Is the math theory of strings explaining subnuclear structure& nucleon behaviors one huge thought experiment?

Question

thought experiments
The "thought experiment" is among the most used and best loved tools in the philosophic shed.Thought experiments have "heuristic value." That means they help to explain or test ideas, situations, problems. Max Weber's "ideal types" are thought experiments; Marx's description of the process of capital in _Capital_ is an ideal type / thought experiment.

But the thought experiment has a very broad and ancient usage. If I mention a few, it's not because I don't think people reading this already know about them. I'm just trying to make a point.
Of course Socrates' cave analogy in _The Republic_ is a kind of thought experiment. But in general, whenever Socrates takes a specific question that troubles common sense -- like, what is friendship or what is fealty, or justice, or some other 'value' -- he quite frequently employs a 'thought experiment' that is designed to 'raise' the discussion away from specifics and in the direction of more abstract considerations.

The above commentary on "thought experiments" came verbatim from http://www.long-sunday.net/long_sunday/2005/12/thought_experim.html

Wkipedia also has an entry. Don't be lazy, go there and look it up.

Answer 1

Well, yeah, it's one huge thought experiment. But it's for a good purpose -- to understand & explain things better -- and there's nothing wrong with that; in fact, it's well worth doing.

Physicists and natural philosophers need problems to think about, and string theory is a good one.

Also, there's good precedent here. Einstein's special and general relativity theories were originally worked out purely as thought experiments, helped immensely by some tensor mathematicians. Eventually, of course, Einstein's work was experimentally validated.

The Standard Model has had trouble for a long time trying to get gravity lined up with the electromagnetic and strong & weak nuclear forces. Also, quantum mechanics and general relativity break down at singularities.

String theory holds out the promise of resolving those issues. If it works, it would be a huge breakthrough, even if experimental validation is beyond our technical capability at present.

An ancient analogy comes to mind ... remember Ptolemy's cycles, epicycles, and crystalline spheres? That too was a thought experiment that was eventually disproved and replaced by something better -- the Copernican model. But Ptolemy's model worked pretty well for its day, and it lasted for over a millennium. I'd say his effort wasn't wasted either.

Answer 2

It's a yin-yang kind of thing. Thought experiments are used to come up with a theory, and experiments are used to see if the theory holds up.
As more powerful atom smashers are build, the better chance to prove one way or another if the theory is on the right track. At CERN in Europe they hope to prove if the Higgs boson particle can be detected.
It was thought experiments that ultimately let to the television set.
Or was it the telekinesis machine? I always mix them up.

Answer 3

No, certain espects of string theory can be experimentally tested in the laboratory. For instance, the current race between European and American physicists is the search for evidence of supersymmetry as suggested by string theory. They are looking for sparticles, which are in essence, very heavy particles that every elementary particle has a counterpart of.

Answer 4

Well, it seems to have potential in resolving the relativity/quantum physics battle. If it does, that's a lot more than a thought experiment. But at this point, we don't know how far it will take us, so it could all be proven useless at some future time.

Answer 5

well right now you can say it is an experiment, since it hasn't been proven. But it is not one thought. MAny clues collected from many people prove it might just explain the universe. I guess we'll have to wait a couple hundred years to find out.

Answer 6

Aren't all theories technically 'thought experiments'?

Answer 7

I have no idea what that means, you make my head hurt.