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MiszaBot I (talk | contribs) m Archiving 2 thread(s) from Talk:String theory. |
MiszaBot I (talk | contribs) m Archiving 2 thread(s) from Talk:String theory. |
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I have a proposal for those with open minds: If you look at the way a transmitting antenna works, different lengths produce different frequencies. I think it may be possible these strings are in fact different lengths of fibers, not circles, vibrating at different frequencies and different strengths that harmonically interact with one another and either attract or repel on a sonic level. <small><span class="autosigned">— Preceding [[Wikipedia:Signatures|unsigned]] comment added by [[User:Dgm76513|Dgm76513]] ([[User talk:Dgm76513|talk]] • [[Special:Contributions/Dgm76513|contribs]]) 08:57, 11 March 2011 (UTC)</span></small><!-- Template:Unsigned --> <!--Autosigned by SineBot-->
== Testable? ==
Brian Greene was on NPR recently talking about how this maybe tested. That nasty little sentence is out of date.
As mentioned under falsifiability, Particle physicists from the Vienna University of Technology and Institut Laue-Langevin (ILL) have developed a new technique named Gravity Resonance Spectroscopy [[User:Netdragon|Netdragon]] ([[User talk:Netdragon|talk]]) 19:53, 23 April 2011 (UTC)
I'm removing that sentence. It's fallicious. [[User:Netdragon|Netdragon]] ([[User talk:Netdragon|talk]]) 19:53, 23 April 2011 (UTC)
== Falsifiability ==
First, there's a question about whether Popper required that falsifiability be specific to the theory in question. The answer is no (at least to my knowledge), he didn't, because such a criterion would make no sense. How would you decide which theory is the "original", and therefore legitimately falsifiable, and which is the derivative one?
Second, someone asserted that falsifiability is necessary but not sufficient for a theory to be scientific. I don't think that's the case (and by the way, wiki contradicts itself on that - in one place at least it agrees with that, but in others it contradicts it and says theories are scientific by Popper's criteria if and only they are falsifiable). Popper himself says the following:
"In this way, the recognition of unilaterally decidable statements allows us to solve not only the problem of induction (note that there is only one type of argument which proceeds in an inductive direction: the deductive modus tollens), but also the more fundamental problem of demarcation, a problem which has given rise to almost all the other problems of epistemology. For our criterion of falsifiability dis- tinguishes with sufficient precision the theoretical systems of the empirical sciences from those of metaphysics..." (The Logic of Scientific Discovery, op. 316)
This seems quite clear to me - falsifiability is (according to Popper) sufficient (and of course necessary) to distinguish between science and metaphysics. Therefore as far as I can tell that section is correct as written, and I will remove those tags after some time unless someone else comments here and disagrees.[[User:Waleswatcher|Waleswatcher]] ([[User talk:Waleswatcher|talk]]) 18:28, 14 January 2011 (UTC)
* Correct. Popper didn't intend for it to be a strict requirement. IN FACT, Popper was a stark critic of logical positivism even though logical positivism was founded off Popper falsifiability. [[User:Netdragon|Netdragon]] ([[User talk:Netdragon|talk]]) 19:52, 23 April 2011 (UTC)
* Correct. Falsifiability is sufficient but can be overkill
** I think the way it was described is fine and left it alone. The original writer isn't saying falsifiability isn't enough, but that it just isn't compelling if there are no unique predictions. See if the way I re-organized things makes this more clear (and didn't make a direct statement that string theory has no unique predictions (yet it still is implied so maybe a slight rewording is in order) [[User:Netdragon|Netdragon]] ([[User talk:Netdragon|talk]]) 20:39, 23 April 2011 (UTC)
* Furthermore, the argument that there is no way to test quantum gravity is bogus and outdated. Particle physicists from the Vienna University of Technology and Institut Laue-Langevin (ILL) have developed a new technique named Gravity Resonance Spectroscopy which will serve that purpose [[User:Netdragon|Netdragon]] ([[User talk:Netdragon|talk]]) 19:52, 23 April 2011 (UTC)
** Added [[User:Netdragon|Netdragon]] ([[User talk:Netdragon|talk]]) 20:39, 23 April 2011 (UTC)
* Hence, the whole section on testability needs to be overhauled [[User:Netdragon|Netdragon]] ([[User talk:Netdragon|talk]]) 19:52, 23 April 2011 (UTC)
** I cleaned it up, but only removed quotes (note references). The rest was just moving things around other than adding a note about Gravity Resonance Spectroscopy. [[User:Netdragon|Netdragon]] ([[User talk:Netdragon|talk]]) 20:39, 23 April 2011 (UTC)
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