The landscape and the multiverse: What’s the problem?
The landscape and the multiverse: What’s the problem?
复制标题
景观和多元宇宙：问题出在哪里？
作者：
James Read;B. Le Bihan
作为量子引力的候选理论，弦理论的受欢迎程度在过去的四十年里时高时低。目前的一个怀疑来源是，该理论可以用来推导，取决于输入几何假设，一个人，一个巨大的范围内不同的量子场论，引起了所谓的景观问题。解决景观问题的一个明显的方法是证明多元宇宙的存在;然而，这反过来又引起了人们对弦理论的经验可检验性和可预测性问题的高度关注。我们首先认为，景观问题依赖于可疑的假设，并没有激发多元宇宙假说。尽管如此，我们还是证明了多元宇宙假说在科学上是合理的，并且可以出于其他经验原因与弦理论相结合。通过对各种宇宙学方法的考察，我们提供了一个经验标准来评估多元宇宙假说的科学地位。
As a candidate theory of quantum gravity, the popularity of string theory has waxed and waned over the past four decades. One current source of scepticism is that the theory can be used to derive, depending upon the input geometrical assumptions that one makes, a vast range of different quantum field theories, giving rise to the so-called landscape problem. One apparent way to address the landscape problem is to posit the existence of a multiverse; this, however, has in turn drawn heightened attention to questions regarding the empirical testability and predictivity of string theory. We argue first that the landscape problem relies on dubious assumptions and does not motivate a multiverse hypothesis. Nevertheless, we then show that the multiverse hypothesis is scientifically legitimate and could be coupled to string theory for other empirical reasons. Looking at various cosmological approaches, we offer an empirical criterion to assess the scientific status of multiverse hypotheses.