Why String Theory?

by Joseph Conlon

Physics World's 'Book of the Year' for 2016 An Entertaining and Enlightening Guide to the Who, What, and Why of String Theory, now also available in an updated reflowable electronic format compatible with mobile devices and e-readers. During the last 50 years, numerous physicists have tried to unravel the secrets of string theory. Yet why do these scientists work on a theory lacking experimental confirmation? Why String Theory? provides the answer, offering a highly readable and accessible panorama of the who, what, and why of this large aspect of modern theoretical physics. The author, a theoretical physics professor at the University of Oxford and a leading string theorist, explains what string theory is and where it originated. He describes how string theory fits into physics and why so many physicists and mathematicians find it appealing when working on topics from M-theory to monsters and from cosmology to superconductors.

Genres: Physics, Science, Nonfiction, Popular Science

260 pages, Paperback

Published January 5, 2016

About the author

Joseph Conlon is professor of theoretical physics at the University of Oxford and a teaching fellow of New College, where he has been since 2012. His scientific research ranges across string theory, particle physics, cosmology and astrophysics and his 75 scientific papers include foundational contributions to these subjects.

He was a three-times British junior chess champion; a precocious childhood led to him finishing his first mathematics degree at 18, done part-time along schoolwork.

Along with his physics research, he seeks to communicate the transcendently deep and beautiful ideas of physics in the language they deserve. He is the author of Why String Theory? (CRC, 2015), a defense of the broad and enduring intellectual value of string theory, and the upcoming Origins (Oneworld, 2024), a verse account of the early universe.

Photo credit Philippa Sims.

Reviews

[Brian Clegg · Rating 4 out of 5]

If, like me, you've tended to think of string theory as a way that applied mathematicians and theoretical physicists can have endless fun without ever contributing anything practical to our understanding of the universe, Joseph Conlon's is a useful book to remind us that string theory isn't quite so unlikely and useless as it can seem.

I must admit I've been strongly influenced by anti-string theory books such as Not Even Wrong and The Trouble with Physics. After reading Why String Theory? I have a more balanced view (if still being pretty doubtful of the theory's value). One thing that Conlon does, which I've never never seen elsewhere, is give a detailed description of it how the theory came into being, including the original, 26-dimensional approach that was an attempt to deal with the strong interaction. When this was trumped by quantum chromodynamics, it was almost as if the string theorists were so enamoured with their theory, which has some mathematically beautiful aspects, and a tendency to suddenly fit quite well with other mathematical constructs in physics, that they seem to have a spent a lot of time thinking 'Okay, what can we do with it?' And apart from the possibility of quantum gravity, it's remarkable in how many places it seems to have offered some use, despite its infamous lack of testable predictions to whittle down the vast numbers of potential solutions.

I won't say that this is an ideal popular science title. Like Not Even Wrong, it constantly throws out material that you just have to take the writer's word for being meaningful. It's not that there's heavy maths - there are pretty well no equations - but there's an awful lot you have to take on trust, or glaze slightly as meaningless (to the reader) terms are thrown at you. This isn't helped by a style that sometimes reminds me of a elderly schoolmaster (I was amazed that the author is considerably younger than me) with examples like referring to a person's bottom as a 'derrière' (something my grandma might have done) and throwing in 'crossing the Rubicon of physics' occurring within 2 lines of each other. I'm surprised their weren't Latin tags. Elsewhere we get 'I will, for now, let sobriety be the better part of speculation and be silent whereof I cannot speak...' Note that this is while calling pre-Big Bang ideas 'bad speculation' because they're not based on observation - unlike string theory?

There's also a touch of iffy history of science (we are told that Gell-Mann named the quark after a word in Finnegans Wake, for instance, where it was only the spelling that came from there), and the author rather sneakily compares string theory to astronomy as being 'pursued for the value of intrinsic understanding' rather than anything so grubby as commerce - but doesn't note that at least we know that what astronomers (as opposed to cosmologists) study exists. (Not to mention Conlon being unnecessarily sniffy about practical applications.)

However, I do still recommend this book for everyone who wants to get an up-to-date picture of the state of string theory with a lot of background, and is prepared to take the rather heavy approach, lacking much of an attempt to explain things in words most of us can understand. If, like me, you've tended to the anti-camp, this title (sadly, priced more like a textbook than a popular science title) is a very valuable antidote.

[Beauregard Bottomley · Rating 5 out of 5]

Science never knows itself. That’s a feature not a bug. The author will note that post-grads in physics will understand Einstein’s General Theory better than Einstein was capable of since science grows, sublates, and incorporates as its process for understanding morphs.

String Theory and what it thought itself was at the time of its development has changed and using the lessons of today to look back at what it thought it was adds insights into what it has become and gives hints at were it is going.

It was interesting to read a 2015 perspective on how String Theory science thought about itself and where it came from and where it could go to in the future. The only weak part of the book was the author’s predicting where string theory was going to go with ‘dark radiation’ and Axions, but the author does say clearly, he was only telling the reader those stories because he wanted to point out how scientist think when they are doing speculative science.

I enjoyed the speculation the author was making concerning the discovery of gravitational waves and what they would mean to the world, especially since the shimmering of the universe has been observed shortly after this book was published. We do live in exciting times. Only a fool would arbitrarily shut off potentially new ways for understanding the world.

I really don’t like Lee Smolin’s book. I’ve seen too many people who think he is right when he pooh-poohs String Theory and babbles Karl Popperisms and other such philosophical bereft sloganeering. There really is some good coming out with the tools within string theory and I know the LHC is not giving support for ‘super symmetry’ as of yet, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t use every available tool at our disposal as we try to deconvolve our world into what we think is its best ontological foundation.

I can’t help but like a book that is as well written as this book and who used the word irenic in a sentence along the lines such as ‘the universe was developing the fiery initial state in their particles sought an irenic balance’.

I know the best strategy for those who think vaccines don’t work, or covid is nothing but a flu and doesn’t really kill people, or for those who restate Lee Smolin’s thesis concerning string theory is to just ignore them, but sometimes I just want to scream at them that science never knows itself and that it is up to us to find whatever tool that works for us. Conspiracies and fact free assertions are best ignored since we are better off discovering our truths for ourselves rather than refuting dense people. This book knows that and most of the book is a positive fact laden story on what string theory does and how it currently thinks about itself.

This is a well written book and has a very cleverly inter-weaved philosophy of science perspective entwined with the story telling as the author elaborates on my favorite topics such as entropy and why it matters (someone once told me ‘understand entropy you can understand the universe, but nobody understands entropy’), or cosmology, or black holes, or Aristotle verse Plato, or its main theme on why String Theory is relevant even if it doesn’t answer the ultimate questions.

[Dedi Khana · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is not for a laymen person book. Not even for college student with basic engineering and physic background. It required the reader to familiarize with the concept of general relativity, higher algebra, differential manifold, and so on. Its a good book though for anyone interest in superstring theory beyond the popular science jargon.

[Richard Marney · Rating 4 out of 5]

Even I understood much of the book, and was able to explain parts afterwards to a physics professor without embarrassing myself. This is a testament to the clarity of the writing and the author’s knowledge of the topic.

[Reinosuke Kusano · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Why string theory?" is an interesting introduction into the history, motivation, and justification of one of the most prolific areas in theoretical physics. Conlon writes in a very approachable and understandable manner that highlights his love for the theory well, and successfully embeds the context of his work into the overall scientific landscape of the past and present.

However, while certainly not lacking in terms of content, this book makes me wonder slightly what demographic the author was actually writing for. Conlon makes a point towards the Introduction, saying that "the great structure of physics... is part of the inheritance of all interested minds". While completely true and valid, what I felt most from this book was that it is more or less impossible to write an introduction to string theory which satisfies "all interested minds"; the volume and difficulty of the content is far too heavy for an amateur physicist or someone casually interested in physics, neither is it rigorous or elucidating enough for a trained physicist. In fact, to the extent that I recall from the work, the sole equation given in the book is the five loop calculation in the super Yang-Mills theory, in relation to the AdS/CFT correspondence. While the lack of equations is to an extent understandable, it inevitably inhibits a more trained reader from truly understanding what makes string theory beautiful.

[To Chin · Rating 3 out of 5]

Focuses more on historical development.

[César Echevarría · Rating 5 out of 5]

Format audiobook

[Liam Connolly]

Answer: because

[Stephen Perrenod · Rating 4 out of 5]

It requires some familiarity with particle physics and/or physics more generally to appreciate this book. I have such familiarity, including some with string theory, but I felt at the end that he had not fully made the case. His coverage of the history and evolution of string and M-theory was excellent.

[RabidAnt · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good popular science. Some intriguing details. Enjoyable read. Highly recommend.

[phùng uyên · Rating 4 out of 5]

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