Related papers: The dangers of non-empirical confirmation

String theory builds on the great legacy of Yukawa and Tomonaga: New degrees of freedom and control of the UV are two important themes. This talk will give an overview of some of the progress and some of the unsolved problems that…

We show that in string theory, due to non-perturbative effects, there are cases in which two states that semi-classically are completely different, are in fact the same. One state cannot be excited without exciting the other; they are two…

This paper explores the options available to the anti-realist to defend a Quinean empirical under-determination thesis using examples of dualities. I first explicate a version of the empirical under-determination thesis that can be brought…

The string tension does not have to be put in by hand, it can be dynamically generated, as in the case when we formulate string theory in the modified measure formalism, and other formulations as well. Then string tension appears, but as an…

This is a rendering of a review talk on the state of String Theory, given at the EPS-2003 Conference, intended for a wide audience of experimental and theoretical physicists. It emphasizes general ideas rather than technical aspects.

Using a classical action associated to a point-particle in (1+1)-dimensions the classical string theory is derived. In connection with this result two aspects are clarified: First, the point particle in (1+1)-dimensions is not an ordinary…

There is evidence that string theory possesses a large discretuum of stable and/or metastable ground states, with zero or four supersymmetries in four dimensions. I discuss critically the nature of this evidence. Assuming this "landscape"…

In these lectures we give a brief introduction to perturbative and non-perturbative string theory. The outline is the following: 1. Introduction to perturbative string theory 1.1 From point particle to extended objects 1.2 Free closed and…

Non-relativistic string theories promise to provide simpler theories of quantum gravity as well as tractable limits of the AdS/CFT correspondence. However, several apparently distinct non-relativistic string theories have been constructed.…

Motivated by noncommutative Chern-Simons theory, we construct an infinite class of field theories that satisfy the axioms of Witten's string field theory. These constructions have no propagating open string degrees of freedom. We…

Mathematical Theory of Evidence called also Dempster-Shafer Theory (DST) is known as a foundation for reasoning when knowledge is expressed at various levels of detail. Though much research effort has been committed to this theory since its…

We present simple models which exhibit some of the remarkable features expected to hold for the as yet unknown non-perturbative formulation of string theories. Among these are: (a) the absence of a background or embedding space for the full…

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…

This is a brief overview on the current status of string theory for non-specialists. The purpose is to give an aspect on the nature of string theory as a unified theory of all interactions including quantum gravity and to discuss future…

The issue of confidence factors in Knowledge Based Systems has become increasingly important and Dempster-Shafer (DS) theory has become increasingly popular as a basis for these factors. This paper discusses the need for an empirical…

String theory is the leading candidate for a unified theory of the standard model and gravity. In the last few years theorists have realized that there is a unique structure underlying string theory. In this unification a prominent role is…

After briefly reviewing basic concepts of perturbative string theory, we explain in simple terms some of the new findings that created excitement among the string physicists. These developments include non-perturbative dualities and a…

Much of the recent progress in String Theory can be traced to a precise strategy: a careful study of the few models known since the beginnings of the subject, and the abstraction from them of basic properties that one would like to demand…

The search for a scientific theory of consciousness should result in theories that are falsifiable. However, here we show that falsification is especially problematic for theories of consciousness. We formally describe the standard…

Results of measurements give legitimacy to a physical theory. What if acquiring these results in the first place necessitates what the same theory considers to be an interaction? In this note, we assume that theories account for…