http://io9.com/5391989/a-black-hole-engine-that-could-power-spaceships?skyline=true&s=i

LHC is unlikely to confirm extra dimensions - it isn't big enough.

My research is on neutrino oscillations, another exciting window of opportunity to expand the Standard Model and to uncover new physics previously not seen.

string theory is not inherently untestable....its just not testable yet. Many proposals have been made for ways to experiment with string theory. The LHC is currently our best bet. This collider may discover extra rolled up dimensions (by looking at gravitons) and may confirm supersymmetry. If the extra dimensions are organized in the way that string theory predicts, this would be a huge boost for string thoery. Its just a matter of how creative we want to be in coming up with experiments.

Also, i think you might be slightly off in saying that string theory is the least respected area of theoretical physics. In fact, way off. The other disciplines that you mention (biophysics, astrophysics, plasma physics, etc) are n0t theories in competition with string theory. They are just tackling different questions than string theory does. As far as attempting to explain our most elementary particles and reconciling quantum mechanics with gravity, string theory is actually our best bet right now...by far.

No doubt proposals have been made, but zero progress in actually testing the theories of ST has been made. This isn't to say it never will, but an entire theory that is currently based on nothing that can be tested at the time is a highly questionable theory, and just plain bad science.

these are not currently conflicting theories. The "no hair theorem" has fallen out of favor. This theorem was made before it was discovered that black holes had temperature and entropy.

Heh.... false! Completely and utterly.

It's actually very likely we're going to be getting a hell of a lot further in the coming decades. This is one of the most exciting times in all of history for physics. Some of the biggest and most complex, sophisticated, and coordinated experiments ever devised are coming to fruition right now or in the near future. These experiments aim to (hopefully) uncover mysteries of nature never before attempted on such a scale. Computational power is increasing all the time. Mathematics is also an ever expanding field, and engineering will tend to advance at a steady rate as long as the other sciences continue.

With the way we're going, we've got a lot of great things in store for the future. Humanity is about to get some very exciting knowledge, one way or another.

http://io9.com/5391989/a-black-hole-engine-that-could-power-spaceships?skyline=true&s=i

Just a tangential, interesting, article I stumbled across...

not necessarily so. Einstein was the king of the thought experiment. As long as your theory is consistent with the mathematics, its not necessarily bad science at all. Einstein's theory of special and general relativity were ONLY consistent with mathematics at first. It is only bad science if the theory can NEVER be tested.

I would also disagree that "zero" progress has been made in testing these claims. They havent been directly tested yet, but this is different than saying zero progess. String theorist have given many proposals for how to test it. And this month the LHC will start up, which may confirm supersymmetry, and may even confirm curled up dimensions if we are lucky. Thats alot better than zero progress.

I doubt that. Something simple like cracking the old RSA encryption algorithm took thousands of computers working together in a cloud network in their idle time, which is a lot of the time on almost every PC. We've still got huge problems with predicting 30m waves in shipping lanes. Many of the major problems in maths have still not been cracked, like the issue of how to understand infinity, and if the Zermelo-Fraenkel Axioms are correct. There have been some major advances in the last few decades. But most maths is still linear. Non-linear solutions tend to be absolute nightmares to solve, and have to be solved case by case, often involving major processing time on supercomputers, rather than providing a general solution like most mathematicians strive for. The problem is that most solutions to real-world problems now appear to be non-linear in nature. This is especially true of solutions for oceanographic studies. Right now, we've got a lot of problems in maths that we would like to be solved, with little idea on when that will be.

What is it that you doubted, exactly? It seems you're saying you doubt that we've got a lot of great knowledge to be uncovered in the future, and doubt our abilities to uncover any of it. But then in your post you seem to only have a problem with particular aspects of mathematics.

What do you think I'm being overly optimistic about? The fact that we live in an exciting era of science when we are at the point where we may be able to realize some insight into long-standing problems in particle physics?

It's weird for me to hear (see) someone call me overly optimistic, because most of my life I've been terribly pessimistic.

What I'm saying is that with the LHC at CERN, and a number of very productive neutrino experiments around the world running, we are currently working on two of the biggest things in particle physics, which have both been hugely chased foundations for decades.

Both the Higgs boson and the neutrino masses offer insights into new physics that is beyond the Standard Model, the most successful theory in all of science.

Supersymmetry and the other things being chased at LHC also play huge roles in this. At this point in time, more than any other in history, we are closest to making SOME kind of discovery, whether it is an affirmative or unfavorable discovery.

You and I seem to be on very different pages in this thread. I am talking about specific problems in physics that I see finding some form of insight, solutions, or advancement in the near future, where as you are talking about something quite different - difficulties in mathematics that have not yet been overcome.... So until we are on the same page with all of this, and actually talking about the same thing, I don't think you can say I am being overly optimistic. I've seen the amazing progress in the last 30 years of this field and know quite certainly that my views are based on solid, promising developments that have been a long time in the making. You're still talking about problems totally unrelated to my original post.

As Einstein said, the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, and expecting a different result. With the LHC, all we're doing is saying "it didn't work. let's do the same, but bigger."

In fact, it's more likely to be the case, because both are results of judging the world against an imagined view of reality that is not being checked and corrected against real life.

Heard the same things being said in the 90s, about string theory, and about fusion. Didn't really make a big impact then. I doubt it will now.

In reality, devices whose inventions went relatively unnoticed by the world when they first came out, the DNA replicator and the MRI scanner, had the largest effect on science in the last 20 years, because it suddenly made almost every scientist able to compare anyone's DNA very quickly, and made any scientist able to do 3-D scans of the brain, which opened up new approaches to genetics, evolutionary theory, neuroscience, and psychology, in ways that weren't available before, using data from 6 billion people, and that's a hell of a lot of data.

According to Roger Penrose, the most successful theory in all of science is Einsteinian relativity, because it is millions of times more accurate than any other theory in all of human science, including quantum mechanics. The standard model of atomic physics did give us semiconductors, and AFAIK, microwave ovens, and quite possibly mobiles using microwave signals. But then, we're barely understanding relativity, let alone its potential, as to have any theory that can be millions of times more accurate than any other, that can give us the ability to describe the movement of matter to an unprecedented level of accuracy, would be like discovering the gun in the stone age. I think we're like cavemen finding an AK-47 when it comes to relativity. We have almost no idea what to do with it.

That's what the current hype is about the LHC. But 20 years ago, the same hype existed, about string theory, and nuclear fusion. It's just hype.

I'm talking about that I've been reading about scientific discoveries in the last 100 years, and we are converging to certain points, that were raised in the beginning of the last century, that the classical system of science has pretty much reached its limit of being deterministic in a useful way. We're tapping out our potential, because more and more of our results are showing contradictions that don't work with traditional views of science.

However, a paradigm shift in thinking, does not mean that any new experiments are needed, or will show anything useful, but will yield confusing results, that will only make sense in the new way of thinking, but that in that type of thinking, is largely superfluous, as it was already proved from the early 20th Century, and really only illustrates another example of theories that we will naturally realise are true based on simple daily evidence, once we accept the new way of thinking. So I really don't think it matters what happens at the LHC at all. It's not the problem, and it's not the solution.

Einstein's two forms of relativity were not only consistent with mathematics, they were also consistent with a number of experiments and observations at the time, or very nearly after.

Well, scorpio, myopia and short-sightedness are a kind of "vision." Fortunately, we have scientists who can see a little wider and further.

No, not really. It's about changing the conditions of the experiment. The LHC will employ matter moving at ever greater speed and energy, resulting in entirely new and unseen interactions, not possible with smaller accelerators. And with better, more advanced detectors.

Or else,why do it?

You know, a few scientists have also heard and understand the meaning behind that quote from Einstein, too.

Science and dating, eh! Well, I can see how one might be more prone to self-deception. However, science doesn't have that luxury.

Okay, I'll call up the CERN partners and have 'em pack it all up then. Scorpiomover says so.

Hey, you're mentioning evolutionary theory in that list? Oh, the irony! The IRONY!!!

Again, by your interpretation. Another would point out that we've applied Relativity relatively well.

And in some not so nice ways, granted. However, since we have two theories that stand in opposition to one another - Relativity and Quantum Theory - then I guess we have a lot more to learn. Seems to me, the more instruments we bring to the effort, the better. Don't you think so?

Well, then I'll give Ed Witten a call and tell him to drop it. Again, Scorpiomover doesn't think much of the effort so there's no point in carrying on.

So is this where we start bringing God into the mix?

Science marches forward, no matter how hard we want to hold it back I'm afraid.

No. The hypothesis that more and more experiments will give us our answers, when we have plenty of experiments already. As Einstein said, the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, and expecting a different result. With the LHC, all we're doing is saying "it didn't work. let's do the same, but bigger."

One can be unrealistically pessimistic in many parts of your life, like dating, and yet be unrealistically optimistic about other areas, like scientific development. In fact, it's more likely to be the case, because both are results of judging the world against an imagined view of reality that is not being checked and corrected against real life.

Yeah, yeah. Heard the same things being said in the 90s, about string theory, and about fusion. Didn't really make a big impact then. I doubt it will now.

In reality, devices whose inventions went relatively unnoticed by the world when they first came out, the DNA replicator and the MRI scanner, had the largest effect on science in the last 20 years, because it suddenly made almost every scientist able to compare anyone's DNA very quickly, and made any scientist able to do 3-D scans of the brain, which opened up new approaches to genetics, evolutionary theory, neuroscience, and psychology, in ways that weren't available before, using data from 6 billion people, and that's a hell of a lot of data.

The LHC keeps being talked about with a lot of smoke. But there is precious little evidence for the bucks spent, and I really cannot think of much that had that impact with that kind of budget, except for space exploration, and its biggest impact was setting communication and spy satellites into orbit. Don't get me wrong. The LHC might tell us really amazing things. But right now, it's all smoke with no fire behind it.

According to Roger Penrose, the most successful theory in all of science is Einsteinian relativity, because it is millions of times more accurate than any other theory in all of human science, including quantum mechanics. The standard model of atomic physics did give us semiconductors, and AFAIK, microwave ovens, and quite possibly mobiles using microwave signals. But then, we're barely understanding relativity, let alone its potential, as to have any theory that can be millions of times more accurate than any other, that can give us the ability to describe the movement of matter to an unprecedented level of accuracy, would be like discovering the gun in the stone age. I think we're like cavemen finding an AK-47 when it comes to relativity. We have almost no idea what to do with it.

Yes, we are. You seem to be talking about expensive scientific experiments that keep being done, that keep being hyped to be "the next big discovery". I'm talking about that I've been reading about scientific discoveries in the last 100 years, and we are converging to certain points, that were raised in the beginning of the last century, that the classical system of science has pretty much reached its limit of being deterministic in a useful way. We're tapping out our potential, because more and more of our results are showing contradictions that don't work with traditional views of science.

We're on the verge of a massive breakthrough to be sure. Everyone seems to agree on that. But the breakthrough looks set to be a paradigm shift in thinking to me. That paradigm shift seems to be slowly appearing in many different subjects simultaneously, and seems to be a paradigm shift of consciousness within our society, and what it means to actually research science in the first place. However, a paradigm shift in thinking, does not mean that any new experiments are needed, or will show anything useful, but will yield confusing results, that will only make sense in the new way of thinking, but that in that type of thinking, is largely superfluous, as it was already proved from the early 20th Century, and really only illustrates another example of theories that we will naturally realise are true based on simple daily evidence, once we accept the new way of thinking. So I really don't think it matters what happens at the LHC at all. It's not the problem, and it's not the solution.

for about a year, they relied on mathematics alone.

A year later, experimental evidence began cropping up for them peicemeal, but it took years for enough evidence to build up to convince most of mainstream physics. All that is required for the theory to be valid is that one continues to work on creating experimental tests. If it ultimately fails these tests, its rejected. If it passes, it sticks..at least for now. String theory is VERY powerful in terms of the mathematics. That is a big first step. Attempts will soon be made to test it. And it is still FAR from frowned upon in the theoretical physics community.

Hey, just because I might not accept a theory, doesn't mean I don't keep up with it. I know how much evolutionary theory has been expanding based on the work of DNA examination. It might be wrong, but it's still expanding.

There is a crazy theory going around (CERN community) that the future is hijacking it's own past so that we are unable to discover if the higgs particle is real. It has to do with the conservation of information or something of that sort. Lets wait and see what happens!

Well my friend, I can't help but say you aren't familiar enough with what's really going on to offer much useful criticism on this issue. Your comments, as much as I am sure you believe them to be true, are illustrative of someone who doesn't really grasp what's going on. I've heard the quote. Everyone's heard the quote. Some people (scientists!) even understand it in its proper context, as well as most of the things Einstein said. Were we doing the same thing over and over again with nothing to show for it, maybe it'd be an issue, no? But the reality of the matter is (you can argue against this all you want, but you can't change facts) that the things that HAVE been done "over and over again" have shown tremendous results. Those that do NOT show good results are not being done over and over again. Something you need to brush up on is what exactly is going on at CERN. I know you think it's "more of the same", but it's not. It's not just "the same, but bigger." Until you're able to really understand the science behind it you're going to be stuck in this rut of ignorance on a pretty pivotal topic in modern science. With all of the information out there it's really surprising that you have no idea what this really is.

I'm actually not so pessimistic about dating at all. Once again, you're making bogus claims that are quite the opposite of reality.

In scientific development, to a practicing scientist, there is no notion of an "imagined view of reality that is not being checked and corrected against real life". What a scientist does is constantly, more so than anyone else on the planet, check and correct their understanding of reality against real life... Heh heh, I can't help but think you're either insane or making very bad jokes without punchlines.

Alright, I'm starting to understand the problem now... you don't really know much about this world of science you keep referring to. What you heard about string theory in the 90's was no where close to being remotely as significant as what has been said about the LHC and other cutting edge physics experiments today. What you were getting was the usual media hype on string theory, which has been strong, and not listening to the thousands of dissenting words of other physicists around the globe.

I still don't think you're getting it, man. It's really somehow not sinking into your skull. I don't know how to make it any more elementary, but let me try: Even IF the LHC utterly fails, and does not show us any sign of the Higgs boson, the entire community of physicists will have one large awakening... or eye-opening, whatever you wish to call it. It will mean that these theories which have long since been part of our foundations of modern physics will have been shown to be wrong and from this point, it REALLY gets exciting. It means the puzzle is much more complex than we thought, and the brightest minds in the world are going to need to figure out a new strategy for solving it... which makes particle physics a booming area of interesting research.

And as for neutrino masses, there's no smoke about that. We know they have mass, it's just a matter now of determining what that mass is...

Well that's nice Penrose said that, but according to - just about every other physicist and scientist on the planet - the Standard Model is the most successful theory in all of science. The Standard Model affects every other field of science, not just physics. In physics, it effects literally everything - quantum mechanics, atomic physics, nuclear physics, plasma physics, electromagnetic theory... it effects chemistry and biology to an outstanding degree. Without the Standard Model most of modern science would not be understood the way it is. The Standard Model is not of atomic physics, but of particle physics. It is the very theory upon which the structure and behavior of matter is built, as well as all fundamental forces governing all of nature through out the entire universe. The Standard Model has been more accurate and precise than relativity, though both are notably accurate. But the standard model has made predictions that have been more accurate than any other theory in modern science to date. Again, this isn't something we're going to argue about because it's a fact. You can quote whoever you'd like on the issue, but it doesn't change facts. You need to do a lot of fact checking on the topics we're discussing before you just start typing away.

No, I am talking about one experiment that is hyped. The other experiments that I only glossed over have all produced outstanding results I'd like to add, though I notice you've not had one remark on them over this discussion.

The "classical system" of science is no longer in use, so what do you mean? Determinism hasn't been a fundamental aspect of science for decades.

What is happening in science is what has always happened in science for thousands of years - the problems are getting harder, always requiring the most up to date methods, knowledge, and available advancements, building upon our discoveries of the past. "Standing on the shoulders of giants", so to speak. This is the way it's always been and always will be. If it weren't this way, these problems would have been solved long ago.

You may find your (rather senseless and unqualified) pessimism to be one of your favorite characteristics in your day-to-day life, but in this discussion it's sadly unwelcome, because frankly, it's based on rubbish and lack of solid understanding. I get the impression you're trying to be pessimistic for pessimism's sake, and not really looking critically at what is being presented. Nothing you're saying is very accurate, because you're taking a very, very small fraction of what is going on in the popular science that you're reading, and blowing it up to interpret as the big picture of the entire climate of the current scientific community. It's just not the way you see it. When you say that more and more of our results are showing contradictions that don't work with traditional views of science, you make it sound like this is somehow a new phenomenon, or exclusive to modern science. This is how it's been for the last century or more. For someone who claims to have been reading up on discoveries of the last 100 years, you should be well aware of this, and should see what an exciting and outstanding time this is. But if you'd like to continue to be unrealistically pessimistic about vague, ethereal ideas, be my guest. I've got some science to do!

I would ask you to be more vague, but I don't know if that's possible.

As I said, SR was originally conceived as a way to explain a number of confusing experimental discoveries. Upon the birth of SR, these experiments were explained fluidly. GR immediately explained the perihelion shift of Mercury, which had already been observed and questioned.

I'd say that in today's scientific community, while you will still have the close minded purists, the overall climate is accepting of changes and radical new ideas.

Whoa! DING DING DING DING! I knew there was something off about you other than your unnaturally high levels of pessimism and scientific ignorance, and THERE IT IS. Now our entire back and forth exchange and how little sense you have made makes PERFECT SENSE.

Thank you Stargazer1000 for pointing this out.

A man who can't accept the theory of evolution based on its overwhelming success and evidence, as anyone with even a high school education in biology would, has no place in a science forum, much less trying to discuss earth-shaking scientific issues.

Whewww. That's a load off. Now I don't have to take your comments seriously or worry about responding to them, because I know you've just made up your mind to block out all forms of scientific information that you don't like or that you find challenging.

Cheers to Stargazer for this eye-opener.

Oh, every scientist is, to some degree, an "empiricist". I am by no means a pure empiricist at all. I am more highly trained in theoretical physics than in experimental physics, and for quite a long time placed more value in theory than the experimental validity. I still do, to an extent. I love it more and still lean toward it, in fact,

but any real scientist (i.e. one who actually understands science and its implications, importance, and methodology, much as you do not no matter how much you like to boast and build yourself up only to be later torn down to scratch by your very own words) must place a significant amount of importance on empiricism as that is, after all, the basic of scientific discovery.

You do not know this and must have glossed over this

only to use this oustanding (fictional) child-prodigy potential of yours to chase the dream of writing programs.

But it is imperative that in science, once a theory has been developed and predicts the existence of something we cannot see, we must attempt to SEE this very thing to evaluate the accuracy of such theories and to look critically at the direction in which the theoretical work is going.

I know your type.

You're the typical angry pseudo-intellectual who holds no real knowledge or merit or understanding of the things he rants on and on about, and who has always believed, without justification, that he is always right about all matters being discussed, no matter what they are, and no matter how far out of his league or experience they lie.