SCIENCE

The Dream Of String Theory

Is An Unlikely Broken Box

Ethan Siegel Senior Contributor

Starts With A Bang Contributor Group

Listen to article 14 minutes

The idea of String Theory is that our Universe came from a higher-dimensional, more
symmetric, more complex state with an enormous number of degrees of freedom. In
order for String Theory to be solved, we need to get rid of all the excess predictions it
makes until we are only left with the Universe we observe. The problem of how we get
from there to here has not been solved. [-] NASA/GODDARD/WADE SISLER

A lot of people, when they learn about String Theory for

the first time, are taken aback by what a beautiful,
powerful idea it is. When we look at our Universe and
discover the way it is, we find that it follows a certain
structural pattern that — for as intricate as it is — seems
to follow rules that apply very differently to different
components of the theory. We have, for example:

unequal numbers and generations of fermions

versus bosons,

an abundance of matter over antimatter,

a Universe filled with electric charges but no

magnetic charges,

and plenty of left-handed neutrinos and right-

handed antineutrinos but none that are the other
way around,

there are a lot of symmetries that you could imagine

would be respected, but simply aren’t. You could
imagine that the three forces of the Standard Model
would unify into a single one at high energies in some
sort of grand unification. You could imagine that for
every fermion, there would be a corresponding boson, as
in supersymmetry. And you can imagine that, at the
highest energies of all, that even gravity gets unified
with the other forces in a so-called “theory of
everything.”

That’s the brilliant, beautiful, and compelling idea at the

core of String Theory. It’s also has absolutely no
experimental or observational evidence in favor of it at
all. Here’s why the hope of String Theory, when you get
right down to it, is nothing more than a broken box of
dreams.
In theory, there could be more than three spatial dimensions to our Universe, so long as
those "extra" dimensions are below a certain critical size that our experiments have
already probed. There is a range of sizes in between ~10^-19 and 10^-35 meters that are
still allowed for a fourth spatial dimension, or for any additional number of extra
dimensions. [-] FERMILAB TODAY

MORE FOR YOU

New Research Finds A Connection Between Domestic Violence

And These Two Personality Disorders

This Scientist Helps Andean Forests And Ecuador’s Women In

STEM

Exceptional Fossil Preservation Suggests That Discovering

Dinosaur DNA May Not Be Impossible

Every time, as a theorist, you add something new to your

theory — a new ingredient, a new force or interaction, a
new dimension, a new coupling, etc. — you have to do
two things to accommodate it. The first thing you have
to do is establish that this new addition is compatible
with the prevailing theory and all of our observations:
you can’t add something to your theory that has already
been ruled out by the existing data; that’s what we call a
non-starter in the field.

But the second thing is a little bit trickier: when you’re

adding a new component that only exists at higher
energy scales than you’re capable of probing, you have
to find a way to get rid of it before you get to the low-
energy Universe we have today. For String Theory, that’s
an incredibly tall order. The Universe we have today is
much, much less symmetric than String Theory predicts
today, and if we want String Theory to be at all
consistent with the reality we observe, we have to look
at the differences between what String Theory predicts
and what the Universe we have today is actually like.

The particles and forces of the Standard Model. Any theory that claims to go beyond
the Standard Model must reproduce its successes without making additional
predictions that have already been shown to not be true. Pathological behavior that
would already be ruled out is the largest source of constraints on beyond-the-Standard
Model scenarios. [-] CONTEMPORARY PHYSICS EDUCATION PROJECT / DOE / NSF / LBNL

Our Universe, if we’re being comprehensive about it, is a

pretty complicated place. In it, we have:
 The four fundamental forces of nature: gravitation,
the electromagnetic force, the strong nuclear
force, and the weak nuclear force.

The particles that make up the Standard Model,

which include the quarks and leptons, the gauge
bosons, and the Higgs particle.

Coupling constants that determine the strength of

the interactions which occur, and those constants
change strength with energy.

Four total dimensions: three of space and one of

time.

And the laws of physics as we know them: General

Relativity for gravitation, and Quantum Field
Theories for the other three (inherently quantum)
forces.

Two of the forces, the weak nuclear force and the

electromagnetic force, are known to unify into the
electroweak force at high energies achievable at certain
particle colliders. Many ideas — such as grand
unification and supersymmetry — would involve adding
new particles and interactions, but would also lead to
experimental consequences like proton decay or the
presence of additional particles or decay pathways not
seen at colliders. The fact that these predictions haven’t
panned out helps us place constraints on both of these
ideas.
An equally-symmetric collection of matter and antimatter (of X and Y, and anti-X and
anti-Y) bosons could, with the right GUT properties, give rise to the matter/antimatter
asymmetry we �nd in our Universe today. However, searches for these superheavy X and
Y bosons, as predicted in many classes of Grand Uni�ed Theories, have come up empty,
both directly and indirectly. [-] E. SIEGEL / BEYOND THE GALAXY

String theory, though, goes many steps farther than

either grand unification or what we know as
supersymmetry does.

For grand unification, the idea is to take the three forces

in the Standard Model and embed them into a larger,
more symmetric structure. Instead of the particles we
know with the interactions we know — with multiple
disjoint frameworks corresponding to each of the forces
— grand unification tries to fit the Standard Model
inside a larger structure.

This might just sound like words to you, but the group
theory representation of the Standard Model is SU(3) ×
SU(2) × U(1), where the SU(3) is the color (strong force)
part, the SU(2) is the weak (left-handed) part, and the
U(1) is the electromagnetic part. If you want to unify
these forces into a larger framework, you’ll need a
bigger group.
You can take the route of Georgi-Glashow [SU(5)]
unification, which predicts new, super-heavy bosons that
couple to both quarks and leptons simultaneously. You
can take the route of Pati-Salam [SU(4) × SU(2) ×
SU(2)] unification, which adds in the right-handed
particles, making the Universe left-right symmetric
instead of preferring a left-handed neutrino. Or you can
go even larger: to SU(6), SO(10), or still larger groups,
so long as they contain the Standard Model within them.

The difference between a Lie algebra based on the E(8) group (left) and the Standard
Model (right). The Lie algebra that de�nes the Standard Model is mathematically a 12-
dimensional entity; the E(8) group is fundamentally a 248-dimensional entity. There is a
lot that has to go away to get back the Standard Model from String Theories as we
know them. [-] CJEAN42 / WIKIMEDIA COMMONS

The problem, of course, is that the larger you go, the

more stuff there is to get rid of, and the more explaining
there is to do if we want to understand why these extra
components to reality don’t show themselves, either
directly or indirectly, in our experiments, measurements,
and observations of the Universe. The proton doesn’t
decay, so either the simplest model of grand unification
is wrong, or you have to pick a more complicated model
and find a way to evade the constraints that rule out the
simpler models.

If you want to talk about unification and group theory in

the context of String Theory, however, your group
suddenly has to become enormous! You can fit it into
one of the SO groups, but only if you go all the way up to
SO(32). You can fit it into two of the exceptional groups
crossed together — E(8) × E(8) — but that’s enormous,
as each E(8) contains and is larger than SU(8),
mathematically. This isn’t to say it’s impossible that
String Theory is correct, but that these large groups are
enormous, like a block of uncut marble, and we want to
get just a tiny, perfect statuette (our Standard Model,
and nothing else) out of it.

The Standard Model particles and their supersymmetric counterparts. Slightly under
50% of these particles have been discovered, and just over 50% have never showed a
trace that they exist. Supersymmetry is an idea that hopes to improve on the Standard
Model, but it has yet to make successful predictions about the Universe in attempting
to supplant the prevailing theory. If there is no supersymmetry at all energies, string
theory must be wrong. [-] CLAIRE DAVID / CERN
Similarly, there’s an analogous problem that arises with
supersymmetry. Typically, the supersymmetry you hear
about involves superpartner particles for every particle
in existence in the Standard Model, which is an example
of a supersymmetric Yang-Mills field theory where N=1.
The biggest problem is that there should be additional
particles that show up at the energy scales that reveal
the heaviest Standard Model particles. There should be
a second Higgs, at least, below 1,000 GeV. There should
be a light, stable particle, but we haven’t observed it yet.
Even without String Theory, there are many strikes
against N=1 supersymmetry.

The Standard Model, without supersymmetry, is simply

the N=0 case. But if we want String Theory to be
correct, we need to make nature even more symmetric
than standard supersymmetry predicts: String Theory
contains a gauge theory known as N=4 supersymmetric
Yang-Mills theory. There’s even more stuff to hand-wave
away if we want String Theory to be correct, and it all
has to disappear to not conflict with the observations
we’ve already made of the Universe we have.
Instead of an empty, blank, three-dimensional grid, putting a mass down causes what
would have been 'straight' lines to instead become curved by a speci�c amount. The
curvature of space due to the gravitational effects of Earth is one visualization of
gravitation, and is a fundamental way that General Relativity differs from Special
Relativity. [-] CHRISTOPHER VITALE OF NETWORKOLOGIES AND THE PRATT INSTITUTE

But one of the biggest challenges for String Theory is

something that’s often touted as it’s big success: the
incorporation of gravity. It’s true that String Theory
does, in a sense, allow gravity to be merged with the
other three forces into the same framework. But in the
framework of String Theory, when you ask, “what is my
theory of gravity,” you don’t get the answer that Einstein
tells us is correct: a four-dimensional tensor theory of
gravity.

According to Einstein, the only factor in determining

gravity is the presence of matter and energy. You put all
the different forms of matter and energy in the Universe
into General Relativity, and the Universe will evolve —
expanding, contracting, gravitating, etc. — according to
the stresses that these forms of matter and energy
create. There are three spatial dimensions and one time
dimension, and gravitation only has a tensor form: not a
scalar or vector one. You might be able to add extra
ingredients in, but you can’t have them play any role
that disagrees with the observations we already have in
hand.

During a total eclipse, stars would appear to be in a different position than their actual
locations, due to the bending of light from an intervening mass: the Sun. The magnitude
of the de�ection would be determined by the strength of the gravitational effects at the
locations in space which the light rays passed through. The 1919 eclipse con�rmed the
predictions of Einstein's General Relativity. [-] E. SIEGEL / BEYOND THE GALAXY

So what does String Theory give you? Unfortunately, it

doesn’t give you a four-dimensional tensor theory of
gravity, but rather a 10-dimensional scalar-tensor theory
of gravity. Somehow, you have to get rid of the scalar
part, and also get rid of six extra (spatial) dimensions.

We had, as proposed 60 years ago, an alternative to

Einstein’s General Relativity that did incorporate a
scalar as well: Brans-Dicke gravity. According to
Einstein’s original theory, General Relativity was needed
to explain the orbit of Mercury, and why its perihelion
(where it came closest to the Sun) precessed at the rate
that it did. We observed a total precession of ~5600 arc-
seconds per century, where ~5025 were due to the
precession of the equinoxes and ~532 were due to the
other planets. Einstein’s General Relativity predicted the
other ~43, and that was the slam-dunk prediction he
finally made in 1915 that catapulted the eclipse
expedition into infamy. The 1919 revelation that light
bent starlight was the ultimate confirmation of our new
theory of gravity.
A solar �are, visible at the right of the image, occurs when magnetic �eld lines split
apart and reconnect, far more rapidly than prior theories have predicted. Our Sun,
despite some spurious measurements that claimed it was shaped like an oblate
spheroid, is actually the most spherical object known in our Solar System. [-] NASA

But by the late 1950s, some observations of the Sun had

indicated that it wasn’t spherical, but rather was
compressed along its poles into an oblate spheroid. If
that were the case, Brans and Dicke argued, then that
observed amount of departure from a perfect sphere
would create an additional 5 arc-seconds of precession
per century that differed from Einstein’s predictions.
How to fix it? Add in a scalar component to the theory,
and a new parameter: ω, the Brans-Dicke coupling
constant. If ω was about 5, everything would still turn
out right.
Of course, the Sun actually is a perfect sphere to a much
better degree than even the Earth, and those
observations were incorrect. Given the modern
constraints that we have, we now know that ω must be
greater than about 1000, where the limit as ω → ∞ gives
you back standard General Relativity. For String Theory
to be correct, we have to “break” this 10 dimensional
Brans-Dicke theory down to a four dimensional
Einsteinian theory, which means getting rid of six
dimensions and this pesky scalar term and the coupling,
ω, all of which must go away.

Quantum gravity tries to combine Einstein’s general theory of relativity with quantum
mechanics. Quantum corrections to classical gravity are visualized as loop diagrams, as
the one shown here in white. If String Theory is correct, then 6 spatial dimensions and
the scalar (Brans-Dicke) coupling must be eliminated to recover General Relativity. [-]
SLAC NATIONAL ACCELERATOR LABORATORY

What all of this means is that if String Theory is correct,

we have to start with a Universe that’s highly symmetric
and very unlike the Universe we have today. This
Universe, at some early time at very high energies, had
10 dimensions to it, had a scalar gravity component in
addition to the tensor component, was unified into some
very large group like SO(32) or E(8) × E(8), and was
described by a maximally supersymmetric (N = 4) Yang-
Mills theory.

If String Theory is correct, then somehow — and nobody

knows how — this ultra-symmetric state broke, and it
broke incredibly badly. Six of the dimensions
disappeared, and the scalar gravity component stopped
mattering. The large, unified group broke very badly,
leaving only our relatively tiny Standard Model, SU(3) ×
SU(2) × U(1), behind. And that supersymmetric Yang-
Mills Theory broke so badly that we don’t see any
evidence for a single supersymmetric particle today: just
the regular Standard Model.

The idea that the forces, particles and interactions that we see today are all
manifestations of a single, overarching theory is an attractive one, requiring extra
dimensions and lots of new particles and interactions. The lack of a single veri�ed
prediction of String Theory that's distinct from what the Standard Model predicts still
stands as an enormous strike against it. [-] WIKIMEDIA COMMONS USER ROGILBERT

This is the dream of String Theory: that we can take this

theory, like some enormous unbroken box, and stick the right
key in it and watch it crumble away, leaving only a tiny piece
left that perfectly describes our Universe. In the absence of
such a key, String Theory can only be considered a physical
speculation.

It may be interesting and promising, but until we can solve

String Theory in a meaningful way to get the Universe we
observe out of it, we have to admit to ourselves what String
Theory truly is: a large, unbroken box that must somehow
crumble in this particular, intricate fashion, to recover the
Universe we observe. Until we understand how this occurs,
String Theory will only remain a speculative dream.

Follow me on Twitter. Check out my website or some of my

other work here.

Ethan Siegel

I am a Ph.D. astrophysicist, author, and science communicator, who professes

physics and astronomy at various colleges. I have won numerous awards for science
writing... Read More

Editorial Standards Reprints & Permissions