General Chat / The best single broadcast of science I've ever seen

I've found something very interesting while surfing through the WWW.
http://www.pbs.org/w...nt/program.html
There you can watch a TV-Show by Brian Greene, a physicist and author. He explains how some people are trying to find one big formula to describe all laws of nature in it.
A formula which is able to bring the theory of relativity and the quantum mechanics together. That has been the crux of the physicists since the quantum mechanics theory was developed.
The shows relate to a new theory, called "string theory". But... You better watch it yourself. My english isn't good enough to give you any further explanation xD

So guys... Even if you just know that there has been a man called Einstein, watch this.
Even if you just understand one third of all, it'll be thought-promoting.

Let's see if there are other people interested in physics here ^^

Unfortunately, string theory hasn't progressed... pretty much at all... since it was introduced a few decades ago.

Yeah, rly?
What has happened with it?
I'm afraid I was unable to follow it. I found out about it ~4-5 months ago...

From this weeks issue of TIME Magazine: The Unraveling of String Theory.

I still think the many worlds model is the one that makes the most sense. (Provided you can accept the idea of branching time and infinite possible universes. I said it was the one that makes the most sense.)

(If you want more explanation for how the many worlds interpretation reconciles general relativity (the most accepted theory in classical physics) with quantum physics (that is the physics of very small particles -- which tend to behave very strangely) I wrote an introduction to the topic here.)

Ok, my brain hurts now.

Amazing stuff, but I laugh at everyone assuming the world is elegant. Experience has shown it's chaotic more than anything...

-ACE

It's the chaos that's elegant

Marked for later. This looks VERY interesting.

Will watch this as soon as I am back at home again. Sounds pretty good.
Damn I should have brought the headset to my apartment. The speakers of this laptop really suck.

Hopefully this is not too popular scientific. And thanks for reminding me to read this book I bought a while back.

mmm... I remember seeing a documentary about it a while back (didn't watch the linked one though). I believe the basic idea behind the theory could be real, but the problem is that there are five different string theories that all could be possible. Problem is that you can't proof it with tests. Also I recall something that they had to reduce the amount of dimensions in the theory. They could reduce it to 4 dimensions which is real world (we're not living in a 3D world imo). Time is the fourth dimension.

mmm... I remember seeing a documentary about it a while back (didn't watch the linked one though). I believe the basic idea behind the theory could be real, but the problem is that there are five different string theories that all could be possible. Problem is that you can't proof it with tests. Also I recall something that they had to reduce the amount of dimensions in the theory. They could reduce it to 4 dimensions which is real world (we're not living in a 3D world imo). Time is the fourth dimension.

They explained most of that in this documentary. The multiple theories were simply different perceptions of the same thing.

The number of dimensions isn't a problem. Just because you watch a movie in 2d, does it mean that what was filmed wasn't 3 dimentional? We can only percieve 4 dimentions, but that doesn't mean there cannot be more that we don't have the ability to see or interact with.

After going back and watching the third hour of this, I'm beginning to believe them. It has holes, given that you can't test it yet, but it's pretty neat stuff.

And any theory that supports superluminal travel is good by me.

-ACE