Lincoln argues string theory is very likely wrong not because its ideas lack merit, but because its predictions sit at an energy scale a quadrillion times beyond anything we can test, making confident validation essentially impossible. ✦ AI generated
Don Lincoln · Lex Fridman · 2026-05-29 · original ↗
starts at this moment · 77:37
“Do you think a theory of everything exists?”
What are the odds when you're making something with that tiny lever arm, predicting it out a quadrillion away and say, "Oh, yeah, we got it right." What are the odds? And my answer is, you gotta be kidding me.
verbatim transcript · starts at 77:37
77:41- Yes. Yes. But you know, let's say, I mean, you alluded to super strings. I haven't answered that question. I'll table that for a moment. Super strings is a fascinating idea. I don't believe it but I love it. I hope it's true. And there's a real, you know, aphorism, and it says you should absolutely never believe what you think. So even if you think super strings is true, you shouldn't believe it because it hasn't been tested.
78:06Now, let's say super string is correct. I mean, hypothesis, it's correct, hundred percent correct. I don't know it's correct, so I don't care. I mean, you know, it could be correct, but I don't, you know, until it's validated, it's just a wild-ass guess, you know? So I, we have to have a way of validating it. So yes, the empirical side of it is important. I mean, you could wake up tomorrow and have the
78:34theory that is the perfect theory, but if I can't prove it, I don't care. - If we were to think, this is going back to The Great Courses on the evidence for modern physics- ... we're talking about energy levels and tiny particles to the degree where the kind of prediction we would be making is not accelerator-type predictions. So it's probably going to be impossible to build an accelerator that detects something
79:03like a string. So you have to make predictions about macro scale behaviors. - That's another alternative. - It's a different kind of prediction. Do we even have intuitions about what kind of predictions they would be? So one, one of course, one of the lines of intuitions has to do with black holes or in the singularity. The physics of black holes combine certain elements of general relativity and quantum mechanics. So there-
79:34... you could see some kind of predictions you could make, But you can't really mess with a black hole. It's not like you can create a black hole in the lab. - And the energies that we're talking about, the sizes we're talking about are inside a black hole, which you can intrinsically never see. So, you know, you can only see the outside of a black hole, not the inside of a black