WSU: Fundamental Lessons from String Theory with Cumrun Vafa

Cumrun Vafa, together with fellow world-renowned string theorist Andrew Strominger, developed a new way to calculate black hole entropy in the language of string theory. Follow Vafa as he guides you through some of the more incredible things we have learned since string theory’s inception. #WorldSciU
This lecture was recorded on May 31, 2015 at the World Science Festival in New York City.
Experience the associated free online course at World Science U: worldscienceu.com/courses/fun...
0:00 - Start
What is Fundamental? - 00:00:05
Duality Frames - 00:11:12
Basics of Space - 00:22:07
Quantum Geometry - 00:31:08
Entropy - 00:42:52
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[@prayogdash3564]

Wish we would have more such lectures on string theory of professor Vafa. A remarkable scientists as well as a fantastic explainer!!!!! Doesn't matter string theory if is the ultimate theory for everything but we all should at least make an effort to know if string theory kept it's promises for the nature we decode and the theory which decodes it!!!!

[@DavoidJohnson]

We know that in the past claims to explain everything have failed to explain anything at all. String theory may or may not get there, but one thing it may do is expand our minds and the way we think.

[@hireality]

Very good lecture, thank you

[@vincentrusso4332]

I brought my Good Enough Diploma to digest this information with.. 28k views and 55 comments.. should be ten times of magnitude higher for this free teaching...

[@aurelienyonrac]

My goodness. This is good.

[@mohammedroshan6480]

Just in time!!

[@enterprisesoftwarearchitect]

It’s wonderful that he admitted there’s no “experimental” evidence yet so clearly. I trusted everything else he said because of that. Nothing wrong with studying something that could easily be wrong.

[@xanetas]

It is wrong if it dominates the field of theoretical physics to such an extent that it suffocates it and leaves little or no room for other lines of research. Also, to do real science you need experiments to verify your theory and it has been proven time and again that string theory does not work. It is time to move on and make room for new ideas.

[@MH-mc3pp]

@@xanetas so it has both not been tested and also it does not work. but how would you know it doesn't work if it hasn't been tested? what you wrote was incoherent nonsense

[@JonathanBydendyk]

Nothing better to fall asleep to.

[@kagannasuhbeyoglu]

Amazing content. Very informative about String Theory. Thank you so much WSF👍

[@abdulkaderalsalhi557]

Thanks WSU for this presentation. I wish to know what string-theory (with 11 dim) can explain which cannot be explained with 4-dim spacetime? What is that 'problem' that string-theory solves for us? Sorry If my question looks 'stupid'! I think we need some 'Filter' to separate the noise from good-music in string-theory. I hope Professor Brain Greene or some body else explain that on WSU video.

[@lewsheen7514]

The 'problem' is that we have two experimentally well-proven theories that contradict each other. The reason string theory is so attractive is because it may be able to unify Einstein's Theory of General Relativity - which accurately describes gravity, and Quantum Mechanics - the Standard Model which accurately describes 3 of the 4 known forces EXCEPT GRAVITY. The Standard Model forces are the strong nuclear force, the electromagnetic force, and the weak nuclear force. Also, we now know that above a certain energy the electromagnetic force and the weak nuclear force merge into the electro-weak force. The reason eleven dimensions is part of string theory is because if you choose that mathematical input into the string theory equations as currently understood, you get a prediction for a particle that has the predicted characteristics of a Graviton (spin 2, etc.) - the predicted force-carrying particle of gravity, and that would therefore UNITE Special Relativity and Quantum Mechanics. Disclaimer: I'm NOT a physicist, I DON'T have a degree, just a curious and well-read layperson, and I welcome corrections.

[@karagi101]

Lew Sheen We now understand gravity to be the warping of space due to mass. Why do we need gravitons?

[@karenkurdijinian2069]

It’s all there and all the time available to build this little particles how to construct and how to architect and then how to move the energy for whatever you want to do but with the knowledge of classical physics we can’t understand it’s totally different than our believe the knowledge we have it’s cellular level of taking information so fast that we can’t measure yet ?could be one day we’ll of course 🙏🌻🌻🌻🌻🌻

[@davidparker8395]

That FTW grin @ 35:00 when he says, "Therefore the notion of fundamental particles is not fundamental itself!" That's why I Science, too.

[@jthompson120db]

are we running out of lectures?

[@karagi101]

So in String Theory nothing is fundamental, including String Theory. Doesn’t look like a too promising theory to me.

[@aurelienyonrac]

Great talk. The even horizon = the plank scale fluctuations = cosmic background radiation. Seen from different angles. The emptiness under/deeper than the plank scale is the singularity. Dimention zero is a point. Thant is how lines, surface and 3D is made. Infinit density is also emptiness, full potential. Like a magnetic-field over a planet, so it space-field generated around a point. How long to generat it ? instantaneous. As it generat time simultaneously. See for yourself if it is true for you too. Thank you.

[@ansimran659]

Amazing!

[@michaeljmorrison5757]

Fundamental research like this is amazing to hear about even if we don't completely understand or agree with it. The more important point is that such science has rendered a much better understanding of the world, and knowledge of ourselves. If you don't like research and science then start by throwing out your computer and cell/smart phone, GPS etc etc; but first turn off the electric lights, remove your machine produced clothes, glasses, shoes, empty the fridge of almost all food, throw out your medicine cabinet and it's contents and probably your children too who were born and survived my the help of modern medicine. I could go on and on but don't have the time to waste. So just go back, back, back to some imagined fantasy static world that you think ever existed (and you would not know anything about the real past if not for modern science) and start trying to survive without the gifts of science. OR ...... find better solutions in another way and share them with we poor deluded science supporters!

[@edwigcarol4888]

May i suggest that "older people" could get access to knowledge an integrative incompassing wise view of the "world" without any technics, though we ignore and deny it. There are a lot of things within LIFE that we do not understand. Now we have smart phones AND no longer smart bodies: pandemic of metabolic disease, loss of awareness, loss of sensitivity, we get slowly less smart that wild animals... We think of mars exploration, of extraterrestrial life but kill everyday the marvels of life on earth and make the planet very soon inhabitable. I have a word for that: crazyness and "lack of integration" lack of a sense that we are only a part of a whole.

[@garyliu6589]

Why would anybody or the universe require a unified theory? What if there is no such thing as grand unification?

[@enterprisesoftwarearchitect]

But it seems like things keep unifying, albeit in a not perfectly symmetrical way for electromagnetism and the weak nuclear force. Scientists get positive feedback for exploring it.

[@sethconnor1018]

Rather than more powerful colliders... maybe focus on optimization in nano optics

[@DavidBrown-om8cv]

"Feynman's path integral has to be replaced by something else ..." Consider the Milgrom Denial Hypothesis: The main problem with string theory is that the string theorists fail to realize that Milgrom is the Kepler of contemporary cosmology." If Milgrom's MOND were wrong, then Milgrom would never have been able to convince Kroupa, McGaugh, Sanders, and Scarpa. I have suggested that string theory with the infinite nature hypothesis implies the string landscape, supersymmetry, and no MOND, but string theory with the finite nature hypothesis implies Wolfram's cosmological automaton, MOND, and no supersymmetry - am I wrong here? Are the monster group and the 6 pariah groups essential for understanding how nature works?

[@johnkechagais7096]

It seems that once you work out what is invariant then you will know how to formulate string theory, It must always be kept in mind that even if string theory could mathematically model physical processes, it does not mean that is how physical reality actually is.

[@naimulhaq9626]

True, strings may not be fundamental.

[@ramkumarr1725]

Deeply relaxing and excitement of discovery. Nice lecture. I hope we get the experiment done soon if needed. Great accent. String theory supports multiverses.

[@sontu5288]

It cannot be Experimented . Many resources have been wasted on it .

[@user-dialectic-scietist1]

I am Greek, and I know that Eratosthenes said that the Sun was the center of the known universe. Also, Heraclitus said that everything is moving and for that reason everything is relativistic and for that reason, you can't pass through the same river every time. Dear Cumrun Vafa, you could speak for your self, telling us stories about things like strings which so many years there is not even one experimental prove but please don't blame my ancestors about that, because even Plato as he was the father of dialectic thinking, they are thinking a lot and they always said that as the went elder they learn more and more and this process as you can understand, is also a relativistic one. I couldn't explain more that to you and I shouln't.

[@karagi101]

I’m Greek too and an engineer. Some of ancient Greek science was correct. Most was wrong.

[@user-dialectic-scietist1]

@@karagi101 Well, I am talking about the philosophic point of view. They had felt the motion of the world, they had found the general laws of this motion and also the relativity of the world because of this motion. Also, Socrates gave us the process of gnoseology Even today science is avoiding accepting the dialectic and the motion of our world. They looking moments of the world on "pictures" and with this way they trying to explain a moving and continuously changing world. So, except of the technology progress, we are in a worst position in the way we think.

[@karagi101]

Χαραλαμπος Στρογγυλος No. Today’s science explains reality much better. The ancients didn’t have science. They didn’t do almost any experiments. They thought they can figure things out just by thinking about things. Thinking about things doesn’t provide any evidence and our thoughts are usually wrong.

[@user-dialectic-scietist1]

@@karagi101 Our thoughts are the result of a reflection of the reality on our conscience. If the conscience isn't corrupted and wants the truth then you realize nature better and clearly. Do you think that the math of the ancient world isn't science? the π? The Pythagorean theorem? the euclidian geometry? algebra? the architecture? the art? the music? where they had rules and law that had from 6-12 between the notes music sounds and now our simplicity is such bulgar like rap? Now is anybody in the possibility to build Parthenon or Palmira where for transferring the rocks now you couldn't build such a machine? Pyramids all over the world? Sphinx? Do you know that they had used stim? Or the sun with mirrors as a laser weapon? Do you have any idea about medicine? Did you hear about Asklipeus hospitals? Or the books of medicine of Hepocrat? I hope that your comment was only unfortunate and not ignorants. A lot of knowledge is destroyed or is kept as secrets by the church's Taliban which has burned the Alexandrian library 3 times the last one they kill and the math, engineer, and philosopher Hypatia. They close the Athenian Academy they killed Bruno and so many others and today, ha ha ha, today they mess everywhere only to use and pay scientists to keep humanity under total ignorance. Because between blinds rules better the monocular. Do you remember who is the father of the BB hypothesis? E priest. Do you know who gave the ironic name BB? Yes, but today this stupidity is the main Cosmologic, not a hypothesis, but without experimental prove it's the main theory. Or, do we have any experimental prove about string theory I mean hypothesis? 47 years this continues. Do you know how many fonds of humanity have been throw away on these hypotheses? At list ancient Greeks they earned their money. They left us such remarkable things. So, if you are a Greek or you want to be a Greek then think before speak, as a Greek, dialectical. Like: Causality, necessity, indefinitely, fortunately, and result and so on and do not forget everything is relativistic as before Einstein, Heraclitus told us. And Heraclitus from what we know didn't do the wrong of Einstein wherein the SR theory correctly looks on space and time like relativistic dimensions of material things, which depends on the velocity of the material object and the referring system and to do the wrong in the GR theory to see on time and space as a geometrical sheet that a terrestrial mass bends. Probably SR was a theory of his first wife, and for that reason, he gives her the hall amount of the Nobel price.

[@justdata3650]

I don't know if I am qualified to comment even as a casual drop in... but, WOW.

[@balamuruganv888]

Any one can comment .. nothing is bigger than that

[@yuvarajgopal2717]

Biblical words like earth is the center of the universe still holds true because so far earth is the only place where life exists

[@worththewatch1517]

Iranian physicist 👌

[@globalterroil3208]

In physics it doesnt matter much what country you come from. You just need to deliver the _goods_ . Professor V always did. ;-)

[@ramkumarr1725]

Nice. Real life Sheldon. 😅

[@markphc99]

For a more realistic assessment of string theory , visit the ‘ not even wrong’ website

[@bobaldo2339]

How do string theory and quantum field theory relate to each other? Incidentally, I find the use of the term "duality" in this context quite off-putting. I assume it would be off-putting for anyone familiar with the centuries it took western philosophy to overcome Descartes' idea of mind/body duality, or anyone familiar with the Buddhist concept of the non-dual.

[@garyliu6589]

Something is simply not meant to be seen, like there is a limit to the observable universe, same apply to sub particle scale. You need to think differently from the previous guys, now all of the scientists is saying weird things nobody understand, like what kids trying to tell you about their theory.

[@DavidBrown-om8cv]

"It is surprising that even though we do not know what string theory really is, some of its principles are already well understood." Consider the Milgrom Denial Hypothesis: The main problem with string theory is that the string theorists fail to realized that Milgrom is the Kepler of contemporary cosmology. Is infinity a semi-theological concept? Consider The Seven sagacities of String Theory with the Finite Nature Hypothesis: (1) There is a profound synergy between string theory with the infinite nature hypothesis and string theory with the finite nature hypothesis. (2) Milgrom is the Kepler of contemporary cosmology - on the basis of overwhelming empirical evidence (implying dark-matter-compensation-constant = (3.9±.5) * 10^-5). (3) The Koide formula is essential for understanding the foundations of physics. (4) Lestone's theory of virtual cross sections is essential for understanding the foundations of physics. (5) The idea of Fernández-Rañada and Tiemblo-Ramos that atomic time is different from astronomical time is correct. (6) There is genius in the ideas of Riofrio, Sanejouand, and Pipino concerning the hypothesis that the speed of light in a perfect vacuum steadily decreases as our universe ages. (7) Quantum information reduces to Fredkin-Wolfram information, which is controlled by Wolfram's cosmological automaton in a mathematical structure isomorphic to a 72-dimensional, holographic, digital computer.

[@chriszachtian]

This presentation requires much more insight than it offers. One has to trust the presenter. Obviously there is not the time to explain all this, as it required the life times of very intelligent people to figure it out. But to a certain amount, this seems like religion to me.

[@dandan1812]

He looks like nvidia’s CEO

[@frun]

I think String Theory is a theory of superfluidity in disguise

[@nanofan100]

Great talk. But It would be great to hear ANY scientific evidence in this field, because otherwise it’s just word salad.

[@Taqu3]

hype

[@raghavsomani1995]

My whole life was a lie!

[@jonathanedwardgibson]

Yawn. This field is looking pretty anemic after these decades and little to show.

[@thecoobs8820]

Damn the bullying for this guy 😬😬

[@MC-wh2to]

Renowned? World-renowned? The fundamental lesson about string theory is that it has been a waste; however, now that we know that let's put efforts towards other options? Garrett Lisi anyone?

[@bradleybohus4097]

Fraud.