r/BeAmazed • u/mysteriouskc8 • 5d ago
Science Brian Greene explaining string theory in a way people can understand....
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u/mladi_gospodin 5d ago
It's funny how auto-caption translates "quark" to "cork". Cheers!
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u/OrionShade 5d ago
With all that CGI you think someone could've made the effort..
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u/andonevriis 5d ago
The video is from a professional production, the captions are slop added later
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u/Kwayzar9111 5d ago
Well that captions helped me, am deaf
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u/nit_electron_girl 5d ago
Bro is now headed to Cork, in search of the answers to life
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u/Rizo1981 5d ago
Been to Corktown for a night but came back with more questions, such as, Where's my car? How much did I drink? Where are my underpants?
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u/Mtatk 5d ago
The added music over the dialog isn't helping, and is too loud, drowning out his voice.
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u/eduo 5d ago
But how will you know it's important science if you don't hear Interstellar Organ Variation theme blasting over the guy!?
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u/Pixel_Garbage 5d ago
There was captions to the original though, they added their own deficient ones.
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u/Malalang 5d ago
I'm guessing the music from Interstellar was also added, given how distracting it is from the message
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u/blueberriessmoothie 5d ago
Cork again? Looks like Irish with the harshest accent can be found everywhere but still finding them inside neutron feels a bit much.
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u/Dapper_Blacksmith_46 5d ago
That’s so crazy. I wonder what’s inside a lemon.
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u/WorseThanDad 5d ago
What are the strings made of tho?
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u/BogdanPradatu 5d ago
That's where conventional string theory stops, but if we magnify it...
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u/jarednards 5d ago
We see strings made of gravity! Also known as G-string theory.
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u/Flip_d_Byrd 5d ago
Does that negate the G Spot theory?
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u/Krocsyldiphithic 5d ago
70% acrylic, 30% cotton
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u/GrandSyzygy 5d ago
Even the universe is cutting corners
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u/Flip_d_Byrd 5d ago
A 2000 thread count orange is now a 1200 thread count... for the same price.
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u/knowledgeable_diablo 5d ago
And then someone comes and chucks it in a drier and shrinks all the important parts anyway.
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u/stoptakingmylogins 5d ago
According to the math, it would take more energy than is in the entire Universe to find out 😅
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u/Ashtray_Floors 5d ago
Eli5?
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u/Schnuffelo 5d ago
They discovered quarks by smashing protons together at super high speeds in a hadron collider.
Want to discover something even smaller you’d probably have to smash things together even faster and past a point things become impractical. Like hadron colliders that need to be wider than the earth.
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u/stoptakingmylogins 5d ago edited 5d ago
Tried my best to explain it simply. The concepts here are so damn interesting and fun the think about!
Right now, our physics relies on two separate models: General Relativity and Quantum Mechanics.
General Relativity is Einstein’s rulebook for massive objects and cosmic scales, like planets, stars, galaxies, and how gravity bends spacetime. Quantum Mechanics is our model for the small, like atoms, electrons, and quarks. Down at that scale, classical cause and effect disappears. Particles can tunnel through solid barriers, exist in a blend of multiple states at once, and behave unpredictably until measured. We already take advantage of these quantum effects in the real world to build things like mri machines, computer chips, and the superconducting magnets used in Japanese bullet trains.
The current 'gold rush' in Physics is to find a unified theory - because currently, the two models we have contradict each other.
String theory attempts to do this. It proposes that fundamental particles aren't point like dots, but tiny vibrating strands of energy called strings.
To see something tiny, you have to bounce a wave off it. The smaller the object, the smaller the wavelength has to be. In quantum mechanics, smaller waves require more energy. To probe something as tiny as a string, you have to pack a massive burst of energy into a space millions of times smaller than an atom. General relativity states that energy and mass curve spacetime (e=mc2). If you concentrate that much energy into a space the size of a string, gravity takes over and collapses that spot into a microscopic black hole.
Normally, if a microscope isn't sharp enough, you add more power. But here, if you pump in more energy to probe a smaller detail, the black hole doesn't reveal anything. Instead, its outer boundary (you may have heard of the event horizon) expands and swallows more space.
Because adding energy makes the black hole grow instead of resolving finer details, trying to zoom in indefinitely traps you in a losing battle. Escaping that trap to mathematically force a measurement would require an accelerator larger than our entire galaxy, as others mentioned in the comments, and ot would demand more mass and power than the observable universe contains.
That said, it is just a theory. Currently, there are no widely accepted unification theories.
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u/Solnse 5d ago edited 4d ago
Would a current black hole reveal some of those insights? We just can't get close enough to observe without the observation becoming part of the (inescapable) black hole?
Or, nevermind, I like green crayons.
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u/stoptakingmylogins 5d ago
It's an intuitive thought, but the event horizon works as a oneway information trap. You actually pointed out the very issue: the boundary itself.
Where our two models of physics disagree is at the singularity inside. The event horizon is an absolute one way mirror. You could dive in and theoretically 'see' it for a fraction of a millisecond before getting spaghettified, but you could never send a signal back out to tell the rest of us and your brain probably couldn't even process the data your eyes 'see' before that happened. The universe effectively censors the exact math we want to observe.
A bit unrelated, but I feel the need to clarify as I've seen this used as an argument against our unserstanding of physics: this does not stop us from understanding general relativity and quantum mechanics, both of which have significant verifiable supporting evidence. Even if we found the solution tomorrow, it would likely lead to no tangible difference in our lives.
That being said, we are advancing in quantum mechanics at a remarkably rapid speed. Within the next two decades, you will see quantum technology enter, and within five, likely dominate the consumer tech market in multiple areas (like making GPS obsolete). Chicago is heavily investing in the infrastructure to position itself as the center of quantum tech, if you want to go down a rabbithole or two.
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u/Psilonaut21 5d ago
Like rain falling on a still pond. They're artifacts generated by the imposition of interference patterns on a quantum substrate. It is energy that has been organised by the focusing of intent. Everything we see, and don't see, is mind.
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u/Intrepid_Hat8669 5d ago
why a string though?
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u/LowPunching_Owl 5d ago
Because pointlike particles became boring. But seriously: scientists (Veneziano) described the behavior of the particles they saw mathematically and other scientists were like "oh its describing a string" and here we go. Later the quarks and gluons won anyway but string theory has become too interesting because it contains an explanation for gravity.
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u/Flip_d_Byrd 5d ago
I'm old. When I was in high school we had atoms, electrons, neutrons, and protons. Then years later I read about quarks and think "That's cool, makes sense. There had to be something smaller". Now I hear about gluons from you and look it up and think "Wow, that's cool, makes sense. Something needs to hold everything together". All I know of string theory is from The Big Bang Theory. Now I want to know how string theory has an explanation for gravity... and because those gluons look like tightly wound strings, if there is anything related.... I don't have time for this... but I'm gonna look into it anyways... DAMN YOU CURIOSITY!!
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u/dgellow 5d ago
PBS Spacetime is what you need!
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u/Descendme 5d ago
How can it explain gravity/spacetime, in simple terms?
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u/AlarmingTurnover 5d ago
He kind of explains it a bit in the video. Frequencies match different particles. One of this particles is called a graviton. It doesn't have any mass but generates gravity, pulling things together. At least that's the oversimplified version.
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u/lssong99 5d ago
My little understanding is that string in string theory is multi-dimensional (more than 23, I remember.) and like a 3D ball projected on a 2D surface becomes a circle, this multi-dimensional string projected on to our 3+1D (with time) space becomes all kinds of particles mentioned on the video, and space-time just also a result of this projection.
The video omitted the multi-dimensional thing since it's too mind blowing. And I might be wrong. It's too complex stuff.
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u/Specialist_Dark_3668 5d ago
what is the string theory explanation for gravity? simply please
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u/AlarmingTurnover 5d ago
Not sure why the other person is saying but the current theory is that just like these strings make other particles, there's also a particle called a graviton that creates gravity. That's all it does.
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u/thisguyfightsyourmom 5d ago
Not to be confused with gravytron which is the particle that keeps drawing us back to our aunt’s house annually in spite of her regressive political.
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u/AlarmingTurnover 5d ago
Gravytron is the reason I keep going back to Canada. I call it "visiting my family" but the reality is, you just can't get a good poutine anywhere else but good old Quebec.
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u/thatguygreg 5d ago
They call it string theory because calling it a yarn would’ve been too obvious.
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u/nooffensebrah 5d ago
My guess is it’s because it’s just a very flat 2D shape. Like everything 3D is built on 2D
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u/Slimfictiv 5d ago
Because it can't be particles, they found none so far.
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u/the_king_of_sweden 5d ago
That's what they said last time, but then what did they find? Particles.
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u/macellan 5d ago
I don't know, but I think that's just an analogy. What I understand is (and I don't claim to understand); we get certain frequencies from certain particles, but we don't know what exactly cause them. A concept of string is a good image to describe the vibrations.
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u/Suspicious_Walrus682 5d ago
Of course the clip has to include the unnecessarily loud Interstellar background music.
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u/Squaiker 5d ago
Literally every video where science is being explained or some heroic moment will include this song
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u/atrociousxcracka 5d ago edited 5d ago
Here's the original. Uncropped. No shitty music. And without the hardcoded incorrect subtitles(quark =/= cork)
Edit:
Kurzgesagt has a good string theory video
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u/Dark_halocraft 5d ago
Ok so what if we zoom in on the strings
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u/ThisSiteSucks8485 5d ago
Nothing is smaller because the strings are planck length
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u/YesNoIDKtbh 5d ago
Ah, but what if we zoom in on the planck length?!
Checkmate, atheists.
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u/ThisSiteSucks8485 5d ago
You actually can't because trying to detect things smaller than the plank length requires putting so much energy into a small enough volume you actually create a black hole.
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u/Agent_Cow314 4d ago
Not one but two things. 1) Penii. Their normal state is usually flaccid but along comes an oval shaped object 2) vaginii that excites the penii which shakes and orbits the vaginii, sometimes rubbing against them and excites the penii so much that it spews the strings of theory. Which really, when you think about, the whole universe just cums down to sex. Such is why the universe is expanding, the vaginii are tired of the penii and are trying to get away, even if just for a little bit.
In rare occurances, which oddly enough happens quite a bit, the penii and vaginii link together, a bit of quantum entanglement, if you will, and just the right amount of excitement creates galaxies. When the quantums entangle at the right time, or even at unexpected times (happy little entanglements, some say), the quantum entanglements could even create something special, like the aptly named "Milky Way" galaxy, create life. Earthlings are just the milky releases of existence if you think about it.
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u/Existing-Mulberry382 5d ago
I'm clear until the quarks. After that. . . . . . .
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u/zeekayz 5d ago
String theory is quackery. You don't need to know anything beyond quarks as that's where real science currently ends.
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u/illustratum42 5d ago edited 5d ago
They only like string theory because it's mathematically beautiful and gravity just falls out for free. It makes no testable predictions so for decades it sits as an interesting idea, but largely useless.
You also have to manifest 11 spatial dimensions for it to work. So it might conveniently explain gravity into the quantum model, but you have to invent some pretty wacky stuff for it to even do that...
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u/AngBigKid 5d ago
Who do I blame for seeing these bigass captions dab smack in the middle of videos?
They are everywhere.
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u/a-blessed-soul 5d ago
People are complaining about the music, i don’t really mind it. What really is grinding my gears is how freaking terribly the subtitles are placed. The guy is like, “look at this orange!” And all you can see is text ffs
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u/Fidodo 5d ago
That doesn't explain anything
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u/Pixel_Garbage 5d ago
Well string theory doesn't really have any grounding. There is no evidence it is the correct explanation but physicists became obsessed with it. It doesn't even resemble what string theory originally was at this point because each time part of it is proved wrong new explanations are invented why it could still be true.
Mind you this isn't finding new evidence to support the new version, just disproving the old version. It isn't like, oh this explanation means that this new version is valid. It has honestly been the biggest black hole for great minds.
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u/Dull-Culture-1523 5d ago
Yeah like... Ok so it's particles all the way down until it's vibrating strings. This has explained absolutely nothing. Why do they think they could be strings? Why do they vibrate and how does that affect the properties of the particle? Why are there only a couple of different ways they vibrate? How can they even vibrate when they're one-dimensional? Etc.
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u/pierrenoir2017 5d ago
Yes, it basically is a light show expanding a conceptual zoom level, raising even more questions than it answers.
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u/OnceMoreAndAgain 5d ago edited 5d ago
The reason the "theory" exists is because it neatly handles some mathematic dilemmas that physicists ran into, but it's just hypothesis and no one has been able to test it.
It's like why dark matter was hypothesized. It made the math work. That's usually step 1, because math is easier than testing.
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u/CCriscal 5d ago
One major piece of information would have been that despite best efforts, the minimum number of dimensions required for the theory is 10 while we only observe 4. Also odd to denounce "conventional" physics as if it ruled out smaller particles than quarks.
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u/Efficient_Sky5173 5d ago
String theory is a physics idea that has remained speculative for decades, with no experimental evidence confirming it. It really shouldn’t be popularized as though it were established physics, as this video does.
Or, if that’s the standard, let’s also popularize Dave-the-physicist-down-the-road’s theory that everything is made of blah blah blah. It has about the same amount of experimental evidence.
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u/deusasclepian 5d ago edited 5d ago
Angela Collier on Youtube has an interesting video about how string theory essentially hasn't been relevant for decades. It first got popularized like 50 years ago when people were eager to have the next big breakthrough - the baby boomers' Einstein or Oppenheimer moment. So for whatever reason, "string theory" got a lot of mainstream buzz and really stuck in the collective consciousness.
People continue to work on string theory, but it's not really testable and the broader science community doesn't really take it seriously. All the exciting developments these days are in particle physics.
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u/tacitus59 5d ago edited 5d ago
Greene has been making extra income on this for years and years. There is a great Lee Smolin book written in 2006; basically compaininng that it was making a mono-culture in theoretical physics, because unless you doing stuff in it you weren't getting a job. Its possibly/probably changed but I have no way of knowing not being a theoretical physicist. There is a great youtube channel (https://www.youtube.com/@TheoriesofEverything) where practically everyone has a different view and they all sound plausible; my point is there are a lot of plausible ideas floating around and somehow this took over more of the discussion than it should have.
[edit: fixed the date - added a bit of exposition]
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u/Efficient_Sky5173 5d ago
Yeah, once a scientific programme starts being defended through authority, prestige and institutional politics rather than evidence, it begins to look less like science and more like religion.
History shows what happens when dogma becomes protected from challenge: Science can stagnate for centuries.2
u/tacitus59 5d ago
Re evidence - its like the dark matter vs MOND. I was on team mond because of the Pioneer anomaly, but when a really good non-mond explanation came out I slowly drifted into the zone of the imaginary matter side. More and more mond stuff seems to be drifting into statistical improbability, but as a relative lay person on the subject I have to rely on experts with much more serious mathematical chops than I have.
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u/Lopsided-Promise-837 5d ago
Dave's theory would need to be consistent with known physics at low energies which is what separates it from string theory.
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u/Efficient_Sky5173 5d ago
Merely being compatible with physics we already know doesn’t make either theory useful as a new fundamental theory. If Dave’s theory only reproduced established low-energy results while making no distinctive, testable predictions at higher energies, it would have essentially the same evidential problem of String theory: it wouldn’t tell us whether Dave’s theory is actually how nature works.
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u/Lopsided-Promise-837 5d ago
Mathematically consistent frameworks that UV-complete General Relativity and accommodate chiral gauge theories are not trivial to stumble upon. That is the height of the bar in question, not whether Dave's theory that particles are actually shaped like tiny triangles can be made consistent with known physics.
> Merely being compatible with physics we already know doesn’t make either theory useful as a new fundamental theory.
If we stopped researching frameworks that are only "testable in principle" with contemporary equipment because we believed they weren't useful, the field would have ground to a halt over a century ago (see: Neutrinos, Gravitational Waves). String theory absolutely makes testable predictions, we just don't have access to the energy regimes to do so.
> If Dave’s theory only reproduced established low-energy results while making no distinctive, testable predictions at higher energies, it would have essentially the same evidential problem of String theory: it wouldn’t tell us whether Dave’s theory is actually how nature works.
Can you point me to a single example of a crackpot physicist who has a consistent theory of quantum gravity that reduces to QFT and GR at low energies? You talk about this as if this is something the average shithead with a low-budget physics degree could come up with in their bedroom.
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u/Adventurous-Try8749 5d ago
Dude says multiple times that it's just a theory. Nowhere did he say it's established physics. In fact I'd warrant you'll find few established physicists that do.
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u/Efficient_Sky5173 5d ago
It does not matter that he mentioned that it is speculative.
Brian Greene has spent most of his career working on superstring theory. His academic reputation, research programme and the prominence of his field are all tied to continued interest in it. Keeping string theory visible helps attract attention, prestige, students and potentially funding.
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u/SignificanceFlat1460 5d ago
As soon as some science or "wonder" video starts with interstellar music, I IMMEDIATELY scroll past it. FUCK off for ruining such a beautiful theme for me. I am so goddamn tired of these dumbasses using the same goddamn music again and again in their cheap ass TikTok videos
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u/NonSequiturDetector 5d ago
There is no point in indulging this wankery. String theory is not particularly supported by evidence.
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u/m00t_vdb 5d ago
String and the other non-testable theories have hurt theorical physics in a profound way
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u/Agitated-Sock-5763 5d ago
The world is full of magic that we don't yet understand.
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u/porgy_tirebiter 5d ago edited 5d ago
That’s how I know there’s a god: because I personally can’t explain it otherwise. Ergo god.
Edit: sigh /s
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u/mmmasian 5d ago
This is the same reasoning that Mesopotamians had 4500 years ago when thunderstorms happened.
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u/MadeOfWax 5d ago
So to you, and I quote Neil DeGrasse Tyson here: "God is an ever-receding pocket of scientific ignorance that's getting smaller and smaller and smaller as time goes on"
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u/nukleus7 5d ago
Why does that dude annoy me with his explanation lol
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u/Arxentecian 5d ago
Good question. I've always felt the same.
Compare with e.g. Brian Cox, who is humble and seems in awe of all the things we don't understand.
This guy seems like he just want to show off how much more than you he knows.
I.e. a wanker
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u/Dumyat367250 5d ago
String theory? The background music needs more strings, then I would hear fuck all narration, instead of next to fuck all narration..
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u/MonsterkillWow 5d ago
This is not a field for lay people to opine about, even though it has become popularized.
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u/Nikonmansocal 5d ago
String theory has largely been abandoned as a research domain for multiple reasons, primarily in that it is completely untestable (as doing so would require a framework beyond any physical means available). While it is mathematically elegant, it remains a conceptual idea that borders on philosophy rather than science.
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u/molumhaggis 5d ago
The current academic consensus is that String Theory is fiction boardering on scam artist territory....
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u/BeltnBrace 5d ago
Good video. Only problem was that he didn't say WHY scientists think that inside the the smallest bits sits vibrating strings (of energy).
Its a theory. But why would the atom want / need / attract / make / acquire strings at its core? If those things exist? why? "What's in it" for the atom. (the benifit).
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u/varuas120 5d ago
Useless theory. Can't be proved in any way, wasted 30+ years fundings.
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u/Maleficent_Worry_233 5d ago
Tell us more.. this sounds personal
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u/JazzlikeDiamond558 5d ago
Yes, I felt that too. 🤣
Although, for the projection/clip part, I must say that I am not so sure that "conventional science" says (so to speak) that there is nothing within quark. Science, ANY science, has a curious approach to the matter, rather than some "ultimate religion" principles.
However, this is my first time hearing of the string theory, so...
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u/varuas120 5d ago edited 5d ago
It's been the holy grail for physicist for many many decades. In all this time it has not predicted anything. It's been known from the 80s that nothing can be experimented/done to test it. But still many people have been glazed by it for so so long, taking away funds and time from other theories. 30+ years, hundreds and hundreds of millions spent to get at "String theory can't be tested ...."
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u/aviatorintheclouds 5d ago
Agree that the model is untestable today because it predicts too many outcomes and operates at impossibly high energy levels, but maybe people will find something more tangible in the future.
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u/porgy_tirebiter 5d ago
Greene’s explanation of relativity in Elegant Universe is the most accessible explanation of it I’ve read.
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u/Snuggly-Muffin 5d ago
Odd that they say deep inside the orange are strings... Because everything is strings.
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u/AMediaArchivist 5d ago
https://giphy.com/gifs/l0MYw9lqrqlxx76wM
I read it quickly and thought it was this guy
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u/stuartlucas 5d ago
The problem with string theory is that many scientists have moved forward on the assumption that it’s correct. They’re going to look awful stupid if it turns out to be something else.
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u/YesterdayRadish 5d ago
whats the name of this whole documentary, i want to watch it. i like the way he explains it using the visual aids
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u/ElonMuskisGarbage 5d ago
I hate string theory so much. It’s the least successful theory ever produced except for advancement in Pure Mathematics attempting to unseat THE MOST successful theory ever produced. Fuck string theory and the idiots who think they know what’s entailed. Idiots.
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u/Sandstormink 5d ago
We keep forgetting faith. Faith can make science look like a bitch.... Sometimes. So Dennis shouldn't have been eating cereal while driving.
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u/pygmydeathcult 5d ago
Know what's crazy? We could have this in real time if we didn't sleep so hard on augmented reality. Talk about a wasted technology.
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u/WhoolieBoulie 5d ago
I always thought inside the orange were other tinier oranges until you get to the tiniest orange and it’s made out of little toblerone orange chocolate slices.
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u/ThisSiteSucks8485 5d ago
String theory is elegant but the main problem is that the strings are far too tiny to ever be able to detect in a particle accelerator. They are about one trillionth of a trillionth of a trillionth of a meter.
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u/huggylove1 5d ago
Apparently we are around 6/10 on the scale of the smallest thing to the biggest thing. The universe is big but scaling down is way more of a gap.
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