AaS! 117: Is String Theory Worth It? (Part 3: Dimension is Destiny)

Ask a Spaceman!

Paul M. Sutter

Astrophysics, Science, Cosmos, Holes, Black, Astronomy, Natural Sciences, Universe, Cosmology, Space, Physics

4.8 • 853 Ratings

🗓️ 3 December 2019

⏱️ 42 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

How did String Theory get started? What has made the idea so popular over the decades? Can we ever truly have a theory of quantum gravity? What is supersymmetry, the landscape, and the AdS/CFT Correspondence? What do holograms have to do with this? How many dimensions do we live in? Why does String Theory have such a hard time making predictions? How are we supposed to judge a theory that isn’t done yet? It’s a non-stop String Theory bonanza as I discuss these questions and more in today’s Ask a Spaceman!

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Music by Jason Grady and Nick Bain. Thanks to Cathy Rinella for editing.

Hosted by Paul M. Sutter, astrophysicist at The Ohio State University, and the one and only Agent to the Stars (http://www.pmsutter.com).

Transcript

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0:00.0	Imagine getting in a rocket ship.
0:09.3	And it'll be a big one.
0:10.5	Trust me, like a really awesome one.
0:12.8	And it will have lots of foods and comfy beds and a pool table.
0:17.1	Yeah, yeah, a pool table.
0:18.2	I may have designed this rocket ship when I was 12.
0:21.3	Anyway, you get in, big rocket ship, blast off, you go in space, and you go in one direction.
0:26.4	You just pick a point, say the second start of the right, and you just go straight on until morning,
0:31.4	and then you keep going and going and going. You never turn left, right, up down just one direction.
0:36.4	You see a bunch of stars, a bunch of galaxies, you travel through the universe, the cosmic
0:41.5	web, it's pretty awesome, and you just travel for eons, like it just never stops.
0:47.6	But after a while, a long enough amount of time, You come upon a certain galaxy.
0:55.9	It's right directly ahead of it.
0:57.7	You can't avoid it.
0:59.1	So you enter the galaxy.
1:01.3	You cross into the galaxy because you have no other choice
1:03.3	because your special rocket ship that I made when I was 12
1:06.1	does not have directional control.
1:09.0	So you enter the galaxy and you find directly ahead of view a star.
1:13.3	Oh, wow.
1:14.1	So you aim towards that star.
1:16.3	And you find in orbiting that star directly ahead of you a planet.
	...

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