Comments on: Brian Greene: The universe on a string

By: Greg Laden

Greg Laden — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 06:47:22 +0000

Ah, JTankers, perhaps that’s the reason for the great silence in the universe and the absence of ET civilizations: they all built LHCs and black hole’d themselves out of existence.That is indeed the subject of my earlier post on this:http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2008/04/will_the_earth_be_sucked_into.php

By: TK Kenyon

TK Kenyon — Mon, 28 Apr 2008 23:13:45 +0000

Ah, JTankers, perhaps that’s the reason for the great silence in the universe and the absence of ET civilizations: they all built LHCs and black hole’d themselves out of existence.There must be an SF short story in there, somewhere.Great Brian Greene vid, BTW. I relied on his books heavily when I was writing my most recent novel. Roger Penrose’s book, The Road to Reality, was also helpful.TK KenyonAuthor of CALLOUS: A Novel, a story about free will, neuroscience, fate, Schrodinger’s Cat, and the End of Days. http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1601640226

By: Greg Laden

Greg Laden — Sun, 27 Apr 2008 17:33:22 +0000

they would fly away and out of harms way.I’ve heard that before, but how doest that happen? How can you say that a mini black hole will not have any different relationship gravitationally than it is allowed by its tiny-ness, but somehow it gets to just “fly away” from the earth!?!? Please explain.Wouldn’t it just sit there slowly sucking stuff into itself until scientists, or Bruce Willis or somebody, figured out how to suspend it in a harmless forcefield, or put it on a rockt ship and shoot it at the sun or whatever…(no, wait, not the sun… that would be bad)

By: Roman Werpachowski

Roman Werpachowski — Sun, 27 Apr 2008 17:30:00 +0000

What about Loop Quantum Gravity? Why is only string theory being put in the limelight?

By: Buck Trends

Buck Trends — Sun, 27 Apr 2008 17:11:44 +0000

@JTankers,You’re wrong on several technical points. Micro black holes are not vacuums that suck in everything around them. Like all matter, their gravitational strength is proportional to the matter they contain, which from a macroscopic distance (well outside their tiny “horizon”) is no stronger than any equivalent matter. If created, these things would have no more attraction than the few particles whose collision created them. They might damage the atoms in the detectors, soil, and air they collide with, but then they would fly away and out of harms way.Also, Hawking’s black-body radiation, which is widely accepted as valid, does not “contradict” Einstein’s relativity theory, in the sense of only one can be valid. Rather, Hawking radiation is one effect of a more complete (and still unknown) quantum theory of gravity, while Einstein’s theory is the classical approximation of the more complete quantum theory. Both can be (and so far appear to be) valid.

By: Josh

Josh — Sun, 27 Apr 2008 02:45:45 +0000

I’m skeptical about string theory still. It’s great to see intelligent guys working on it and trying to actually make predictions, but I think that the current theoretical physics mindset that string theory must be right is flawed. I just wish we could see more radical thinkers out there… cuz string theory has gotten us nothing in almost 30 years.

By: George

George — Sat, 26 Apr 2008 08:37:39 +0000

This is great. Thanks for posting this.I wish Feynman was still around to do a Ted Talk.

By: FullFrontal

FullFrontal — Sat, 26 Apr 2008 08:06:31 +0000

Greene is fantastic in print and on video. From “The Elegant Universe” to his ubiquitous appearance on TV science shows he makes the dizzying world of string theory understandable for the masses and a dope like me–no small feat.

By: Sigmund

Sigmund — Sat, 26 Apr 2008 08:03:28 +0000

His Nova miniseries ‘The Elegant Universe’ is available online.http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/elegant/program.html

By: negentropyeater

negentropyeater — Sat, 26 Apr 2008 07:53:50 +0000

yes, I think he is over-selling far too much. It’s also very likely that the LHC doesn’t validate any of the predictions of superstring theory, neither supersymmetry nor other dimensions. We just don’t know yet if it’s a valid representation of reality.So if the LHC doesn’t verify any of these, then what will he say ? Oh, the energy levels were still too low. And then ?So, I think it’s best to remain more circumpspect for the time being. It’s a mistake to over-sell beforehand, that could backfire if the results aren’t that positive.And fundamental research certainly doesn’t need that.