Just Stringing Us Along? (March 30, 2007)

    Michael Turner, along with other responsibilities, is the Chairman of the Department of Astronomy & Astrophysics at the University of Chicago. He's also responsible for coining the term "dark energy".

Michael Turner

In any case ScienceNow reports that the National Museum of Natural History thought him just the chap to referee a stoush between Columbia University's Brian Greene, one of the principal standard bearers for string theory, and Lawrence Krauss of Case Western Reserve University noted as an expert on black holes, dark matter, and dark energy and a vigorous and articulate detractor of it.

String theory contends that the ultimate in "smallness" are tiny vibrating strings in multiple dimensions. They've been invoked to unite Einstein's theory of gravity (General Relativity) with quantum mechanics and thereby provide the unified field theory for physics.

But Professor Krauss, who was allowed to fire the opening shot, told the packed house of "academics, physics geeks, and just-curious laypeople he has grown tired of string theory's hyped but hollow antics. In 37 years, he noted, the hypothesis has explained little while confusing a lot. "It doesn't make predictions; it usually makes excuses."

Not so rebutted Professor Greene, claiming that like any great masterpiece, string theory will take time to be completed--and fully understood. After all it's "trying to answer the most profound, difficult question in science."

Just the opening Krauss was looking for, "I don't want it to answer a profound question; I want it to answer one question." And when the audience stopped tittering, "Some of my students have gone on to be relatively well-known string theorists but of course, I wouldn't want my daughter to marry one."

Which by implication may have indicated that his female students were not seduced by the siren's call because ScienceNow's John Simpson wrote, "Susan Isaacs's teenage daughter is unlikely to become one of those brides. A home-schooled student who's also an intern at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, Alex Isaacs always circles debates like this on her calendar. The burgeoning physicist was impressed with Greene's charisma, but she wasn't impressed with his strings. "When I first heard of [string theory], I thought it was the next coming," she said. "But anything that's been around this long and has had this much intellectual talent that hasn't shown anything, it must not be it."

Michael Turner was more circumspect and as sole judge declared the debate a draw allowing the two contestants to each hold one end of the trophy, a long piece of orange string.

It remains to be seen if the debate will become an annual event.