I admire string theory for one reason: It's sheer tenacious grip on modern science. No matter how many times it is discarded (whether or not it is ultimately true) by the majority, it always come back
. Maybe we are just so lazy that we can't crunch our branes enough like that again to come up with an alternative.
How about the dimensions that are wrapped in the microscopic space, like those predicted by string theories?
You mean branes? Interestingly, the gravitational wave tests did not rule out the presence of tiny dimensions wrapped up in branes, if those even exist. There is yet hope for 'Gulliver's Dimensions'.
It would be ironic if space were circular like that, what we think of as tiny dimensions actually had their own universes just as "large" as ours, but inside themselves. To them, we would be the tiny ones haha. If one could ever do a journey between universes of different scales (think of it as a thought experiment for now) it would be a circular journey that leads one back to the point of origin because the different scales would loop into each other. (We would be large on the scale of another universe and they would be large compared to another one and so on and so forth until finally we reached a level where the next one smaller was our own original one.)
Loop Quantum Cosmology is an interesting alternative to String Theory
https://dailygalaxy.com/2018/12/quantum ... ack-holes/
Theoretical physicists have been questioning if singularities really exist through complex mathematical equations over the past several decades with little success until now. LSU Department of Physics & Astronomy Associate Professor Parampreet Singh and collaborators LSU Postdoctoral Researcher Javier Olmedo and Abhay Ashtekar, the Eberly Professor of Physics at Penn State developed new mathematical equations that go beyond Einstein’s theory of general relativity overcoming its key limitation–the central singularity of black holes.
Quantum Loop Gravity
Artist depiction of loop quantum gravity effects in a black hole is shown above. The bottom half of the image depicts the black hole which, according to general relativity, traps everything including light. Loop quantum gravity, a theory that extends Einstein’s general relativity using quantum mechanics, overcomes this tremendous pull and liberates everything shown in the top half of image, thus solving the fundamental problem of black hole singularity. (A. Corichi and J. P. Ruiz).
Theoretical physicists developed a theory called loop quantum gravity in the 1990s that marries the laws of microscopic physics, or quantum mechanics, with gravity, which explains the dynamics of space and time. Ashtekar, Olmedos and Singh’s new equations describe black holes in loop quantum gravity and showed that black hole singularity does not exist.
“In Einstein’s theory, space-time is a fabric that can be divided as small as we want. This is essentially the cause of the singularity where the gravitational field becomes infinite. In loop quantum gravity, the fabric of space-time has a tile-like structure, which cannot be divided beyond the smallest tile. My colleagues and I have shown that this is the case inside black holes and therefore there is no singularity,” Singh said.
Instead of singularity, loop quantum gravity predicts a funnel to another branch of the space-time.
“These tile-like units of geometry–called ‘quantum excitations’– which resolve the singularity problem are orders of magnitude smaller than we can detect with today’s technology, but we have precise mathematical equations that predict their behavior,” said Ashtekar, who is one of the founding fathers of loop quantum gravity.
“At LSU, we have been developing state-of-the-art computational techniques to extract physical consequences of these physical equations using supercomputers, bringing us closer to reliably test quantum gravity,” Singh said.
Einstein’s theory fails not only at the center of the black holes but also to explain how the universe was created from the Big Bang singularity. Therefore, a decade ago, Ashtekar, Singh and collaborators began to extend physics beyond the Big Bang and make new predictions using loop quantum gravity. Using the mathematical equations and computational techniques of loop quantum gravity, they showed that the Big Bang is replaced by the “Big Bounce.” But, the problem of overcoming black hole singularity is exceptionally complex.
The Daily Galaxy via Louisiana State University