Famous Hawking Black Hole Bet Resolved? 500
Mick Ohrberg writes "In 1997 the three cosmologists Stephen Hawking, Kip Thorne and John Preskill made a famous bet as to whether information that enters a black hole ceases to exist -- that is, whether the interior of a black hole is changed at all by the characteristics of particles that enter it. It now looks like Stephen Hawking and Kip Thorne may owe John Preskill a set of encyclopedias of his choice, since physicists at Ohio State University 'have derived an extensive set of equations that strongly suggest that the information continues to exist -- bound up in a giant tangle of strings that fills a black hole from its core to its surface.'"
Hawking radiation (Score:5, Informative)
The article though is a bit hand-wavy over why the information is preserved in this new theory... (I guess Nth dimensional maths doesn't appeal to the reporter
Effectively this is a conjecture - if the strings continue to exist, then they'd have the same size as the black hole appears to have. The throwaway statement " That means a black hole can be traced back to its original conditions, and information survives." seems a bit of a stretch though
Simon
Re:Hawking radiation (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Hawking radiation (Score:5, Insightful)
KFG
Re:Hawking radiation (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Hawking radiation (Score:5, Funny)
Mwuhhahahahahahha!
KFG
Re:Hawking radiation (Score:3, Interesting)
Peer review might help, but normally people attempt to recreate the experiment. That's how science weeds out "luck".
Re:Hawking radiation (Score:5, Insightful)
The reason is that it is difficult enough to get funding for a complex experiment at the best of times. If you try to get funding to perform a complex experiment that someone else has already performed, you are a lot less likely to be successful.
So although the theory is that scientific experiments are always directly replicated, in most cases scientists don't have the will (why go where someone has gone before) or the funds to do so.
Re:Hawking radiation (Score:5, Insightful)
But its always nice to figure out how you fooled yourself
Re:Hawking radiation (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Hawking radiation (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Hawking radiation (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Hawking radiation (Score:3, Funny)
Not if you're dealing with teenagers. Hence why occasionally 1 + 1 = 3...
Re:Hawking radiation (Score:5, Funny)
a = b + c
a(a - b) = (b + c)(a - b)
aa - ab = ba - bb + ac - bc
aa - ab - ac = ba - bb - bc
a(a - b - c) = b(a - b - c)
a = b
Now:
5 = 4 + 1
This is undoubtedly true, and it's the first equation with a = 5, b = 4, c = 1.
Therefore also the last equation is true:
5 = 4
Finally, use that equation with
2 + 2 = 4
and you've got
2 + 2 = 5
quod erat demonstrandum.
Now, to proof that we have really truth, let's proof the central equation (i.e. 5 = 4) again in a completely different way:
-20 = -20 (obviously true)
25 - 45 = 16 - 36 (just rewrote the numbers as differences)
25 - 45 + 81/4 = 16 - 36 + 81/4 (added 81/4 on both sides)
(5 - 9/2)^2 = (4 - 9/2)^2 (used binomic formula)
5 - 9/2 = 4 - 9/2 (took the square root)
5 = 4 (added 9/2 on both sides)
So, agan we have 5 = 4, using a completely diffferent proof. Now, this clearly shows 5 = 4 is true, and therefore also 2 + 2 = 5.
Mathur's tests (Score:5, Interesting)
"It will be a big piece of fun" (talking about deriving equations)
"thats a rather large force" (after mentioning that the force to pull two pieces of a capacitor apart could lift the city of columbus)
If you get a chance to meet him, don't pass it up. He's a great guy
Re:Mathur's tests (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Hawking radiation (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Hawking radiation (Score:5, Informative)
Newton can actually say nothing about space around a black hole, at least not anything insightful. He just thinks that the gravity is pretty intense. He knows nothing of the spacetime warpage and all of the weirdness that goes with it. For example, he'd tell you nothing of the extreme time-dialation. All of this (from GR) is inherently part and parcel to the world of a black hole.
And if you stop and consider the Newtonian derivation of the Schwartschild radius (due to Laplace, I *think*), you should quickly see that it revolves around setting the escape speed of something to the speed of light. If that's not relativistic, what is? The speed of the observer is at best a red herring. (Arguably, citing it indicates a fundemental misunderstanding of relativity.)
Now, as for matching or not: stop and consider the history of relativity. The whole *point* of Einstein's work was that it *doesn't* match Newton's results. Newton predicts no time dilation for fast objects, no gravitational red shift, no gravitiational lenses, no gravitiational radiation. All of these things have been observered. Are you "highly suspect" of them?
Re: Hawking radiation (Score:4, Funny)
Yes: They have great, juicy apples. He's currently trying to figure out how the snake delivers them but has a theory that it slaps them out of the tree with its tail.
Re:Hawking radiation (Score:4, Funny)
Now I want you to repeat after me:
- First
- Post
- !
Re:Hawking radiation (Score:5, Interesting)
The way theorists get around this is through virtual particles. Assume that virtual particle pairs are blinking in and out of existance all the time, but are never noticed because before they become 'real' particles they destroy each other (think particle/anti particle). The fun part comes when the particles appear on opposite sides of an event horizon. One gets sucked into the black hole, and the other becomes a full-fledged particle with a small chance of escapeing. Because the escapeing particle was never in the event horizon to begin with, it can contain no information from within the black hole.
Now, how the black hole doesn't gain mass from the anti-particle I'm not quite sure... I'll leave that up to all the
Re:Hawking radiation (Score:5, Informative)
As I understand it, the idea is that the particle and the anti-particle come into being at the same place, moving in different dirrectsion, and the anti-particle is more prone to being pulled in somehow due it its being the opposite of the other mass in the black hole. The particle escapes, generating the black-body radiation, and the anti-particle enters the black whole and collides with a corresponding particle, leaving existance as the original particles came into existance - messed up I know.
If anyone is curious, (stolen from The Universe in a Nutshell by Stephen Hawking, the temp of a black hole is
Temp = (h * c^3)/(8 * pi * k * G * M)
where h is planck's constant, c is the speed of light, G is Newton's gravitational constant, k is Boltzman's costant,T is temp, and M is the mass of the black hole.
Re:Hawking radiation (Score:3, Informative)
BUT:
If an anti-particle enters the black hole, it LOSES mass. So its a process in which energy is emitted outside of the event horizon and the mass inside the event horizon is decreased. That no mass actually transfered out of the black hole is only a semantic problem (like tunneling, ect).
I cant really speak about the asymetry that enables this process, because its a few years about my quantum physics level, but it could be possible.
Btw: There are theories that the resulting ra
Re:Hawking radiation (Score:4, Interesting)
So we have these virtual particles blinking in and out of existence. One particle, one anti-particle. I understand that when an anti-particle falls into the black hole and the normal particle escapes, the black hole loses mass. Makes perfect sense.
I want to know, why don't an equal number of particles fall into the blackhole while the antiparticle escapes?
Seems you would get a 50/50 distribution leading to no mass change..
I'm sure I'm missing something. Can someone tell me what it is?
Re:Hawking radiation (Score:5, Informative)
A particle and an antiparticle both have a positive mass. The "virtual particle" mechanism means that for periods of times short enough, the measurement of the space right outside the hole is uncertain enough that there "might" be a pair of antiparticles there. So they are there. While they're there, one of them falls into the hole - it doesn't matter which one - while the other gains potential energy from its mate falling in, and escapes. Yaay.
But you can't get something from nothing. Some mass escaped from the vicinity of the hole, so some mass has to disappear from the vicinity of the hole. So the hole loses mass.
How's that for handwavy?
Re:Hawking radiation (Score:3, Informative)
Exactly, you beat me to this. This is the explanation I have heard when in college with the addition that while it is a quasi-classical explanation (i.e. event horizon is classical, but space is not,) there always will be some handwaving involved.
Re:Hawking radiation (Score:5, Funny)
[waves hand] This is not the explanation you are looking for.
Next on "Ask Slashdot" (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Next on "Ask Slashdot" (Score:4, Funny)
(I'm sure you could do it...)
Re:Hawking radiation (Score:5, Informative)
Except that the pair of virtual particles are an entangled pair and if one catches the escaped one and measures its quantum state, one then knows the quantum state of the one that fell in. Catch enough of them and you know about an appreciable fraction of the black hole (in theory!)
Now, how the black hole doesn't gain mass from the anti-particle I'm not quite sure
The energy that was used to create the virtual pair came from the black hole's gravitational field, thus robbing the hole temporarily of mass. For each "virtual" particle that escapes as Hawking radiation, that mass is lost permanently so the mass of the hole goes down, over time. Now remember that this loss can only happen at the event horizon; if the black hole is very large, the tidal force (the gravity gradient) at the event horizon will be weak and thus the rate of particle loss will be very low. For very small black holes the tidal force at the event horizon will be enormous and almost all virtual pairs close to the boundary will separate in this way.
So large black holes will simmer coldly, shrinking only with glacial slowness if at all, and small ones will be hot and shrink very rapidly indeed - finally disappearing altogether in an brief, intense burst of radiation, according to Hawking's theory.
Re:Wait a second..? (Score:4, Informative)
This is where your mistake lies. The very foundation of the black hole is in it's mind boggling mass density. The absolute mass is important only in formation, because with too little mass gravitational forces are not able to compress matter enough to create the black hole.
You could get a black hole (complete with event horizon and Hawking radiation) by compressing earth into a radius less than about 9mm. Indeed, the less mass a black hole has, the smaller it is, and the larger the space curvature is on it's event horizon. Therefore all effects coming from space curvature are stronger for them, which also includes Hawking radiation. This especially means that finally black holes "explode": the more it radiates, the faster it gets smaller, and therefore it radiates even more in even shorter time scales, until it radiated it's complete mass away.
Of course, as soon as the black hole gets down to a size near the planck length (a mindboggling small length where quantum gravity effects are huge), we already know that all semiclassical reasoning must fail, therefore we cannot really say anything about what will happen at the last moment of a black hole, until we have a successfull theory of quantum gravity (or have watched black holes exploding, of course).
Re:Hawking radiation (Score:5, Informative)
Now, how the black hole doesn't gain mass from the anti-particle I'm not quite sure...
The black hole doesn't gain mass, because the particle that fell in has negative energy. Remember, you can't create energy from nowhere, but you can "borrow" some from the vacuum temporarily ... that's where the virtual pairs come from. They borrow energy from the vacuum, which they have to give back after a time (roughly) Delta T < hbar/E, where E is the energy of the particle pair.
Now, if one half of the pair falls across the event horizon, it isn't coming back. The particle that escapes the hole becomes "real" because it has no one to annihilate with, so it carries off energy E/2. But since you can't yank energy out of the vacuum indefinitely, the particle that fell in had to be carrying energy -E/2 ... which isn't a problem, because it isn't a "real" particle, so it's energy need not be consistent with your expectations from freshman physics.
So, where does that energy E/2 that goes into the escaping particle come from? The only place it can: the black hole. Remember, a negative amount of energy fell in. So the hole has to lose some mass in the process. Which is why we say that the black hole "emits" particles.
The mathematical details are, of course, much nastier than that, but that's the gist of things...
Re:Hawking radiation (Score:4, Informative)
Black Hole Interior (Score:5, Interesting)
For a somewhat handwaving explanation of what I'm talking about, take a look at this [3dresearch.com] hypothesis.
Re:Hawking radiation (Score:5, Informative)
The abstract from the NPB article is
It has been found that the states of the 2-charge extremal D1-D5 system are given by smooth geometries that have no singularity and no horizon individually, but a `horizon' does arise after `coarse-graining'. To see how this concept extends to the 3-charge extremal system, we construct a perturbation on the D1-D5 geometry that carries one unit of momentum charge P. The perturbation is found to be regular everywhere and normalizable, so we conclude that at least this state of the 3-charge system behaves like the 2-charge states. The solution is constructed by matching (to several orders) solutions in the inner and outer regions of the geometry. We conjecture the general form of `hair' expected for the 3-charge system, and the nature of the interior of black holes in general.
If your institution is a subscriber you can get the full text from here [sciencedirect.com]
Re:Hawking radiation (Score:5, Informative)
I'm the reporter, and you're absolutely right -- It doesn't!
Proud to be slashdotted,
Pam Gorder
stephen lost (Score:5, Funny)
Jim Carrey feels Hawking's rage (Score:3, Funny)
The pictures [hawking.org.uk] prove it.
I love you, Stephen Hawking.
Re: encyclopaediae (Score:5, Funny)
Do they take Wiki? [wikipedia.org]
You're more right than you think (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:You're more right than you think (Score:4, Funny)
Will it come with a free bottle of correction fluid and a pen?
Re: encyclopaediae (Score:3, Informative)
Re: encyclopaediae (Score:4, Insightful)
> As far as accuracy - that will come with time.
My faith in that is starting to slip. I recently ventured out into some pages I hadn't previously been watching, and found several pages whose history shows that they have a k00k "squatter" who watches the page and insists on sticking his idiocy back in no matter how many people come along and correct it, whingeing all the while that everyone else is pursuing some dishonest agenda.
Almost - wrong bet though (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Almost - wrong bet though (Score:3, Informative)
In 1975, he bet Kip Thorne a subscription to Penthouse (the loser would get it mailed to his home) that a celestial mystery named Cygnus X-1 would turn out to be a black hole.
Re:Almost - wrong bet though (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:It was a Playboy subscription... (Score:3, Informative)
Hawking/Thorne bet [k12.wa.us]
Ain' the web grand?
Yeah, Stephen lost that one. Word has it that Kip's wife was a bit miffed about the payoff.
KFG
status of string theory (Score:5, Interesting)
I'd be holding onto my bet a little longer I think=)
Re:status of string theory (Score:3, Informative)
this is also why quite a few people feel its more philosphy than science
Re:status of string theory (Score:5, Informative)
String theory certainly does predict a number of things that are easily testable
Yes, it's a theory, yes it's kinda off-the-wall and feels a bit contrived, but, studying it, I gotta say that it's pretty if nothing else. It's elegant enough and compelling enough - in terms of what it promises to explain - that it's worth following until it's found to actually be wrong.
A quantum theory of gravity might not be so motivating to you, but if you're a physicist, it's worth trying something wonky to get to it. (Speaking of which, Quantum Loop Gravity - also very wonky - is awesome).
And, as for "quite a few people" finding it too philosophical
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
'String theory' is misnamed (Score:3, Insightful)
Tangle of strings? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Tangle of strings? (Score:5, Funny)
Now I know where Windows98 really came from.
Of course (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Of course (Score:5, Insightful)
Additionally, people's names are conventional rather than scientific, but their legal usage has necessitated their meticulous recording. While it can't be proven, it can be verified beyond a reasonable doubt that the Lucasian Chair of Mathematics at Cambridge is Stephen Hawking.
Tracing origins... (Score:5, Insightful)
That means a black hole can be traced back to its original conditions, and information survives.
But, if the information about the origins is contained in the strings inside the black hole, that information is inside the event horizon, and can not be observed by anything outside the event horizon. Maybe the information survives, but there's no way to get at it... Unless I'm missing something here? Cosmologists?
-T
Re:Tracing origins... (Score:5, Funny)
"Is there a cosmologist in the house? Anyone? My god, get this man a cosmologist!"
Re:Tracing origins... (Score:3, Interesting)
the entropy of a black hole is directly proportional to the surface area of the event horizon so that as it swallows up m
Let's get closer... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Let's get closer... (Score:4, Funny)
As soon as we figure out how to retrieve ... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:As soon as we figure out how to retrieve ... (Score:5, Funny)
Hey, this is theoretical physics, keep your pseudo science out of here!
Re:As soon as we figure out how to retrieve ... (Score:3, Funny)
Tangle of Strings (Score:5, Funny)
Sounds like the back of my desk!
*sob* It must be so sad in there. (Score:5, Funny)
all those lost by that article, raise your hands.. (Score:5, Funny)
Physicist-speak (Score:3, Funny)
It has to be said (Score:3, Funny)
2. Make bet against famous physicists
3. ???
4. Profit!
Information? Not Matter? (Score:5, Funny)
Slashdot, where information goes to die.
Wow, what a gig (Score:4, Funny)
Is there some way I can get this gig?
Black holes have hair (Score:3, Funny)
On a side note, what would be a good bet for physics today? "I'll bet you the Google cache..."
And remember, not only am I president of the hair club for black holes, I'm also a client.
Oh really, come on, get a clue! (Score:5, Interesting)
Similarly, "fact" is not merely an emphatic form of "theory".
I might as well theorize that black holes don't exist at all [space.com]; who owes what now? Oh, right, nothing changes, because theories aren't facts
Mick Ohrberg, why don't you grow out of Physics Fanboydom and take some time to learn some real stuff? For starters, why don't you being with Science 101 and learn the definition of "theory", and "equation", and other such basic terms?
What it doesn't say. (Score:5, Interesting)
But when they say:
"The strings from any subsequent material that enters the black hole would remain traceable as well. That means a black hole can be traced back to its original conditions, and information survives."
It depends on what "ceases to exist" means.... (Score:4, Insightful)
Maybe it exists on the other side of the event horizon, but I thought string theory tells us that things like event horizons shield the universe from singularities and other discontinuities. The information cannot be retreived, therefore, from the point of view of the universe, it has ceased to exist.
What's the difference, really, between destroyed information and irretrievable information?
Isn't this simple physics? (Score:3, Funny)
So for the quantum astronomy and astrophysics geeks, am I missing something?
Re:Isn't this simple physics? (Score:4, Interesting)
Noone doubted the energy continued to exist.
The bet concerned the patten of information held by the matter/energy. The questions was if you encoded something in a patten of laser light and sent that into the black hole would the encoded information continue to exist? ( given that no record of the data sent exists except that encoded in the light. )
Google for holographic universe, it's interesting stuff.
Blackt holes shown to compress losslessly. (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Blackt holes shown to compress losslessly. (Score:3, Interesting)
The conclusion may be wrong (Score:5, Funny)
However, there is no proof that any of the information survives, after being caught up in red tape. Indeed, all evidence so far suggests that it does not.
(Beurocracy particles are a subclass of Strange Quarks that have beeen influenced by a politic Ion)
Woooosh! (Score:3, Funny)
"bound up in a giant tangle of strings that fills a black hole from its core to its surface"?
So it's really just a tightly wound baseball?
Some questions from a non-physicist (Score:3, Interesting)
2. Accumulation of mass/energy. What exactly prevents a black hole from exploding, after accumulating enough mass - what makes them so stable? Is it possible that the Big-Bang was an explosion of a huge black hole ?
3. If a half of a quantum-entagled (EPR) pair enters the event horizon, can it somehow be used as a "probe" ?
I offer a wager too: (Score:3, Funny)
Honestly, how many people really understand this stuff? It is glorious mental exercise and all, but good grief. Somehow I don't mind paying taxes to support this. As soon as we decide that we're not a bunch of brutes we should be trying to do exactly this kind of thing.
And yes, I did read the article. Tried anyway.
It's Obvious (Score:4, Funny)
Universal Information Preservation... (Score:5, Informative)
What makes this interesting, is that as the matter slows down (an effect of time dialation), one can theoratically see more and more of the strings/string-structure (as higher and higher vibrational harmonics appeared to freeze out from the string's wild oscillations.) This in fact would mean that the available information about every string of matter that ever fell into any given black hole remains in the univerese as an observable phenomenon frozen at the surface of the black hole. Clearly this protects the conservation of information regarding all matter within the universe (as distinct from the space between the event horizon and the singularity which is a very different kind of place, and one that responds to different considerations as described by the Preskill's work.)
By the way if you ever want to read a great book on strings, and get a fantastic oveview of both Relativity and Quantum Mechanics, "The Elegant Universe" is a superb read. That and the authors subsequent comments about the strengths and weaknesses of both String Theory, and Quantum Loop Gravity point to an as yet undiscovered world view that will cleanly answer these dichotomies, the way these threories answer the dichotomy between Relatitivity and Quantum Mechanics.
Genda
"God not only plays with dice, he sometimes throws them where they cannot be seen..." -- Stephen Hawking
Ironic Science (Score:5, Interesting)
Second: I can't see how you can possibly test any of this.
If you can't test it, then it's just a likely story. It might be a more likely story than saying little green elves did it all, but in essence, it;s not that different.
Tangles of strings - Suuuure.
As I said, it probably is true, and string theory is a lot cleaner, but damn - what are you going to do? Crack open a black hole to find out?
We. don't. think. so.
It strikes me as what Horgan calls "Ironic Science".
RS
Re:Is it me (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Is it me (Score:4, Insightful)
To me, it makes more sense that the real workings of the universe would be incredibly simple rather than complex. Not sure why, it just seems to make sense
Re:Is it me (Score:5, Insightful)
When we achieve enough proficiency in our understanding to make accurate predictions, and validate them with observations, then publish them, have them scrutinized publicly and repeated, we're making vast improvements to the knowledge humanity holds. The fact that we're in so esoteric topics for new things at the moment just goes to show how valid this system is; we've built a cohesive worldview in physics down to the quantum level. There, mysteries abound, but it doesn't mean we shouldn't be there.
Re:Is it me (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Is it me (Score:4, Informative)
By using theoretical physics, we've discovered some great observational results. Remember, not all theories have been just about quantum physics. The redshifting of stars, atomic decay, the curvature of space, the relativity of time.
These get back to us as profound statements about our existance: the approximate age of the universe, carbon dating objects, the formation of solar system.
Funny how the very large and very small are related.
Re:Is it me (Score:4, Funny)
Now, I forgot what it was that I thought I knew.
Re:Is it me (Score:4, Insightful)
Science normally deals with things that we observe, and scientists try to find out the whys and the hows. Once in a while, though there are things that are sometimes theoretically identified before, and it may be a while before such things are actually observed.
S
Re:Is it me (Score:5, Funny)
On the flip side, the math always did a hell of a job predicting the outcome of experiments.
Re:Is it me (Score:5, Insightful)
On the surface this might all seem like philosophical banter... but that's just what the news prints. What is behind this is tons of chalkboards and computers full of equations that fit modern theory.
Remember, we don't HAVE a theory of everything yet... i'ts not like everything is perfect, and scientists are trying to make things up to look smart.. there is a point where our current equations don't add up, don't make sense.. and that's where these guys are working now.
superstrings, quantum gravity, etc.. these aren't whimsical sci-fi dreams.. they are where science is currently trying to figure things out.
Re:Is it me (Score:5, Informative)
I actually recently responded to a similar accusation against physicsists, and you can read my reply here [slashdot.org]. That response has more examples listed of 'kludges' in physics, but I'll talk about a few in more depth in this post.
What you've just described is known as phenomenology. In other words, trying to come up with some sort of basic theory to match the given data. Examples include Planck's original quantizing of radiation into discrete quanta, which turned out to be right. Another example is the Landau theory of 2nd-order phase transitions, where one builds a power-series expansion of the free energy in powers of something called the 'order parameter'. This is a total hack, but in many cases can adequately describe phase transitions (including superconductivity).
In fact, there are many kinds of physics theories, some termed 'macroscopic' in which case they're phenomonoligical, and describe what's going on, but don't adequately describe the 'physics' of the system. Then there's the microscopic theories that talk specifically about particle interactions, and follow directly from quantum mechanics, statistical mechanics, E&M, etc. The goal is to make these two approaches mesh.
For example, superconductivity could be described fairly well using the Ginzberg-Landau expansion, where the order parameter described above is complex, instead of real. Many things can be described this way, including Josephson Junctions and fluxoid quantization of superconducting loops. (Ginzberg just won the Nobel Prize in physics in 2003. Landau, if he were still alive, would have probably won it too, and it would have been his 2nd physics nobel prize). This approach worked fairly well, but physicists weren't sure why that was.
But then in 1957 Bardeen/Cooper/Schrieffer came up with the BCS theory of superconductivity, which explicitly describes how the electrons can pair up into Cooper pairs. Electrons want to repel, but in the right crystal lattice an electron-phonon-electron interaction (ie, a local distortion of the lattice) can produce an attractive interaction. BCS describe how this attraction comes about, how the energy gap forms, and how the electron pairs can carry a resistanceless supercurrent. BCS won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1972.
This was microscopic vs macroscopic development of superconductivity. Two years later, physicist Gor'kov was able to show that the Ginzberg-Landau theory comes as a limiting case of the BCS theory. Hence, microscopic meets macroscopic, and everybody's happy.
So yes, physicists do look for something to fit the problem, but they don't just stop there. They also try to make those hacks or kludges match up directly from physical laws of the universe. That's what physics is about.
Re:Sweet (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Simple question maybe (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Simple question maybe (Score:4, Interesting)
String theory has modest successes with some things, and monsterous problems with others. It's essentially built to explain why gravity is so weak. At distances smaller than strings gravity is as strong as all the other forces. But it doesn't overwhelm everything at large scales because gravity is the only force which can see the strings, and so it leaks off into these other dimensions untimately becoming very dilute.
The hope of theoreticall physicists is to unite gravity with the other forces, understanding everything about it's divergance, hopefully uniting quantum electro/chromodynamics with general relativity creating one theory to explain them all, and, in mathmatics, bind them.
Re:Too bad for Kip Thorne (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Double-Dog dare you... (Score:3, Funny)