Dr Faustus of Modern Physics - Department of Speech, Music and ...

Chapter 17
Physics Today: String Theory
I think all this superstring stuff is crazy and is in the wrong direction
(Richard Feynman)
17.1 The Impossible Call of String Theory
From the impressive results of modern atomic physics culminating in the
atomic bomb, physics has developed from atomic scales of size 10 −10 meters
into an exploration of smaller sub-atomic scales ending up today with a
string theory at Planck scales of size 10 −35 meters, where string theorists are
searching for the origin of gravitation acting of cosmic scales of size 10 20−25
meters, thus with a span of 70 orders of magnitude. Modern string theory
physicists have thus raised the bet in the poker game of science to such a
level that any form of call is impossible. But science which can not be called,
cannot be called science, only religion or magics.
17.2 What Are Modern Physicists Saying?
• The effort to understand the universe is one of the very few things that
lifts human life a little above the level of farce, and gives it some of the
grace of tragedy. (Steve Weinberg)
• But the beauty of Einstein’s equations, for example, is just as real to
anyone who’s experienced it as the beauty of music. We’ve learned in
77