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Title: After Empty Promises, Will String Theory Find New Uses?
Author: EditorDavid
Date: Sun, 07 Jun 2026 15:34:00 +0000
Link:
https://science.slashdot.org/story/26/06/07/0448219/after-empty-promises-will-string-theory-find-new-uses?utm_source=rss1.0mainlinkanon&utm_medium=feed
Science magazine reports: For decades, string theory promised a "theory
of everything" that described all particles and forces as tiny vibrating strings. Physicists hoped it could also solve one of the field's deepest problems: reconciling quantum mechanics with gravity. But as string
theory grew increasingly elaborate rCo and experimentally unreachable rCo
many physicists lost hope. Now, some researchers are revisiting the
theory from first principles. In a paper in press at Physical Review
Letters, Clifford Cheung, a physicist at the California Institute of Technology, and colleagues lay out a small set of assumptions about the universe and show that they inevitably give rise to string theory....
Cheung's study, along with another one posted to arXiv in January,
starts with two reasonably conservative assumptions: that the
probabilities of all possible outcomes of an event add up to 100%, and
that the laws of physics are consistent for observers moving at
different speeds. Each group then posits additional assumptions that
have not been borne out by observations. Cheung's analysis invokes "ultrasoftness," the idea that the probability of certain particle
interactions drops off at a particular rate at high energies. The second
study, led by University of Michigan physicist Henriette Elvang, instead assumes "supersymmetry," a maximal coupling between matter and forces.
Both groups conclude the only theory that can satisfy their assumptions
is one that looks like string theory... Cheung and Elvang stress that
their aim is not to prove the inevitability of string theory. "I don't
have a dog in the fight; I just work here," Cheung says. Rather, the
goal is to explore the space of possible theories under rigid
constraints rCo regardless of whether they reflect reality... The one
thing the researchers all agree on is that the field would benefit from
more alternative models to string theory. Cheung sees the agnostic,
bottom-up exploration as a step in that direction. "You can either give
up on the problem because it's too culturally toxic, or you can ask: If
you want to find an alternative, what do you need?" he says. "Now, we
know exactly what to do." Thanks to Slashdot reader sciencehabit for
sharing the article.
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