Related papers: On Science, pseudoscience and String theory
The cosmological constant and electroweak hierarchy problem have been a great inspiration for research. Nevertheless, the resolution of these two naturalness problems remains mysterious from the perspective of a low-energy effective field…
These are the lecture notes of the introductory String Theory course held by one of the authors for the master program of Theoretical Physics at Turin University. The world-sheet approach to String Theory is pedagogically introduced in the…
Terms like "Science of Cyber" or "Cyber Science" have been appearing in literature with growing frequency, and influential organizations initiated research initiatives toward developing such a science even though it is not clearly defined.…
Duality, the equivalence between seemingly distinct quantum systems, is a curious property that has been known for at least three quarters of a century. In the past two decades it has played a central role in mapping out the structure of…
Separation is a classical problem in mathematics and computer science. It asks whether, given two sets belonging to some class, it is possible to separate them by another set of a smaller class. We present and discuss the separation problem…
In a universe whose elementary constituents are point particles there does not seem to be any obvious mechanism for avoiding the initial singularities in physical quantities in the standard model of cosmology. In contrast in string theory…
We review the current status of the singularity problem in string theory for non-experts. After the problem is discussed from the point of view of supergravity, we discuss classic examples and recent examples of singularity resolution in…
A review article submitted to Physics Report: Target space duality and discrete symmetries in string theory are reviewed in different settings.
Astrobiology is a scientific discipline that studies life in the Universe. We call it a discipline and not a science because some authors have cast doubts over its epistemological status by calling it 'a science without an object of study'.…
This is an essay that considering the knowledge structure and language of a different nature, attempts to build on an explanation of the object of study and characteristics of the mathematical science. We end up with a learning cycle of…
Dividing asks about inconsistency along indiscernible sequences. In order to study the finer structure of simple theories without much dividing, the authors recently introduced shearing, which essentially asks about inconsistency along…
In the book "String Theory and the Scientific Method", Richard Dawid describes a few of the many non-empirical arguments that motivate theoretical physicists' confidence in a theory, taking string theory as case study. I argue that…
We review the status of low-scale string theories and large extra-dimensions. After an overview on different string realizations, we discuss some of the main important problems and we summarize present bounds on the size of possible…
Students entering engineering in universities of applied sciences were tested to see whether they understood easy Science problems within the first week of the first semester. The test comprised of mathematics and physics questions in both…
A 21st century view of the nature of science is presented. It attempts to show how a consistent description of science and scientific progress can be given. Science advances through a sequence of models with progressively greater predictive…
This article briefly summarizes the motivations for -- and recent progress in -- searching for cosmological configurations within string theory, with a focus on how much we might reasonably hope to learn about fundamental physics from…
A personal view is given of the development of string theory out of dual models, including the analysis of the structure of the physical states and the proof of the No-Ghost Theorem, the quantization of the relativistic string, and the…
As research increasingly relies on computational methods, the reliability of scientific results depends on the quality, reproducibility, and transparency of research software. Ensuring these qualities is critical for scientific integrity…
A study is made of the implications of heterotic string $T$-duality and extended gauge symmetry for the conjectured equivalence of heterotic and Type I superstrings. While at first sight heterotic string world-sheet dynamics appears to…
Some of the most obviously correct physical theories - namely string theory and the multiverse - make no testable predictions, leading many to question whether we should accept something as scientific even if it makes no testable…