasp of electroweak and unification energies, but what exactly is the deal with the Higgs Boson?

 

The Higgs Boson is a (currently hypothetical) particle required by the dominant version of electroweak theory. For some technical reasons (wiki gauge invariance if maths is your thing) a new field had to be added to electroweak theory to allow masses in fermions and the weak bosons. If this field exists then it will be mediated by the Higgs boson, which should be detected in the not too distance future. There are a number of Higgs type scenarios and I believe some that don't require a Higgs, therefore if we don't find the Higgs, life will be fun, especially if something totally unexpected turns up.

 

String theory? SO passe
A bunch of mathematicians (no idea which ones, I think Stephen Hawking was one of them) managed to reconcile two different models; string theory, which postulates 10 dimensions in real and phase space; and another theory which I can't remember off the top of my head which postulates 11.
Voila, now we have membrane theory, in effect extending the "1-dimensional" strings into "2 dimensions".
Hippies should like this theory cause the 11th dimension is considered to be microscopically narrow and infinitely long, therefore we're all connected by it

 

I'm not a physicist, but in a (somewhat) related field.

It does seem to me that strings are all-that in the pure-theory. But most of the work I see the physics folks actually doing these days is in the nano-scale. P-chem and physics have met in the middle. That means that there's lots of quantum stuff being done, and although it may not be bleeding-edge on the theoretical side, there's TONS of research money going that way. (In case you don't know how the game is played, it's ALL about getting funded. Brilliance without a large research grant is almost useless!)

My point being, I don't know that you will commit career suicide by not specializing exclusively in strings. Interview some researchers at your local university. Google. Research. The way will become more clear.

 

hmmmm it does explain why gravity is the "weakest" force know to man....

 

Why couldn't the so called strings be circular like atoms or orbits or lots of other scientific things? It seems science is usually cirlcular.

On another note; could sting theory she any light on supernaturaly phenom., because I am an astrologer it interests me. Science is looking for a theory of everything, so maybe string theory can shed light on the occult some day; especially astrology.

I think alien tech. has reached a point where they have figured all this string theory and more. When we understand the universe better maybe we will make contact. I'm hopeful.

 

Tony
I and i think it is an accurte one. THE master model GUT. Is a 'singular'.
Relativistic gravitic modeling is the ONLY law we understand a little
of that 'effects' reality. [dilation. warping]
String needs to fit in this model, alongside gravity, or it is false.

Occam

Science is a method.. tho some might say circular
Every penny has two sides..
What is opposite of a circle in more than just shape
A straight line without ends

 

Yep.. Id' hunt down a position at one of the colliders...
Become a pariah
Or look into work being done in quantum memory storage and
MPP. always a big hit with the millitary who blackbook it and give you millions.
The aim of the US airforce is to have say Redstorm CrayXT3 level processing ~20tf on combat aircraft by 2020. [thats less than a cubic meter.. go for it.]

occam

 

lol

say that when your being spagettified at the edge of an event horizon.
Gravity tears appart the structue of atoms
with a billion G gradient over a meter at the edge.
Nuclei are shredded by this 'weak' force.
When the angular monentum of a proton is 100 G's opposed to the
neutron next to it.
reality falters [but does not miss a beat]

 

To the OP

Why dont you just start studying this topic and come up with your own theory instead of looking at it as a career path that is either safe or unsafe. If you want a safe job as a scientist, then just research whatever your superiors are writing about, and you will be paid.
If you want to be a scientist because you want to further human understanding of the universe, then dont rely on pop-science like the conventional understanding of string-theory.