String theory is a developing branch of theoretical physics that combines quantum mechanics and general relativity into a quantum theory of gravity.[1] The strings of string theory are one-dimensional oscillating lines, but they are no longer considered fundamental to the theory, which can be formulated in points or surfaces too.
Since its birth as the dual resonance model which described the strongly interacting hadrons as strings, the term string theory has changed to include any of a group of related superstring theories which unite them. One shared property of all these theories is the holographic principle. String theory itself comes in many different formulations, each one with a different mathematical structure, and each best describing different physical circumstances. But the principles shared by these approaches, their mutual logical consistency, and the fact that some of them easily include the standard model of particle physics, has led many physicists to believe that the theory is the correct fundamental description of nature. In particular, string theory is the first candidate for the theory of everything (TOE), a way to describe the known fundamental forces (gravitational, electromagnetic, weak and strong interactions) and matter (quarks and leptons) in a mathematically complete system.


http://www.timelessdimension.com/theoryofeverything_download.pdf

The theorists hope that string theory will be mathematically inevitable - the
only logically consistent theory of the Universe. But if so, and if string theory pins
down every physical constant, then the fine-tuning for life will turn out to be hardwired
into mathematics.” In that case, string theory will be a great argument for
design,” says Tegmark…Likewise, if the mathematics makes life inevitable, people
might start using string theory as an argument for the existence of God. String
theorists believe they are following a path to an ultimate rational theory that is a cut
above the anthropic alternative. They might be upset, to say the least, to find God in
their equations (Rees 1999).




Strings are made from quarks (energy bits), which are part of
the boson group.

Even today's energy smashers cannot destroy a quark.
There is proof that a quark will always format with
it's given center frequency (a vacuum) that results from a
genetic explosion.

Simply put, an acorn becomes a tree, and eventually, a tree
collapses to a black hole which explodes into an acorn.

Thus, we conclude that time and space are only by-products
of creation, and that string theory is only a small part of the
big picture.

No theory can be "proved". This is important to understand. When you are talking about the big questions of the nature of reality, like string theory, the statements made will all be called theories, and not laws.
Theories have implications, and those implications can be used to make predictions about how things will behave in certain circumstances. So the experimentalists try to find examples of where it can be said "if string theory is true, then when I do THIS, here is what will happen." Then they do THIS, and if the prediction comes true, then that is one vote supporting String Theory. There is no strict procedure that says how many votes are required for a thing to be put in textbooks as the current best understanding. But it only takes one vote -where somebody demonstrates that if string theory is true then THAT can not happen, and then THAT happens -- to shoot it down and prove it wrong.

Most people have heard of the expression ‘the big bang’. Its usage is so prevalent among mainstream scientists and the media that it has become the accepted ‘fact’ for how the universe began. However, there are an increasing number of secular scientists who are sceptical of this theory of cosmic evolution, and much of their scepticism has been caused by increasing discoveries that fly in the face of big bang theory. In May 2004 ‘An Open Letter to the Scientific Community’ signed by dozens of secular scientists was advertised in the renowned New Scientist. At the time of writing this article, the total number of scientists signing the letter who are sceptical of the big bang has increased to over 400.1

One of the great problems for those who believe that the universe came into existence by itself is that the universe does not present itself in such a manner. For example, the complexity of the observable universe fits better with the idea that it has been specially created ex nihilo.2 The ‘first cause’ problem is one of the great stumbling blocks for evolutionary cosmology. For example, consider the following logically valid argument.

Everything which has a beginning has a cause.

The universe has a beginning.3
Therefore the universe has a cause.4
In short, if the universe had a beginning, then it must have had a cause.

Looking like design

The so-called ‘Anthropic Principle’ derives from the observation that many aspects of the universe give at least the appearance of having been designed specifically for human life. There are an abundance of design features that sit uncomfortably for those who believe that we exist as a result of some giant cosmic lottery. So it is often claimed that there must be a myriad of other universes, with different features, even different laws of physics. And in our own universe the cosmic dice just happened to fall in such a way that the laws were those that would allow humans to evolve. Which is why we are here in the first place to ask such ‘anthropic’ questions. In other words, we are not here by design, it just looks that way, perhaps due to ‘evolution by natural selection’ among various (unobserved) universes.

Attempts to prop up this [‘big bang’] theory in the face of increasing problems have led to many weird hypotheses invoking mysterious unseen forces …
Even though the big bang is passionately held to by some advocates of design, it also is used to attempt to avoid a Designer. The theory claims that all the matter, space and energy of the entire universe pre-existed in a particle no bigger than the head of a pin. Then, for no reason, it suddenly expanded, and the energy became matter that formed galaxies, stars and ultimately people.

Attempts to prop up this theory in the face of increasing problems have led to many weird hypotheses invoking mysterious unseen forces known as ‘dark matter’ and ‘dark energy’ to basically hold the universe together or to push it apart.5 All of these speculations attempt to avoid the obvious spiritual implications of design (Colossians 1:16–17).

A theory of everything?


Many today propose that other universes may exist in parallel with our own. Some believe that aliens may exist in these other universe(s) and have harnessed the technology to flit between their own dimension and ours, and that this could account for the myriad of UFO sightings and alien encounters over the years. But see Gary Bates’s classic Alien Intrusion: UFOs and the Evolution Connection.
One should consider that many of these ‘cosmic convolutions’ lack experimental support and are speculative ideas dressed in convoluted mathematics. One such idea is string theory. Although highly controversial, it has been gaining in popularity, and research is well-funded, particularly by those trying to prop up big bang ideology.

See the box for a brief explanation of string theory. Although the box may not seem like it, it is a ‘string theory for dummies’ type of explanation. But don’t worry if you can’t understand it. No one really does, as we will see. And there is not a single shred of experimental evidence to support the claims. String theory is presently completely unobservable and untestable. However, its advocates would also claim that it is not falsifiable, and therefore, it might be correct. This is the nature of such ‘elegant’ theories. One not infrequently hears similar claims about evolution in general.

The founder flounders!

A commentator in a popular science journal noted:

‘The suspicion is that they’re just floundering around doing ever more esoteric mathematics, but not really making any progress at all. It’s a suspicion confirmed … by David Gross, the Nobel Prize-winning American Theorist and one of the founders of string theory. At a prestigious conference of the best and brightest in physics he admitted: “We don’t know what we are talking about.”’6
One of the reasons that many are excited about the potential of string theory is that they hope it might evolve to become the elusive ‘theory of everything’—the holy grail that has eluded physicists for decades. The fundamental forces that govern our universe are gravity, electromagnetism, and the strong and weak nuclear forces (that hold atoms together). String theory is an attempt to unify these forces into one mathematical theory, an attempt that many physicists now believe to be impossible anyway.

Dangerous allure for Christians

’We [string theory physicists] don’t know what we’re talking about’— David Gross, Nobel Prize-winning American theorist and one of the founders of string theory
Like the expression ‘the big bang’, string theory is becoming part of the common language of cosmology, and sadly, many professing evangelical Christians, like the old-earth creationist Dr Hugh Ross, have jumped onto the string theory bandwagon.7 Some, always eager to find a way of not appearing too ‘out of kilter’ with the secular scientific community, propose that the other dimensions invoked by string theory could be the ‘other’ spiritual dimensions mentioned in Scripture.

Of course, it is reasonable to assume that there is another realm or dimension in which angels and/or God may exist, and Paul spoke about a ‘third heaven’ (2 Corinthians 12:2).8 These may be compartments or areas of a spiritual realm or dimension, though not necessarily extra dimensions in themselves.9 The Bible does not speak about other dimensions specifically, and speculating on such matters in too much detail can lead to positions bordering on the heretical.10 This is one of the problems of taking the currently popular views of secular evolutionary scientists and trying to adapt them to Scripture.

Here’s the kicker

Evolutionary ideas like string theory start from a worldview framework that there is no God. Therefore it is dangerous practice to intermarry secular guesswork with the Bible. For example, like the big bang, there are many versions of string theory. So which one should we hang our theology on? If the secular theory changes tomorrow, do we then revise our theology? Finally, when the Bible cannot be twisted sufficiently to incorporate man-made ideologies that we assume to be correct, what happens to one’s faith?

It’s a much more reliable practice to start with Scripture when trying to understand our world and universe. The reality is there is still so much we don’t understand. But we can trust God. After all, He is the One who created it all to begin with. He encourages us to ‘Trust in the Lord with all your heart, And lean not on your own understanding; In all your ways acknowledge Him, And He shall direct your paths’ (Proverbs 3:5–6).

String Theory

Conventional point-like particles as compared to the theory that subatomic particles exist as closed strings. Left picture shows the merging of two point like particles, where the right picture shows two loops merging to form a single loop particle.
Classical physics treats particles basically as zero-dimensional point-like objects, and quantum mechanics recognizes that they can also behave in wave-like fashion. But completely distinct from this physics, string theory proposes that they may instead exist as one-dimensional loops or ‘strings’ (see figure 1) that cut across or exist in nine spatial (and one time) dimensions compared to the three spatial (and one time) dimensions we understand and use in relativity theory.1 Some suggest that these strings exist as higher dimensional objects called branes (membrane-like structures) that act like vibrating flat sheets or tubes etc.2 These ideas can even be extended to support the idea of multi-universes coexisting with our own, and that our own universe (the big bang) was the result of the collision of two of these branes in some higher-dimensional hyperspace. The goal is to get the universe to create itself—that way, no first cause would be needed, hence no God.

In your article “Is ‘string’ the next big thing?”, you write: “Evolutionary ideas like string theory start from a worldview framework that there is no God.”

I have two questions about this. First, why do you call string theory an “evolutionary idea”? I’m presuming you are relating string theory to evolution theory in some way, but the rest of the article does not give any further details about such a relation.

Firstly, thank you for your email. The big bang is fundamental to cosmic evolution or the idea that somehow the universe made itself. The article majored on the varying ideas that emanate from big bang philosophy, such as dark energy and dark matter etc. that are used to solve some of the “science” problems of the big bang. It then went on to say that string theory is just another one of these ideas with no basis in experimental science. And as I mentioned and showed in the article it is not just creationists who point out these problems. Late last year a secular conference called Crisis in Cosmology 2: Challenges to Consensus Cosmology and the Quest for a New Picture of the Universe was held to further challenge those struggling to hang onto the untenable big bang.

A quick Internet search using the words “string theory” with “big bang” will reveal the relationship. Some models of string theory attempt to explain the initial conditions of the universe before expansion occurred by saying that the theoretical early universe existed as brane that filled space. A popular physics website explains it like this.

“ … they can use string theory to devise explanations for some grand problems in cosmology, such as the state of the universe—its shape, size, etc.—just after the Big Bang, when quarks roamed freely. Along these lines, a group of theoretical physicists has recently published an interesting string-theory scenario that describes a new way to approach the development of the Big Bang. They propose that the universe began as a type of theoretical space-filling object called a ‘brane.’”1
This is in contrast with the conventional big bang idea that the universe existed as a singularity before expansion. That is, that all space, matter and energy existed at a point that was no bigger than the head of a pin and then for some unknown reason it expanded (or inflated) and energy became matter, stars, galaxies, planets and even the space in which they exist (and ultimately human beings). There are obvious problems with that idea, because the laws of physics actually break down at the point of the singularity—or it would be more truthful to say “the laws of physics don’t even exist” prior to, or, at this point in the development of the universe. Hence the ever-increasing elegant theories that attempt to solve these problems. For example, on a recent radio program, science writer Michael Brooks explained:

“String theory, our best hope for a theory that describes all the forces and particles of nature, is driven by a battle. The fight centres around questions of how string theorists should interpret an anomaly, in this case an observation that suggests the universe's expansion is speeding up. Having failed in every attempt to account for this observation, some string theorists are suggesting that certain aspects of the universe are simply unknowable. Others are horrified by this apparently defeatist attitude. The controversy surrounding the issue has come to be known as the ‘string wars ’. ”2
This is because, quite simply, the big bang operates outside of the realm of operational science and has more to do with a philosophical worldview (see point 2 of your question shortly). But notice that in either the singularity or the string theory model there is a preexisting belief that the big bang occurred. The aforementioned article goes on to say:

“He and his group propose that time began when, via a Big Bang-like event, the brane decayed into closed strings (loops) that propagated off to create the ordinary matter that makes up the universe. This scenario, while avoiding the mathematical problems of a singularity, also helps explain some other issues.”
The universe looks designed
Creationists have long pointed out that the observable universe does not fit the standard big bang model because the universe displays homogeneity.
Creationists have long pointed out that the observable universe does not fit the standard big bang model because the universe displays homogeneity. For example, the famous astronomer Edwin Hubble (after whom the Hubble Space telescope was named), said:

“Such a condition [these red shifts] would imply that we occupy a unique position in the universe analogous, in a sense, to the ancient conception of a central earth. The hypothesis cannot be disproved but it is unwelcome. … But the unwelcome supposition of a favored location must be avoided at all costs. Such a favoured position, of course, is intolerable; moreover, it represents a discrepancy with the theory, because the theory postulates homogeneity [smoothness or evenness].”3
The reason he said that it must be avoided at all costs is because it looked like our Milky Way galaxy might actually be at the centre of the universe, which of course would imply that it was therefore designed. Cosmologist George Francis Rayner Ellis also stated:

“People need to be aware that there is a range of models that could explain the observations. … For instance, I can construct you a spherically symmetrical universe with earth at its center, and you cannot disprove it based on observations. … You can only exclude it on philosophical grounds. In my view there is absolutely nothing wrong in that. What I want to bring into the open is the fact that we are using philosophical criteria [beliefs] in choosing our models. A lot of cosmology tries to hide that.”4
The same physics website that I mentioned earlier also comments on the homogeneous appearance of the universe, but also in an attempt to explain it away. I.e. “It shouldn’t look like this if there was a big bang.”

“For example, to us, the universe looks the same in every direction. Within this brane model, the homogeneity of the universe could be explained as the result of an early universe with homogenous initial conditions, such as a brane that evenly filled space.”1
Notice that they admit that the universe appears homogeneous, but that their string theory model can explain this “problem”, that is, it should not look like this if there was a big bang event. String theory is clearly a subset of a big bang belief system so this also applies to the second part of your question. The big bang, and string theory which is being used to support it, are ideological attempts to explain away the appearance of design in the universe (no first cause etc.) and therefore explain the universe without God. While some Christians think that God may have “lit the fuse” of the big bang, it should be remembered that the big bang itself is “evolving”. For example, the very fact that there are some many differing models of the big bang demonstrates its philosophical nature. Logically, not all theories can be correct and if Christians align their theology with one particular view then they risk having to revise their theology later on when the theory changes or is modified. They will be like the man that built his house on sand whom Jesus spoke about in Matthew 7:26-27.

Second, isn’t it true that “any” science should be accessible and checkable by anyone, regardless of his worldview? For example, I cannot use my Bible as a scientific argument, to show someone else that it is not possible for a kind to evolve into another kind, or that life has not spontaneously arisen from non-life. But I can (and should) use verifiable data, which is then perhaps interpreted differently based on our worldviews. This implies that “God exists” or “there is (probably) no God” both are statements outside of the realm of science.
This is correct up to a point, but it depends on how you define “science”. Many Christians are unaware that their tacit acceptance of the widespread view that “creation is religion, but evolution is science” not only lets evolutionists define “science”, but also leaves Bible-haters a free rein to play “switcheroo” with history. (As every skilled debater knows, whoever defines the terms wins the debate.) You see, the Genesis account is a record of history, and evolution is also alleged history. So when the secularists demand, for example, that creation should not be taught in science classes (but of course they demand that evolution be taught in science classes) they are actually substituting the true account of history with their own (false) version, and calling it “science”. Nobody can know definitively what happened before they were born, unless they have access to (and trust) a true eyewitness account. Consider this advice to Christian students from CMI geologist Dr Tas Walker:

Realize that if the events described were not observed (e.g. if they’re making claims about a time before the researchers were born) then they are telling you a story—an attempt to construct an evolutionary ‘history’ that fits the present evidence. Once you are alert to this you will not be tricked into accepting their evolutionary way of thinking. (Cf. the Scriptures’ emphasis on the importance of eyewitnesses—Deuteronomy 19:1-5; Job 38:4,21; 2 Corinthians 13:1.)
There is scientific evidence that is consistent with biblical history, and which does not fit the evolutionary “history” (e.g. carbon 14 found in coal and diamonds, or helium diffusion in granites). The same evidence might also be interpreted within an evolutionary framework. And evolutionists cannot escape the truth of Romans 1:20, e.g. the evidence of the complexity of the cell is consistent with it having being designed. To rely on unknown imaginary forces to create the complex machinery of the cell is surely unscientific, by any reasonable definition! We understand that complex machines require a designer—and there are incredibly complex machines in nature. The anthropic principle suggests there is a designer who must be outside of our time and space and before all things (Colossians 1). Sure, the evidence is still interpreted according to one’s worldview, but it actually points to design, whereas, cosmic or biological evolution seeks to explain away the implications of that evidence just like Hubble above.

So, if I understand things correctly, science is done as if there were no God.
Evolutionists might like to think that. But in fact, the great scientific advances in history were made by scientists like Sir Isaac Newton who in fact accepted that there is a Creator God, and, not surprisingly, found evidence of His handiwork in the things He had made. Also, if you wanted to define “science” to include speculation about what might have happened in the past that resulted in the world we have today, then it ought to be categorised as historical or origins science, which deals with past events that we were not there to observe as opposed to operational science (see next). I can do an experimental test to determine if the theory of gravity works (I can hold a ball and let if fall to the ground). But I cannot go back in time machine to observe or do the same sort of empirical testing for past events.

But doing science in that way, and then concluding “there is probably no god”, is of course saying that the world is pink just because my glasses are.
How does one define science?
I think you have misunderstood the limitations of science and would do well to research this site to better understand how our pre-existing beliefs or worldview assumptions actually influence the way we conduct science. The type of science to which you are referring is better known as operational or experimental science. As Dr Jonathan Sarfati explains in chapter one of his book Refuting Evolution:

“Science does have its limits. Normal (operational) science deals only with repeatable observable processes in the present. This has indeed been very successful in understanding the world, and has led to many improvements in the quality of life. In contrast, evolution is a speculation about the unobservable and unrepeatable past. …

“In dealing with the past, ‘origins science’ can enable us to make educated guesses about origins. It uses the principles of causality (everything that has a beginning has a cause) and analogy (e.g., we observe that intelligence is needed to generate complex coded information in the present, so we can reasonably assume the same for the past). But the only way we can be really sure about the past is if we have a reliable eyewitness account. Evolutionists claim there is no such account, so their ideas are derived from assumptions about the past. But biblical creationists believe that Genesis is an eyewitness account of the origin of the universe and living organisms. They also believe that there is good evidence for this claim, so they reject the claim that theirs is a blind faith.

“Creationists don’t pretend that any knowledge, science included, can be pursued without presuppositions (i.e., prior religious/philosophical beliefs). Creationists affirm that creation cannot ultimately be divorced from the Bible any more than evolution can ultimately be divorced from its naturalistic starting point that excludes divine creation a priori.”

Therefore it is true, but not a negative thing, to say that “string theory start[s] from a worldview framework that there is no God.”
In other words, God is excluded even if the evidence points to Him
I disagree, but please let me explain. Because I have an a priori assumption that God is the Creator of the universe—the One who created space and time itself. Therefore my view is that the quest for knowledge and scientific investigation should be conducted in the light of this belief. I would go even further to say that I think it is not helpful to investigate science, especially origins science, without an understanding of the One who created the very laws of physics by which we exist. Understanding God as our Creator also provides meaning and purpose for very existence, and explain why we live in such a special place in a special universe. In addition, a medical doctor when confronted with the issue of whether to abort a baby or not might be influenced by the evolutionary teaching he learnt at university. Therefore, thinking that an embryo is not fully human he might not realise that abortion is actually killing a child. Contrastingly, administering antibiotics for an infection or developing cures is in the realm of operational science and has nothing to do with his beliefs about origins, and such a belief has no influence on the way he might administer such cures.

To summarize, I believe it would have been better to leave the entire quoted sentence out of this article, since it is not necessary to support the key idea of the article, and indeed detracts from it.
But equally the evolutionist and indeed the string theory advocate would also say that it is unscientific to investigate the universe with the assumption that God is Creator. Hopefully, I have shown you that their type of science is conducted within their own philosophical framework that starts from the assumption that there is no God. In other words, God is excluded even if the evidence points to Him (see Hubble and Ellis quotes above) i.e. the implication of design, and thus, a Creator. To me that is just plain bad science, because good scientific investigation should lead you wherever the evidence takes you, regardless of the implications. I think it was important to point that out in the article.

The leading universities are dominated by hooded monks who speak in impenetrable mumbo-jumbo; insist on the existence of fantastic mystical forces, yet can produce no evidence of these forces; and enforce a rigid guild structure of beliefs in order to maintain their positions and status. The Middle Ages? No, the current situation in university physics departments. I just invented the part about the hoods.

The upper rungs of the particle-physics faculties at Princeton, Stanford, and elsewhere in the academy are today heavy with advocates of "string theory," a proposed explanation for the existence of the universe. String theory seeks to explain why, at the very minute scale, matter appears to be constructed from vibrating nothing. Smash up subatomic particles into smaller units such as quarks, and the quarks don't appear to have content—puzzling, to say the least. String theory says that these seemingly amorphous infinitesimal aspects of matter are made from other dimensions, compressed to a smallness that strains imagination. In various versions, the theory also seeks to explain how the Big Bang could have been possible, to reconcile the extremely tiny realm of quantum mechanics with the cosmic kingdom of general relativity, and to answer whether the expansion of our universe will stop or continue forever.
RELATED IN SLATE
Jim Holt goes on a quest to find out what will happen when the universe ends. Amanda Schaffer locates string theorist Brian Greene in the pantheon of physicists. Paul Boutin covers an earlier critique of string theory by physicist Lawrence Krauss.
Important stuff! But string theory works only if you assume the existence of other dimensions—nine, 11, or 25 of them, depending on your flavor of string thinking—and there's not one shred of evidence other dimensions exist. This may render string theory highfalutin nonsense that has hijacked academic physics. Such is the thesis of The Trouble With Physics, a compelling new book by Lee Smolin, among the leading physicists of the day. Smolin's is the most important book about cosmology since Steven Weinberg's 1977 volume The First Three Minutes. If you worry that even in the 21st century, intellectual fads have as much to do with university politics and careerism as with the search for abstract truth, The Trouble With Physics is a book you absolutely must read. "String theory now has such a dominant position in the academy that it is practically career suicide for young theoretical physicists not to join the field," Smolin writes. Yet since string theory became ascendant about three decades ago, "there has not been a single genuine breakthrough in understanding of elementary particle physics." Not only is string theory rife with malarkey about imperceptible dimensions, Smolin fears, it may be holding back legitimate science.

Who is Smolin? A former physics instructor at Yale and Penn State, he now works at this new Canadian think tank, established with seed money from the entrepreneur behind the BlackBerry. About 15 years ago, Smolin's name became among the most talked-about in science, for an idea that's a cosmic version of Darwin. Modern physics is troubled by the anthropocentric character of the universe. For instance, had gravity been only a teensy bit stronger or weaker, planets and stars could not have formed. So, does the fortuitous value of gravity for planets and stars show that a higher power is manipulating physical law? Some theorists have responded to this quandary by supposing that our 60-billion-galaxy universe is but a slice of a far larger "multiverse" with a cornucopia of different realities, each operating under its own physics. By chance one section of the multiverse got physical laws that favor us, and chance was all that was involved. Smolin countered with his theory of cosmic natural selection. The theory goes like this: Black holes cause Big Bangs. Any universe whose physical laws do not result in black holes thus will hit a cosmic dead end and fail to "reproduce." The set of physical laws that result in stars and planets also results in black holes, allowing universes like ours to copy themselves. Over eons, the firmament would become dominated by universes possessing the kind of laws we observe, because universes with such laws "reproduce." Therefore it is not weird that our cosmos has stars and planets; it is exactly what we should expect.
The physics establishment reacted adversely to Smolin's cosmic natural selection because the idea implies direction: Over time, existence progresses toward a condition more to the liking of beings such as us. In recent decades it has become essential at the top of academia to posit utter meaninglessness to all aspects of physics. Multiverse thinking is as meaningless as it gets—thousands or billions of universes uninhabitable and pointless, ours just a random-chance variation signifying nothing. Smolin's idea is full of problems, including the lack of any evidence that black holes cause Big Bangs. But Smolin could hardly have failed to note that he was heckled for speculating about conditions for which there is no evidence while the entire edifice of string theory rests atop no evidence. The Trouble With Physics is his rejoinder.
String theory became a media obsession about 20 years ago, with one of its proponents a cover boy of a New York Times Magazine article proclaiming string theorists were super-ultra geniuses cracking the ultimate riddles of creation. Smolin's book suggests that this caused string theorists to believe their media hype and to speak of their concepts as if they were proven. For example, they talk of "branes" (short for membranes) of limited dimensions passing through realms of multitudinous dimensions and describe branes as actual physical regions. Yet after decades of attempts, no experiment has detected any hint of additional dimensions, branes, or other core elements of string theory. Meanwhile string theory failed to predict the biggest astrophysical discovery in decades, the 1998 finding that cosmic expansion is accelerating, apparently owing to powerful "dark energy" that nobody can explain. After dark energy was discovered, string theorists simply revised their equations to predict it. That's not science, The Trouble With Physics contends.
Maybe string theory eventually will prove out; maybe the apparent vibrating nothing on which we are based is but a slice of some far grander reality. But string theory seems to contain significant helpings of blather designed to intimidate nonscientists from questioning the budgets of physics departments and tax-funded particle accelerator labs. And consider this. Today if a professor at Princeton claims there are 11 unobservable dimensions about which he can speak with great confidence despite an utter lack of supporting evidence, that professor is praised for incredible sophistication. If another person in the same place asserted there exists one unobservable dimension, the plane of the spirit, he would be hooted down as a superstitious crank.
Really, string theory isn't a theory at all. Creationists who oppose the teaching of Darwin have taken to deriding natural selection as "just a theory," and Darwin's defenders have rightly replied that in science, "theory" does not mean idle speculation. Rather, it is an honored term for an idea that has been elaborately analyzed, has not been falsified, and has made testable predictions that have later proven to be true. The ordering of scientific notions is: conjecture, hypothesis, theory. Pope John Paul II chose his words carefully when in 1996 he called evolution "more than a hypothesis." Yet the very sorts of elite-institution academics who snigger at creationists for revealing their ignorance of scientific terminology by calling evolution "just a theory" nonetheless uniformly say "string theory." Since what they're talking about is strictly a thought experiment (just try proving there are no other dimensions), from now on, "string conjecture," please.
Smolin concludes The Trouble With Physics with a sense of urgency. The first two-thirds of the 20th century produced fundamental breakthroughs in physics—relativity, quantum mechanics, the Standard Model of the interior forces of the atom. The final third was nowhere near as productive, while researchers repeatedly got hit over the head by the unexpected, such as dark energy. It is imperative, Smolin thinks, to stop talking sci-fi claptrap about alternate universes and get back to figuring out why our own physical world is as we observe. Perhaps Smolin is right that pure-physics breakthroughs are an imperative. Or perhaps stumbling around in the dark will be the physicist's lot for generations to come—my guess is that we know the first 1 percent of what there is to be known, and it may be centuries before we learn such things as why matter exists. If we ever know.