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Concept
The Trouble with Physics
Summary
The Trouble with Physics: The Rise of String Theory, the Fall of a Science, and What Comes Next is a 2006 book by the theoretical physicist Lee Smolin about the problems with string theory. The book strongly criticizes string theory and its prominence in contemporary theoretical physics, on the grounds that string theory has yet to come up with a single prediction that can be verified using any technology that is likely to be feasible within our lifetimes. Smolin also focuses on the difficulties faced by research in quantum gravity, and by current efforts to come up with a theory explaining all four fundamental interactions. The book is broadly concerned with the role of controversy and diversity of approaches in scientific processes and ethics.
Smolin suggests both that there appear to be serious deficiencies in string theory and that string theory has an unhealthy near-monopoly on fundamental physics in the United States, and that a diversity of approaches is needed. He argues that more attention should instead be paid to background independent theories of quantum gravity.
In the book, Smolin claims that string theory makes no new testable predictions; that it has no coherent mathematical formulation; and that it has not been mathematically proved finite. Some experts in the theoretical physics community disagree with these statements.
Smolin states that to propose a string theory landscape having up to 10500 string vacuum solutions is tantamount to abandoning accepted science:
The scenario of many unobserved universes plays the same logical role as the scenario of an intelligent designer. Each provides an untestable hypothesis that, if true, makes something improbable seem quite probable.
The book generated much controversy and debate about the merits of string theory, and was criticised by some prominent physicists including Sean Carroll and string theorists Joseph Polchinski and Luboš Motl.
Polchinski's review states, "In the end, these [Smolin and others'] books fail to capture much of the spirit and logic of string theory.
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