I had a sinful lunch of coffee and delicate french pastries with the science writer KC Cole yesterday, at Michelle Myers’ excellent French patisserie “Boule”, over in West Hollywood. (The food is divine, but sometimes the counter service leaves a lot to be desired. They need to work on that. Oh well….)
I was on my way to go and see the penultimate day of the MOCA part of the exhibition “Masters of American Comics”, and she was taking a break from writing new material her commentaries on science. Actually, a new one aired last week on KPCC. It was about string theory, in fact, and you can find it here, along with earlier ones.
In the commentary, she tries to counter the accusations made that string theory is all nonsense because it is just “mathematical navel-gazing” with no connection to reality. She does this by pointing out -quite correctly, I think- that it should not be forgotten that there’s quite a history of marvellous scientific discovery coming straight from consquences of puzzling over mathematical structures. She gives the example, among others, of Dirac’s discovery of anti-matter, which essentially came from wondering what was the meaning “the other sign choice” after taking a square root. (At this juncture, I’ll also point you to a post I did last November about Einstein’s decade of struggle to formulate General Relativity. Note: Anti- and Pro-string crowd: Let’s try to go and read that discussion thoroughly before endlessly repeating old arguments all over again on this thread, ok?)
She quite responsibly acknowledges -as I often do here when these types of discussion come up- that string theory is as yet an unfinished project, with lots of work to be done in order to understand if it has anything to do with Nature. But she wants to caution against dismissing something just because it’s “just math”, since mathematics plays such an important role in scientific discovery.
She ends her piece by reminding us that mathematics -which is all about the science of patterns- plays a key role in understanding the universe (physical law is all about patterns, of course), and, following from a conversation with a mathematician friend of hers, she likens it to poetry…. both mathematics and poetry “take a universe of complexity and distill it to essential truth”.
-cvj
March 12th, 2006 at 11:47 am
Thanks for sharing Cole’s observations and the pointer to her latest commentary. It’s good to be reminded sometimes that when the jury is still out on an idea, then the jury is still out. We can all enjoy the prospect that future theoretical work and experimentation will give us fascinating new insights into the nature of matter and spacetime, and hope we’re here long enough to see the next big result. Most of us are spectators rather than players, but it’s still a damned good game.
March 12th, 2006 at 12:10 pm
Layman wonders
You were referring to Joanne’s views below.
If one did not see the dynamcial relation apparent in the derivation of statement referred, then, would we have known the inclination behind what was happening in a geometric sense? Dirac, saw in a certain way and the matrices would have been “insightful” of geometric principal?
Quantum gravity perception taken down to such quantum levels, needed models with which to work?
If it was consistent from standard model inception and GR relevant, then what lead from that point onward, as “graviton” extends the standard model? Moves beyond it?
March 12th, 2006 at 12:47 pm
Zeno: - It’s a pleasure.
Plato: - No, from that thread I was not referring to JoAnne’s comment or anyone’s in particular. I was referring to all of the discussion.
Cheers,
-cvj
March 12th, 2006 at 12:49 pm
One had to know why, such a model was used?
As well, you didn’t discard the history (it was inclusive in the process). Are we insightful enough, that one might have recognized what is being done today?
Are any other models speaking directly to the quantum gravity issue, with such clarity? Post them, for there is always room to “push” perspective.
March 12th, 2006 at 1:11 pm
Speaking of elegant mathematics in string theory, do you mind if I ask about string dualities? Apart from the Horova-Witten papers (hep-th/9603142 and hep-th/9510209) and your book, do you have any good pointers to literature on, say, the equivalence between the E8xE8 heterotic string and M-Theory with one compact dimension, or the E8xE8 heterotic string compactified on T^4?
Sorry if this is off-topic but I’m kind of new to this field and would appreciate hearing your views on what the major papers are on these topics. TIA.
March 12th, 2006 at 1:29 pm
Hi: - In brief (I have to dash) I would recommend the reviews by John Schwarz, and by Mike Duff (middle to late 90s or so?)…. and then I would also go to the orginal papers on SPIRES and see what later papers refer to them, working forward through the literature in that way. There are just too many papers written on several aspects of those dualities to say anything more specific without knowing precisely what aspects interest you.
cheers,
-cvj
March 12th, 2006 at 4:19 pm
There are some things I’d object to in the K.C. Cole piece, but, unlike most critics of string theory, I’m very much in agreement with the comments you quote about mathematics and its role in understanding the universe. I’d even go further: given the difficulties in getting to high enough energies, mathematical beauty and consistency may be of far more importance in terms of providing guidance about how to make progress than ever before in the history of physics. Especially if the LHC doesn’t give us guidance from experiment, mathematics may be all we have…
March 12th, 2006 at 6:38 pm
that’s pretty. Betrand Russell said something similar, but I can’t for the life of me remember the exact quote.
on a separate note (although still a science communication note): meme is what I say to you, Clifford…i was so looking forward to it…
–Q.
March 12th, 2006 at 9:11 pm
I haven’t yet listened to her piece, but do you know if she was intending to reference Michael Resnik’s book Mathematics as a Science of Patterns in that phrase “the science of patterns” that you use? Or is there some earlier source for that particular phrase?
March 12th, 2006 at 10:10 pm
Quibbler, I don’t know the Bertrand Russell quote you’re looking for, but some may find this one amusing:
“The most savage controversies are those about matters as to which there is no good evidence either way.”
March 13th, 2006 at 1:06 am
The premise of this post seems to be that the mathematics of string theory is in some sense spectacularly beautiful. To us who have contributed to the discovery of post-stringy mathematics (including the correct mathematics of background independence), this assumption seems quite dubious.
March 13th, 2006 at 4:00 pm
Garrett and Thomas Larsson: the quote I’m thinking of isn’t about the string controversy, or even the beauty of strings, it was just about the beauty of mathematics.
–Q.
March 13th, 2006 at 4:04 pm
Found it:
(Betrand Russell, in “The Study of Mathematics”)
–Q.
March 14th, 2006 at 1:55 am
Quibbler, I didn’t disagree with you, but with the idea that one must either be pro-string or anti-math. Note that the title of this post contain the words “Mathematics and Strings” next to each other.
March 18th, 2006 at 12:27 pm
Hi.
Please bear with my layman’s understanding for my formal training is as an accountant; not in the sciences.
Could you elaborate further on your comment that “…mathematics is all about the science of patterns…”?
Thanks.
March 18th, 2006 at 1:24 pm
Is this the same K.C. Cole who in 1987 evidently credited Witten with the invention of string theory, to the dismay of said Witten? (”A Theory of Everything”, K.C. Cole, New York Times Magazine, October 18, 1987, p 20)
March 18th, 2006 at 2:42 pm
The point is, regardless of the type of model choosen, it is well understood which area this mathematcs deals with?
That it’s math structures are relevant, as others are who will deal with the “quantum gravity issues” must be held valid to high energy perspectives?
Peter Woit already acknowledge “this relation” of mathematics.
Peter Woit: given the difficulties in getting to high enough energies, mathematical beauty and consistency may be of far more importance in terms of providing guidance about how to make progress than ever before in the history of physics.
So lets say you are given the WMAP information to look at? How would your perspective views adapt using the mathematics it does? How shall you now “see” having incorporated all the roads leading through GR, to have insightfulness into the nature of our universe?
Shall we ignore the “quantum nature” and origns of, classically defined in a GR universe? Site examples, and names, does not reduce the importance such models play.
The understanding that both the “quantum nature and GR” has been joined, has to be acknowledged.
If you scoff at it, you scoff at the history/math behind it?
Some feel Dirac an important event using matrice design mathematically consistent in the interactions, yet, had failed to see the “imaginary number” as discriptive element of the geometry exercise?