Unraveling String Theory

Newtonian physics ruled the day until the early 1900's when quantum mechanics and Einstein's general relativity shocked the scientific world. Together, these two theories seemed to account for the entire universe: quantum mechanics takes care of the subatomic world, while general relativity handles everything else. However, neither one by itself can explain how the universe works and their explanations for how the universe works are completely incompatible with one another. Physicist Brian Greene writes, "When the equations of general relativity commingle with those of quantum mechanics, the result is disastrous. The equations break down entirely." Physicists have been living with this problem for decades because, basically, the discipline is bifurcated: "In all but the most extreme situations, physicists study things that are either small and light (like atoms and constituents) or things that are huge and heavy (stars and galaxies), but not both. This means that they need use only quantum mechanics or only general relativity...." However, physicists do need a theory that can combine or unify these disparate phenomena for situations where both theories could be used simultaneously, like when studying the center of a black hole.

Stokes continues with a study of the pursuit of a unifying theory. Currently, this involves the development of superstring theory or string theory. I won't try to explain this theory in a couple of sentences - you can Google it if you are interested. M-Theory is apparently the mother of all string theories, but even that is a network of theories, which - according to Stephen Hawking - "is good at describing phenomena within a certain range." So, it's a unified theory comprised of many theories. Interesting. For all of its relative beauty and elegance, however, there is little observable evidence for string theory. Author Peter Woit wrote the following:

No matter how things turn out, the story of superstring theory is an episode with no real parallel in the history of modern physical science. More than twenty years of intensive research by thousands of the best scientific papers has not led to a single testable experimental prediction of the theory.

Obviously, the situation in physics is obviously vastly more complicated than what I could cover here, and I'm certainly in no position to critique the scientists' efforts. But it does seem clear that the bases for scientific theories - that is, what is actually happening beyond what can be observed - are not on rock-solid ground. For example, if general relativity and quantum mechanics are irreconcilable then doesn't at least one of them have to be wrong? As aether served as a good predictor of behavior in the real world, but got the explanation - the "why" wrong - could this be the same fate of these two theories?

Could be? Maybe? Probably? Stokes' point is that it's reasonable to be cautious about science's explanations of phenomena even within their own purview. Shouldn't we then be cautious about scientists' claims about the existence - or non-existence - of God? Scientists - as good, sober skeptics - should be wary. So why aren't they?