EclectEcon

Last month, I wrote about the controveries in physics over string theory. One of the books I mentioned was The Trouble with Physics by Lee Smolin. I recently learned of this review of the book by Kent Budge. It makes the book look interesting for us non-physicists. Here is one very brief clip from it:

[T]here isn't an observation that can't be explained by string theory, since with 1e500 string theories to choose from, you're bound to find one that matches the latest observation. String theory is no more predictive than intelligent design — which leads naturally into Smolin's next theme, the anthropic principle that is being embraced by a lot of string theorists. The idea is that our universe is how it is, not because some deep principle requires it so, but because ours is one of the few out of 1e500 universes that is conducive to intelligent life. Smolin argues that this kind of thinking is the antithesis of science.

Another fundamental objection is that string theory has thrown away Einstein's brilliant insight that geometry is nonstatic. All string theories presently being investigated are background-dependent: They are formulated under the assumption that there is a static, eternal, fixed background geometry that is very Newtonian in flavor. Almost no work has been done on background-independent string theory, because it's hard.

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Kent's review is not entirely positive. If you are interested in the topic, I recommend you read his review because it is one of the few I have seen that is both unbiased and by someone who knows what he is writing about.