String/M Theory In Science Class?

[Darur]

This was posted on my other forum by me, but I'm curious how you folks feel about this.

My friends and I were having a discussion about String and M theory and we noted none of our classes have ever even mentioned physics topics beyond the most basic principals of electromagnetic waves (but thats largely because our physics classes here have to cater to all the students, and most of them have a hard enough time grasping Newton's Three Laws). We agreed its a shame that students who actually enjoy physics or chemistry have to learn it on their own. Our principal is no help here; as a perfect example, when a parent asked her about AP classes being made available a few years after the school was open her response was "Oh, you mean those hard classes?"

But when I considered the matter further, I realized technically these theories have no place in physics courses because we have no science to prove them. Mathematically, they work in many circumstances, however there are inexplicable results, and the theory calls for large changes in our understanding of the universe. Whats more, by definition, there is no way we can test or observe the theory to determine if the predictions are true. The best we can do is search for circumstantial evidence such as the existence of gravitons and super symmetry. Because of the very nature of the theory, we have no way of proving it like General Relativity or Quantum Mechanics.

At best we have an unverifiable theory of everything and at worst we have an elaborate exercise in mathematics.

Essentially, its the same predicament seen in teaching creationism in Biology or religion as science. By the very definition of the theory, we cannot prove it. Now, don't get me wrong, this is not an argument for introducing religion or creationism into science curriculum, neither is an appropriate topic in science. However, String and M theory should technically be avoided in science classes for the same reason. Thats not to say they should be exempt from math classes, they definetely belong there, but most physicists agree that these theories are impossible to prove due to the nature of humans.

Frankly, I'm torn. I like the concept of the theories, but I have to admit they are very weak with no means to actually prove them as existing. So, what do you folks think?

TL;DR - String Theory in Science classes despite being unprovable or no, and this is not a debate on religion or creationism.

[Lady Matsu]

Well, I think string Theory belongs in science classes, but not in high school physics. Those classes are the barest of introductions to the subject, and you are talking complex theory. However, I see no problem with introducing them in college courses. At that point, everyone should have enough theoretical basis that they can understand the topic, and a broad enough world view that they are able to see the application.


Or maybe I have an over optimistic view of college.

[Darur]

But thats not quite my point.

I see no reason why String Theory shouldn't be taught in High School in some way, frankly I think every High School graduate should at least know what General Relativity and Quantum Mechanics are, as well as String Theory.

My point was, as an unprovable theory it technically is not Science. Science can be proven and quantified. By definition, String/M theory cannot, because we lack any way of proving it, short of in theoretical sense.

Its a significant thing to consider when you realize creationism is specifically avoided in schools because there is no way to prove it. Its Pseudo-Science. If String/M Theory falls under the same rules, then technically it doesn't belong in science courses, but rather in math or Philosophy.

[King Nothing]

I don't see any reason String Theory can't be brought up in concept in science classes. Everyone who gets to the point of talking about the strong and weak nuclear forces, and probably a bit before that when talking about the electromagnetic force and gravity, should know that science is seeking some sort of Grand Unified Field theory, and despite String Theory's status as Utterly Untestable, it is the leading contendor in terms of plausibility. I'm not saying they should go especially in depth with it, but throw the idea out there. Get people interested. Science is very cool and people need to look at the stuff you don't talk about in classes to find the really awesome stuff. Hell geology is extremely interesting, but try telling that to anybody who's currently learning about the differences between igneous, sedimentary, and metamorphic rock.

As you said, we've got our little circumstantial tests we can do, and we've got another one that we came up with involving brane inflation, fluctuations in spectral radiation, and all that immensely arousing stuff. The only downside is they would need to build somewhere in the area of a whole helluva lot of telescopes to make a very large array (not to be confused with the Very Large Array) and that would be very expensive. "Very expensive" and "for science!" are not two things the average person likes together in a government spending report.

Also don't get me started on creationism it's buuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuunk

[chaoticfeet]

We covered string theory in my high school physics course, but yeah, it was on a basic, introductory level.

GRANTED, I'm from Dow town where the vast majority of graduates go on to study for some form of engineering/scientific profession so that more than likely is the reasoning behind including it in our high schools. I still think that graduates should at least be aware that such a theory exists, but it shouldn't be taught in any great depth at that level.

[RahX]

11 dimensions.

Modern string theory while I think is understandable the average person can't soak it in. It one day and age, maybe, but right now, its be wasted on dead ears.

NOT to say i'm above average, I guess i should say the average student in high school.

[Darur]

KN, by your argument, Intelligent Design then should be mentioned "in concept" in Science classes. Its as testable as String Theory and we have even more circumstantial evidence to back it up (i.e - our existence, the odds of our existence, etc.)

[King Nothing]

Well the difference is String Theory has scientific credence behind it whereas Intelligent Design is straight-up religion with no sientific credibility. And I don't want to turn this into an ID debate thread (although that would probably get me posting a lot) but bringing up our existence as proof of a theory explaining our existence isn't even remotely circumstantial evidence at all. It's not any sort of evidence. I can't use the fact that a person was murdered to suggest that a specific person was the murderer. I have to analyze forensic evidence, witness testimony (which is essentially anecdotal evidence which is nearly useless), and a slew of other things, and then I have to "test" my assumption by convincing twelve impartial (one would hope) people that there's no chance anyone else did it. In court, the evidence for ID would amount to saying "Well, Jim's dead. Can you think of anyone who did it? Bob sure had the ability to do it. Bob probably did it."

ID is not even remotely testable, because it's not falsifiable. Anything we can currently test that could count as evidence for ID does - not "could also" but does - count as evidence for other things, and the one single thing that would definitively stack the odds in favour of ID as compared to other things is completely and utterly untestable. This, not the fact that there's God involved, is what makes it unscientific. My beef isn't that their idea contains God, it's that its entire existence hinges on God. That's not science.

String Theory, on the other hand, has some serious math backing it up, which isn't proof but is at least, y'know, reliable. If the math is right, we have to test the predictions of that math. We can't yet, so String Theory is relegated to being an impossible-to-directly-test theory. But a scientific theory which is falsifiable. String Theory's validity as scientific is really only hindered by our technology. ID's validity as scientific is hindered by its own core concepts. That's where the difference is.

[RahX]

Yeah I don't go for any theory that involves any portion directed by religion.

The sun, and the three stars, its just how each age looked at the sky and interpreted what they saw.

[Darur]

KN, I agree, I'd prefer not to turn this into a debate on Intelligent Design either, but the trouble is both issues are very related when it comes to proving them.

The odds of our existence in the time alloted by Astrophysics is enough to support some flavors of Intelligent Design. Math supports both concepts, explicitly in the case of String Theory and largely implicitly with Intelligent Design.

Now, one could easily argue that religion is Philosophy, teach it there. They would be right. String Theory is Math however, and thats where it belongs by the same logic, and Math is not Science. Math is ideal laws and rules of logic, its in many respects a Philosophy and much more so then it is a Science. Examples of this would be the concepts of infinity or multiple dimensions. Infinity is a perfectly reasonable idea in math but disagrees with everything Science tells us. Dimensions beyond the 4th (which in itself is a stretch) are fine in math, but because of our very nature they're as provable as God's existence.

Thats the trouble, because by the very nature of String Theory, many of its concepts are completely untestable except by math, and math itself is not justification for Science.

[King Nothing]

Originally Posted by Darur

Now, one could easily argue that religion is Philosophy, teach it there. They would be right. String Theory is Math however, and thats where it belongs by the same logic, and Math is not Science. Math is ideal laws and rules of logic, its in many respects a Philosophy and much more so then it is a Science. Examples of this would be the concepts of infinity or multiple dimensions. Infinity is a perfectly reasonable idea in math but disagrees with everything Science tells us. Dimensions beyond the 4th (which in itself is a stretch) are fine in math, but because of our very nature they're as provable as God's existence.

I have to disagree with you on a couple points here. Math most definitely is more science than philosophy, though I won't necessarily argue that it is, flat out, science (though one could argue that it is a science of pattern recognition). It is most definitely not philosophy, in that aside from maybe a very small handful of concepts, you can't have debates about truth. Math simply is. A formula either is true or isn't, there is no ethical situation in which a formula no longer holds.

As for dimensions beyond the fourth, we've been taught before that we can't rely solely on our own observational powers for science. And beyond that, dimensions beyond the fourth do have math behind them which, while not concrete proof because we can't observe them (yet?), is more than God has behind it. Being able to mathematically prove something does give a lot of meaning to certain things when we can test the math behind it. It's one of the main reasons we're looking for a way to reconcile Gravity and Quantum Mechanics in the first place. We're hindered in proving higher dimensions because it's not easy to take math and find a way to test it that by definition requires observational powers beyond our own five senses (and mechanical amplification thereof). We're hindered in proving the existence God because by God's very nature it can't be done by any but God himself. One is limited, at least ostensibly, by our own technological and interpretational power. The other is limited by the nature of its existence. This is, of course, allowing for the possibility of both to exist for the sake of discussion.

I'll try and dig up where I read it, but there is hope for an experiment that will be possible once the new Large Hadron Collider at CERN is up and about that may be able to test something about energy signatures of strings dangling from higher dimensions or some such that, while it won't be proof of String Theory, will be a small bit of testable evidence that some of its math is correct. It also won't apply solely to String Thoery, but it will be one bit of predictive math proven correct, so it's a start for String Thoery as well as other theories it would support. One problem, among others, though, is that they might not be able to get enough energy from the Collider to do it, which is pretty mind-blowing when you think what they're going to be able to do with that and yet it might not have enough energy for an experiment.

It was a bit of a stretch for me to call it scientific and falsifiable, so that was wrong, but I'd hesitate to say that it definitively isn't if only because I hold out hope that better technology and further number crunching might give us a shot at testing it in some way or another.

Thats the trouble, because by the very nature of String Theory, many of its concepts are completely untestable except by math, and math itself is not justification for Science.

Math is definitely justification for science. Math led to Einstein's Theory of Special Relativity, for example, because he was curious to reconcile Maxwell's equations on electricity and magnetism with existing equations of mechanics. He did this by fiddling with math. A whole pile of what is called true by Special Relativity exists because of thought experiments and math. We need more, obviously, especially with something as complex and far-reaching as String Theory, but the problem isn't explicitly that it's based on math. It's that it's based on math which itself is based on a bunch of ideas that are, themselves, based on math. The math on either end is solid, it's the ideas that connect them that we need to get to.

I still think String Theory should be introduced conceptually in science class. Discuss its current state of untestability. Mention other competing theories, too, though String Theory really is the only "mainstream" theory, so if you choose to mention others you might sort of have to pick and choose which ones you want to talk about depending on which you personally think have more credence or whatever. If there were any shred of evidence that existed to imply that Intelligent Design was anything other than fundies trying to ram God into science because the Theory of Evolution offends their book, then I'd consider making similar concessions. And I don't mean BS evidence like "irreducible complexity" or "LACK OF TRANSITIONAL FOSSILS" which are both crap.

And just in case anyone feels like bringing it up, The Exceptionally Simple Theory of Everything is, from my exceptionally simple understanding of the not at all exceptionally simple ideas on which is draws, bunk. But I won't try and claim definitively until it's given more time to be fleshed out and seriously looked at.

EDIT: Forgot this:

The odds of our existence in the time alloted by Astrophysics is enough to support some flavors of Intelligent Design. Math supports both concepts, explicitly in the case of String Theory and largely implicitly with Intelligent Design.

Those which would be supported by current standards of astrophysical and geologic time are little more than "yeah, yeah, it's what you said, but instead of things 'just happening' it was totally God/Wilford Brimley/Some Alien/other higher power" and are just as unscientific and BS as the one people are trying to push into science class. Ultimately, Intelligent Design in any form whatsoever comes down to trying to place some higher power in the gaps currently left by science. It is almost literally saying "God did it!" whenever credible scientists would say "we don't know, we're trying to find out right now" and by it's nature opposes science because it wouldn't allow for competition. It is currently accepted that the Theory of Evolution is the bomb diggity. But if something were to come up that somehow showed (feasibly, mind you) that the Theory of Evolution was unlikely to be right and instead something else happened, science would evaluate it and see where it goes. It would take a lot because the concept of evolution is one of the most extensively researched, documented, and proven concepts in science, and the Theory of Evolution, being based almost entirely on that along with loads of archeological and other biological evidence, is very, very compelling. But, with ID, if that were to be the accepted theory, claims in opposition to it would be met with cries of blasphemy regardless of how strong the evidence is, because it makes that one giant leap to a creator that requires dogmatic, unwavering faith. Science cannot be dogmatic.

[RahX]

Almost belongs in physics, not just general science.

[Darur]

Bear with me, way too tired to be talking about Physics:

KN, your taking my use of Philosophy too literally. Philosophy is logic. Math is simply logic, it is true in the realm of thought, but we can never really replicate its perfection in reality.

The ability to perceive dimensions higher then ours has nothing to do with technological limitations, it limited by our very nature, much the way humans could never empirically observe God. If a 2D life form had all the technology imaginable, he could never prove a 3rd dimension truly existed, to him the entire world would be described as length and height.

Until we are able to observe the existence of these dimensions, the math behind them doesn't prove they exist. As I mentioned before, infinity is a logical concept in math, but in Science we can never observe it. It defies our very understanding of how the Universe works.

As a consequence, our only real way to prove String theory is through circumstantial evidence, such as the existence of certain particles and fields predicted by the theory. Thats not enough to justify it.

Math definitely leads to supporting theories and the formation of theories, but we never ever justify Science strictly because the math behind it is sound. We have to observe proof.

Now, the God element I introduced to make a comparison to the nature of the theories. Its interesting how you immediately jumped on it as "Bad Science" simply for containing God. I definetely agree religion has no business in school or Science, however, by the very nature of String Theory, you should be against its teaching for the same reasons your against the teaching of God. Much of the Scientific community dismisses String Theorists like religious zealots because its as provable as Intelligent Design.

The concept that God created life is scientifically as reasonable as the notion that tiny strings of energy make up everything. We have math behind it, yes, but religion also has Philosophy behind it. Its hypocritical to push out one of these concepts and allow the other.

[King Nothing]

String Theory isn't dismissed in the same way as Intelligent Design - not by a long shot. It's not the most popular of theories, sure, but "much of the scientific community" doesn't dismiss String Theory in the same way that virtually all of the scientific community dismisses Intelligent Design.

And again, your equating math and philosophy is wrong. You're simplifying them far, far too much by simply saying they're both "logic." Computer science is all logic, but it is not philosophy.

The idea that God is as scientifically reasonable as String Theory is also absurd, because there is the potential to prove something like higher dimensions. The LHC will hopefully create micro black holes. We know how fast these micro black holes should evaporate. It is theorized, however (and I'll try and find the article where I read this), that they may evaprate slightly quicker than the math would say, which would be explained by gravity being transmitted in physical dimensions beyond our standard three. This could potentially have implications on the whole idea of dark energy being something related to higher physical dimensions as well. It's all very cool, and very theoretical and, unlike religion, very scientific. String Theory is not unequivocally unprovable. It is currently unprovable. We may be able to in the future, we may not. We'll see what happens. But God, by his very nature, is not provable by anything but himself. String Theory has math behind it which, while not proof of truth or verification of anything, is a solid enough basis to continue to theorize. God has the Bible behind him, which is worth nothing. There's no objectivity to it.

I'm not entirely sure why you want to equate philosphy and theoretical physics with each other, either. Just because theoretical physics is in a purely theoretical phase does not make it not science. And it's NOT the same as Intelligent Design because Intelligent Design is NOT theoretical, either. Using an arbitrary, omnipotent force to explain things away is not a theory. It's a religion. Religion isn't science.

It's not even remotely hypocritical to support the mentioning (I'm not saying spend a month studying it here) a theory with some hefty math and a fair bit of support from corners of the scientific community in high school while opposing the teaching of a theory that no credible scientist takes seriously and exist solely to insert God into science class because religious people are too insecure to allow people to learn science that doesn't support their world view. If String Theory were going to be taught anywhere, I would say it needs to be science class (preferably a physics class) as opposed to math because, while all that it really is is concept based on math, it is undeniably within the realm of theoretical physics.

That reply is going to be a little broken because I was sort of jumping back and forth between ideas. I think there's also a half-finished thought in there somewhere but I can't find it. I'm also aware how much I'm attacking Intelligent Design and how that's not really the point of this thread, but I feel the need to make the distinction between something with math behind it and something with philosophy behind it, and why it is (hopefully) obvious that these are two very different things when it comes to formulating scienctific theory and teaching theoretical science.

The other thing is, and I don't know if this is clear or not, but I'm not pushing to have String Theory discussed in science class. I'm perfectly content that it isn't, and I don't think it's necessary, either. I just think it'd be cool for a teacher to spend maybe a period outlining the basics of it and stuff. My high school physics teacher used to take little detours in talking about that stuff all the time, and it made everyone far more interested. My interests lie entirely in the realm of what I think is cool.

(I'd have replied earlier but I guess I missed it because this was the first I saw it)